Lie Huo Jiao Chou Volume 2 Chapter 27

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That was my...bones.

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　　Sheng Lingyuan glanced at him, answered after a long while: "No."

　　Right now, the two of them were on a mountain. From the foot of the mountain to the middle of the slope, the trees were thriving, some small houses were here and there on the path up to the mountain, looking like they were hidden in the forest. All of them were not tall but were circular and plump. From afar, it looked like a cluster of mushrooms hidden away. Tonight was the new moon, the starlight billowed like a great wave, one who stood under the light couldn't help but feel calm.

　　Xuan Ji didn't know if the other understood what he had just asked. He was thinking of how to change his wording and ask again when Shen Lingyuan casually said: "This place... this is not...an 'imaginary land'. I'm also not the person you thought of."

　　When Sheng Lingyuan first came to this world, his mind was empty, he was excited, full of curiosity for everything around him. What other people would say, he could listen once and be able to mimic their tone, accent, and even pauses. Regardless of what he looked at, he would try to learn of its function and mechanism.

　　However... the memory that returned, it was like an uninvited guest coming by.

　　Those memories that were alive again were incredibly burdensome, pressing on him thousand pounds of concerns, rendering him exhausted to look around. Sheng Lingyuan was like an ancient sword that was just unearthed. When the cold light of the sword body was exposed in the air, it would immediately oxidize to the point of rusting, and even the frost-like edge would lose its brilliance.

　　He spoke this sentence in Mandarin poorly, not even half as good as when he was at Chiyuan Hospital when he spoke as he learned fluently.

　　"This is also an incantation, the first out of seven of the shaman tribe's most devilish incantations, called... 'Go Upstream'." Because of that, Sheng Lingyuan spoke slower and slower, in an obscure situation where his face wasn't clear, this made him sound old and burdened like an old man, he tiredly pinched his nose, "What I nailed on the wall must have been an impostor, the incantation was written on the blood on the body... He knew I would hurriedly nail him back and return him to the coffin. It was my mistake."

　　He should have been able to realize, but that place of the mass grave of the shaman tribe made him very confused.

　　"What exactly is 'Go Upstream'?"

　　"Whatever I remembered when I saw him, I will have to live through it again." Sheng Lingyuan said, "If there was something I had not been able to let go of, I would relive it forever, until my mind and soul break down in here."

　　Xuan Ji: "..."

　　The luckiest thing for him right now was, in order to help with communication, all he turned on for this person to listen to was the news broadcasts with correct pronunciation, not letting himself listen to some scary brainwashing songs.

　　"You... Ah... wait a minute, I have to think about this," Xuan Ji put a hand on his hips. Just then, a shaman tribe person passed through him and knocked on a wooden door, saying something he couldn't understand, Xuan Ji couldn't help but angrily spat out, "Today is full of nonstop shits."

　　Supposedly, he only thought about enforcing the law on some fraud and baited some fish, who would have expected that he indeed caught a fish, but what was actually caught was a shark, which directly dragged him down into the water!

　　The connection between Ji Qingchen and Bi Chunsheng wasn't investigated clearly. First, he was strangely pulled down into a mass human grave. He didn't even have time to understand what happened in this crazy demonic place when the shaman tribe chieftain jumped out of his death from the coffin. Then, these two used a foreign language to talk for a long time — who knew what a newly revived corpse had so much to talk about, Xuan Ji couldn't understand even a sentence — then was pulled into a weird incantation.

　　So that was the situation right now.

　　The shaman tribe was killed to extinction by Sheng Lingyuan. That Aluojin, whether he was an ex-lover or an old enemy, was still Sheng Lingyuan's ill fate. Regardless of whether this was an incantation or an imaginary land, it was targeting Sheng Lingyuan.

　　Xuan Ji: "This doesn't have even an ounce of connection with me?"

　　He was only a poor civil servant who didn't even have any place to ask for reimbursement for his damaged clothes. How did these two esteemed ones fighting each other killed his suspect first then wanted to pull him under the water with them?

　　What exactly did he do wrong?

　　Was there truly a list of "collateral damage" that he somehow wasn't aware of?

　　"Also, senior, I feel bad for saying this, but there's a saying, 'return what you borrowed on time, you may borrow again next time', right? For now, can you return my heavy sword to me? Not that I'm stingy, if I had two, I would give you one. But this thing, I really don't have extra."

　　"Not possible," Sheng Lingyuan said, he thought about explaining in two sentences but was limited by his little Mandarin vocabulary. At this moment, he couldn't organize the sentence clearly and had to apologetically say, "That is mine."

　　Xuan Ji was shocked out of his body. Some people may look so righteous and cool, but once they wanted to be shameless, they could just be shameless like this!

　　"Sorry," he said, "What's that? Did I hear it wrong?"

　　"That was my..." Sheng Lingyuan opened his mouth but forgot the word, he stopped for a moment, completely gave up, then returned to his language, "Bones."

　　Xuan Ji: "..."

　　He still must have misheard. This language barrier was truly a big problem.

　　"Or could you esteemed one please change the wording? You just said, my sword," Xuan Ji stretched his arms and gestured wildly, "Like this long, used to slay people — sword, is your... bones? Like... it was left after you're dead..."

　　Sheng Lingyuan nodded.

　　"Then what am I?" Xuan Ji was so angry he laughed, "Just a handsome limited edition urn? If I didn't have this sword since I was born, I would have almost believed you."

　　Sheng Lingyuan's expression didn't change, not caring about any of the trashy things he said — because besides "disbelief," he basically couldn't understand anything else.

　　"Life weapons usually have two types, one is obtained by cultivating using a special way, the other is obtained by being passed down through every generation, connected by blood, not bestowed since birth." Sheng Lingyuan thought about it and said it patiently like he was talking to a child, "The thing that was grown with you, was called 'bone'."

　　Xuan Ji: "..."

　　Made a lot of sense.

　　"That year, when I jumped into Chiyuan, after I died, my bones were not completely burned. Later, the fire in Chiyuan was extinguished. Maybe it must have been picked up by your ancestors and was crafted into a sword, ah... but still, good catch. You don't remember clearly, maybe you were too young when you took over as the head of the tribe and didn't remember — must be because the family was diminishing?"

　　Xuan Ji didn't respond, because his entire attention was drawn in by the four words "I jumped into Chiyuan". When Aluojin was talking, while he used shaman tribe language and Xuan Ji couldn't understand, he was able to catch the words "Bixia" and "Human Sovereign" in the end.

　　In other words, while it didn't look like it, this "demon" that was summoned by the gloomy sacrifice must have been human.

　　If you put the idea of ancient gods in the legend to the side, to be called "Human Sovereign" by other tribes, there had only been Emperor Wu, Sheng Xiao, because he ended conflicts, using his mortal life to achieve a humanly unimaginable goal. It was admirable but also scary.

　　Xuan Ji couldn't help but stand a little straighter: "Earlier you just said you weren't the person I thought of, did you know who I thought of?"

　　Sheng Lingyuan answered: "Not that Xiao Yang person read about on the 'iron chicken'... those whichever family."

　　Hearing him deny it, Xuan Ji's back relaxed instinctively, his prior mental preparation was for naught. For a moment, he didn't know if he felt relaxed or disappointed.

　　"That's right," he thought, "For the gloomy sacrifice to summon the 'Human Sovereign', that would be too questionable."

　　Then again in history books, Emperor Wu — Emperor Sheng Xiao, was drawn as an iron-faced man with a ferocious face, gigantic and brute, looking not too different from the PagodBearing God, which was more in accord with the Emperor Wu who spent his lifetime on horseback.

　　To compare with this pretty face who flirted with everyone was a bit of a stretch.

　　But he was a human being, and with the last name 'Sheng', he must have been royalty.

　　Xuan Ji thought, maybe the emperor died too soon during the civil war, and 'temporary workers' were switched constantly: "Your title was also 'Lingyuan'?"

　　"'Lingyuan' was a given name bestowed by my teacher, my title wasn't mentioned by a lot of people, right now I couldn't remember," Sheng Lingyuan stopped momentarily, "This subject was named 'Xiao', was in reign for twenty years. Besides the heavy weight of blood debt on my hand, I hadn't done anything, no achievements were gained, those praises need not be mentioned again."

　　Xuan Ji, who had just adjusted his feelings again, now felt his feet stumble a little and almost knelt down — were all ancient figures this modest?

　　Sheng Lingyuan "kindly" waved his sleeve: "You're pardoned."

　　Xuan Ji: "No, wait, you said my sword is... then under Chiyuan, what did the gloomy sacrifice summon?"

　　"Maybe it was something that was with me for a long time, a hair that fell down, a piece of jade I used to wear. After a long period of time, they would have some human energy and can be used like remains." Sheng Lingyuan said, "If not, then back in the days, why did people raise a grave to bury clothes and accessories if the body was not found? This was the reason. The person who used the gloomy sacrifice wasn't aware of what happened inside and must have been mistaken. Your ancestor must have taken the remains away then left some accessories I carried with me to bury to serve as the remains? At his place, there was truly a lot of my belongings."

　　Xuan Ji stopped, the usual joking look on his face was washed away. He said slowly: "You know who my 'ancestor' was?"

　　Sheng Lingyuan didn't seem to have seen the change in his expression, reaching out to pat Xuan Ji's head: "Next to me, there used to be Bifang. When I passed away, that little bird must have grown up, are you his descendant? Why didn't you tell me about your family earlier, if I knew you were a descendant of my old friend, I wouldn't have been mean to you."

　　Xuan Ji's slightly flickered, but he didn't say a word, which could be considered as a tacit agreement to this way of talking. He unwillingly stood still for him to pat, his posture was a bit frozen up.

　　The people at this place didn't care about "to every hair and bit of skin, are received by us from our parents*", not even mentioning about how everyone cut their hair short, this little demon even put something in his hair, making the hair strands unnaturally toughened, the sensation was unsatisfying.

* teaching in Confucianism on filial piety

　　Sheng Lingyuan touched his hair for a moment then pulled his hand back in annoyance. On the surface, his expression was unwavering, but on the inside, he thought: "He's not Bifang."

　　That year beside him, there was only that little Bifang, looking powerful but was in fact just a little bird raised at home. He was very timid and definitely would not have the guts to dig out his bones then even craft them into a sword and carry behind his spine to brag everywhere. If he wasn't wrong, then after Chiyuan fire was extinguished, then Bifang came back to pick up his remains but couldn't find any, so he buried his accessories as his remains.

　　Nanming Fire... that Nanming Fire was almost like the Vermilion Bird's Li Fire*.

*Li(离) Fire is the hottest fire in the world, so hot that it is white instead of red. The character Li(离) also refers to the sharp and deep south direction in the bagua/Eight Trigrams.

　　Sheng Lingyuan involuntarily thought of the word "Vermilion Bird" and couldn't help but press his hand against his forehead — but the last of the Vermilion Bird's soul had dissipated, where would a descendant come from?

　　Also, while the Vermilion Bird was a demon tribe, Sheng Lingyuan had to admit, the Vermilion Bird was the most divine of the demon tribes.

　　Sheng Lingyuan overall felt that though this little demon looked generous and laid back, and his whole person was a true fire that could suppress the evil, yet on him, there was a faint indispensable demonic energy.

　　At that moment, a loud commotion interrupted his thoughts. From the foot of the mountain came a flurry of sounds, someone used the shaman tribe language and shouted: "They're here! They're here!"

　　Next, a group of people held torches high and walked quickly up the mountain, surrounding a man. The man was carrying someone on his back, from afar he had already said loudly: "Hurry, he's badly injured! Call the Sage out to see him!"

　　The entire tribe was shaken, then those people frantically ran up from the road path, houses on both sides were lit up. Looking from afar, the small light from the oil fire crawled up to half the mountain, the people who were still half asleep quickly put on more clothes and went out to take a look.

　　The peace of the night was broken, exactly like the metaphor.

　　Xuan Ji: "That's..."

　　"Me." Sheng Lingyuan said softly, "The person in the front was the tribe elder at that time, and the person he carried was me."

　　At this moment, there suddenly was some rustling sounds in the trees nearby. Xuan Ji looked down and saw a small head poking out from the trees. It was a child that was around seven or eight years old, it was the age that even dogs hated, the boy widened his grape eyes, his head was full of messed up braids from him rolling around.

　　Xuan Ji hurriedly stepped a long step to the side — this small child was clearly the revived corpse, Aluojin.

　　Right then, the man passed by them, and Xuan Ji saw the teenager he carried clearly.

　　The teenager had long limbs, it was as if his body couldn't catch up, looking so thin like three tendons were enough to hold his head up. He was covered by a big cloak, only showing a pale face, blood was running down from his fingers nonstop.

　　In the wooden cabin at the top of the highest spot of the half-slope, an old man came out to greet them, his clothing was very grand. Xuan Ji guessed he must have been the "Sage" of the shaman tribe, like the head of a religion. He reached out with two hands to receive the injured teenager.

　　Everyone whispered quietly, and the little Aluojin curiously peeked in from between the adults' legs, stood on his toes to look around and asked: "Is that the young prince? Really?"

　　Xuan Ji couldn't help but ask: "You got injured?"

　　"Yes, before ten years of age, it was a common occurrence," Sheng Lingyuan stood outside out the crowd, looking into his struggling years, "My Imperial Father died in battle at Chiyuan, the country was overturned, the imperial palace was penetrated by demons, the demons walked the whole land, the human tribes were diminishing. Everyone wanted hope, so for some reason, there was a prophecy that came out, saying the emperor's son born in the hundred thousands of vengeful souls, who would carry the blood of his father and brother, will wipe out the demons with his own hands. I was a stump in the demon king's eyes, so since I was a child, I had been hunted down by him."

　　"When I was ten, I was separated from my teacher, along with being betrayed by the tribe, three great demons chased to kill me to Dongchuan. All twelve imperial guards beside me were killed, I had no place to run, until I was saved by the shaman tribe."

　　"The shaman tribe was a paradise beyond the mundane world, I... hid here at this paradise for six years."

Chapter end