Chapter 631 - Lian Hua (1/2)
Chapter 631 – Lian Hua
The red liquid dripped down Yan Tianhen’s cheeks.
Rong Zhishui froze on the spot.
Cang Rong’s mood had always been very stable. Although his voice had always sounded monotonous and plain, he’d always treated Rong Zhisui gently. However, the current Cang Rong looked like he had seen an enemy. He seemed like he couldn’t wait to drink Yan Tianhen’s blood and eat his flesh.
Rong Zhisui’s eyes watered, as if sand had entered them, and they felt very sour. He looked at Yan Tianhen, who cut quite a sorry figure and couldn’t fight back at all, and couldn’t help recalling the young man who stood out for him despite public criticism. When he thought of this, Rong Zhisui’s heart seemed to be squeezed by a hand.
“Ancestor, why do you treat him like this?” Rong Zhishui looked at Cang Rong and asked.
Cang Rong tied Rong Zhishui with vines, picked him up, and threw him onto the back of the bird with thick feathers. “No reason. I just don’t find him pleasing to the eye. You don’t have to come back after you leave the Tomb of Youshan. Tell the descendants of the Rong clan that they no longer have to keep watch over the Tomb of Youshan and Jianmu, which had already wilted. Starting from today, the mission of the Rong clan is over.”
Without waiting for Rong Zhishui to understand the deeper meaning, the wild bird fluttered its wings and flew into the air like it was running for life.
Yan Tianhen heard Cang Rong say, “Do you also want to know why I treat you like this? But I absolutely won’t tell you now. You might as well find the answer yourself. Before that, I will never kill you myself. But don’t blame me either if you can’t endure and die.”
After that, Cang Rong grabbed Yan Tianhen’s collar and moved him away like the wind. Ah Bai and Hu Po galloped behind, and flew up to bite Yan Tianhen’s pant legs, one on his left and one right. They were almost blown to the ground by the strong gusts.
Cang Rong saw this and was too lazy to respond. These two spirit tigers were loyal and protected their master, but who knew whether they would still do so in the future. Their ears flapped nonstop in the wind that blew their eardrums.
After a while, the wind stopped. Yan Tianhen was thrown to the ground by Cang Rong. After a while, he climbed and looked up, and he saw a towering city standing in front of him.
Tens of thousands of miles of the city walls stood like a long dragon on the ridge. The hard gate made of unknown materials was full of armed and powerful guards.
Looking up, the two big words “Youshan Capital” were deeply carved in the city wall. This was the writing of the ancient times.
Yan Tianhen was bewildered. He suddenly had two fluffy little things in his arms. Yan Tianhen looked down and it turned out to be Ah Bai and Hu Po. Yan Tianhen watched these two little fluffy balls whose cultivation had fallen to the stage of infancy. He was very sad and said with guilt, “If I had known, I wouldn’t have let you guys make a contract with me. I hurt you.”
Ah Bai stuck out his tongue and licked Yan Tianhen’s face several times. He accidentally touched the wound on Yan Tianhen’s eyelid, which made him gasp in pain. Ah Bai’s purple eyes suddenly moistened, and he cried out, burrowing his head desperately into Yan Tianhen’s arms. Hu Po licked Ah Bai’s fur, and an angry and sad rumble sounded from his throat.
Yan Tianhen picked up the two tiger cubs, looked at the Youshan Capital, and said, “This city doesn’t look like an illusion, but a real existence. How about we enter the city?”
Ah Bai pawed Yan Tianhen’s shoulder and nodded his head. Arriving at the gate of the city, the soldiers guarding the city looked at Yan Tianhen alertly and asked, “Where are you refugees from?”
Yan Tianhen couldn’t help laughing bitterly. When he looked at his body, it was covered with dirt and mud everywhere, his face covered in blood. He really seemed like a refugee who escaped all the way from other places.
Yan Tianhen said, “Big Brother, when I went out, I met some evil people. I was robbed, and I was even chased by them. I finally lost those evil people after much difficulty. Can you be kind enough to let me into the city?”
The soldier looked suspiciously at Yan Tianhen, and another soldier who looked like a leader next to him said, “Let him in.”
“Thanks to big brother!” Yan Tianhen raised the corner of his lips with difficulty and barely managed a smile, but it aggravated the wound. He couldn’t help but gasp in pain and hurriedly bowed his head and started walking inside.
Just a few steps away, Yan Tianhen heard the sound of the gate closing behind him with a bang. Yan Tianhen suddenly looked back and saw the soldier who let him in. He drew his sword and raised it at him. “Capture him!”
Yan Tianhen, “!!!”
Laozi really wants to curse today.
…………
“How do you feel today?” The man casually dressed in a simple style robe came to a corridor under the Jianmu tree, looking at the beauty who was sitting cross-legged while suspended in the air, closing his eyes and making hand seals.
Lin Xuanzhi slowly opened his eyes and landed on the ground from above. “Better than yesterday.”
The man smiled. “Do you want to meet Cang Rong?”
Lin Xuanzhi asked, “Cang Rong? I thought you said before that he had died.”
The dark green eyes were a bit dim, and Lian Hua said faintly, “Although he died, traces of his existence are still left. Cang Rong is the head of the Rong clan and the first Spirit Emperor. Even if he dies, he will always guard that Jianmu tree.”
Lian Hua smiled lightly and fiddled with his pale golden hair, looking very elegant. “Of course it’s not worth it ah. Cang Rong, this person, only has Jianmu in his heart. Even if he kept on insisting that he wanted to stay with me, didn’t he still leave me and accompany Jianmu to die together without a second thought as soon as Jianmu died?”
He was young in appearance, but his voice was hoarse because he had not spoken for too long. He had experienced the vicissitudes of thousands of years in his eyes.
He was not Cang Rong, but merely a pitiful person who guarded the Tomb of Youshan in Cang Rong’s place — a poor soul who could neither live nor die.
Lin Xuanzhi said, “You were not such a person before. I just fell asleep for a while, and when I woke up, your temperament had changed.”
Lian Hua sighed and said, “You have slept for too long, and the vicissitudes of life have changed so many times. Forget it, let’s not talk about the past. I’ll take you to see him. He has always been good friends with you and regarded you as his confidant. If he knew that you’re going to see him, he would’ve been very happy.”
Lin Xuanzhi said, “Okay.”
This was a palace, and it could be said that it was just a mansion with a really large area. The location of the Jianmu tree was in the deepest part of this mansion.
After turning many corners, Lin Xuanzhi even walked through several forests. Surrounded by clear water, the sky was empty and quiet. Lin Xuanzhi saw a tree shrouded in a transparent crystal pillar from a distance. The Jianmu tree was covered with a scorched black color, and its branches and leaves were all withered. The tree that originally connected to the heavens was now broken in half, and scattered dead branches fell around it and piled up into hills. From the foot of Lin Xuanzhi to the trunk of Jianmu tree, the pile was high, just like a tree grave.
On the trunk of the Jianmu tree, there was a man with a human body and a snake’s tail coiled around it. At first sight, one knew that he was not an ordinary man. Although his arm was the size of Lin Xuanzhi’s, it matched the size of Jianmu. His silver tail tightly wrapped around the withered tree trunk. His body blocked in front of the Jianmu tree, forming a protective gesture. His eyes were quietly closed, and his hands were frozen in a hand seal, one hand on top and one on the bottom. His expression was solemn. If one looked closely, they would be able to see that the hand seal was a forbidden spell used to gather spiritual Qi.
The man’s upper body line was distinct, and his long silver hair fell down from the front of his body, meandering all over the ground. This was a fascinating picture.
Lian Hua looked at the man’s face and said faintly, “At that time, I was preparing to hold a Dao companion ceremony with him. I waited for him to appear on the stage to become his Dao companion. After waiting for a long time, he finally showed up. However, he suddenly told me that he was going to find Xi He and that he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to marry me. That was the last time I saw him alive. When I found him again, he was like this.”
Even though tens of thousands of years had passed, Lin Xuanzhi still remembered what happened at that time. He said, “Before Xi He made the decision to cut off his roots, I was the only one he told. I intended to take care of everything after he delayed the blood cypress and cut off his own roots. Xi He was afraid that if Cang Rong found out about his plan, he would throw away everything else in his life and protect him until the end. Unexpectedly, in the end, Cang Rong still found out.”
“Originally, he shouldn’t have known.” Lian Hua’s eyes gradually became cold. “I later asked the Daoist child under him and learned that just before the wedding ceremony began, a wisp of Youshan Lingyu’s soul found him and told him that Xi He intended to sacrifice his own life and take Lingyu down with him.”
Lian Hua had been thinking more than once — If Youshan Lingyu didn’t tell Cang Rong the news of Jianmu’s fall, then perhaps I wouldn’t have lost everything and wouldn’t have had to spend thousands of years alone in this Youshan Capital.
He hated Youshan Lingyu with a vengeance.
“Youshan Lingyu,” Lin Xuanzhi said the familiar name in a soft voice, and his eyes looked at the blood cypress tree, which seemed to be bleeding from its entire body, with a lot of coagulated blood sap around it.
The name of the blood cypress demon was Youshan Lingyu.
This was one of the most troublesome and frightening demons in the Great Immortal-Demon War. He was so strong that even Sword Venerable Chang Sheng, who was known as “the best in the world” at that time, could barely manage a draw with him. If it wasn’t for Xi He using half of his cultivation to trap Youshan Lingyu firmly in Puluo Mountain, a region with the densest concentration of spiritual Qi, not even Lin Xuanzhi knew whether he could actually kill Youshan Lingyu.
But he didn’t expect that even when Youshan Lingyu was being sealed, he could still think about sending out a wisp of soul to mess with Cang Rong. This was really… extremely petty.
However, Youshan Lingyu had always been this malicious, or else he would never have said, “I am happy to see you all unhappy.”
“Youshan Lingyu should be glad that he has died completely.” Lian Hua showed a cold smile, stroking the crystal shield across the air. “Demons can’t reincarnate, and if he dies, he will die forever. However, the blood cypress tree he left behind is a good thing. The spiritual Qi contained in it has been powering the entire sealed Youshan Capital. If it wasn’t for the blood cypress tree, I’m afraid I would’ve already become a living corpse, just like those people in the capital now.”
The blood cypress sap was the essence of the blood cypress tree. In addition, later generations often said that not only could it get rid of blood rust, but it could also be refined into pills or magic treasures. The blood cypress tree had lived for countless years. Although it was a demon, it was also raised by the purest spiritual Qi of heaven and earth. Even after so many years, the remaining spiritual Qi of the blood cypress tree was still providing nutrients for this Youshan Capital.
Lin Xuanzhi looked at the blood cypress tree. “I want to take some blood cypress sap.”
Lian Hua asked, “What will you do with this thing?”
Lin Xuanzhi replied, “I came here to find the blood cypress sap to give to Ah Hen so that he can remove the blood rust from his companion sword.”
Lian Hua secretly raised one side of his lips. “The Sword Venerable, who used to always be cold-hearted and unmoved by material things, has tasted love now. These words really don’t seem like something you would say.”
Lin Xuanzhi used the back of his hand, then cut a strip in the bark of the blood cypress tree, and bright red blood flowed down out of the cut. He raised his hand gently and the precious blood cypress sap flew into his hand.
Lin Xuanzhi took out a bottle and placed the blood cypress sap in it.
“If I had known that he was your Dao companion, I would have brought him here with you.”
“I’m already very grateful that you could send them out safely.” Lin Xuanzhi smiled faintly. “The next step is to find a way to break the curse of this Youshan Capital.”