Chapter 232: Returning Together (Part 2)
This was a world filled with abundant spiritual energy.
All things had spirits and could cultivate.
Non-human creatures taking human form were Demons; inanimate objects taking human form were Monsters; those who strayed into heterodox paths of cultivation were Devils; humans whose souls did not disperse after death and continued to cultivate were Ghosts.
And most demons, devils, ghosts, and monsters had one thing in common: they would all use the human race as the basis for their cultivation, swallowing them whole and absorbing their essence to nourish themselves.
There was also a small number of uniquely gifted individuals who relied solely on the essence of heaven, earth, sun, and moon to cultivate.
To resist, the human race also began the path of cultivation.
For a thousand years, the human race and the four races of demons, devils, ghosts, and monsters had been irreconcilable enemies.
At first, it was for resistance, but later it became a tradition: upon seeing demons and devils, they must be eliminated.
The last time the Co-Lord of Demons and Devils descended was already seven hundred years ago, causing widespread devastation and leaving corpses strewn everywhere.
Now that the Co-Lord of Demons and Devils had descended once again, based on the situation back then, the consequences were self-evident.
The Xiao family of Qingyang Mountain was a prominent cultivation clan. Every year, they would recruit countless disciples with immortal and spiritual roots into their sect to cultivate, in order to strengthen the human race’s cultivation scale.
Xiao Ji was not old; he was merely twenty-three this year.
Many people at this age had only just begun their path of cultivation.
But Xiao Ji was an anomaly.
When he was born, anomalies descended from the heavens, and ten thousand ghosts wept in unison. The Buddhist ancestor the Xiao family had always worshipped came in person, placed his prayer beads into Xiao Ji’s swaddling clothes, and passed away the very night he left.
Spells that others exhausted themselves to cultivate came effortlessly to Xiao Ji since childhood. He was impervious to evil and invulnerable to all poisons.
He was just inherently cold, forever detached from the secular world.
When he was six years old, Xiao Ji’s biological parents passed away. The young Xiao Ji merely knelt in the ancestral hall holding the prayer beads, reciting the sutra for the deliverance of souls for seven days and seven nights to fulfill his filial piety, yet he never shed a single tear.
He disliked others approaching him and scrupulously abided by the rules. From the day he understood reason, he hadn’t broken a single one of the Xiao family’s hundred house rules.
But he acted as if he couldn’t see what others did, as if everything in this world had nothing to do with him.
Ever since the Xiao family’s First Elder cast a divination saying the Co-Lord of Demons and Devils had descended, Xiao Ji only said one sentence: “Just kill him.” Then he returned to his sleeping quarters, kneeling on his futon every day, not stepping out of his door, showing no reaction.
This made the Xiao Family Head momentarily unsure whether the phrase “just kill him” that Xiao Ji said at that time meant he would take action himself, or if it was just a sarcastic remark, telling others to go and kill that “Co-Lord of Demons and Devils.”
With no movement from Xiao Ji, at first, no one dared to disturb him.
But within half a month, bizarre events occurred frequently at the foot of the mountain. A few cases were solved, only for a few more to pop up.
Xiao Ji sat quietly in his room, neither cultivating nor meditating.
In front of him was placed a small jade plate. In the jade plate lay a plate of scattered prayer beads.
The night the prayer beads snapped, the other disciples of the Xiao family picked them up one by one and returned them to Xiao Ji. But Xiao Ji didn’t string them back together; he just placed them in the jade plate, looking at them every day.
Lately, he always had a strange premonition.
He couldn’t pinpoint what was strange, but he always felt that the breaking of the prayer beads meant his karmic connection with the old Buddhist monk who gifted him the beads back then had come to an end.
And his own destiny was becoming unfathomable in the unseen world.
Xiao Ji stared blankly at the plate of prayer beads, not knowing if all this had anything to do with the suddenly descended Co-Lord of Demons and Devils.
A knock on the door broke Xiao Ji’s train of thought.
“Senior Brother Wuyan, are you there?”
Xiao Ji heard it but didn’t make a sound.
So the knocking outside the door grew a bit more urgent: “Senior Brother Wuyan, are you there?”
After a long while, Xiao Ji gently raised his hand, and the room door opened a small crack.
The young disciple outside the door pushed open Xiao Ji’s room door, poked his head in to look around, and seeing Xiao Ji looking at him, finally spoke: “Senior Brother Wuyan, the Family Head invites you to the front hall for a chat.”
Xiao Ji refused: “Not going.”
The young disciple was in a difficult spot: “Senior Brother Wuyan, bizarre events have been occurring frequently down the mountain recently. The Family Head said… if it wasn’t absolutely necessary, he wouldn’t want to disturb you either.”
After all, Xiao Ji belonged to the Xiao family. He would definitely not easily intervene in affairs down the mountain that others could manage. But since the Family Head had put it this way, he was, after all, raised on the Xiao family’s food. After a moment of hesitation, he said to the young disciple:
“Tell him to come here.”
Hearing this, the young disciple breathed a sigh of relief, responded with a “yes”, and hurriedly turned to run and deliver the message.
An incense stick’s time later, the Xiao Family Head sat in front of Xiao Ji.
“A month ago, in a village near Qingyang Town, a wedding banquet was held. The next night, the entire village died out. Over the past month, every group of people passing through that village has gone missing.”
Xiao Ji offered a solution: “Seal the road.”
The implication was that as long as no one passed by that village anymore, the problem would be solved.
The Xiao Family Head was stunned, then slapped his thigh: “It can’t be sealed! That is the only road leading from Qingyang Town to three surrounding towns! If we seal the road, we’ll have to build a new one, which is very troublesome!”
Xiao Ji gave an “oh” and stopped talking.
Looking at this nephew of his, the Xiao Family Head felt a headache coming on. He didn’t know why, but even though he treated this nephew with all his heart, this child always had an aloof attitude, making communication very difficult.
“I went there myself, but now the situation is very troublesome. I can’t enter that village. The ones disappearing are all young men around your age!”
Xiao Ji raised an eyebrow, still not speaking.
The Xiao Family Head continued: “I have already sent two consecutive batches of our family’s disciples there, and they haven’t returned yet! If it weren’t for this, how could I have come looking for you!”
Xiao Ji pursed his lips, and after a long time, he gave a nod.
Only then did the Xiao Family Head let out a long breath and asked him: “You need to go as soon as possible. Right now, your junior brothers’ soul lamps haven’t extinguished, so they should still be alive. If you delay any longer, it will be too late.”
What he feared the most was encountering this kind of demon or ghost that could cast a net over specific targets.
Even a clever housewife cannot cook without rice. If they couldn’t find the boundary set by the demon, no matter how high their magic power, they would be at their wits’ end.
Asking Xiao Ji to handle a matter was truly like begging grandfathers and pleading with grandmothers.
And he couldn’t speak harshly.
If any sentence displeased Xiao Ji, he could lock himself in his room for ten days to half a month, not stepping out of the door, and acting as if he couldn’t hear anyone speaking.
Yet, he possessed extraordinary physical constitution and profound magic power, a dragon among men.
Not to mention in the Xiao family, even in the entire human race, he was an existence that was difficult to provoke.
In his early years, Xiao Ji never made a move. He spent his days holding his prayer beads quietly in the academy, not interacting with others.
Such an isolated and cold personality was always difficult to fit in, and inevitably invited disdain.
During the Xiao family’s internal competitions, a large number of senior and junior brothers challenged Xiao Ji, yet from start to finish, not a single one could withstand three moves from him.
Over the years, Xiao Ji had become increasingly quiet, but the Xiao Family Head could feel that the concentration of spiritual energy around Xiao Ji had probably surpassed even his own.
——————
Not finished. Xiao Ji’s amnesia only lasts for one world. We’ll see if it will be interspersed in the future.
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