The mend on the clothes was in the exact same spot as the scar on his arm.
Even Ruan Chi, who was usually calm, felt a surge of panic. He looked at Tianxing in surprise and asked, “Why? Could that really be my clothing? And what use would Elder Tianhe have for my clothes?”
Yu Zaixi could not help but ask, “Did you not take your clothes with you when you left home?”
Ruan Chi shook his head. “I left in such a hurry that I did not take anything.”
As for why he had left in such a hurry, there was no need to ask.
“Then Tianhe must have gone there after you left. Was he looking for you?” Tianxing said in a low voice, though he did not know what else to add. Perhaps Tianhe had gone back to find Ruan Chi, failed to find him, and realized that he had inadvertently harmed the boy. Out of shame, he had brought those clothes back, but he never found Ruan Chi again.
Luozhong was a small city surrounded by several larger ones, filled with refugees and beggars fleeing from various places. What had Tianhe been doing there?
Yu Zaixi rested his cheek on one hand, racking his brain, but he could not find anything in his memories related to Luozhong. Finally, he gave up, moved closer to Jiang Yan, and asked, “What is in Luozhong? What was he looking for?”
Jiang Yan glanced sideways at him. His gaze landed somewhere indeterminate as he stared for a long time before saying, “I do not know.”
Yu Zaixi looked down at himself. He had forgotten to change out of his own clothes when he left the sect and was still wearing his usual attire. Was this too high-profile? Yu Zaixi leaned to the other side, his thoughts drifting toward other messy matters.
Later, Tianxing asked Ruan Chi a few more questions about Luozhong. Once the boy had answered everything he could, Tianxing let him go. So, this trip had only yielded a sad story.
Only after Ruan Chi had walked far away did Yu Zaixi ask Jiang Yan, “Why did we come here, after all? Could Miao Pei have asked these same questions just as well?”
When he asked Jiang Yan this, Tianxing felt incredibly awkward. He coughed and said, “You cannot say it like that. We must be cautious regarding Tianhe’s affairs; he was my own junior brother.”
Yu Zaixi almost retorted that brotherly bonds were hardly trustworthy in this world, but with Jiang Yan sitting right next to him, he held his tongue.
As the three of them left the front hall, Yu Zaixi suddenly wanted to see the disciples practicing outside. Without a word, he started to walk quickly toward the exit. Jiang Yan changed the movement of his fingers, and Yu Zaixi was instantly frozen in place, unable to move.
That was the power of the life-force curse between them; Jiang Yan could still control Yu Zaixi using it. No matter how hard Yu Zaixi struggled, he remained immobile. Using spiritual power only made the restraint feel tighter, as if the very air around him were crushing him.
He laughed in anger. “Jiang Yan, if you have the ability, just kill me directly. Why are you controlling my freedom of movement here?”
Jiang Yan remained expressionless. He nodded at Tianxing, politely inviting him to leave. Tianxing, not wanting to get involved in their business, chuckled and hurried away, fearing he would be caught in the crossfire.
Yu Zaixi did not have the patience to wait for Tianxing to get further away. He was forced to remain in his frozen position while he questioned, “Jiang Yan, I will ask you one question. From investigating the fierce beasts to investigating Tianhe and the bone whistle, you have been running around without doing any real work. What exactly are you doing? Or rather, what exactly are you investigating?”
Tianxing had just reached the entrance of the courtyard; when he heard this, he picked up his pace and vanished in an instant. The courtyard was left with only Yu Zaixi and Jiang Yan. The wind blew, the sleeves of their robes fluttered, and the atmosphere was heavy.
This was the first time Yu Zaixi had been truly furious since they were bound by the life-force curse. He had previously thought about leaving once Jiang Yan cleared things up, but now he realized he could not. Jiang Yan was jumping from one thing to the next without producing any results; he was not investigating anything at all.
“Are you investigating them, or are you investigating me?” Yu Zaixi asked. “Or to put it another way, are you investigating why I came into this body, and where the previous soul in this body went?”
Jiang Yan stood behind Yu Zaixi. He could not see his expression, but it was likely the same frozen, icy mask he always wore, perhaps mixed with a hint of shame-induced anger.
However, Jiang Yan’s answer was unexpected. His voice was steady and calm, devoid of coldness or anger. “I know where you came from, and I know where the previous soul is.”
So what had he been doing all these days? Yu Zaixi was left baffled.
“You need to accompany me to Luozhong one more time. We will part ways there.”
Leaving this sentence behind, Jiang Yan lifted the immobilization curse and opened a portal to leave, leaving Yu Zaixi alone in the courtyard.
Yu Zaixi turned and looked at the spot where Jiang Yan had vanished. He truly did not understand. Since Jiang Yan knew everything and did not want to do anything to him, why did he insist on him following along?
But since they would be parting ways soon, Yu Zaixi sneered. If Jiang Yan dared to go back on his word, he would destroy this body himself. Let him see who suffered more: himself, or Jiang Yan.
He left the courtyard and went to the training platform in front of the Wusheng Sect. It was morning, and many disciples were out practicing. Looking from the edge, there was a sea of people, which created quite an atmosphere. He leaned against the eaves in the distance, studying the disciples’ swordplay. Every move and form was very different from what he had taught himself.
His own style was very chaotic. This body had no memories at all, so he had to learn from ancient texts and had almost gone into qi deviation once. Down the mountain, he could not find anyone who could teach him swordplay. After his cultivation reached a bottleneck, his sword techniques could no longer improve. To compensate for his lack of cultivation, he had spent many years learning formations and talismans, but that did not work either; if he met someone at the Transformation God stage, he still had to run, and if he met someone like Jiang Yan, he might as well wait for death.
He stood for a long time before footsteps approached. Yu Zaixi turned and saw Ruan Chi, who had changed into a training uniform and was holding a sword with one hand. The boy was alone; the tips of his hair were somewhat withered and stood up stiffly, and combined with his pale complexion, he looked quite tenacious.
Yu Zaixi tilted his chin toward him. “Why are you not over there practicing?”
Ruan Chi shook his head. “Why is the Immortal Venerable here alone?”
“Just looking around.” Yu Zaixi glanced at Ruan Chi’s sword; it was the most common iron sword found on the market.
Ruan Chi saw Yu Zaixi’s gaze and lifted the sword to explain, “I bought this down the mountain. The sect gave me a sword, but I could not bear to use it.”
In a small sect like the Wusheng Sect, the swords issued were not much better anyway; at most, they were refined iron, which was easy to break with frequent use.
Yu Zaixi nodded. “Just use it. There is no danger within the sect; you do not need a good sword.”
Ruan Chi seemed to have something to say, but he hesitated. Yu Zaixi shifted his gaze to the training platform and asked, “Is there someone who teaches your swordplay?”
“Yes, after we enter the sect, we are guided by senior brothers and sisters.” Ruan Chi also turned to look at the platform. “What do you think of our swordplay, Immortal Venerable? If we were to encounter disciples of the Tianji Pavilion, would we have the ability to withstand a single move?”
Yu Zaixi laughed. “I truly do not know. I am not from the Tianji Pavilion, nor have I fought against them.”
Ruan Chi was surprised and tilted his head to look at him. “But my Sect Leader specifically told me that the three of you are very important people from the Tianji Pavilion.”
That must be because the Sect Leader recognized this body as Yuan Qi.
Yu Zaixi could not tell Ruan Chi the truth. After a moment of silence, he skipped the topic and asked, “Ruan Chi, your name is very pleasant. Who gave it to you?”
Ruan Chi stood in the shadows for a while before smiling. “I changed it myself. My mother originally named me ‘Eat’.”
Yu Zaixi did not say anything else.
He always felt like an elder when facing Ruan Chi. Given the boy’s tragic and pitiful background, Yu Zaixi did not find it easy to say much.
This time, it was Ruan Chi who spoke first. The boy’s voice was soft, but the words were clear. “Immortal Venerable, is the character ‘Pool’ not good?”
Yu Zaixi had not seriously studied books in his two hundred years here and could not say what was good or bad about the character ‘Pool’. To comfort the boy, he said slowly, “The character ‘Pool’ is steady. What is wrong with it?”
“But there is always the saying of ‘pond fish and caged birds’.”
Yu Zaixi froze and glanced at Ruan Chi’s profile. The boy was staring at the training ground ahead, his desolation undisguised. Yu Zaixi had to push down the doubts in his heart and said, “You are not a fish. A pool is just a pool; you do not need to care about such things.”
“At the end of the day, it is just a name. If you think it is not good, you can change it later. Do not take it to heart,” Yu Zaixi advised.
The origin of the name issue lay with him; Yu Zaixi did not want to dwell on it, so he added, “I will send you a good sword when I have the chance.”
The Tianji Pavilion had plenty of them. Whether he stole one or asked for one, he could always manage to get a very good sword for Ruan Chi.
Ruan Chi turned around in surprise and hurriedly refused, “Thank you, Immortal Venerable, but there is no need. Actually, I only have one arm and cannot go down the mountain to eliminate demons. I do not have conflicts with others within the Wusheng Sect, so I do not need one.”
“You will need one,” Yu Zaixi laughed. “Your spiritual roots are not actually that bad. You must cultivate diligently. Perhaps when I encounter a spirit weapon that can refine a Golden Core, I will send it over for you to use.”
Before Ruan Chi could refuse again, Yu Zaixi tilted his chin. “Go practice your sword. Do not waste your time here with me, or you really will have no use for a good sword.”
Ruan Chi stared blankly at Yu Zaixi for a moment before finally bowing. “Thank you, Immortal Venerable.”
Yu Zaixi did not avoid it; if he had, the boy might have just kept fussing about it.
In reality, he was only thinking about finding a decent sword, but to Ruan Chi, it felt like an encounter with rare grace. Yu Zaixi felt a sense of sympathy for Ruan Chi, along with other inexplicable kinds of pity.
Yuan Qi, who had been a beggar before the age of seven; himself, who had crawled out of the Buzhu Prison living in such a wretched state; and Xiao Ci, who had been brought back to the Tianji Pavilion—of all of them, Ruan Chi and Yuan Qi had lived the most miserable lives: one with a severed arm, the other used as a source of blood for others to feed upon.
There was a scar on the chest of this body.
Before Yuan Qi was seven, he was captured and bled. To survive, the captor would drain a bowl of blood from him every two days, but he had to ensure Yuan Qi stayed alive, for only the living could provide blood long-term. The captor did not know where he had obtained a talisman paper, but he would soak it in a self-concocted medicine and stick it onto Yuan Qi’s chest.
Every time Yuan Qi was on the verge of breathing his last, the talisman would sear into his chest, forcibly clinging to his life.
The man who drained his blood eventually died of illness. After he died, no one looked after Yuan Qi. That talisman would activate once a day, searing a festering hole into Yuan Qi’s chest. Had he not been found by his master, it was uncertain how long Yuan Qi would have lived.
Later, that wound was pierced through by Jiang Yan’s sword when the Demon Lord was struggling with Yuan Qi for control of the body.
The last time the scar was deepened was when Yu Zaixi was on the verge of qi deviation; he had sliced open his own chest to drain blood and forcibly keep himself awake.
Yu Zaixi watched the steaming mountains in the distance, a mocking smirk tugging at his lips. This body was truly pathetic; whoever it followed ended up suffering.