novelraw Chapter 294 - 269: Jiang Yan
Chapter 294 - 269: Jiang Yan
Linghai County.
Linghai County originally belonged to the Yu Family’s domain. After the Green Pond Sect reclaimed this land, the Yu Family immediately changed banners and allegiance. Several elder ancestors served within the Green Pond Sect, thereby preserving most of their territory, and continued to act as the local tyrants of Linghai County.
Later, when those old ancestors died, the Yu Family declined year by year, gradually withering away. At long last, a genius named Yu Yuxie emerged, but he too died abruptly in the Southern Border. The Yu Family’s main vein thus declined, and the various branches each allied with outsiders and established their own factions. While the vast territory was nominally still Yu Family land, in truth, those who shared the family name did not share the same heart, each acting for themselves.
Fortunately, Linghai County sits in the southeast, surrounded by no great external threats, and the Green Pond Sect forbids Noble Families from spanning states and counties. So the Linghai Yu Family lingered on in this fractured standoff, maintaining a rigid class structure that had lasted some hundred-and-eighty years.
The broad avenue was bustling enough. Now and then, hawkers and small traders passed by on donkeys or horseback. By the roadside squatted a raggedly dressed youth, his face pale, lips crimson, a frivolous gaze sweeping over the passersby. Suddenly, he opened his mouth and said:
"Master, what exactly do the cultivators of the Zifu Golden Core Path pursue?"
Out from among the passersby popped a sweat-drenched old farmer, stinking to high heaven. He plopped down beside the youth, baring a mouthful of yellow teeth, and replied:
"The Zifu Golden Core Path—this path cultivates one’s nature. Fond of eating people, playing with spells, loving alchemy and Qi absorption, delighting in toying with the masses—none of them are worth a damn."
The youth raised an eyebrow, retorting:
"This path forges Metal Nature? Striving for the eternity of the self, naturally by any means necessary."
"Heh!"
The old farmer merely said:
"If you pursue fate, what’s so fine about the Maha Dharma Appearance? A slave’s offspring will be slaves for generations, a Maha for years without end—when you meet a cultivator of the Maha Dharma Appearance, you’ll understand hopelessness and injustice, heavier than anything the Golden Core Path can offer!"
The old farmer spat and cursed, and the youth pressed his nose in distaste, answering:
"Maybe old man, you should get a new skin. That stench is unbearable."
The old farmer froze, suddenly coming to his senses, looking around in bewilderment, slapped his thigh and cursed:
"What the hell am I doing here? Addled every damn day."
As if he didn’t recognize the youth at all, he jumped up and wandered onto the road. After a while, a farmwife passed by, decently dressed, who laughed and scolded:
"Practiced spells for over ten years and you still care about this mortal body!"
The youth curled his lip and said only:
"You’ve got it easy, dodged the Si Yin fellows, roamed free ever since, no one to rein you in—must be a good life!"
"Damn it."
The farmwife swore, her tart tongue working nimbly, and replied:
"I gave most of my Metal Nature and fate to them; what’s left isn’t enough to form a Golden Core or a Maha, so I just barely cling to life for a while. What’s so free about it!"
"It’s lucky that fate’s shifted—if we still had those three tribulations and nine calamities today, I wouldn’t even be able to eke out a living like this. To end up here is pretty damn laughable!"
The youth sneered, unconvinced, and answered:
"You say Duanmu Kui of the Shanyue was miraculous, a genius, and yet he turned to dust, not even a chance to reincarnate. At least you get another try—what’s so funny?"
The farmwife chuckled, revealing a mouthful of slightly yellow teeth, planted her hands on her waist, baring muscular arms, and explained:
"He was hot-tempered, insisted on achieving a Golden Core soul position, thought Immortal promises guaranteed success, and ended up this way. He could’ve endured, but chose not to. If it really came to a fight, even those two Yin Messengers might not have been his match."
"Even turned monster after death, he nearly escaped their hands. Duanmu Kui was a domineering great shaman of his age, not someone I can compare to."
The youth nodded thoughtfully. The farmwife turned serious and said:
"Yan’er, let’s not speak of this. If you and I join forces to teach the Green Pond Sect a lesson—you for your revenge for your mother, me to find a good Taoist Foundation—once we finish these matters, we’ll hide ourselves away and cultivate, have nothing further to do with all this."
The youth nodded in silence, only asking:
"What kind of Taoist Foundation are you looking for?"
The farmwife paused for a while before speaking:
"Forget about all those ’Old Stream-dwellers’ or the ’Vast Sea’. Xiao Chuting wants to cultivate the Jiazi Kan Water Thousand Nuo-nature—that person is treacherous, and might string me up to be devoured. The Zifu cultivators of Changxiao Sect and Xuan Yue Sect are both close to breakthroughs, so those two ways are also out... And then there’s that Shangyuan Perfected Person—the ways left to choose are truly few."
She thought for a moment, then answered:
"Here in the vicinity of Yue Country, there are still many thunder cultivators, though none of Zifu level—it’s a good path to tread. Seek me a Taoist Foundation like ’Winter Thunder’s Voice’ or ’Spring’s Awakening Thunder’ and such!"
The youth nodded, stamped his foot, and floated up lightly in the air. Down below, the farmwife hurriedly raised her calloused, wrinkled hands, counted on her fingers, and shouted:
"Thirty-two li to the north—there’s a Green Pond Sect market!"
The youth caught these words in his ear, and the short journey was quickly accomplished. Just as he approached the market’s illusion array, the Green Pond Sect market’s Great Formation had already shattered with a thunderous boom. Overlapping buildings and tightly clustered spiritual fields were revealed. Shouts and screams echoed everywhere. Someone cried out in alarm:
"Why shut down the formation? Senior Brother Chi! What are you doing—open the formation at once! Are you not afraid of the sect’s punishment?"
High in the air stood a youth in green robes, handsome but wild-eyed, his clothes splattered with blood, bellowing madly:
"Hahahahaha!"
Someone tried to fly up and subdue him, but Senior Brother Chi drew his sabre with a wild flourish, hacking at the man, who urgently activated his magic artifact to defend himself.
"Block!"
The artifact shot out like a bird, but fresh blood spilled everywhere. Normally evenly matched, Senior Brother Chi now seemed endowed with superhuman strength, knocking the artifact aside with a light stroke and cutting off the man’s arm in one slash.
The man was in excruciating pain and shock, and as the severed arm fell, it stretched out like a lump of mud, jumping and leaping like a lovesick mule, clawing its way up toward his own face.
"What kind of spell is this!"
"Senior Brother! Let me help you!"
The Green Pond Sect’s guardians below rose up in panic, powerless to rescue him. The man’s own hand slapped him hard across the face, sending his head spinning round like a top four or five times—the spark of life snuffed out.
"What!"
The rescuers were dumbfounded, and as the corpse twitched in the air, its remaining hand grabbed its own neck and, with a crack, pulled out a long white-red-veined spine along with its head, slashing down at the onlookers as if it were a longsword.
The cultivators down below finally understood—all at once, a dozen talismans shot out, the terror in their eyes plain as day, and one shrieked:
"Devil Cultivator! Zifu Devil Cultivator—"
"Crack."
He hadn’t finished the sentence when his skull was struck with a resounding slap, spinning a few times like a top, silenced for good—his limbs separated, yanking out heart, liver, spleen, lung, and each set off on its own, seeking cultivators all around.
"Devil Cultivator... it’s a Devil Cultivator!"
A storm of blood swept through the whole market, screams erupting everywhere. The youth stood quietly in the sky, masses of flesh and blood whirling around him, curling up obediently at his side like well-trained hounds or beasts. Wearing a bright smile, he gazed at the fleeing cultivators and shouted in a clear voice toward the vanishing figures:
"Go tell the Green Pond Sect—Jiang Yan has come to avenge the Tu County massacre!"
The voice echoed in the air, and the Green Pond cultivators only fled faster. Jiang Yan indulged in the moment above the chaos. A man’s head, hair disheveled, came sailing by, shouting and laughing through a spray of blood:
"Typical of the Green Pond Sect, so arrogant—even in a massive market like this they don’t leave a single Foundation Establishment behind. Hurry and leave—members of the Yu Family are already on their way!"