Chapter 2: The Holy Jade Immortal and the Enchanting Fire Witch
Master Lu secretly breathed a sigh of relief. Having spent some time in the martial world, he knew that during Six Gates investigations, harming innocent people, or even killing the innocent and taking credit for it, was not uncommon.
At this moment, perhaps because they didn’t appear to be ordinary commoners, and wanting to avoid further complications, the Six Gates let them go. Otherwise, they might have been killed directly and treated as accomplices.
“Let’s go!” Master Lu whispered, despite having only taken a few bites of the meat soup.
He looked to the side and saw the Young Master clenching his fists, his shoulders trembling slightly.
Master Lu grabbed his arm and urged, “Young Master, let’s get out of here!”
Shi Hao stood up silently. At this moment, he hated his own powerlessness.
The so-called Six Gates were all scoundrels serving the barbarian tribe that occupied the land of China. The people they were chasing and arresting were loyal and righteous individuals.
Yet, he could do nothing but leave submissively under the other party’s single word, “Get out!”
Shi Hao followed Master Lu, and together with the four attendants, they filed out. Although the rain had lessened considerably outside, it hadn’t stopped. In the distance, thunder rumbled, and lightning flashed, but the flashes couldn’t penetrate the darkness.
They retrieved their two horses in the darkness and rain, left the dilapidated temple, and continued their journey in the dark.
The rain quickly soaked them to the bone. The icy chill penetrated them from the outside in, as if they were immersed in a glacier that never melted, making their hearts cold and devoid of warmth.
After getting some distance from the temple, one of the hunters spat and muttered, “Barbarian lapdogs!”
He didn’t dare to curse too loudly, fearing that the shadowy figures surrounding the temple might hear.
An explosion echoed from inside the temple.
After those people left, Daoist Lan He, unwilling to involve bystanders, suddenly took out a tiger-shaped stone engraved with runes from his bosom.
With a loud shout, divine light emanated from the stone, and his body suddenly grew larger.
Zhao Haisong’s eyes narrowed. “An Earthly Fiend magic weapon?” He then chuckled, “I didn’t expect you to have such a hidden treasure.”
Daoist Lan He transformed into a towering figure, twice his original height, with a burly physique and bulging muscles. His Daoist robe was stretched and torn. He threw a punch backward, shattering the stone wall behind him. Stones flew, and screams came from behind the temple as figures were flung out with the debris.
“Protect them and go!” Daoist Lan He shouted.
The four martial artists protected the girl and boy as they rushed outside.
“Don’t even think about escaping!” Zhao Haisong swung his goose-feather saber, sending a surge of saber energy towards Daoist Lan He.
From the sides, the Rat and Bat duo burst through the windows, attacking Daoist Lan He.
Daoist Lan He was completely fearless. With astonishing divine power, bang, bang, boom, boom, he forced Zhao Haisong and the Rat and Bat duo to retreat simultaneously.
The sounds of clashing weapons, along with the screams of the girl and child, came from behind the temple.
Another boom resounded as the stone wall completely exploded. Daoist Lan He pulled the dilapidated Earth God statue from the ground with his bare hands and rushed out of the temple. In the raging wind and rain, he hurled the statue.
The statue whistled as it spun in the rain, sending water splashing in all directions. It crashed into several constables in dark uniforms, accompanied by the cracking of bones and their screams, followed by the resounding thud of the statue hitting the ground.
Daoist Lan He wreaked havoc, throwing punch after punch. His massive and burly figure was as imposing as a mountain.
“Don’t fight him head-on,” Zhao Haisong shouted as he dashed out of the collapsing temple. “Entangle him and wait for his divine power to wear off.”
Rumble, rumble, rumble… Lightning flashed and thunder roared, one bolt after another.
The rain, which had shown signs of weakening, quickly intensified.
Shi Hao walked through the mountainous terrain where the path was completely invisible. Occasionally, lightning illuminated the huge sinkhole beside them.
At the edge of the pit, barely outlined by the light, the inside was pitch black, as if a ferocious dragon could emerge at any moment and swallow them whole.
When the lightning faded, the world was plunged into darkness, and countless raindrops pelted them.
Shi Hao felt his wet clothes clinging tightly to his cold body. The ground was uneven, and he stumbled occasionally, relying on the people beside him to support him.
Suddenly, a long neigh pierced the air, and mud splashed. Shi Hao turned around and saw the horses rearing up in fright. Another bolt of lightning split the sky, illuminating the horses’ eyes, and they kicked wildly.
Shi Hao was forced to dodge, stumbled, and suddenly stepped into empty space. An unexpected feeling of weightlessness, like an invisible black hand, pulled him down. Sharp stones tore at his clothes, and his skin felt a cutting pain.
“Young Master? Young Master?” Master Lu’s shouts and the terrified neighs of the horses were quickly drowned out by the deafening thunder.
Rumble, rumble, rumble…
As he slid downwards, Shi Hao felt dizzy. In the boundless darkness, the lightning above appeared as a narrow streak, flashing twice before disappearing.
He felt stars bursting in his eyes, as if his own eyes were emitting waves of light with each impact between his body and the rocks and earth.
A bang resonated in his eardrums, and he felt a churning in his stomach, nauseated. A surging torrent came, pushing his gradually numb body, like a duckweed on the sea, tossing and turning, he knew not where.
I’m going to die! Shi Hao thought to himself.
As a transmigrator, in such a sorrowful era, as a weak scholar, he was dying in a huge pit formed three hundred years ago for unknown reasons.
Like a small pebble falling into a vast river during a violent storm, unable to create a single noticeable ripple, he would sink to the bottom, buried among countless grains of sand like stars, never to be noticed again.
Away from the rain, away from the chaotic world. He still worried about the helpless girl and the hungry child in the dilapidated temple, worried about the loyal and righteous individuals who risked their lives to protect them.
Then, he silently mocked himself. He couldn’t even protect himself, yet he still had the time to worry about others.
He felt himself collide with something, but his senses had become dull from the series of impacts.
It wasn’t until he started to feel something was wrong that he abruptly sat up and coughed violently for a while before regaining his senses.
He couldn’t hear the thunder or the rain, as if he had fallen into another world. He had clearly been swept away by the current, yet there was no water around him now, nor any light.
Shi Hao fumbled and climbed to his feet, swaying as he took a few steps in the darkness. The ground was flat, no longer bumpy, and the surroundings were silent, so quiet that he could hear his own heartbeat.
The thump-thump sound made him laugh at his own nervousness. He had died once in his previous life, yet he was still afraid of death again?
Or perhaps, what he feared wasn’t death itself, but a meaningless death.
Shi Hao felt the wind.
His feet were on flat stone ground, but he felt a cool breeze rising from below.
He saw a flickering light in the distance. In this absolute darkness, shielded from the wind, rain, thunder, and lightning, at the bottom of this pit, in this inexplicable place, that faint light seemed both eerie and like a beacon of hope in the darkness, drawing him towards it subconsciously, staggering as he walked.
Shi Hao heard a crackling sound in his ears, as if countless unknown objects were colliding around him.
The airflow was chaotic. Although the wind wasn’t strong, he was blown about, and it took him a lot of effort to approach the light.
The light was white, with a strange black flicker within it.
Shi Hao realized that the crackling sound was coming from this flickering, black and white light.
Crack! Another explosion, like a fragile egg hitting a hard rock, the sound of the eggshell breaking.
Space shattered bizarrely, and Shi Hao fell once more.
During this fall, shimmering, mysterious halos danced around him.
He used the word “halo” because they were like snowflakes, colorful yet thin as cicada wings.
These halos flickered and vanished in waves, sometimes purple, sometimes blue, constantly changing. Darkness pressed down from above in waves.
Shi Hao thought he was definitely going to die. No matter where he landed, falling from such a height, with such acceleration, he would undoubtedly perish.
However, two gusts of wind surged towards him, one cold and one warm. They supported him from below, making him feel like he had fallen into a pile of cotton, and his descent gradually slowed.
At the same time, they seemed to be tearing and competing with each other. He felt like he was caught between ice and fire, as if he would be torn to shreds if he wasn’t careful.
Finally, he landed safely on the ground. Because of these two air currents, he didn’t feel any pain, but he felt exhausted.
White and red halos bloomed before his eyes, clashing with each other, swish, swish, swish. He felt as if the universe was exploding around him, and he was utterly powerless.
Suddenly, the two air currents separated, and two women’s grunts came from either side of Shi Hao.
There are people here? Shi Hao swayed as he tried to stand, but then plopped back down onto the ground with a thud. It took him a while to collect himself.
Shi Hao looked to his left first and was astonished to see an exceptionally beautiful woman.
The woman was dressed in white, with a slender figure and skin as white as snow. She was a breathtaking beauty. Her white clothes, made of an unknown material, were spotless and seemed to be faintly embroidered with lingzhi mushrooms and ruyi scepters, auspicious cloud patterns of good fortune and happiness.
The moment he saw her, Shi Hao felt he had never seen such a beautiful woman in his life. Idioms like “causing fish to sink and geese to fall” and “making the moon hide and flowers blush” felt inadequate to describe her beauty.
Her hair was tied up in a bun, secured with a Daoist hairpin, which, combined with her attire, indicated her identity as a member of the Daoist sect. Her face was as cold and clear as water, with an otherworldly aloofness, like a celestial being descending to earth, inspiring reverence.
For a moment, Shi Hao was stunned. Then, a “Hee hee” came from the other side, startling him and snapping him out of his daze. He instinctively turned his head to the right and was stunned once more.
On his right was another woman, possessing a different kind of beauty.
Her figure was more petite. She wore a peach blossom embroidered, narrow-sleeved, wrap-around deep robe with a wide belt around her slender waist. Her hair was styled in an extremely rare “flying celestial” bun, her face oval-shaped, and her features picturesque.
Her bright eyes were captivating, and her demeanor was delicate and charming. Unlike the woman in white on the left, she had a playful smile and a mischievous glint in her eyes. Coupled with her bright peach-red clothes, she was like a flame, clearly dangerous, yet irresistibly alluring.
The two women, with completely different styles, were both flawlessly beautiful, their appearances rarely seen in the world.
At this moment, Shi Hao wondered if he had died in that huge, deep pit formed three hundred years ago for unknown reasons, and was now hallucinating before his death.
Otherwise, why would he encounter these two exceptionally beautiful women in such a place, with such contrasting styles, one like ice and the other like fire?
The women in white and red were also scrutinizing him.
Ignoring them for the moment, Shi Hao looked around and realized that this place was in ruins…Everywhere he looked, there was a faint glow, and immortal energy lingered, but not a single stone was intact.
Shattered and collapsed immortal trees, broken red eaves and jade tiles, everything was in ruins.
Shi Hao could imagine that this place must have been a fairyland long ago. He could even piece it together in his mind, forming an otherworldly, profound fairyland that didn’t belong to the mortal realm, but it had been destroyed for some unknown reason.
The two women stood amidst these ruins, surrounded by flowing air currents, confronting each other.
Their gazes were fixed on him, creating an invisible pressure.
“Oh my, young man, may I know your name and which sect you belong to?” The woman in red spoke first.
Her voice was like an oriole’s, exceptionally pleasant to the ear. Just listening to it sent a thrilling tingling sensation through his body and mind, a lingering melody that could last for three days.
Shi Hao stood up, bowed to both of them, and said, “I am Shi Hao, just a scholar, and I belong to no sect. May I ask for the ladies’ names, and what is this place?”
The woman in red chuckled, “It’s fine if you don’t recognize me, but how can you not even recognize her? The renowned Holy Jade Immortal of the Central Plains’ righteous path, the Violet Matriarch who commands the eight major sects and the entire martial world, you don’t even know her? You’ll be laughed at if you go out like this.”
The woman in white said coldly, “Don’t flatter me. How can I compare to the Enchanting Fire Witch who stirs up the martial world, brings calamity to the world, commands the obedience of the nineteen demons, and is feared by all, able to stop a baby’s cries? Everyone says that you will likely be the next Demonic Emperor.”
The woman in red giggled and said, “Why so modest, Holy Jade Immortal? ‘Pearls fall from the platform, copper talismans unfurl, golden flowers rise in violet smoke. Violet smoke ascends to the Heavenly Palace, sun and moon cast their light upon the vast world’… Oh my, look at your poetic title, how heroic, how magnificent. Only you, Immortal, could pull it off. If it were anyone else, they wouldn’t dare to recite such a title in public.”
She sat on a piece of glazed tile, slapping the ground as she laughed continuously.
The Holy Jade Immortal snorted coldly and said indifferently, ” ‘Fire tests the heavenly punishment, mocks the celestial laws, dances amidst flowers, disrupting order and discipline; plays in the mortal world, captivating all beings, destroying laws and the Dao, the night-enchanting celestial’… Aren’t you also quite boastful?”
The Enchanting Fire Witch laughed, “I can’t compare to you, Holy Jade Immortal Ye Zi Yin, to whom even the Emperor of the Great Sheng Dynasty pays tribute every year, begging for peace and safety. They call you an Immortal, but you’re practically a Celestial Venerable.”
The Holy Jade Immortal snorted again, “You, Enchanting Fire Witch Su Mei, wherever you go, blood flows like rivers. You make the Emperor of the Great Sheng Dynasty tremble in fear, silence babies’ cries, command demons, and subdue evil spirits. You are truly a majestic Demonic Emperor of the dark path.”
The Enchanting Fire Witch said, “You, Ye Zi Yin…”
“Ladies, ladies!” Shi Hao sensed something was amiss and quickly interrupted, “The Great Sheng Dynasty you speak of, is it the one that was destroyed by the barbarians three hundred years ago?”
Both women were stunned. The Enchanting Fire Witch Su Mei asked in surprise, “Three hundred years ago?”
The Holy Jade Immortal Ye Zi Yin, whose face was usually cold and aloof, finally changed her expression. “The Great Sheng… has fallen?”
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