Estranged - Chapter 107

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Changming’s body was warm, and, even though his breath was weak, his chest was still heaving.

After trying to pour some spiritual power into his meridians, Yun Weisi frowned.

He noticed that his own spiritual power seemed to be very lacking compared to the past.

Holding Changming in his arms, Yun Weisi leaned backwards slightly and snapped his fingers in the direction of a rock. The rock was covered with thick moss, while trees and grass were flourishing abundantly around them—nothing here was reminiscent of the desolate ruins of their perishing world. His spiritual power hit the stone. It cracked immediately, yet it did not burst into small pieces as Yun Weisi had intended.

His cultivation level had been lowered to the point that he had turned into a high-ranking cultivator.

Yun Weisi placed the blame on his wounds. Sheer luck had helped him survive through the calamity, and now, the most important task at hand was to wake up his shizun.

He transferred spiritual power to Changming till dusk, when it finally had an effect.

Changming’s eyelids trembled, and he slowly regained consciousness.

Yun Weisi’s hands had almost gone numb, but he still did not want to loosen his grip.

Yun Weisi gave Changming some water to drink, using a leaf as a cup. Changming swallowed most of it before fully regaining consciousness, but some water had spilled, and wet his collar.

His hazy eyes gradually focused, and he looked up at Yun Weisi’s face. The expression in Changming’s eyes was completely befuddled.

His first words almost made Yun Weisi drop the leaf on Changming’s face.

“Who are you?”

Yun Weisi managed to keep his grip on it, and put the leaf aside.

“You don’t remember me?”

Jiufang Changming shook his head.

Yun Weisi: “Then do you remember who you are?”

Jiufang Changming thought for a while and shook his head again.

Yun Weisi: “Think harder. What do you remember?”

Changming actually pondered about it carefully, frowning more and more, until Yun Weisi finally ran out of patience.

“If you’ve really forgotten everything, we’ll talk about it later.”

“I only remember that I’m probably a cultivator, and I fainted because of a wound,” Jiufang Changming shook his head. “But I can’t think of anything else. Daoxiong, was it you who saved me? May I know your honorable name?”

Yun Weisi: …

Jiufang Changming: “Daoxiong?”

The light eventually returned to Jiufang Changming’s eyes. The sky and Yun Weisi were reflected in his eyes, filling his line of sight completely.

Yun Weisi had not known that his shizun could still show such an… innocent and unguarded expression.

“My name is Yun Weisi.”

Changming wanted to get up, so Yun Weisi let him go and watched Jiufang Changming stretch his limbs, and examine his body.

“You’re Jiufang Changming.”

“Jiufang… Changming?”

“Nine sides of the world, eternally bright Dao heart.”

Nine sides: Jiufang (eight directions + center, all the world)

Eternally bright: Changming

“As soon as I saw Daoxiong, I felt a sense of familiarity. What is our relationship?”

“You really don’t remember?”

“My spiritual consciousness has weakened, and my thoughts are in turmoil. Although I still remember the basic cultivation technique of circling qi, I feel as if something’s suppressing it, and I can’t use my cultivation at full strength.”

Right before passing away, most cultivators would adopt their youthful appearance. Jiufang Changming was not an exception.

He had already lost most of his memories, while his eyes no longer reflected all the experience he had accumulated over the years. He looked like a young cultivator who had just left his home for the first time.

Yun Weisi would have never thought he would be able to see the young version of his shizun in this life.

Many thoughts flashed through his mind, and, as if he had been bewitched or possessed, he finally spoke:

“I’m your shixiong.”

“Hm?”

Jiufang Changming only doubted this for a moment, and then blinked, squinted, and answered:

“Shixiong, thank you very much for saving me.”

Daozun Yun had encountered every kind of disturbing situation. He only hummed, appearing as calm as still water, as if nothing had happened.

“Shixiong, where are we? My mind is confused, and I don’t even remember what we were trying to do.”

“Before you fainted, we encountered a powerful enemy. The heavens split and the earth fell apart, and we were both heavily wounded. I don’t know where we are either. We should investigate our surroundings after you recover.”

They heard a sound of whining.

The two of them followed the noise, and saw a small black creature roll out from behind a stone near a creek. It was slowly moving towards them, staggering at each step.

The small black dog was dirty and covered with wounds all over. Only its eyes were exceptionally bright, and as soon as it saw Changming, it quickly rushed towards him.

The moment the black ball leapt up, a hand caught it by its scruff.

“Oouw!”

The dog was kicking the air with its paws, and opened its mouth to bite Yun Weisi. But it was too small, and its neck was too short, so it was not able to turn its head and reach Yun Weisi’s arm.

“Looks like it knows us?” Jiufang Changming asked.

He stretched his hand out to the dog.

Yun Weisi did not find anything suspicious about it, so he let it go. The dog climbed up into Changming’s arms immediately. It hid inside his sleeves, only showed its head, wailing, and glared at Yun Weisi with utter hatred.

Yun Weisi also felt that he was familiar with the dog. Not with its appearance, but with its aura.

He thought of a possibility.

“Zhou… Keyi?” Yun Weisi guessed.

The dog’s fur bristled, and its eyes looked like they were shooting flames. It hated that it could not turn into a raging fire and burn Yun Weisi to death.

Thus, Yun Weisi’s guess was confirmed.

Before this, Changming had captured Zhou Keyi’s souls. After he left the Wanlian Buddhist Temple, he had to go through many challenges, so he had no time to settle the problem with Zhou Keyi. Therefore, the souls had come here as well, and happened to possess this black dog.

“Shixiong, is this dog our friend? I think I like it, and it seems to recognize me.”

The dog wailed: What “shixiong”? He’s lying to you, he’s lying to you!

Yun Weisi’s expression did not change: “Indeed it does. His name is Zhou Keyi. He used to be your disciple, but he didn’t like the way you taught him, so he rebelled against you. He’s done much evil, and our troubles started only because we tried to save him. Although we managed to preserve his souls, he doesn’t have his body anymore.”

Changming frowned: “What kind of evil?”

Yun Weisi: “He cultivated a demonic path, used people as furnaces, and drained away their cultivation.”

Changming looked at the wailing black dog, fell silent for a while, and then finally said: “So he’s paying off his bad karma.”

The dog was very small. As it got agitated, it fell out of Changming’s sleeves and onto the ground. It rolled towards the river, but was fortunately stopped midway by a stone.

It seemed to be exhausted. After crawling around for a while, it was half-wet and it looked pitiful.

It saw that the two of them had gotten up to leave, and the dog’s ears stood up. It rushed over to catch up to them—

Only to hear Yun Weisi say to Changming: “This place is fishy, be very careful.”

Jiufang Changming: “Alright, shixiong.”

The dog did not want to be left alone in its misery, so it howled again.

Its body was suddenly raised into the air. Changming reached out, picked the dog up, held it in his arms, and draped it with some of his clothes. The dog got warmer immediately.

Yun Weisi threw the dog a cold glance. The situation was not in the dog’s favor, so it refrained from wailing, and rested in shifu’s arms sincerely—

Even though his shifu had been deceived by a villain, the dog accepted it for the time being.

Water was flowing down a mountain here. The cascading water had then turned into a rapid current. After a long time, it had rounded the sharp stones in the area. Time had left its marks here.

Orioles were singing in the forest. Everything was filled with emerald green and gentle red colors, brimming with the atmosphere of early spring. Although it did not deserve to be called an earthly paradise, it was still a scenic place with mountains with abundant spiritual energy and excellent waters.

The further they went, the more doubtful Yun Weisi felt.

Before he had perished together with Luomei, the human world had been overtaken by demonic flames. Even if deities actually existed, and had extended a hand to close the gap in power, the demonic flames would not have simply vanished. The world had had no chance to restore its past appearance.

What, then, could explain this land of idyllic beauty in front of their eyes?

They reached a valley nearby and saw a road. After following the road for ten or so li, several carriages caught up to them.

The carriages were sturdy and heavy. The caravan owner’s attire looked modest, but it was made of fine fabric. More than ten guards were following him, and at a glance,, it was obvious that the man had a noble background.

Although he seemed like an eye-catching target, mountain bandits and robbers did not dare disturb him along his way.

On any other occasion, Yun Weisi would not even spare a caravan like this another glance. Yet, he was now surprised to see so many common people here, and decided to obstruct their way to investigate what was going on.

“If you two are cultivators, shouldn’t you be flying on your swords?”

Upon hearing their status, the owner of the caravan did not believe them at first.

Yun Weisi wanted to summon the Chunzhao Sword, but remembered that it had broken into half. His eyes fell on a guardian who was standing next to the caravan owner. Yun Weisi waved his sleeves, and the guardian felt that his arms had become lighter, as his sword left its sheath and flew right into Yun Weisi’s hands.

Yun Weisi grabbed the hilt, and threw the sword back to its owner.

“For certain reasons, my shidi and I have wandered off to this place. We don’t know where we are now. Please, could you tell us where?”

At this point, the caravan owner breathed out with relief. A common person might have coveted his caravan, but cultivators sniffed at mundane things of the secular world.

“This He has eyes, yet he failed to recognise Mount Tai! Please, pardon this offense! We were originally heading to Shangzhou. Hongluo Town is close up front, we were going to stop there for tonight and continue traveling tomorrow morning.”

The more Yun Weisi listened, the more surprised he was: “Which country is it? Who is the emperor now, what’s the title of his reign?”

His questions were a bit strange, but some cultivators spent decades in seclusion, shutting themselves away from the world. The caravan owner had seen a lot, so he was not all that astonished.

“In answer to Sir: this place is part of Hongjing, and the Hong dynasty has been ruling over the united world for more than ten years. The reign title is Qianhua, and the ruling emperor has been in power for three years.”

Qianhua: in real history, it was one of the reign titles of the Later Liang, 911–915 (not our case though)

The Hong dynasty…

Qianhua…

Emperor Qianhua had been reigning for twenty one years. Yun Weisi’s family was massacred because of internal strife in the court thirty years after the emperor’s death. Only Yun Weisi survived and ran away to enter the Yuhuang Temple.

In other words, he would only be born in fifty years.

Counting in everything that had happened ever since—

They had gone in time one hundred years!

Perhaps, his expression was too astounded. Changming eventually came over and tugged at his sleeve.

“Shixiong?”

Yun Weisi, who was addressed as shixiong by his shizun, came back to his senses immediately.

“Can Brother He travel with us? We haven’t been in the secular world for too long, so it would be great to visit Hongluo and see what’s going on.”

The caravan owner’s expression was delighted. Having cultivators as travel companions was indeed good luck. After all, no matter how peaceful the world was today, roaming all over the country was still dangerous.

“That’s my honor! Don’t call me Brother He, gentlemen, this He is in reverence of you, just call me Old He! Can I hear your names, gentlemen? Aiya, come here, please come into my carriage, we’ll talk more!”

Old He invited them into the carriage, and offered them tea with light refreshments. After that, he asked the girl from another carriage to come and pay her respects.

“This is my daughter, she’s twelve years old. She’s been reading legends about mythical swordsmen and heros all day long. I’ve spoiled her hopelessly, so she rushed to come here to broaden her horizons as soon as she heard about you.”

The girl seemed to be very interested and a bit bashful. After giving some formal greetings, she hid behind her father, and silently stretched her neck out to look at the distinguished guests.

“I’m Yun Weisi. This is my shidi, Jiufang Changming.”

Old He quickly cupped his hands with respect: “Sir Yun, Sir Jiufang!”

The small black dog hung its head out of Changming’s sleeve, and the girl could not help but slightly exclaim in surprise.

She noticed that the dog seemed to be staring at her, so she almost laughed and had to cover her mouth to hide it. Her interest in the two immortals was completely overshadowed by her interest in the dog.

“If I remember correctly, Old He, the Shangzhou you’ve mentioned is to the west. Is a sect called the Wanjian Immortal Clan also there?”

“You’re right. But it’s not very close to Shangzhou. If you have free time, travel with me. I’ll be passing through Tian’gang Town, which is close to the Wanjian Immortal Clan. The sect is illustrious and prestigious, and rumors of it have even rumbled the ears of a common person like myself. Could it be that you are also disciples of the Wanjian Immortal Clan?”

Tn:

Hi! I had exams, so it took longer than expected, sorry ;;