Jin Se

Chapter 6

(*) lit. ancient "se". "Se" is a type of standing string instrument, it is also the same "se" in the novel title "jin se"

There is a saying, "A growing child can eat until his dad becomes broke."

Until now Jianghua can finally say he understands this saying. He is squeezing through a noisy market, reluctantly looking at Shi Wuduan who has eaten until his little belly grew round, and asks: "This time are you full?"

The fatty oil at the corner of his mouth not even wiped clean, upon hearing, Shi Wuduan nods and lowers his head to slurp the other half of the dumpling soup bowl. Only then, he smiles at Jianghua, revealing a little dimple on his right, little, round cheek with two little extruding fangs. He jumps down from the wooden chair, shouldering his luggage bag and says: "Thank you for your hospitality, senior. Senior, my shifu tells me to find you and get something, which is it, quickly give it to me, my wifey is still waiting for me."

Jianghua looks at him pretending to be all grown up and cannot help but laughs, then he crooks his fingers and taps his head: "You monkey, only remembering the lady from someone else's house. Have you ever studied seriously on Jiulu mountain? Come with me."

Shi Wuduan excitedly agrees to follow Jianghua, the trio of two-man one-bird going out of the city. Only then does Jianghua untie the ancient sword on his shoulder, reciting a spell and the sword grows longer within seconds, until it reaches nearly two meters. He turns and talks to Shi Wuduan: "Come up here."

Jiulu mountain is where cultivation geniuses appear frequently, so even though this telekinesis spell is not commonly seen, Shi Wuduan does not feel it is novel. But thinking that he will be riding on clouds soon, he becomes excited and jumps up in one motion. Jianghua makes hand spells and the ancient sword stably rises up to the sky. Barely a few moments later and the plants and animals on the ground have become incorrigible.

The higher they rise the more bone-chilling the wind gets, and even though the ancient sword is extremely broad and bears the weight of two persons, it still swings back and forth with the wind, and looking down feels like staring into an abyss. Jianghua himself naturally is used to this, but fearing that Shi Wuduan would be afraid of heights, he picks up and embraces the teenager that is only as tall as his chest.

Shi Wuduan was about to tell him something, but the moment the words left his mouth it is already blown away by the winds, so he struggles and yanks his head out of Jianghua's chest, looking here and there while vibrating with excitement. Seeing the tassel being whipped violently by the winds, he feels it is something so small but can expand until it is so large that it is impervious to damage by wind, so this little brat has the sudden impulse to crawl on the sword still hanging in mid-air to investigate - but was sternly stopped by Jianghua Sanren.

This little monkey is totally not afraid of falling, but Jianghua suddenly realises he himself is a little afraid.

After riding on the sword for no longer than half a day, they reach a mountain and the ancient sword slows down. Shi Wuduan stares raptly, but can only deduce this is somewhere in Shu Zhong or Xiao Xiang. Mountains fill his vision, the mountain slopes are incredibly gentle and there are no signs of large stones protruding.

Jianghua directly leads him to the middle of a mountain, standing in the middle of a sea of bamboos.

Jianghua Sanren puts away his ancient sword and leads the way forward.

The sea of bamboos does not look like it was naturally formed, even though the traces are faint but there are signs of manmade structures. Shi Wuduan focuses his stare on the layers upon layers of bamboos that stretch until the end seemingly in a random manner, seriously presses his fingers to calculate, then asks: "Senior, I see this is the Zhou Yuan array, right?"