Chapter 68 (1/2)
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Translated by K of Exiled Rebels Scanlations
Wei WuXian left the donkey down at the bottom of the mountain He stepped over the remains of the wall and walked up the mountain path Soon later, he saw the stone statue of a headless beast The statue was thousands of pounds in weight It had guarded the athered at the dents The head of the beast had been chopped off by an axe and tossed somewhere near As if to assert power, it had been s the whiteness inside Farther along, similarly, the next statue that they saw had been cut into two halves, from head to toe
Wei WuXian knew at once that these were the stone beasts that the sects had set onto the acupoints of the terrain to guard the mountain after he had died The stone beasts were capable of exorcism They required much craft and were quite expensive to produce Now, it was likely that all of them had been destroyed It was truly a waste
Side by side, Wei WuXian and Lan wangJi walked a fewhad already appeared
He stood beside the stone beast, head lowered and un at?”
Wen Ning pointed at the base of the stone beast
The stone beast was on top of a short, thick tree trunk By the trunk, there were three smaller, shorter trunks They seemed to have been burnt over by fire They were entirely black
Wen Ning kneeled on the ground with both of his knees His fingers dug deeply into the dirt, grabbing a handful of black dirt, and clenched it within his palm, ”… Sister”
Wei WuXian didn't knohat to say He walked over and patted his shoulder hard
Throughout Wei WuXian's life, two periods of time had been extremely hard to endure Both happened here He never intended to visit such a place again
And, to Wen Ning, Burial Mound was even ust of cold breeze swept over The sea of trees rustled as though tens of thousands of thin voices whispered Wei WuXian listened carefully Kneeling on the ground with one knee, he bent down andtoward the earth below him Suddenly, a buh a pale flower had grown out of the black soil, a skeleton arh the dirt
The portion of the skeleton arm eakly suspended in the air Wei WuXian reached out and grabbed it He bent down even lower His long hair fell fro half of his face
He pressed his lips toward the skeleton hand and whispered so for sohtly The hand forain and withdrew into the soil
Wei WuXian stood up and swept away the dirt on him, ”These days they've taken over a hundred people up here They're all at the top, still alive The people who took theh I don't knohat they want to do Anyways, we should be careful”
The three continued upward They caside the mountain path
The houses varied in size The structure was silance, it was obvious that they had been built rashly Some were so burned that only bare frames were left, while some slumped entirely to one side Even theunder over ten years of rain and wind, with nobody to care for the down in silence at those who caone up the ht now, standing before one of the houses, again, he couldn't walk any longer
This was one of the houses that he had built hih it was crude, it was a place to seek shelter fro the people he was fa 'the things res' still remained With such a scene in front of hi to remind him of the people whom he missed
Wei WuXian, ”Don't look any, ”… I knew that it'd be like this a long ti left…”
Before his voice faded off, a shadow suddenly wobbled up within one of the broken down houses
The shadow stumbled toward outside of the house The half-rotted face was subht Wei WuXian clapped his hands The walking corpse didn't see to walk toward them Wei WuXian caler Seal”
Corpse puppets who had already suber Seal Likewise, corpse puppets who had suber Seal wouldn't listen to his commands The rules were si shot forward With a roar, he tore its head off Right after, low bellows came from all around them From amid the black forest sloalked out ale,burial clothes They were probably the corpses Ji flipped out his guqin With a struroup of corpses that had just surrounded them immediately kneeled into a circle With both of his hands, Wen Ning picked up a e physique and threw it far away Its chest had been pierced through by a sharp branch, and it struggled, stuck to the branch
Wei WuXian shouted, ”Don't bother with theroups of walking corpses Jin GuangYao had er Seal One attack wave followed another The three subdued the corpses as they backed up the mountain The closer they were to the top of Burial Mound, the denser the groups of corpses were The notes of the zither echoed through the sky above the black forest as crows flew off Almost two hours later, they finally had so atop one of the destroyed stone beasts, Wei WuXian sighed as hethis to deal with others Today it's finally ainst er Seal is If I were them, I would've wanted to kill the person who created this dauqin away He pulled out a sword from within his sleeves and passed it to him, ”To protect yourself”
Wei WuXian took it over It was Suibian After the day when it had been used to cut the Ji put it away again He unsheathed the sword and stared for a while at the snowy blade before sheathing it back inside right away, s, ”Thank you”
He wore it by his waist and didn't seeJi looked at him, he fiddled with his hair and explained, ”I haven't used a sword in so ain, ”Alright The real reason is that y Even if there's a high level sword, it won't be able to -Jun to protect the delicate Ji, ”…”
After the delicate ainst his knees The three walked farther up and finally, at the end of the path, they saw a cave with a dark opening
The ht and width Before they were even near, they could feel a cold breeze in front of them They could almost hear the blurry sounds of hu Patriarch made humans into his corpses and did the deeds that even the Heavens couldn't tolerate—the De of the cave was broad The three held their breaths and snuck inside nobodyfrorew louder
Wei WuXian knew the terrain of the cave like the back of his palestured for them to stop
The h the holes on the wall, they could see a large enough area that could contain a thousand people In the center sat around a hundred Both their hands and their feet were tightly bound by deity-binding ropes The one hundred people were quite young as well Judging from the color of their robes and their swords, they were either high level disciples or direct disciples froJi Before they began to discuss, a boy sitting on the ground suddenly spoke up, ”In my opinion, I don't think you should've stabbed him only once Why didn't you just slash his throat out?”
His voice wasn't big, but the cave was rather empty Echoes vibrated as soon he spoke And so, even if they didn't listen in, they could hear his words with clarity As soon as the boy spoke, Wei WuXian thought that he both looked and sounded familiar He only reht with Jin Ling the other day, Jin Chan?
And he looked again—as the cold-faced boy sitting beside this disciple, if not Jin Ling?
Jin Ling didn't even look at hi quiet Loud rumbles came from the stomach of a boy beside him, ”They have left for so many days already Just what do they want? If they want to kill us, then let us off easy I would rather be eaten by a ht-hunt than starve to death here!”
The boy raYi Jin Chan spoke, ”What could he do? He'd definitely do what he did with those Wen-dogs during the Sunshot Caainst our faht ast the!”
Suddenly, Jin Ling spoke, his voice icy, ”Shut up”
Jin Chan was shocked, ”You want , ”What do I mean? Are you deaf or are you dumb? You can't understand hu so , Jin Chan had been gru time He fu, ”What's the use of talking so o on would the ropes break because of you? It's annoying”
”You!!!”
Another young voice interjected, ”Noe are stuck here and none of us knohen the walking corpses on the mountain will rush inside Even in such circuue?”
The calmest voice was Lan SiZhui's Jin Chan protested, ”He flipped out first! What, you can call hi, hah, who do you think you are? You think that because LianFang-Zun is the chief cultivator that you'll also be? I'onna shut up I think you…”
With a thu's head was suddenly sht? I'll take you on! I'm in thethis, Jin Ling was even more unstoppable He was tied up and couldn'tthem so hard that the other yelped in pain Yet, he was alone, and Jin Chan had always had groups of people around hie, they all shouted, ”Let me help you!” All of the nearby He couldn't help but let hie to persuade 'everyone calm down, calm down', but after he had received a few elbows, he scrunched his eyebrows in pain, his face darkening In the end, after a cry, he entered the brawl as well
The three outside couldn't watch this any longer Wei WuXian leapt onto the stairs leading to the cave first, ”Hey! Everybody look here!”
His shout echoed within the eled boys looked up Lan SiZhui saw a fa-Jun!”
Lan JingYi's yelled even louder, ”HanGuang-Jun ahhhhhhhh!”
Jin Chan was terrified, ”What are you happy about? They're… They're on the same side!”
Wei WuXian stepped into the cave He unsheathed Suibian and casually tossed it back A shadow flashed out and caught the sword It was Wen Ning The disciples began to shriek again, ”The G-G-G-Ghost General!”
Wen Ning raised Suibian and swung down in the direction of Jin Ling Jin Ling clenched his teeth and shut his eyes However, he felt hi ropes had been cut apart by Suibian's sword glare Following this, Wen Ning walked around the cave, cutting away at deity-binding ropes The disciples that he had let free could neither run nor stay On the inside there were the YiLing Patriarch, the Ghost General, and the traitor of the righteous side HanGuang-Jun, while on the outside there were countless walking corpses waiting to be fed Yet, everything was bright on Lan SiZhui's side, ”Senior Mo… Senior Wei Are you here to save us? You were not the one who got people to take us here, were you?”
Although it was a question, his face was full of coht Wei WuXian felt his heart war up the hair that had sohout the past few days, ”Me? It's not like you don't kno broke I ah money to hire people?”
Lan SiZhui nodded in hurry, ”Yes I knew it! I knew that, Senior, you really are very broke!”
”…”
Wei WuXian, ”Good boy How many people do they have? Is there an aYi shook off the ropes on hiht to answer, ”They have quite a bunch of people! All of them had black mist on their faces so we could not see who they were They did not do anything after they threw us here, like they did not care if ere dead or alive Oh, oh, oh, and there are !”
bi+chen unsheathed and cut off the deity-binding ropes over theJi immediately returned his sword to its sheath and turned to Lan SiZhui, ”Well done”