Phoenix's Requiem

Chapter 438: Plans in Motion

“Madam Hong, don’t be too upset.” Yun Ruoyan patted Madam Hong’s hand and glanced at her slightly swollen stomach. “Take good care of your unborn son.”

“You take care too, Ruoyan. Remember to bring your child to visit when you come back to the Mingyuan continent. I’ll wait for you right here!” Madam Hong exclaimed. After half a year, the bulge in Yun Ruoyan’s stomach was noticeable, and she would give birth in about another season.

She hugged Madam Hong gently, then turned to Pi Yang.

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t able to recover your arms for you,” Yun Ruoyan apologized ruefully. Pi Batian had been burned to ashes by the demonic dragon forefather, taking the arms that had belonged to Pi Yang with him.

“It’s alright. I’ve grown used to being without my arms,” Pi Yang replied.

“With me around, I’ll be his arms,” Lie Yun replied gently, and Pi Yang looked back at his wife with equally tender affection.

Beside them, Feng Yicheng was bidding Li Mo farewell. After all the time they had spent together, they were now close friends who had been bonded by battle and hardship. “Brother Li, if there’s anything you need my help with, just let me know,” he called out.

Yun Ruoyan jumped in. “Actually, we do have something to ask of you.”

“What is it? As long as I’m able to accomplish it, I’ll definitely help out.” Feng Yicheng was as grateful to Yun Ruoyan and Li Mo as Madam Hong, and he would surely help them to the best of his ability.

“Zhuo Yifeng and Rong Yueshan are students from Kongming Academy who came to the Mingyuan continent with us, and we should bring them away as well. However, we don’t know where they’ve gone,” Li Mo explained. “Brother Feng, please help us find them.” Li Mo and Yun Ruoyan had previously told Feng Yicheng about Zhuo Yifeng’s demonic possession.

“Naturally. Zhuo Yifeng has been a great help to the Feng family, and we’ll definitely try to find him. As for Rong Yueshan, how do you want to deal with her?” Feng Yicheng asked.

“Rong Yueshan betrayed her fellow students, and even if we brought her back to the Chenyuan continent, she would only be sentenced to death,” Yun Ruoyan said bitterly. “However, she’s sly and crafty, and isn’t that easy to deal with.”

“In that case, we’ll put her to death as soon as we find her,” Feng Yicheng suggested. Yun Ruoyan didn’t object.

“Li Mo, Ruoyan, it’s time to go!” Qin Feng looked out toward the sea, where a number of clouds were starting to revolve following some strange, invisible force—an omen that heralded the opening of the portal.

“Sister Ruoyan, we’re finally going to be able to go home!” Lin Qingchen sighed. Beside her, Lin Qingxue was so agitated that she began to cry—both because of her excitement, but also because of her worry for Zhuo Yifeng.

During the six months after the fight, Lin Qingxue and the Pi swordsmen had scoured the entire Mingyuan continent in an attempt to find Zhuo Yifeng’s whereabouts, but they hadn’t succeeded. Yun Ruoyan told her that Zhuo Yifeng might already have left the continent on his own, and she promised that he wasn’t in mortal danger. Only then did Lin Qingxue finally give up her search.

“Brother Qin, are you really going to stay here on the Mingyuan continent?” Yun Ruoyan turned back to Qin Feng. One of their original motives was to bring Qin Feng back to the Chenyuan continent, but when the day came, he had chosen to stay behind.

“There’s nothing on the Chenyuan continent for me anymore, but I’ve developed a strong sense of brotherhood and camaraderie with the Feng guards after serving with them for two years,” Qin Feng replied. “I also think that Zhuo Yifeng’s still around, and I’ll keep searching for him.”

Qin Feng had clearly made up his mind, and Yun Ruoyan and Li Mo had no intention of dissuading him.

“Take care, everyone!” Yun Ruoyan cupped her fists toward the gathered crowd.

“Yan’er, it’s time to go!” Li Mo took to the skies with Yun Ruoyan, followed quickly behind by the Lin sisters and Lin Tianming. After two years of training, they were both early ninth-rank blademasters, and Lin Qingchen seemed poised to advance even further.

On the other hand, because of her pregnancy, Yun Ruoyan had refrained from cultivating, and she was still a peak ninth-rank blademaster. Her cultivation was mere steps away from reaching the realm of a sword saint, and it felt as though she would break through given an opportunity.

“Qingchen, Qingxue, the two of you should enter first,” Li Mo called out, allowing them to enter the portal before him. He and Yun Ruoyan would follow behind so that they could extend a hand if something untoward were to happen.

The Lin sisters, carrying Lin Tianming’s wheelchair, flew into the portal, swiftly followed by Li Mo and Yun Ruoyan. Their bodies were quickly consumed by a whirlpool of clouds.

At the same time, in a long-abandoned patch of land outside the Pi manor, a hunched-over woman snuck into the Pi manor. Rong Yueshan had spent the last six months in hiding; after the death of Pi Yan and Pi Batian, she had lost any backing she might otherwise have had. She was clear that, if Yun Ruoyan were to catch her, that she would surely die. Having betrayed her fellow students, even if she were to return to Kongming Academy, the only sentence that awaited her was death.

As a result, Rong Yueshan decided to stay in the Mingyuan continent. Once Yun Ruoyan and the others left, she would be safe. Today was the day when the portal back to the Chenyuan continent was slated to open, and Rong Yueshan took the opportunity to sneak into the Pi manor.

Half a year ago, the Pi manor had been claimed by the Feng family. Rong Yueshan fled, but before she did so, she had hidden quite a few spirit crystals in a cache on the grounds of the Pi manor. As long as she found this cache, she would have more than enough to support her future life and cultivation.

Rong Yueshan hurried into the room in which she used to stay. Behind the room was a storehouse, where she would deposit the spirit crystals that she had amassed. She entered the storehouse and began a targeted search. Just as she cleaned out a portion of the storehouse, however, her gaze suddenly landed on a cracked mirror, one whose surface was caked with dust. However, its appearance seemed very familiar.

Rong Yueshan suddenly opened her eyes wide, because she recalled where she had seen it before. Once, she had overheard Pi Yan and Pi Batian talking about a mirror called the heaven-transcending mirror, and this was the mirror that Pi Yan had been holding in his hands.

Rong Yueshan wiped away the dust on the mirror, and her finger suddenly twinged in pain: the cracked glass on its surface had cut her finger, and her fresh blood landed on the mirror.

The blood quickly seeped through the surface of the mirror, which suddenly glowed brightly. Amidst the gleam appeared a silvery-white elder, the silver dragon elder. He had been no match for the demonic dragon forefather and had tried to escape in the heaven-transcending mirror during the fight. However, the mirror had been severely damaged during the encounter, and the elder found himself neither able to open a passageway back to the Jiyuan continent nor able to leave the mirror itself.

Instead, he had remained trapped for over six months, only to finally see the light of day once more when Rong Yueshan discovered the mirror and activated it with her blood.

Rong Yueshan looked at the silver dragon elder reflected in the mirror. Although she had never seen him before, she had heard about him multiple times from Pi Batian, and it was easy to infer who he was.

Before the silver dragon elder could speak, she knelt down in supplication. “Elder, please accept me as a disciple and bring me away!” Rong Yueshan cried out.

In a secret cave on the Mingyuan continent, Zhuo Yifeng and the demonic spirit were fighting tooth and nail for the possession of their shared body. Although Zhuo Yifeng had agreed to merge his soul with the demonic spirit’s, he hadn’t been content with having his body co-opted by the spirit. As a result, during the merger, he had kept a sliver of his own consciousness.

It was only because of this that he was able to stand against the spirit at all.

Zhuo Yifeng’s face alternated between red and white. It was red when the demonic spirit spoke, and white when Zhuo Yifeng spoke.

“Zhuo Yifeng, what do you want?!” the demonic spirit screamed. His left wrist was choking his neck, and he was desperately gripping onto it with his right hand.

Zhuo Yifeng’s red face suddenly turned white, and Zhuo Yifeng replied, “I told you, if there comes a day when I can’t control myself, I’d kill myself! There’s no way I’d leave my body for you to do evil with.”

“What? When have I done any evil?” the demonic spirit shouted back. “I’ve never done so!”

“That’s because I still have a shred of consciousness left in this body. Once you’re able to suppress even that, you’ll surely do whatever you want! In that case, I might as well die with you before you’re able to do that.” Zhuo Yifeng again tried to strangle himself. The demonic spirit would be unable to live on its own, separated from Zhuo Yifeng’s body—and it naturally couldn’t allow itself to die.

“Hold it! I promise I’ll return your body to you,” the demonic spirit cried out.

Zhuo Yifeng didn’t believe him until he finally revealed his plan. “You’re telling the truth?”

“Of course! I’m going to head to the Jiyuan continent immediately. Once I claim some holy water for myself and reforge my own body, why would I stay in yours?” the demonic spirit scoffed. “By that point, I’d be unwilling to reside in your body even if you pleaded for it!”

The demonic spirit stated that his sect had a secret passageway to the Jiyuan continent, and that sect was housed on the Mingyuan continent. That year, the demonic spirit had also been set up by the silver dragon elder, who had then sent his subordinates to eradicate the demonic sect. As a result, by the time they arrived, all they saw was ruin.

“Silver dragon, you’ve lied to me, hurt me, and destroyed my sect… by my name and honor, I swear I shall get vengeance!” the demonic spirit proclaimed to the heavens, glancing at the desolate ruins of his erstwhile sect.