Chapter 4.1 (1/2)

Chapter 4: Birth of the Soul (Part 1)

The tall and dark mountains rising on the sides,

Squeezing the blue sky into a tiny crevice,

The mouth of the valley,

The air impregnated with thick ivory-coloured fog.

The depths of the valley is hidden by the thick fog,

Nothing can be seen.

Occasionally an eerie howl can be heard,

Echoing faintly in the air.

[West of Aslan Empire – Forest outside town of Fauser]

The silent colour of the night in the forest is gradually washed away by the light of dawn; the rising sun paints a layer of s.h.i.+nning red halo on the crown of the trees. Straight lines of light pierce into the depths of the forest through the crown of the trees, illuminating the thick blanket of moss on the ground.

Qi Ling wakes up in the warmth of the suns.h.i.+ne, pulling himself off the ground, he looks into the distance, Yin Chen is standing beside a stream was.h.i.+ng his hands, beside his feet are a few fresh and washed fruits, looking ripe and tasty.

Yin Chen turns at the sound, he looks at Qi Ling before tossing him a fruit.

Qi Ling takes it and bites into it, the sweet liquid soothing his throat immediately. A strong pang of hunger reminds him that he has not eaten in over a day. After he finishes eating, he uses the sleeve of his top to wipe his both, he looks up at Yin Chen, discovering that he has just finished eating as well, but he is currently using a snow-white silk handkerchief to wipe his hand. Qi Ling looks at himself in comparison before looking at Yin Chen who has not a single speckle of dust on his body, he says angrily: “Our boss lady said that, a manly man should be dirty and grimy, the Liu Shuanghua beside us loved using silk handkerchiefs the most, I didn’t think that you too……” Halfway through his sentence, he bends down and gurgles out ice shards.

Yin Chen is still cleaning his hands slowly and peacefully, ignoring him completely. The reflection of the water rings in the stream is reflected onto his face. He breathes in the tinges of morning in the forest, the expression on his face is that of joy, unaffected by Qi Ling at all.

“Yin Chen, I have you tell you this, you’re being very unethical!” Qi Ling says this angrily after spiting out the last of the ice shards, his lips s.h.i.+vering numbly, “If you dare then teach me this as well, let me shove it into your mouth when I don’t want to listen to you talk, do you think you talk very little? Once you start nagging, you’re even better than the boss lady I had before. You talk a load of garbage without even thinking if the other person understands.”

“There’s no use teaching you.” Yin Chen puts away the white silk handkerchief, “You can’t use this kind of soul bending techniques against me.”

“Why?” Qi Ling squints at him in challenge.

Yin Chen looks at Qi Ling, his deep-set eyes narrows, trying to control his emotions, he allows his voice to remain peaceful and tender, “Because the body of the soul master is filled with the soul’s return circuit, which means it’s the biggest s.h.i.+eld of nature, unless your soul powers are many times that of your opponent, if not, you won’t be able to break through the surface of your opponent’s body to use soul techniques inside him. For example, us soul masters in the Aslan Empire, we were both with great control of water. And a human body is made up of over seventy percent of water, if we can break through the opponent’s s.h.i.+eld that easily, then we can freeze the water content in our opponent’s body casually, or make a few ice swords pierce out from their stomach casually, won’t that be too simple?”

Qi Ling stays silent.

“Did you not understand me again?” Yin Chen suppresses his anger and asks softly.

Qi Ling nods, “Yes, master.”

Yin Chen turns his back against him and faces the beautiful stream, he inhales and exhales many times with his fists clenched, doing his best to not be bothered by this person before him who obviously has problems with his intelligence, he is going to enjoy this beautiful morning.

When Qi Ling realizes that Yin Chen is no longer paying attention to him, he himself feels bored and so he settles into the shade and takes his top off, rubbing his hands against the mud on the cloth, the mixture of blood and mud has dried completely, the reddish flakes falling onto the ground from Qi Ling’s rubbing.

Looking at the kinds of blood stains on his s.h.i.+rt, Qi Ling feels as if the past two days have been dreams, from an ordinary bell boy in an inn, he suddenly became an invincible disciple. His hands rub at the top mechanically, but his fixed eyes makes it obvious that he has sunken deep into thought, until his vision suddenly darkens did he realize that Yin Chen has been standing in front of him.

“Take off your clothes.” Yin Chen says expressionlessly, as if reading off from a book.

“What?!” Qi Ling can hardly believe his ears.

“Take off your clothes, you won’t get them clean like this, haven’t you been constantly asking me why my clothes are always so clean as if they were new? Take them off, I’ll teach you.” This time, Yin Chen seems unusually patient, not an ounce of impatience in his eyes, paired with the bright suns.h.i.+ne of the morning, his face looks almost joyous.

Qi Ling hands his outer s.h.i.+rt to Yin Chen awkwardly, and then takes off his inner robe, the sun s.h.i.+nes on his tanned skin, filled to the brim with the strong flow of a seventeen-year-old boy. As he’d been carrying wine barrows, chairs, chopping wood daily, Qi Ling has pretty muscles.

“And your pants.” Yin Chen says with a small smile on his face.

“……” Qi Ling clenches his teeth and tugs off his belt.

Although Fauser does not belong to the north, yet, in the early winter weather, there is still heavy coldness, especially when dawn has broken not long ago, the sunlight hasn’t had time to warm up the forest that had been engulfed with eerie darkness for an entire night.

Qi Ling wraps a while piece of cloth Yin Chen pa.s.sed to him around his waist before standing beside the stream watching Yin Chen wash his clothes in interest……um, “was.h.i.+ng his clothes”……something like that.

Then again, compared to him when he was still working at the inn and having to wash a large amount of clothes from the patrons, Yin Chen had it much too easy. The way he does it is completely different from himself, he doesn’t require a few pails of water to be poured into the was.h.i.+ng basket, he also doesn’t need to use any harsh liquids to get rid of the oil stains on clothes, he also doesn’t require stomping on the thick clothes with his feet like a horse.

Yin Chen looks as if he’s standing leisurely in a garden, his arms folded as if admiring flowers. A large huddle of water suspends in front of him, as if a large ball of water rolling in thin are, in it are Qi Ling’s clothes, countless thick and thin streams of water crisscrossing at high speed like a school of fish, the splas.h.i.+ng of water can be sound. When Qi Ling stares dumbfounded, Yin Chen walks wordlessly into the forest, returning a short while later, in his hands are a bunch of yellow gra.s.s that resemble reeds. With a flick of his hand, the gra.s.s is folded into that large ball of water, turning together with the clothes.

“Why did you throw gra.s.s in there?” Qi Ling scratches his head in confusion.