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641. Hidden in the Valley
🕑 Added 2023-08-01 15:00:07 +0000 UTCDeep inside the valley, Hui let the tree dip to the ground and float to a halt. He hopped off, and the other disciples followed. With a wave of his hand, Hui cut a board off the tree, then slid it under Zhang Zhisho. Another wave, and she floated alongside them on the board, still unconscious.
As usual, thick yin qi swirled in the valley, darkening the sky and chilling their bodies to the bone. The abandoned chains that had once held the resentment demons laid still on the floor, infused with such intense yin that they emanated dark clouds of it, as if the chains themselves sucked the light out of the air. Dark clouds obscured their view into the distance, hiding the details of what laid ahead in a pit of interminable darkness. Even Hui’s senses could barely pierce the yin. That is, unless I intentionally try and pierce it… but it’s not as if Ai Tuzi has a third eye. I’m probably safe. Probably.
Hui circulated his phoenix fire, using it to emanate yang around him and drive off some of the yin chill. The other disciples huddled close to the warmth, instinctively flinching back from the yin.
Tian Mo gave Zhang Zhisho a worried look. “Is she going to be okay?”
“I don’t know. When we get somewhere safe, I’ll take a moment and look at her,” Hui promised. I wouldn’t mind bringing her back to consciousness. She’s at least fifth realm, and should be able to hold her own against Ai Tuzi. Compared to the rest of the disciples, she’s a powerful cultivator.
“Eh? Gui Hui, you’re a healer?” Tian Mo asked.
“Ah, only to the small extent everyone is in the Southern Sect Conference,” Hui lied easily. He glanced at Tian Mo. “What happened to Zhang Zhisho? She seemed like a fierce fighter. I’m surprised she was taken down so easily.”
Tian Mo spread his hands. “It was a surprise attack. In the middle of a lesson, a spell suddenly wrapped around Zhang Zhisho. She escaped it once, but it chased her down and landed on her again. Then… then, something happened, and she passed out.”
Hui nodded, his brows furrowing. Hmm. If this is a magical effect, it’ll be harder to clear. Physical injuries only require a smattering of life qi, but spells… I’ll have to search out the spell and destroy it, and that will take time and concentration. I’ll need a safe, quiet place where I’m able to ignore the disciples and focus solely on healing Zhang Zhisho in order to remove the spell.
He lifted his head and looked over the group. “Does anyone know a secret place in this valley? Somewhere quiet, where Ai Tuzi won’t be able to find us immediately?”
Meimei lifted her hand. “I do!”
The other disciples gave her suspicious looks.
“Of course you do…”
“Planning on hiding Zhang Zhisho’s body there?”
“Or is Gui Hui your next target?”
“Oooh, did you kill your teacher because you had a crush on him? Ooooh!”
“Wait, Meimei’s trying to kill Gui Hui? Since when?”
It’s already descended into chaos, and it’s barely been ten seconds. Hui took a deep breath, forcibly ignoring the other disciples. “Meimei, where is it?”
“This way.” Equally unbothered, Meimei strode ahead, leading the others onward.
Hui gazed after her for a moment. Wow. She has a lot of mental fortitude for someone so young. Perhaps I should take a second look at her? She’d be a formidable disciple.
She killed her previous Master. Don’t be stupid, Hui, he rebuked himself. Shaking his head, he followed after her. I might as well see her hiding spot. She’s an intelligent and devious disciple. She probably has something good.
Meimei drew directly to the left wall. Leading them along it, she pressed her fingertips to the frost-covered stone. Small melted trails followed her fingers, only to quickly freeze over again as she walked on.
“Is she taking us somewhere quiet to kill us?” one of the disciples whispered.
Hui turned. He glared at the disciple. “She’s helping us. Don’t talk down about someone helping you.”
Meimei turned. She smiled a little.
“Besides, don’t be ridiculous. She killed her Master, not her fellow disciples. Do you think you’re her Master, and deserving of death?” Hui asked, folding his arms at the disciple.
Meimei frowned.
The disciple shrank back. “Er… no?”
“Precisely. Don’t think too highly of yourself! To think, there’s still fools who think themselves worthy of death long before they’re even candidates for killing. Goodness, cultivators really are…” Hui trailed off. No, no, that’s the part I usually don’t say out loud. Careful there, Hui.
Why am I being so bold? Wait, could it be? He looked down at himself, and his faintly glowing body. I’m circulating phoenix fire right now, a powerful source of yang. Is the powerful yang in my qi passages clouding my mind and infecting my thoughts? How dangerous! That’s something I’ll have to bear in mind for the future. The phoenix fire has dangerous side effects!
“I don’t kill all my Masters,” Meimei protested. “Only the bad one. And it’s only one! So far.”
Hui looked at Meimei. That rollercoaster of a statement really didn’t do much to reassure me, except to strengthen my resolve that I most definitely do not want to become your Master, no matter how good of a disciple you might seem!
Hmm… what kind of disciple is she, anyways? Someone as adept at being a disciple as her, to the extent that even I want to take her on… that suggests that she has some protagonist-like qualities, after all. She can’t be discounted as a mere side character or a future mother of a protagonist, no. She has true protagonist qualities!
But what kind of protagonist? A black lotus? It’s rare to see the archetype in a female, or really outside of… very specific… anyways. A villainess? Could be! She could very well be a villainess in training. A villainess in training, with the true reason she killed her Master hidden… I’m seeing it. Of course, that means that I’ll need to figure out why she actually killed her Master, if I don’t want to end up on her bad side when she grows up. After all, an extreme event like that is usually a triggering event for a villainess, that exposes her darkness for the first time!
“Oh! Here it is.” Meimei pressed on a jut of stone. The wall before them slid away, revealing the dark, tunnel-like entrance to an immortal cave. Dipping into the earth, the darkness grew deeper within the tunnel, and likewise, the yin grew yet more extreme.
Hui coughed, waving his hand on instinct. Is this the source of the yin? But… if that’s the case… how could Meimei survive finding it on her own, without someone like me around to help her?
But on the other hand… the source of the yin! I need to know. What’s down here? Hui’s eyes glittered. Lifting his hand, he put the phoenix fire into a ball that hovered above them, then closed his eyes and absorbed the yin, subtly adjusting his body as he did so to swap to his yin form. There we go. That’s more comfortable down here. Plus… if I have the chance, I might as well absorb some yin. I still have much to learn about this energy. It’s distinct from qi, even dark qi types such as death qi… but it’s still a form of energy that can be used for casting, and even has its own properties such as coldness and darkness. I’m truly curious about it!
He nodded to himself. And I’m also very glad that Bai Xue isn’t here. I don’t even want to know what she’d think about this new form of mine!
Tian Mo inched closer to Hui. “Is it safe in there?” he asked quietly.
“Hmm… probably not. But I can keep you safe,” Hui promised. It’s also exactly the kind of quiet spot I can use to examine Zhang Zhisho. The fact that I’m also curious about the source of the yang is merely secondary!
Tian Mo looked at him. “I wanted to know earlier, but Gui Hui, when did you get so strong?”
Hui scratched the back of his head. “Ah, well, I guess I just trained with Jizhi Zhimei for a day, right? And that was enough!”
Tian Mo squinted for a moment, then sighed. “If you don’t want to say, you don’t want to say. I get it. You can’t share whatever miracle you found, so there’s no point asking.”
“But… but actually,” Hui muttered, half to himself. Actually, it really was training with Jizhi Zhimei for a single day that got me to fourth stage! True, I did already cultivate to seventh stage, so it was easy to retread my original cultivation path, but… even if I wasn’t secretly hiding my cultivation, I still might have skipped two stages right there in Jizhi Zhimei’s pool! Is there anything I can say to convince you? Anything at all…?
Shaking his head, Tian Mo walked ahead. Hui looked after him, then sighed. Oh well. Can’t please everyone, I guess. He followed Tian Mo and Meimei in, with the rest of the disciples following after him.
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Vega
Hui’s house of lies and carefully built self deprecations are falling apart around him…
