(19)
Stars dotted the night canopy. Unobstructed by tall buildings, the sky stretched into the distance as if infinite, while a soft night breeze swept over his face, slowly soothing the restless irritability in his heart.
Jiang Xing sat on the rooftop eaves, gazing at the quiet, silent moon.
Faint, flickering lantern lights glittered beneath his boots, making all the noise and bustle of the world feel as though it had receded far away.
He had reasoned it out: since Lu Buyun actively wanted to sacrifice himself, why should he fly into a rage over it?
This was Lu Buyun’s own choice; he only needed to stand by and watch coldly.
Some people deserved to die. If he didn’t cherish his own life, did he expect others to cherish it for him?
He had no reason whatsoever to be angry, nor should he have poked his nose into other people’s business in the first place. All he needed to do was smile and chime in with a couple of lines: “City Lord, you truly are a great benefactor,” or “I admire you so much; sacrificing your small self to fulfill the greater good—hardly anyone in this world could be as grand as you.”
That way, Lu Buyun might even be smugly self-satisfied, proudly thinking that after his death, someone might even erect a monument in his honor.
That’s right, this kind of person simply deserved it.
Having consoled himself, Jiang Xing stood up and leaped down from the roof tiles. Barely landing on his feet, he heard a terrified gasp from behind.
Furrowing his brows, he turned around and saw a child holding a basket full of clothes, staring at him with a face full of dread.
“Y-Who are you?” The child looked to be only seven or eight years old, short and thin, with a timid and weak voice—one couldn’t even tell if it was a boy or a girl.
Jiang Xing glanced at him coldly and gripped the long sword at his waist. “Can’t tell? An assassin.”
The child looked at him in astonishment, his voice trembling even more: “Who are you here to kill?”
“To kill children. My favorite thing is slaughtering kids who don’t sleep at night.”
Hearing his words, the child gasped in terror, opening his mouth wide, but before he could let out a scream, his mouth was clamped shut.
Jiang Xing pinched his forehead, bent down, and said in a low voice: “What are you yelling for? Just scurry back to sleep, won’t you?”
The child nodded shivering, and only then did Jiang Xing remove his hand.
“AAAAAH! There’s an assassin! Help—”
Before he could finish shouting, his mouth was clamped shut again.
Jiang Xing was truly exasperated. “How can you be so dense? Judging by my attire, I look like a distinguished guest of the household, don’t I?”
Hearing this, the child finally dared to look up at him, staring hard as if trying to memorize his face. Suddenly, he caught sight of the Taoist robes on Jiang Xing’s body, his expression pausing briefly as he asked cautiously, “Are you a cultivator?”
Jiang Xing paid no attention to him. Seeing that he had stopped shouting, he turned to leave.
However, a small hand gently yanked at the hem of his clothes.
“Wait a moment.”
The child surprisingly wasn’t afraid of him anymore, staring at him curiously instead. “I’ve seen clothes like yours before. People wearing this kind of clothing came here in the past too—they were all very powerful cultivators. Are you very powerful as well?”
Jiang Xing had no patience to talk nonsense with him, tugging the hem of his robe back from the child’s tiny palm. Yet, he heard the child soft-spokenly ask, “Are you here to eliminate Lord Qingzhu?”
As those words fell, Jiang Xing let out a cold sneer, pinching and unceremoniously kneading that small face. “Lord Qingzhu is your City Lord’s precious darling—where would I dare eliminate it? Not only am I not eliminating it, I’m going to personally deliver the City Lord for Lord Qingzhu to eat—steamed, deep-fried, braised, stir-fried, it can eat him however it wants.”
The child’s soft cheeks were pinched out of shape, yet his eyes stared straight at Jiang Xing, speaking unclearly: “Don’t… that way Daddy will be in a lot of pain.”
Jiang Xing’s movements froze abruptly. He looked closely at the child, his voice suddenly turning cold, “Are you Lu Buyun’s child?”
“Mm.”
The child offered him a naive smile, “My name is Lu Zemin. My daddy said it means benefiting all living beings and having no regrets in life or death.”
In an instant, all the blood in Jiang Xing’s body ran cold. He stared fixedly at the smiling child and whispered, “Do you know your daddy is going to seek his own death?”
“That’s called sacrifice, I know,” Lu Zemin seemed to have no idea what death truly meant, still smiling gently as if very proud. “My daddy is a great hero. He wants to sacrifice himself to Lord Qingzhu so that Lord Qingzhu will protect our Tenglong City forever. All the citizens in the city respect Daddy, praising him as the most kind-hearted person in the world.”
Jiang Xing looked at him in disbelief and interrupted in a heavy voice: “Nonsense!”
His tone was so harsh that Lu Zemin was startled by him, tears welling up in his eyes as he whispered aggrievedly: “I’m not… what I said is true…”
“Even if ten thousand people tell you your dad is a hero, you alone shouldn’t think so!” Jiang Xing grabbed his shoulders and said in a cold, solemn voice, “Your dad is the most selfish person in the world! He abandoned you! Do you know what your life will be like after he dies? Those citizens will at most remember your dad for five years—after five years, they might not even remember his last name! What follows is predictable: your lofty, righteous dad left you nothing. Your mother will pull you up alone, and the family will gradually grow so poor you won’t even have food to eat or new clothes to wear, barely scraping by on scavenging. Then, all those friends who used to admire and envy you will distance themselves from you…”
“Go away!” Not knowing if he understood or not, Lu Zemin wept and pushed him away, biting down hard on Jiang Xing’s hand. “I hate you! Don’t touch me!”
The sharp pain on his hand briefly restored Jiang Xing’s sanity. He snapped back to his senses in a daze, releasing Lu Zemin and letting him drop the basket, running away in tears.
The clothes in the basket spilled onto the ground. Jiang Xing bent down numbly to pick them up, his movements suddenly stalling.
These clothes were all the child’s own small garments. Not even taller than the stove, the boy had already begun taking care of himself.
A suffocating tightness weighed on his chest, and dizziness washed over him in waves. He tightly clutched the lapel over his chest, trying hard to regulate his rapidly accelerating breath.
These people cared only about their noble, pristine reputations, and only about those outside citizens who had nothing to do with them, yet they never cared about the child they brought into the world. Since they didn’t care, why bother bringing a child into the world in the first place?
Every last one of them deserved to die.
Every inch of land, every single person here, even the very air made him feel disgusted.
Jiang Xing slowly released his grip on his chest. His breathing gradually evened out, and the light in his eyes turned icy cold.
—He changed his mind.
He remembered Lu Buyun saying that the snake demon lived on the nearby mountain.
He wanted Lu Buyun to watch with his own eyes as the citizens he spared no effort—even abandoning his wife and child—to protect with his life were slaughtered clean by the very snake demon he so dutifully worshipped.
As the moon sank and the sun rose, a bright red sun ascended from above the city gate, like a brilliant lamp igniting the entire world.
Zishu Bai sat in the corridor cradling his sword, resting with his eyes closed. A faint sound came from beside him; opening his eyes, he saw Lu Buyun carrying a tray of food and sitting down beside him.
“Eat a little.”
Hearing this, Zishu Bai shook his head and said in a low voice: “I’m sorry, my friend hasn’t returned yet; I don’t have much of an appetite.” Whenever he recalled Jiang Xing’s red-rimmed eyes, he felt deeply worried.
Seeing that he refused to eat, Lu Buyun didn’t force it either. Setting the food aside, he whispered, “His name is Jiang Xing, right?”
Zishu Bai nodded.
“He is a good kid. He’s angry because I don’t cherish my own life enough and make deals with a demon,” Lu Buyun let out a long sigh, a trace of melancholy flickering at the bottom of his eyes. “But this is the only way for Tenglong City to continue. Without Lord Qingzhu, Tenglong City will once again suffer endless natural disasters, leaving the citizens displaced and homeless. We have no other choice—can you understand?”
Hearing his words, Zishu Bai furrowed his brows slightly, his voice flat: “I cannot understand.”
Lu Buyun froze for a moment, seemingly not expecting him to say that. “I didn’t expect that you too believe Lord Qingzhu must be eliminated, destroying the century-long peace of Tenglong City?”
Zishu Bai’s expression was serene as he spoke slowly: “I simply believe that humans will not be defeated by natural disasters.”
For thousands of years without the aid of demons, humans still found a way to survive in the face of natural disasters. If this land couldn’t sustain life, they migrated to another land; if mountains blocked the path, they moved mountains; if seas blocked the way, they filled the seas. Using their own hands and feet to create a home suitable for survival—that is where the true strength of humanity lies. A peace and happiness barely maintained by relying on the charity of a demon is as fragile and unstable as bubbles in water.
Lu Buyun pursed his lips tightly, a full surge of intent to kill flashing at the bottom of his eyes, his voice dropping low: “Then I am truly sorry. For the future of the citizens in this city, I will never allow you to ruin this deal.”
The citizens had placed too many expectations on him; he could not betray the respect and trust built over all these years.
“Brother Lu! Brother Lu!”
The courtyard door was suddenly slammed forcefully from outside. Lu Buyun briefly restrained the killing intent in his eyes, gave Zishu Bai a deep look, and stood up to open the door.
The main door opened, and a crowd of panicking townspeople swarmed forward, blocking the entrance so tightly that not a drop of water could leak through.
“Lord Qingzhu has flown into a rage! There are so many snakes in the city!”
“Isn’t the sacrifice time not here yet? Why is Lord Qingzhu hurting us?”
“My wife and child are both injured! Why haven’t you gone to perform the sacrifice yet?”
Lu Buyun was stunned for a moment, his expression turning sharp once he realized what was happening. “Everyone, don’t panic! Hide inside your homes first and don’t come out—I’ll go check West Mountain!”
It must be something that cultivator named Jiang Xing did! Damn it, there were only three days left until the sacrifice time—why did Wuwang Sect have to send cultivators to cause trouble at a time like this!
Zishu Bai naturally heard those words as well. An ominous premonition rose in his heart, and he immediately cast a subterranean travel spell to rush to West Mountain.
His speed was much faster than Lu Buyun’s. By the time he reached West Mountain, the green snakes covering the mountainside had not yet fully crawled into the city.
His long sword carved a bloody path through them, every rushing green snake sliced into several segments by the fierce sword wind. When Zishu Bai reached the mountain peak, he saw at a glance that familiar figure of Jiang Xing standing beside a mammoth, giant green python. The swarm of snakes surprisingly avoided the area around him, as if they had reached some sort of partnership with him.
The ominous premonition in his heart had come true.
“Jiang Xing!”
Zishu Bai stared at him in shock. Slicing through the snakes flying toward him, he spoke in extreme anxiety, “Come over here, quickly!”
Hearing his voice, Jiang Xing’s body stiffened slightly. He slowly turned his head to look at Zishu Bai, who was drenched in blood.
The other man was still striving to run toward him, as if determined to get to his side no matter what.
The fingers hidden inside his sleeve pinched forcefully into his palm, only to slowly loosen again shortly after. He said flatly, “I told Lord Qingzhu that if it wants to never be disturbed by cultivators again, it needs to become stronger.”
Gazing at Zishu Bai, who stood frozen in place, Jiang Xing smiled with a casual air. “What’s the use of eating a single Golden Core cultivator every five years? Eating everyone in the city will make its cultivation grow much faster. That way, no one will ever dare disturb Lord Qingzhu’s secluded cultivation again.”
Qingzhu coiled on the ground, its snake tail resting beside Jiang Xing as it asked meaningfully: “Your friend?”
Jiang Xing glanced at Zishu Bai indifferently and pulled back his gaze. “Not familiar.”
Zishu Bai’s face turned pale, the hand gripping the long sword trembling slightly.
He didn’t understand.
Why would Jiang Xing help a snake demon kill people? Did he think that only if the snake demon slaughtered all the citizens would the City Lord suddenly come to his senses about his own mistakes?
If completing the mission required paying the price of harming all the citizens in the city, what was the meaning of them slaying demons and monsters?
Refusing to give up, he reached out his hand again, pleading with utmost caution, “Jiang Xing, come back quickly, the snake demon is very dangerous. Let’s discuss it slowly, there’s bound to be a better way.”
The sharp teeth of the snake swarm bit through his arm, bringing a bone-chilling pain as blood flowed out in streams.
Yet Zishu Bai seemed completely oblivious to it, staring fixedly at Jiang Xing with a look that made Jiang Xing feel inexplicably suffocated—as if Zishu Bai was convinced he would definitely come back to his side, that all difficult problems would be resolved, and that everything would have a perfect outcome.
“A mere outer sect disciple—you have no right to order me around,” Jiang Xing’s voice dropped cold and heavy. “Today, I’m going to destroy this city. If you have the ability, kill me along with it.”
As those words fell, the faint, hopeful light at the bottom of Zishu Bai’s eyes gradually dissipated.
He stared fixedly at Jiang Xing. After a moment, he raised his long sword, soaking it with the blood from his palm. The swarm of snakes was completely ripped into shredded pieces by the violent, ruthless sword aura. Without saying another single word, Zishu Bai walked toward him step by step.
Jiang Xing’s heart skipped half a beat. Out of nowhere, a detail came to mind: the original book had never mentioned Zishu Bai’s exact cultivation level, but this idiot had never lost a fight to anyone. Realizing this, he hurriedly shouted to Qingzhu: “What are you waiting for? Hurry into the city…”
Before he could finish speaking, a hand forcefully pinched his face, forcing him to turn his head back.
Zishu Bai looked down at him with a heavy, somber gaze, saying word by word: “After I eliminate the snake demon, I hope you can explain everything clearly.”
His entire body going rigid, Jiang Xing’s breath stopped for a moment, his limbs numb and unresponsive to his command.
Zishu Bai raised his hand to cast a spell barrier over Jiang Xing, pushing him behind his back, his voice turning icy.
“Go back to the city and protect the people.”
Jiang Xing looked at him in astonishment, but before he could open his mouth to object, he was interrupted again.
“I am really angry.”
Zishu Bai’s voice was suppressed and restrained, the surging, majestic spiritual energy on his body gathering and ready to unleash, terrifying to the core.
“So, don’t make me say it a second time, okay?”