Chapter 108

In the inn in Shazhou, the two men toned their bodies by transferring Qi to dispel the biting cold.

A sudden rumbling sound came from the quiet guest room. Xie Bi An snorted a laugh and rubbed his stomach, "Hey, I'm hungry."

Fan Wu She took a deep breath, collected his Qi from his dantian and opened his eyes, "At this hour, the cook should be awake. I'll have him cook two bowls of noodles."

"Wu She, be careful."

"Don't worry."

A short while later, Fan Wu She returned with two bowls of noodles. He put the noodles on the table and was about to come and hug Xie Bi An.

Xie Bi An raised his hand to stop him, "I'll do it myself, I can even fly on a sword."

"You've recovered from your wounds, but your bones haven't recovered yet, so don't casually walk around." Fan Wu She bent down and picked him up, raising his eyebrows and smiling lightly, "Besides, I like carrying you."

Xie Bi An coughed lightly to ease the embarrassment.

Fan Wu She put him in the chair, "Eat while it's hot, Shazhou is a post to enter Kunlun. It's not a place where we can stay for long."

"Mm." Xie Bi An grabbed his chopsticks and froze when he looked at the bowl of noodles.

It was a very ordinary bowl of noodles in clear soup. The thin white locks of noodles lying tamely in a large porcelain bowl, the soup containing golden stars of oil, accompanied by stewed red meat and tender green spring onions, and two yellow fried eggs. Just looking at it made people warm from the tip of their tongue to their stomach.

"How did you know I wanted two fried eggs?" Xie Bi An blinked and looked at Fan Wu She.

Fan Wu She's hand, which was holding his chopsticks, paused: "Didn’t you add two when you were eating noodles last time?”

"Did I? How come I don't remember." Xie Bi An couldn't remember when he had made noodles for Fan Wu She. Usually only when he cooked for himself would he break two eggs for himself. If he was having a hurried casual meal outside, he had no intention of requesting it.

"Come on, eat."

Xie Bi An took a bite of the noodles and found it very appetizing. He was thinking about it as he ate. It was as if Fan Wu She knew what he liked to eat. When they went out to shop for groceries, he picked what he likes to eat, and when they ate out, he ordered what he likes to eat. He always felt their tastes were very similar.

But this fried egg ...

"Is it delicious?" Fan Wu She interrupted his doubts.

"Ah, not bad." Xie Bi An smiled, "But it's more delicious if I make it."

"When we go back to the Heaven Master Palace, I want to eat senior brother's cooking everyday."

Xie Bi An sighed softly, "I also want to go back to the Heaven Master Palace. Official Lord Cui and Bo Zhu must be missing us too."

"Soon."

As the two of them finished eating, Xie Bi An pulled out the yellow talisman he had torn off the snow demon last night from his arms, "This puppet talisman, what do you see anything?"

Fan Wu She took the crumpled yellow talisman, smoothed it out and looked at it carefully, then shook his head.

Xie Bi An summoned Wuqiongbi and affixed the talisman, which immediately shone with green glow: "I found this back then."

"What's going on here? There is Yin energy on this talisman."

"Yes, it was very faint, but it was tainted with Yin energy."

Fan Wu She frowned, "Under what circumstances would there be Yin energy on a talisman?" Most of the talismans drawn by cultivators were used for dealing with Yin and evil things. If the talisman even had the aura of evil spirits on it, it would be too bizarre.

"It's not easy to say." Xie Bi An pondered, "I have met a cultivator who was possessed by an evil spirit, and the talisman he drew carried Yin energy. If it was a Yin talisman drawn by an Underworld General, the Yin energy would not be so diluted."

"A cultivator possessed by an evil spirit would manipulate a snow demon to come after us?"

Usually those who can possess the body of a cultivator were evil spirits with deep resentment. Such evil spirits are manipulated by obsessions and their wisdom is already laxed. They have only one purpose in possessing people, which is to take revenge. They will not attack people who are unrelated.

Xie Bi An was also confused: "This clearly looks like the work of a human, such as Yun Zhong Jun or the missing elders of the Cangyu Sect. Or perhaps they happened to have dealt with the evil spirits just before they drew the talisman and were tainted with Yin energy?"

"That sounds a bit far-fetched."

"In any case, that person must have clearly come for us. We have not harmed anyone's life, so naturally there is no life and death hatred. It would not be the work of an evil spirit, even Wuqiongbi did not perceive any evil spirits."

"Well, most likely Qi Meng Sheng sent someone to rob the 'thing' in our hands." Fan Wu She's eyes darkened as he pondered whether Qi Meng Sheng might have already gotten hold of the Golden Trunk Jade Policy and already knew that Xie Bi An was the reincarnation of the Human Emperor.

When he said that Cheng Yan Zhi was a 'thing', Xie Bi An felt a bit awkward, but when he thought about the fact that he was now only the size of a 3.33cm square and was being carried around by himself, he was just like a thing. The fate of this man made people sigh.

"Wu She, it's almost dawn. We're already out of Kunlun, let's go to Mount Tai on our swords as soon as possible."

"Okay."

"But I'm worried about Wuya." Xie Bi An hesitated, "It won't run out and cause trouble, will it?"

Before entering Shazhou, they had hidden Wuya somewhere in the snowy plains and sealed it with the Soul Binding Formation.

"It won't."

"But with Wuya's cultivation level, that Soul Binding Formation won't be able to trap it for long. I'm afraid that when it breaks the formation, it will go and harass people."

"Maybe we'll be back before it breaks the formation. Even if it breaks the formation, it won't bother people. What kind of origin does it have? In life, it fought in all directions with King Chu, and after its death, it helped the Supreme Demon to unify Jiuzhou, and it has been cultivating with the help of ice crystals at the bottom of Fengming Lake for a hundred years, so it doesn't care about ordinary people."

"You're right, it's just that ..."

"Now there is no other way. We can't bring it with us." Fan Wu She secretly touched his Qiankun bag. The soul token he had made previously had already absorbed Wuya in, and that soul token, which was capable of collecting and releasing evil spirits, was also one of the evil arts on the ‘Yellow Emperor's Heaven Secret Scripture’. This art of controlling corpses, summoning Yin soldiers etc. was neither unique nor the first of its kind. There had always been demonic cultivators who had borrowed the power of the Underworld, but only he had obtained the Xuanyuan Heaven Secret Talisman. The so-called soul token was actually a Heaven Secret Talisman of small power.

Xie Bi An thought of the skeletal warhorse, standing alone in the pure white world, like the only bit of black ink on a scroll, and felt some inexplicable sadness in his heart, "Actually, I should take it back to the Underworld and let it reincarnate."

"The Immortal Alliance will not allow it." He would never hand Wuya over to the Immortal Alliance either.

Xie Bi An snorted lightly, "The Immortal Alliance has no control over our underworld affairs."

"Senior brother, let's go." Fan Wu She picked Xie Bi An up again.

Xie Bi An said in shame, "Let me walk on my own, what does it look like to be seen by others?"

"The way I am holding you." Fan Wu She suddenly laughed, "Does it look like I'm carrying a wife during marriage?”

"Nonsense again." Xie Bi An struggled.

"Don't move." Fan Wu She threatened, "If you move again, I'll kiss you."

Xie Bi An stared at Fan Wu She and really didn't dare to move.

The innkeeper had rented two horses for them, as they had ordered, and was waiting outside the door.

Fan Wu She put Xie Bi An on the horse and threw a silver ingot to the shopkeeper.

Seeing his generosity, the innkeeper smiled happily and offered them food for their journey, asking warmly, "Gentlemen, where are you going?"

"Mount Tai." Fan Wu She replied casually.

The shopkeeper let out an exaggerated ‘aiyo’, "Mount Tai, something has happened at Mount Tai. You can't go there ah."

Xie Bi An's heart was immediately seized and he said urgently, "What happened?!"

"You guys have just returned from the Pass, so you don't know yet. Mount Tai has turned white overnight."

"White overnight?"

"Ah, I heard that that old demonic woman from the Cangyu Sect had forcibly occupied Mount Tai and turned it into a snowy mountain, freezing the land around for ten miles. She is holding onto the young pavilion master of Xianyue Pavilion, and the Immortal Alliance was besieging but not attacking, and was at a standstill. Rumor has it that even the Heaven Master Zhong Kui has been summoned over. This has caused the people around here to suffer. Almost all of them have run away."

Listening to these words, Xie Bi An was both anxious and comforted, anxious because Qi Meng Sheng was so difficult to deal with, and comforted by the fact that both Lan Chui Han and Zhong Kui were currently fine. He asked again, "Is there any more news?"

"We don’t know anything more than that. We've heard it all from our customers." The innkeeper looked at Xie Bi An's legs and said hesitantly, "This gentleman has limited use of his legs, why do you still want to go to that place ah? The local people couldn’t even escape in time."

Fan Wu She got up onto his horse, "Senior brother, let's go."

The two of them urged their horses with a whip and left.

---

The speed of an ordinary horse was no match for Wuya, but they had traveled day and night and would arrive in three or four days at most.

Along the way, they dared not stay over at inns in fear of being tracked. They often found an abandoned house or temple to get by and rested for a few hours before continuing their journey.

When they were only a hundred miles from Mount Tai, they passed a small town at sunset.

The town was not very crowded and it seemed a little desolate. It was dusk and the whole town was enveloped in the afterglow of the setting sun. The canopy of the sky kept pressing down, vowing to chase away all the light. They had run all the way from the extreme cold of Kunlun into the warmth of spring, thinking that only the bleak white would weigh them down, but never thought that this ordinary scene of an orange sunset could make their mood gloomy.

I guess I'm just tired, Xie Bi An thought.

Fan Wu She also thought of the same thing: "Senior brother, let's have a meal here." After three days of traveling non-stop, they ate dry food to satisfy their hunger when they were hungry, and they almost no longer knew what hot soup and rice tasted like.

Xie Bi An thought that Mount Tai was not far from here. Eating and resting would not delay anything, so he agreed.

They found a restaurant and tied up their horses. Xie Bi An was determined not to let Fan Wu She carry him, so he walked in slowly.

Both feet hurt when they touch the ground, but at least he could walk.

They were the only ones in the restaurant, and the shopkeeper looked listless. Fan Wu She randomly ordered some food, saw him agreeing with ‘mm’ and ‘ah’ and turned his head and left, not knowing how much he had remembered.

"This town is so desolate."

Fan Wu She said, "Probably because of the changes in Mount Tai. Many people have moved away."

Xie Bi An frowned and looked around. This place gave him some strange feelings in his heart, but he couldn't say what was wrong. Wuqiongbi didn't react, which meant that there were no evil spirits around. He probably was too tired and has become oversensitive.

"Senior brother, senior brother."

Fan Wu She called twice before Xie Bi An came back to his senses, "What's wrong?"

"What are you thinking about?"

"I'm not thinking about anything."

"Senior brother?"

"Hm?" Xie Bi An looked at Fan Wu She, but he suddenly found that his vision was a little blurred. He instantly became alerted, “Wu She, did you feel anything weird here?” He tried hard to look at Fan Wu She clearly, but that face right in front of him kept changing.

Fan Wu She seemed to open his mouth to say something, but Xie Bi An could only see the shape of his mouth and could not hear his voice.

A question aroused in his mind: How on earth did he get to this town?

 

----

 

Edited on 17 Apr. 21 (Emzie)

 

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