Estranged - CH 118

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From Jiang Li’s point of view, the two of them were strange.

He could not figure out their background or sect, and did not know whether they were his enemies or friends.

Although their cultivation level was high, he had never heard of them. They had just popped up out of nowhere, strangers with no origins, like immortals from the heavens.

But in the end, Jiang Li decided to trust them because he had no other choice.

“In the Wanjian Immortal Sect, my qualifications are far from being the best. My dashixiong, Yao Wangnian, however, is a gem that appears once a century. Everyone was sure he would succeed.”

Jiang Li knew very well how talented Yao Wangnian was.

They had both entered the sect when they were six and not as inner disciples. Everyone started studying from scratch in the outer circle—reading books, standing like a post, learning scriptures by heart, and practicing the sword. Almost every disciple of the Wanjian Immortal Clan, starting from the clan master and all the way to the patrolling disciples, took this path.

Standing like a post: aka zhan zhuang, a Taoist exercise

Once, an elder held a class for the outer circle disciples. He asked them to memorize a particular teaching within three days. Part of it was especially profound, and it was extremely difficult to fathom its nature. They were just children and struggled to understand anything—some of them could not even read certain characters, let alone memorize the content. Jiang Li tried painstakingly for three days, but only learned half of the text. When it was his turn to recite the teaching in front of the elder, he stammered and mispronounced several sentences. But Yao Wangnian managed to recite every single word of the secret teaching, drawing everybody’s attention. Even the elder said that he had not seen such a brilliant talent in the Wanjian Immortal Clan in years.

Very soon, those of them who performed outstandingly were admitted to the inner circle. Jiang Li and Yao Wangnian were lucky enough to be accepted as direct disciples of Immortal Luomei, who was an elder of the Yaoxing Peak at that time.

Immortal Luomei was a brilliant man of broad learning, and his cultivation was exceptionally profound. He had been both a teacher and a father to Jiang Li. After Luomei had taken over the reins of the Wanjian Immortal Clan, obviously, Yao Wangnian who was the oldest disciple of the clan master, became shixiong for all the disciples of the clan.

Yao Wangnian was blessed with outstanding talent, and was almost blindingly brilliant. Despite being so young, he was already a high level cultivator, and was taken note of at a Qianlin Assembly. His Guyue Sword overshadowed every opponent, and the entire cultivation world was thus indelibly impressed with him. From that day on, Daojun Guyue’s fame spread across the lands. Countless girls gave their hearts to him, and he was considered a perfect daoist partner by many.

Daojun: title, kind of “high-ranking immortal in Taoism”

Jiang Li described the fame obtained by the gifted young man in a couple of sentences. Yun Weisi did not interrupt him because he knew that Jiang Li was giving Yun Weisi the backstory before telling him about a dramatic turn.

As expected, Jiang Li soon made a turn of conversation.

“But ten years ago Yao Wangnian was suddenly driven out of our sect.”

Yun Weisi: “What happened?”

Jiang Li shook his head: “I don’t know. I only remember that that night, a fire erupted suddenly at the Library of Scriptures.”

It was not a common fire, but instead a red lotus fire of retribution. No matter how much water was brought to extinguish it, nothing helped.

The Library of Scriptures was a place at the Wanjian Immortal Clan where the treasures of past generations were stored. Not only did it contain secret sword techniques, but it also held many keys to the mysteries of cultivation that were not allowed to leave the sect. Only those disciples who had reached a certain level of cultivation and had been given permission by the elders could enter the library to study. Not a single one of those who had been let inside could say a word of what they had learned there—as for almost everyone, such a visit was fruitful, and they had unprecedented breakthroughs. Obviously, the Library of Scriptures meant a lot to the Wanjian Immortal Clan.

Yet, a fire had broken out there. Moreover, the culprit was not an outsider, but one who had been tacitly acknowledged as the next master of the clan: dashixiong Yao Wangnian.

Valuable collections of the past generation, stored in the library, were set on fire. Two disciples and the keeper of the library had been burnt alive as well.

The accident cost the Wanjian Immortal Clan dearly. The entire sect was shaken.

Jiang Li remembered what his shizun looked like when the latter had called him in. Immortal Luomei looked wan and sallow, as if that night had added several decades to his age. Before, it was impossible to guess his age from his elegant features, yet now wrinkles had appeared on his face, and the hair on his temples had turned gray.

Facing everyone, Immortal Luomei admitted his mistake. He said that he was not strict enough in teaching his disciples, so he wanted to retire from his position and enter seclusion to repent and punish himself.

But this matter was not actually Immortal Luomei’s fault. He was always equally fair to all the disciples, and the Wanjian Immortal Clan was getting more prosperous under his rule, almost surpassing the Shenxiao Immortal Abode, which made it rule the roost. Many people had already accepted this. When they heard that Immortal Luomei wanted to punish himself for his disciple’s offense and leave his post, everybody begged him to stay.

Starting that night, Yao Wangnian’s name was considered taboo in the Wanjian Immortal Clan. The younger disciples did not even know about the existence of this talented dashixiong, and thought that this honor belonged to Jiang Li.

“Why do you believe that Yao Wangnian was the one responsible for burning down the Library of Scriptures? Did he plead guilty?” Jiufang Changming asked.

“He did not. But I remember that Yao Wangnian started to behave strangely several days prior to the accident. He turned irascible, and talked incoherently. Since he had always been so concentrated on cultivating, I thought that he had reached a deadlock and had ceased to advance. I wanted to have a heart-to-heart talk with him about this, but he became furious after I spoke a couple of words.”

Jiang Li’s memories of this were strangely clear. Yao Wangnian was not just furious: he was in a frenzy of rage.

He broke out in curses, pointing at Jiang Li’s nose: “You idiot! Do you think you’re so smart? Don’t you covet the position of dashixiong, to become the next clan master? Let me tell you: you won’t get it in this life!”

Jiang Li was stupefied at this. Surely, Yao Wangnian was more talented than most, but he was never arrogant or condescending. He normally treated his fellow disciples nicely. Yao Wangnian never placed himself above Jiang Li just because he was better at cultivation.

His temperament suddenly changed that day. Jiang Li even suspected that Yao Wangnian might have been possessed by some evil spirit.

“Shizun said that shixiong Yao had reached a bottleneck in his cultivation, was too impatient to overcome it and went mad because his frustration stopped him from breaking through. After deviating, he set fire to the Library of Scriptures, burning along with it,” Jiang Li sighed.

Yun Weisi wanted to ask him if Jiang Li would believe anything his shizun said.

However, come to think about it, Yun Weisi found that he had no right to ask this question. He knew that Luomei was suspicious because he had come from the future, but Jiang Li was unaware of what was to come. Moreover, Luomei was not necessarily responsible for the incident with Yao Wangnian.

If Yun Weisi was to tell Jiang Li right now that his shifu would take over his body in the future to destroy the world, Jiang Li would have probably thought that Yun Weisi was crazy.

Yao Wangnian had been to the Yellow Springs before, and he had retrieved the red lotus fire of retribution from there. He had managed to fuse the fire with his own techniques, turning it into his original Red Lotus of Nine Turns. It was exceedingly powerful, and the entire Wanjigan Immortal Clan knew of this skill. That was why when the Library of Scriptures was engulfed with the red lotus fire of retribution, people blamed Yao Wangnian even before Immortal Luomei spoke.

Many things had happened over the past ten years. In the end, Immortal Luomei did not resign from his post, but spent most of his time in seclusion. The affairs of the Wanjian Immortal Clan had been slowly taken over by the elders and Jiang Li. Jiang Li, in his turn, was gradually revealing his talents, and after some time became the de facto master of the clan.

But he was not interested in being influential and did not actually want to be the clan master. Moreover, he was fed up with tying up loose ends at the Wanjian Immortal Clan, and at some point he could not stand it anymore. So, he found an excuse to go down the mountains, passing his job over to the elders.

After descending from the mountains, Jiang Li felt as free and easy as a bird outside its cage. He wanted to spread his wings and fly around the entire world. However, he had seen a person resembling Yao Wangnian not far away from Hongluo.

Many people had already forgotten what Yao Wangnian looked like. He was like a shooting star—bright yet short-lived. But Jiang Li would never forget a shixiong he had grown up with.

After seeing Yao Wangnian, Jiang Li changed his plans and destination immediately.

“I chased him up to Hongluo, but eventually lost track of him. I don’t intend to give up, so I found a medicine hall in the town to settle down for the time being, and thus started working as a doctor here. To my astonishment, Hongluo was in trouble. Incidents keep happening one after another. I almost started suspecting…”

Jiang Li forced a smile and did not finish his words.

Yun Weisi had already figured out the implication—wherever Yao Wangnian went, something bad happened. Jiang Li was starting to suspect that Yao Wangnian was behind these murders.

“Fox spirits and nightmare demons plague Hongluo Town. Most likely, they were led here by humans on purpose, but I still haven’t figured out who’s the culprit. So I decided to hide myself and live quietly in order to not beat the grass to scare away the snake. Since you two are determined to find the truth, our goals align. We should work together.”

Yun Weisi believed that the man in front of their eyes was the real Jiang Li before Luomei had taken over his body.

His bearing and manner of speech was completely different from what they had seen in the future.

Even though one could imitate a person’s behavior, the slight intonations and pauses between words were different for everybody.

Apart from meeting the real Jiang Li, they had also learned an old secret of the Wanjian Immortal Clan.

The situation was complicated. Jiang Li knew that Yun Weisi and Jiufang Changming did not trust him. Honesty was a prerequisite for cooperation, so he simply revealed everything as it was in a hope to win over their trust.

Changming: “You think that Yao Wangnian is actually still alive?”

Jiang Li: “I’m not sure, but I hope so. I want to ask him in person why he burnt down the Library of Scriptures back then, where he has been all these years, and what had actually happened.”

Yun Weisi: “What do you know about the culprit?”

Jiang Li put four fingers up: “There are four things. First, constable Xing. His cultivation is low, you can think of him as a half-cultivator. I’ve heard that he tried to enter the Shenxiao Celestial Abode several times in the past, but they shut their doors on him because he wasn’t talented enough. He could agree to work together with demons and trade away human lives if promised help with internal cultivation. Second, the town supervisor. The current town supervisor has been in power for seven or eight years, so his influence around here is indisputable. Yet he rarely shows his face, so he’s veiled in mystery. The third one is the head of the He family, the owner of the caravan you’ve been following—Old He. At first, there were only three suspects, but now I have one more.”

Changming finished his words: “That person whom constable Xing addressed as Sir An.”

Jiang Li nodded: “Right, it’s him.”

Just as he said this, a scream reached their ears.

The three of them looked in that direction, surprised.

The voice came from the dense forest near the town. Chi Bijiang and Sun Wuxia ran towards them madly, but they did not manage to outrun the ghost fires. The dark blue flames were about to reach the two of them to bury their bodies in the forest. At this moment, a sword’s glow flew near them out of nowhere, turning the ghost fires above their heads into dust.

Chi Bijiang turned her head abruptly and saw the man who had commanded the sword. He looked ethereal and elegant, as if he was a deity from the heavens that descended to save them from the mortal danger.

“Demons dare to sneak away?”

The man raised one finger, and the sword turned into a barrier in front of Chi Bijiang, walling her off from the ghost fires and then slashing at the flames in the form of a sword.