Chapter 98
“Find me a quiet place.” After saying this, Mo Jiangxue’s breathing gradually became rapid. She coughed a few times, and her body began to tremble uncontrollably.
She had released a large amount of spiritual energy to reinforce the seal on the mass grave. The moment the qin’s music stopped, she had sensed a sign of a backlash from the yin poison in her body. She had endured it all the way, unwilling to let others notice, only wanting to regulate her breath after she had reached the Guanyin temple.
But now, she could hardly suppress it…
“Master…” Xie Qingzheng held her wrist and subconsciously held her tightly in her arms. Through their clothes, their skin touched, as if she were holding a block of ice.
This time, it was the cold poison that had acted up first…
Xie Qingzheng’s mind was a blank, and her heart trembled, as if it had been suddenly pricked by a needle, and a dense pain spread.
“Hey! Junior Sister, quickly, quickly follow me!” Min He was also at a loss. How could she suddenly fall ill again?
The two of them could no longer care about the big black dog behind them and hurried towards the Guanyin temple in front.
The night was deep and the dew was heavy. A Guanyin temple stood in the overgrown grass.
The temple door was ajar, the wooden boards were rotten, and the paint was mottled. The lotus pattern carved on the lintel had been eroded and was blurry.
The wildlands had no Daoist temples, but one could often see one or two Buddhist pagodas. Some small border countries had even built temples to support monks. The founding of the Ten Directions Domain was even more closely related to Buddhism.
The people of the Wumo Kingdom, more than a hundred years ago, had built this Guanyin temple. She wondered which Guanyin was enshrined.
The moans of the injured cultivators came from inside the temple, “Hiss… Junior Sister Zifu, be gentle. My arm was caught by a ghost…”
“What are you shouting for? Aren’t I putting medicine on you! If you’re afraid of pain, why are you exorcising evil spirits!”
“Afu, you shut up. Say a few less words!”
“Quickly come in!” Min He went forward and pushed open the ajar door. Xie Qingzheng, holding Mo Jiangxue, flashed into the dilapidated Guanyin temple.
An ever-bright talisman was burning in the temple, and the yellow light of the talisman fire illuminated more than half of the room. The few merchants had had their sleep acupoints pressed and were lying on the ground. The other cultivators were sitting on the floor, either scratched here or bitten there, their wounds flowing with black blood, both painful and itchy.
They had been in a hurry to leave this time and had not brought any medical cultivators. Of all of them, only Mu Zifu had studied medicine for a period of time with Pei Shuxue. Mu Qingdai had ordered her to treat everyone.
The group had been tormented and scolded by Mu Zifu, adding insult to injury, and their mood was even more gloomy. Now, seeing Min He and the others return, they quickly stood up and went forward to greet them.
“What’s wrong with Elder Mo?”
“Is she injured? Is it serious?”
“Little Junior Sister, I still have medicine here!”
“I have some too!”
“The Rejuvenation Pill specially made by Yuheng Palace, catch!”
Mu Qingdai also took out a brocade pouch from her bosom and threw it into Xie Qingzheng’s. “See if there’s any medicine that can be used.”
What she could give were naturally the best spirit pills and elixirs. Xie Qingzheng took them and, following Senior Sister Min He, carried Mo Jiangxue into a guest room in the back courtyard.
This guest room had originally been a place for the monks of the temple to rest. The moment she entered, what assaulted her nostrils was not a musty smell, but a light, fresh fragrance, which was unexpectedly clean.
She figured that Min He had cleaned it before and had even lit the Lakawood incense brought from Zixiao Peak.
Xie Qingzheng helped Mo Jiangxue to sit down, took off her veiled hat, and placed it to the side.
A group of female cultivators followed to the entrance of the guest room, wanting to see if there was anything they could do to help.
Mo Jiangxue’s expression was as usual, but her face was so pale it was almost transparent, and she was so weak she looked as if she would turn into a wisp of green smoke at any moment and disperse, without a trace.
She closed her eyes and, while circulating her energy to suppress the poison in her body, said with a trembling voice, “Tell them… not to worry… to all go back…”
She needed quiet.
Min He lit a talisman fire in the room, and the firelight illuminated the surroundings. Hearing this, she immediately led the other junior sisters to take their leave, leaving only the little junior sister in the room, to circulate her energy and heal with Elder Mo. “Little Junior Sister, we’ll all be outside. If you need anything, just call us.”
Hearing Mo Jiangxue’s rapid breathing, and her voice so cold it was trembling, Xie Qingzheng’s nose tingled, and her heart was in a knot. She had no time to care about more and just replied, “Alright.” Her hands also began to tremble. She fumbled to untie the brocade pouch at her waist, poured out a few pills, and fed them to her master.
After Mo Jiangxue had taken the pills, she focused her mind and regulated her breath. Her body was still trembling, and after she circulated her energy, her face was a mix of red and white.
Xie Qingzheng bit her fingertip, circulated her qi in her dantian, and using her blood as a medium, she drew a circular curse array under her to help her resist the cold.
Mo Jiangxue felt a bit of warmth, and her fingers trembled slightly. After a moment, she opened her eyes and quietly gazed at Xie Qingzheng, whose hands were trembling.
Xie Qingzheng also looked at her and couldn’t help but reach out, wanting to brush aside the dark hair at her temples that was soaked with cold sweat. The moment she reached out, she saw that her fingertips were covered in blood. She quickly withdrew her hand, fearing she would dirty her.
The blood flowed down her fingertips, dripping to the ground, like a few bright red flowers.
What to do? What should she do? After drawing this array, she couldn’t use any spiritual energy to help her detoxify at all.
Xie Qingzheng looked at Mo Jiangxue in a daze, and an endless regret arose in her heart.
She shouldn’t have left the mountain…
She should have just stayed on Ethereal Peak with her master. Ethereal Peak had a cold pool to detoxify, and the Sect Master and all the elders to protect her. Even if her master’s yin poison acted up, there were countless medicines and everyone’s help to alleviate the pain in her master’s body.
Why did she have to hide? Why did she have to run? Why did she have to come here? Why did she have to meddle in these messy things? Now she had caused her master to be trapped in this ghost city, to suffer alone, with no one to help, and she could only watch as her master endured this torment alone.
She was about to hate herself to death! She wished she could die on the spot, just so that her master would not have to suffer these sins anymore.
An overwhelming sense of regret and hatred rushed towards her. She was drowned in negative emotions, and a lump formed in her throat. She knelt on the ground, lowered her head, and her tears fell uncontrollably.
Mo Jiangxue gazed at her, and seeing her cry, she frowned slightly and said softly, “Don’t worry… I’ll be fine… after this night…”
Xie Qingzheng lowered her head and murmured, “It’s all my fault…”
She was a scourge and would only bring disaster to the people around her.
Before, when her feelings were unclear, and she had learned that her master had transferred her curse to herself, she had been bewildered, pitiful, heartbroken, and grateful. All these emotions could not compare to the pain of today.
To watch the person she loved suffer such torment, this feeling was a thousand times more painful than the bewilderment and pity of before.
Xie Qingzheng seemed to be on the verge of being driven mad by this heart-wrenching pain. She kept apologizing to Mo Jiangxue, “I’m sorry… I’m sorry… I’m sorry…”
If she were a scourge, if she shouldn’t have lived in this world, then she should just die. Why should the people around her have to suffer such inhuman torment?
Seeing Xie Qingzheng like this, Mo Jiangxue coughed a few times and said, “You… come here.”
Xie Qingzheng, on her knees, moved towards Mo Jiangxue, step by step. “Master…”
Mo Jiangxue took her hand.
Their skin touched, and a bone-chilling coldness rushed from her wrist to her heart. She couldn’t help but shiver, and her mind cleared a little. She reached out and held her master tightly in her arms.
Her body was still warm. She tried to use her own body, her own warmth, to make her master more comfortable.
“You are a fool…” Mo Jiangxue obediently let her hug her, absorbing the warmth from her body. Her chin rested on her soft hair, her lips were still pale, and her voice was so cold it was a little low and hoarse. “How can you blame yourself… you just… wanted to get the Yuheng Cauldron sooner…”
She was avoiding her, but she also wanted to eradicate the demonic cult sooner, to get the Yuheng Cauldron sooner, to help her detoxify.
“And… it was I who came to find you… how can you be blamed? Cough, cough! Cough, cough, cough…” After saying this, Mo Jiangxue was provoked by the coldness in her lungs and coughed.
“Master, don’t talk anymore!” Through their clothes, their bodies were pressed together. Xie Qingzheng was also so cold her body was shivering. “I won’t say I’m sorry anymore! And you don’t comfort me anymore!”
It was rare to hear her master say so much, but they were all gentle words, comforting and persuading her. The more she heard, the more heartbroken she would feel.
Mo Jiangxue’s lips moved, but she said no more. She closed her eyes and endured wave after wave of coldness.
To have her listen to her in return was really… a great transgression… but she had done even more audacious and transgressive things. What was this in comparison…
Mo Jiangxue’s mind was no longer clear, and her consciousness gradually became blurry. In a daze, she seemed to have spoken again, asking the person who was holding her tightly, “That day, in the romantic illusion… you were moved… who were you moved by… hm?”
She seemed to have told this person that if she was not willing to say, she would not ask… why did she ask again?
This person would probably not say it.
As expected, she did not hear an answer for a long time. Mo Jiangxue only felt the warm hands on her waist hold her even tighter.
A longer than a long night.
Mo Jiangxue didn’t know what else she had said. The next day, when her mind was clear, she turned her head slightly and saw the close-up, beautiful face.
The two of them were lying on the ground, face to face, their breaths intertwined, clearly feeling each other’s breath, lightly and evenly brushing against their cheeks, like a light and airy feather, scratching one after another.
Xie Qingzheng was still in a deep sleep. Under her tightly closed eyes, there was a shadow cast by a circle of long eyelashes. She was sleeping very soundly, but her hands were still holding her tightly in her arms.
She gently pushed, but could not push her away. When she wanted to raise her hand to touch her, she thought about it, but in the end, she gave up.
Let her sleep a little longer.
Mo Jiangxue quietly gazed at the sleeping person, her gaze slowly tracing her face.
But suddenly, the sound of footsteps came from outside the hut, very light. The sleeping features suddenly moved, and the hands on her waist lost their strength. Then, a certain person opened her eyes.
Her clear eyes reflected another pair of clear, cold eyes.
Xie Qingzheng was taken aback for a moment. Her palm stroked Mo Jiangxue’s body, from her waist, to her shoulder, and then to her arm.
The touch was cool, not bone-chillingly cold.
The warmth of her palm passed through the clothes and into Mo Jiangxue’s body. Mo Jiangxue leaned back slightly, sat up, stared at Xie Qingzheng, and asked, “Have you touched enough?”
Xie Qingzheng remembered that the two of them had slept in each other’s arms all night. Now, hearing her master’s words, her ears turned slightly red. She sat up in a daze, gazed at her master, and asked, “Are you better?”
Mo Jiangxue said calmly, “Much better.”
She had survived. The spiritual energy in her body had lessened a little, and her cultivation had weakened even more.
Xie Qingzheng rubbed her still slightly red eyes and said, “That’s good…”
Mo Jiangxue said, “I just had a backlash from the evil curse, and you cried like that. If I’m not here in the future, what will you do? Will you cry your eyes out?”
“You’re going to say that I’m too sentimental and too reliant again, aren’t you?” Xie Qingzheng lowered her hands, looked at Mo Jiangxue, her eyes shimmering, and her words returned to their usual directness. “But that’s just how I am. I just really like to rely on you. I’ve liked it since I was a child. What can I do? Who was it that saved me back then and brought me out of Wen Family Village?”
Her gaze was too direct and fervent. Mo Jiangxue turned her gaze away and did not meet hers. “Who am I to ask if you ask me?”
“I’ve figured it out, Master.” Xie Qingzheng suddenly responded to Mo Jiangxue’s words from yesterday. “From now on, I will not avoid you again.”
If she were to put her in a situation like last night again because she was avoiding her, then she would be better off dead.
Xie Qingzheng moved her body and moved back into Mo Jiangxue’s line of sight. “Master, I prayed to the Bodhisattva all night last night.”
Her tone was like she was being coquettish. Mo Jiangxue’s heart softened, and she said, “You are a person of the Xuanmen. How can you pray to a Bodhisattva?”
Xie Qingzheng: “In that situation last night, I didn’t care about what Xuanmen or what Buddhist sect. I was in a Guanyin temple. I could only pray that the Bodhisattva would hear my words.”
Mo Jiangxue asked, “What did you pray to the Bodhisattva for?”
Xie Qingzheng said frankly, “I prayed to Guanyin, to all the gods and Buddhas, that if my death could save you from this torment, I would be willing to die. I would be willing to use my own life in exchange for your lifelong peace and attainment of the Great Dao.”
Mo Jiangxue looked at her and said nothing.
Xie Qingzheng continued, “You see, you are so important to me, so important that I am willing to trade my life for you. If you find out something terrible in the future, if you know that I have done something wrong and want to expel me from the sect, I will also willingly accept your punishment. I only ask that before the evil curse is broken, you keep me by your side and don’t chase me away. Alright?”
Mo Jiangxue still said nothing, her gaze fixed on Xie Qingzheng.
Just then, Min He outside the hut gently knocked on the door and asked in a small voice, “Junior Sister, a night has passed. How is Elder Mo?”
Author’s Note:
Xie (implicit confession): I just really like to rely on (crossed out) you. I’ve liked it since I was a child. What can I do?
Mo (knows very well): If I still can’t guess who you’ve fallen for, then I’m a fool.
Min (interrupting the two of them talking about love): Sob, how is Elder Mo? Is she any better?
