Chapter 142: Old Loli expresses her condolences
The five spiritual energies clashed, generating vast airwaves that surged like a frenzy.
Boom—
Seated in the center of the square, Li Feng, with his pure white robe, now soaked at the collar in blood, had a gaze devoid of vitality, reflecting Ye Anping’s figure. Ye Anping’s bamboo hat was nowhere to be seen then, and the airwaves had blown away the hair tie. His long hair was recklessly dancing behind his head, giving him a somewhat disheveled appearance. Yet, his eyes remained as deep and stubborn as ever.
Thunderbolt—
A lightning bolt descended from the sky, striking one of the three blood-colored orbs next to Li Feng. In an instant, the blood orb shattered, and cries of agony echoed in the square. The souls of the sect cultivators trapped inside the blood orb dispersed and scattered toward the stars in the sky.
Feng Yudie, catching her breath, gave an approving glance to Liang Zhu, who had shattered the blood orb, and then hastily headed towards the next one. However, the expression on Li Feng’s face remained unchanged. He didn’t even glance at Feng Yudie and Liang Zhu. He just raised his right hand and lightly pinched towards Liang Zhu.
Liang Zhu, noticing his movement, instantly felt something amiss. He hurriedly took out the stone bowl he used for protection. However, before he could activate the artifact, he felt like a colossal weight of ten thousand pounds had struck his back.
“Huh?”
Despite Liang Zhu’s efforts to resist, the stark contrast in their cultivations was insurmountable.
Boom—
On the white jade platform base, a human-shaped depression suddenly appeared.
“Cough—”
Liang Zhu’s bandaged face was stained with fresh blood, and he fell silent.
Seeing his situation, Feng Yudie, gripping her sword, cooperated with Pei Lianxue, swinging their swords left and right at the blood orb before them.
“Break it for me!”
Feng Yudie shouted golden spiritual energy surged as she leaned forward. Her face turned crimson as she and Pei Lianxue swung their swords. Seven sword lights, a combination of a golden sword light and the six from Pei Lianxue, collided with the blood-colored spiritual energy orb of the remaining two formations, breaking one more. However, just as they were about to rush to help Ye Anping, Li Feng ignored them, directed his right hand toward Liang Zhu, and pinched.
“Tsk…”
Feng Yudie, unsure of Li Feng’s abilities, had seen what happened to Liang Zhu. As Li Feng closed his palm, a force pressed her into the ground. Realizing she couldn’t evade, she immediately bumped her shoulder into Pei Lianxue’s, hoping to make at least her dodge. Unfortunately, Li Feng didn’t clench his fist this time. Instead, he raised his index finger and gestured.
Whoosh—
In an instant, silver-white spiritual energy collided with Feng Yudie and Pei Lianxue. Though they immediately tried to resist, lowering their stances, they couldn’t withstand the force. The spiritual energy sent them flying like human projectiles towards Ye Anping.
Ye Anping shifted his gaze to the left, seeing his junior sister and Feng Yudie hurtling towards him. Despite wanting to dodge, their speed was too fast. Unable to avoid it, he forcefully thrust the spirit sword into the blood-colored orb before him, then released the hilt to prevent harming them. He straightened his arms, tensing all the muscles in his shoulders.
“Tsk…”
Boom—
Pei Lianxue and Feng Yudie collided with Ye Anping’s left and right arms. Despite Ye Anping’s efforts, he couldn’t directly halt their momentum.
Kaka——
Two bones cracked.
“Tsk…”
Ye Anping held his junior sister’s waist with his left hand and Feng Yudie’s front abdomen with his right hand. He was forced back more than ten feet by the force of the collision between the two people. Finally, he rested his heels on the wall at the square’s edge and then used that force to stop the two of them.
“Ha ha–”
Feng Yudie gasped for air and tried to stand up but found that her body was out of control. After struggling, she had to lean on Ye Anping’s shoulder.
“Young Master Ye, my meridians seem to be sealed, ahem – I can’t move.”
Ye Anping did not reply but looked ahead solemnly at the spirit sword he had plunged into the last blood ball, counting silently in his heart, three, two, one…
“Break!!” The sound fell.
Swish—
A golden light suddenly appeared on the Spirit Sword, which penetrated ten inches into the blood ball and created a crack on the surface. The cracks gradually spread along the blood cell’s surface and finally covered the entire surface of the blood cell.
Wow—
The shell shattered, and the bloody aura wrapped in it rose into the sky. Seeing that all four formations were broken, Ye Anping also breathed a sigh of relief, slowly squatted down, let the two people who could not move rest on his shoulders, and said softly:
“It’s over.”
“Ahem—”
Sitting cross-legged in the center of the field, Li Feng slowly landed on the ground and then stood up with his knees propped up. He dragged his right hand to his side, turned his wrist, and a spiritual light burst out from the palm of his hand, condensing into a white spiritual sword. The spirit sword was three feet and three inches long, and its blade looked like a pool of clear water. It was embossed in gold with a Chilong symbol on the outside, and a flaming red spirit bead was embedded in the sword’s grid.
Ye Anping looked at the sword in his hand and immediately recognized that the Heaven-Splitting Sword had followed Li Feng for thousands of years, killing strange snakes at the top and demons at the bottom. The quality of this sword was due to thousands of years of wind and frost, and was even better than the black stone sword that Liang Zhu snatched from Xiao Yunluo. It was also a spiritual sword made by Si Xuanji, using hundreds of famous officials from the immortal family.
Li Feng stared closely at Ye Anping’s still calm, deep purple eyes and slowly took steps. There was silence in the square, except for slow footsteps. The distance between Li Feng and Ye Anping was only forty steps, but these forty steps have gone through a cycle of spring, summer, autumn, and winter.
Waiting for him to walk in front of her, Ye Anping laid the two girls in his arms flat on the ground, stood up with his knees up, raised his head slightly, and met Li Feng’s gaze without squinting.
Swish——
The breeze blew by, blowing Ye Anping’s long hair that was now scattered on the back of his head. At the same time, the Heaven-Splitting Sword had also come to the side of his neck and stopped.
“…”
The two looked at each other for a long time, but neither spoke.
In the end, Li Feng couldn’t hold on any longer and asked slightly, “Aren’t you afraid that I’ll cut off your neck?”
“You know in your heart that when we came to you, you had already lost.”
Li Feng looked into Ye Anping’s eyes. This look irritated him as if he had seen through him.
The young man knew that he could not kill them. He knew where his weaknesses were.
He knew his past.
…
After a moment of silence, Li Feng retracted the Heaven-Splitting Sword leaning on the side of Ye Anping’s neck, gazing up at the sky as he sighed, “You resemble the old lady so much, kid.”
“Are you praising me?” Ye Anping asked.
“Heh…” Li Feng chuckled and turned his gaze back to Ye Anping, “You know, I want to hear what you have to say…”
“Yeah… Young Master Li is doing well, and Young Master Xiao is beside her. Don’t underestimate your daughter. Even though she is blind, she can see more clearly than many cultivators without eye problems.”
Saying this, Ye Anping took out Li Longling’s jade talisman.
“Here, a gift from your daughter.”
“Ah, this brat, does she think her old man is living too long?” Li Feng remarked with a wry smile.
“At 1,200 years old, you have lived long enough for a cultivator with four spiritual roots.”
Li Feng shrugged, “1,199 years, only one thousand two in seven days.”
“Isn’t that sufficient?”
“Is it?”
Ye Anping shrugged ambiguously.
Li Feng then glanced at Feng Yudie and Pei Lianxue lying on the ground and inquired, “Boy, what’s your name?”
“Ye Anping.”
“Ye Anping, hmm…” Li Feng handed him back the jade talisman, saying, “She’s about to be without a home.”
Ye Anping blinked, “Oh…”
“Oh, what? Don’t pretend to be clueless. Don’t you understand what I mean?” Li Feng retorted.
Taking the jade talisman from him, Ye Anping bowed and changed the topic, “Master Li Xian’s 1,200th birthday is approaching. I wish you blessings as abundant as the East Sea and a life as enduring as the Southern Mountains.”
Li Feng’s eyes twitched at the mention of a hundred years. He nodded and replied, “Thank you for your kind words.”
Afterwards, Li Feng released spiritual light, enveloping Ye Anping, Pei Lianxue, and others. As the light dispersed, their figures vanished from the space. However, a duck call sounded on Li Feng’s head a moment later.
“Long life and a hundred years! Long life and a hundred years!”
“Hundred years?” Li Feng saw a parrot wearing a bamboo hat circling in the starry sky.
“Is this bird…?”
“Congratulations on getting rich! Congratulations on getting rich!”
“Old woman?”
At the utterance of these words, black and white spiritual energy collided with Li Feng’s chest.
Boom—
Li Feng was sent flying, spinning fourteen times before crashing on the floor, leaving a twenty-foot shallow trench on the white jade brick surface.
“Hiss—”
Taking a deep breath, Li Feng was about to sit up when a small barefoot landed on his chest, pushing him back.
Boom—
“Cough—”
His back was jolted, and he found his vision blurred. Compelled to expel the spiritual energy he had just inhaled into his lungs, he waited a while before gazing at the small, delicate, barefooted figure on his chest. It was a girl with a pair of yin and yang eyes, adorned in a white feathered robe. Her long hair, alternating between black and white, trailed on the ground behind her. The striking beauty and mature aura between her eyebrows seemed incongruent with her petite and delicate figure.
Li Feng’s lips slightly parted, and he swallowed before softly asking, “Si Shangxian, why do you… look like this?”
Si Xuanji, with unwavering eyes, replied, “Due to the practice, the Mahayana method requires eighty-one reincarnations.”
She moved her bare foot away from Li Feng’s chest, stepped back, and patted her skirt. “I will age from twelve to fifty-two, then gradually revert from fifty-two to twelve, undergoing eighty-one cycles. After that, I can break through the void and enter the immortal realm.”
“Oh, I see… Then you appear to be fifteen now?”
“Exactly, like a fifteen-year-old.”
Li Feng felt a bit awkward. His daughter was also fifteen, but Si Xuanji was noticeably shorter. He dared not voice this sentiment but hesitated before asking, “Are you here in person, or…”
“Just an ethereal body. I came to give you, my old friend, a lesson.”
Si Xuanji lifted her right hand, snapping her middle finger and thumb.
Snap—
Instantaneously, everything in the square shattered and dissipated like a mirror. In the next blink, they were back in the garden of Chilong’s inner mansion, sitting on opposite sides of the chessboard in the pavilion.
Li Feng, still bewildered, asked, “Si Shangxian, is this the present world, or…”
“This world.”
Si Xuanji reached into the chess basket, grabbed white chess pieces, and observed the chessboard. “Fortunately, with Mr. Ye here, the trouble you stirred up hasn’t reached an irreparable stage. Let’s play the final game of chess.”
Li Feng was petrified for a moment, trying to process the events.
“That boy is mine…”
“He is old…”
The golden-crowned parrot on the pavilion beam interrupted with, “Face Head!! Face Head!!”
Li Feng couldn’t believe what he heard.
“It’s a pity that the charm is not enough! It’s a pity that the charm is not… cluck-”
Before the parrot could finish, Si Xuanji waved her hand, sending a golden light that scattered feathers into the air. Li Feng swallowed nervously, unwilling to ask further questions. He picked up a black chess piece and placed it on the board.
Clatter—
“Si Shangxian, why not reveal yourself earlier now that you’re here? Then, I wouldn’t have stirred up this trouble.”
“Do you regret it now?”
Si Xuanji raised her yin and yang eyes, “As a phantom body, I had limited power. When you struck at them, I planned to reveal myself, but Ye surpassed my expectations. With his cultivation, he handled the matter almost flawlessly.”
“Juniors rarely hear such favorable comments from you about someone,” Li Feng remarked.
Clatter—
“He claimed that it was an invasion by a Nascent Soul stage demon cultivator, and he did not mention the misdeeds you committed,” Si Xuanji explained.
Li Feng’s eyes widened, now understanding why Si Xuanji spoke highly of Ye Anping. He lowered his eyes and said, “Junior only…”
Si Xuanji interrupted, “It’s the influence of greed. Over the past millennium, I’ve witnessed too much.”
“…”
“Li Feng, you’re just an inconsequential failure among the countless individuals seeking to defy fate.”
Clatter—
“…”
Li Feng sighed lightly and made a move.
Clatter—
“Si Shangxian, my girl…”
“She has her destiny. Now…” Si Xuanji sighed, gazing at the starry sky outside the pavilion. “Her destiny star has been led astray by Ye’s destiny star. I don’t know where she’ll end up.”
“…”
“By the way, Li Feng, you..,” Si Xuanji turned her gaze back but stopped mid-sentence.
As Li Feng played chess with her, his eyes lost their luster, and his right hand, poised to make a move, frozen in mid-air. Witnessing this, a trace of desolation flickered in Si Xuanji’s yin and yang eyes. Another friend bound by a thousand years of camaraderie was lost in this world.
Living for too long, one could only witness friends departing one by one. Si Xuanji felt a tinge of regret. She should have made more enemies in the past, ensuring a constant stream of good news now.
“Tsk, the chess game isn’t over yet…”
Si Xuanji curled her lips, raised her hand, and helped Li Feng land the final piece, declaring the game a draw.
Clatter—
Then, she looked at the chessboard.
“It’s a draw.”
Si Xuanji stood up from the stone bench, waved her sleeves, gently used spiritual energy to touch Li Feng’s eyes, and walked out of the pavilion. Her figure dissolved into specks of starlight, leaving only Li Feng, with hands on the board and head bowed, alone under the pavilion as if she had never been there from the beginning to the end. The Si Xuanji just now was merely an illusion, a hallucination before Li Feng’s death.
…
“Condolences and my condolences!!”
Wearing a small bamboo hat, the golden-crowned parrot spread its wings and soared, blending into the boundless sky instantly.
…
