Chapter 59: Sentiment
They wanted to find the path to the demon realm in order to investigate the descendants of Chi You, find the key, and retrieve the ancient witch’s body. They wanted the map to the witch tribe’s tomb so that Ning Guang’s soul could easily merge into the ancient witch’s body.
Though Di Jiufeng had not read the novel very carefully, she still remembered this point. If the soul of the ancient witch’s reincarnation wished to easily merge with her previous body, she must go to the altar in the witch tribe’s tomb.
Di Jiufeng was sure of this fact, so she did not dally any longer and left Shen City, pulling Ning Guang along with her.
The lost treasure lands truly were a mysterious place. In the brief time they had been away, the corpses and blood which were all over the ground had already been washed clean by the thick fog. In this wide-empty ancient battlefield, they two and the long-gone Buddhist cultivator were the only ones left. With no one else filling the quota, Di Jiufeng boldly walked outside.
She looked all around and instantly spotted that pitch-black demonic skeleton, now missing its remnant soul.
The preservation of a person’s skin and even their skeleton was entirely due to the presence of energy in the soul. When it had a remnant soul, this demonic skeleton was so bright it nearly glowed, seizing one’s gaze the moment one laid eyes upon it.
But so soon after Di Jiufeng had absorbed the demon’s soul, the demonic skeleton had collapsed like a pile of rotting wood.
Dark and dismal, letting off the scent of old rot like a thing that would shatter with a single touch. But the thin scepter in its hand, after enduring for countless years, exploded with an eye-catching demonic light.
[T/N: 喧宾夺主, like a clamoring guest overwhelming the voice of the host]
“The demonic device activated, the ghostly form appeared, the lost treasure lands were left a scene of great tragedy, and the late-arriving secret path to the demon realm finally took off its invisibility cloak.”
This was a sentence from the original novel, and today, though the script had gone a bit off-track due to Di Jiufeng’s addition, its overall direction had not changed. They had to find the demonic device before they could make the secret path to the demon realm show its true form in the strange scene to come.
Di Jiufeng took a few more looks at that scepter, then pushed at Ning Guang and walked ahead.
“Ning Guang, is that the demonic device? I think I’ve seen it in the Shenzhou Records, it’s called… called the something Fallen-Soul Scepter.”
Ning Guang nodded, interlocking their fingers tight. Though the runaway fear in her heart had calmed with Di Jiufeng’s comfort, that mess of apprehension still lingered in aftertaste.
Ning Guang said, “This is the Fallen-Soul Scepter, it was a blood demon’s lifelong spiritual device some ten thousand years ago. A-Feng, do you want it?”
Di Jiufeng hummed in agreement and said, “Since we’ve come across it, it would be a pity if we didn’t take it. Looking at my current condition, I may have to cultivate the demonic path in the future. We’ll be a ghostly cultivator and a demonic cultivator, even better of a match than before.” Di Jiufeng smiled, shaking out some harmonious warmth from her faintly curved brows.
Ning Guang’s heart trembled, rings of ripples rising without a breeze, itching at her heart until she couldn’t resist pressing up close.
She was not shy nor impatient, boldly kissing Di Juiufeng’s eyelids, as another hand snuck up behind her head to hold her cheek on one side and press it to her own mouth.
Di Jiufeng shrunk in her neck, but she had just recovered from injury, she truly did not have much strength. This time, not only did she fail to escape, she even brushed past Ning Guang’s lips. This slow and tender touch slid from her eyelids to her forehead like a tiny flame, starting from this path and slowly burning through her entire face.
“Ning Guang, stop messing around, let’s get to proper business.” Di Jiufeng’s eyelashes trembled.
Ning Guang did not deny her, but still thought to herself, nothing in the world could be as proper as getting close to her Shifu.
Di Jiufeng struggled a few times in her arms, sparks flying between their tightly pressed together bodies, making Ning Guang’s back stretch taut. She froze for a moment, her breath quickening.
But in this moment of opportunity, Di Jiufeng made like a tiny fish fry and darted out from between her fingertips.
Di Jiufeng leapt away. Whether out of embarrassment or joy, she wasn’t nearly as elegant as before, going with a skip in her step.
Crimson robes flapped at her heels like a flame flickering in and out of sight, tugging Ning Guang’s heart up into midair. Ning Guang couldn’t resist smiling, obvious tenderness immersing her whole body.
“A-Feng, what are you running for?” She chased after her in a few steps and tugged her back.
She looked down and saw Di Jiufeng sneaking a glance up at her, her face red, eyes liquid and shining, her shy and furtive gaze like the eels in the ocean, sly and quick.
Ning Guang stared at her for a while, like she was pondering something, then hooked a finger under her chin and pulled it up towards herself. “A-Feng, are you playing hard-to-get?”
Di Jiufeng pursed her lips, truly shocked by her shamelessness.
She twisted up her face and covered Ning Guang’s face with her palm. “Would I need to? Since when did I need to use these tricks on you?”
Ning Guang thought she had a point, she really had overestimated herself.
As a carnivore, she circled her plump little rabbit every day, swiping out a claw from time to time. She couldn’t be too light, nor too heavy, or else the little rabbit would run away. She lived without a bit of dignity, but there was nothing wrong with that.
Ning Guang silently made her own calculations, thoughts traveling down all sorts of strange twisted roads, but in the end, all resulted in surrender.
Might as well, she thought to herself. If she let Di Jiufeng know that in Ning Guang’s heart, she was just a soft and weak little rabbit, she might show her claws and leave her bleeding all over.
[T/N: Original 遍地开花, lit. ‘blossoming all over’, except instead of flowers it’s… blood.]
After all, Di Jiufeng always thought that her own dignity as a master was right and properly established, it was only because she liked Ning Guang that she would allow her to climb all over her.
Both of them had their own opinions, but each tacitly believed that the other was just as they thought. In this subjective harmony, the flames of conflict pitifully drowned in indulgence before they could rise into a blaze.
Di Jiufeng dragged Ning Guang onwards. When they arrived at the foot of the mountain of white bones, she finally lost her air of haughtiness.
Turning around like nothing had happened, she pushed at Ning Guang’s waist and said seriously, “Go take it, I’m afraid I’ll lose control of the demonic energy in my body again.”
In all the years Di Jiufeng had lived, she had never seen such a large pile of white bones. Her little heart was trembling so obviously that she couldn’t hide it from anyone but herself.
Ning Guang’s heart was like a clear mirror. Her Shifu was easily frightened, just like a little rabbit, but she did not expose her, obediently flying up the mountain of bones to stand by the side of the demon’s skeleton.
Ning Guang took hold of the Fallen-Soul Scepter. Because it had no master, the demonic device did not resist her very much.
That minute, negligible reaction was scared by the ghostly form behind her, immediately cowering into its turtle shell.
Ning Guang did not meet any resistance, and easily took out the Fallen-Soul Scepter. Having lost its last source of power, the demon’s skeleton shattered with a rumble, turning into just another member of this pile of bones.
“A-Feng, the Fallen-Soul Scepter.” She flew back to the ground and spread her hands before her.
Ning Guang’s expression was flat as a board, like she had not noticed her trembling at all.
Di Jiufeng looked, wondering why the strange scene of the demonic device coming into the world had not occurred, when the disrespectful Ning Guang grabbed her hand. Ning Guang stuffed the Fallen-Soul Scepter into her hand, blatantly running her fingers across her palm in the course of this movement. Di Jiufeng had not figured out why her disciple was growing more and more shameless, before the strange scene finally occurred.
Demonic energy poured from Di Jiufeng’s body, winding around the Fallen-Soul Scepter, cutting straight into the heavens like a steel knife.
Thick black fog melted away, slowly letting the heavens and earth be embraced by a dark night.
Because she had absorbed a blood demon’s soul, she had a connection with the Fallen-Soul Scepter. The instant Di Jiufeng took hold of the scepter, the demonic device automatically accepted her as master. This was nothing much, Di Jiufeng saw cultivating the demonic path and the immortal path the same, but in the instant the demonic device accepted her as master, the demonic energy in her body that did not belong to the blood demon gave a faint tremble.
The familiar sense of being watched returned in a swirl of dust, extremely lively, letting her, for some reason, catch a hint of the watcher’s joy.
Di Jiufeng felt a bit faint. Her heart beat faster and faster, almost squeezing her lungs, making her feel like she was suffocating. She grabbed Ning Guang and tried to speak, but the next moment, Ning Guang pushed her to move. “A-Feng, look!”
With this shock, that feeling of being watched retreated like the tide, leaving not a single trace behind. Di Jiufeng pursed her lips but did not say anything more. She looked where Ning Guang was pointing.
––––Only to see that in the layer of black fog enveloping the sky, points of light were appearing one by one, looking just like stars.
The points of light were packed very densely, nearly connected into a line. Looking at them from far away, one would discover with a shock that they formed a map with mountains, rivers, and roads all complete. Di Jiufeng looked for a while, before her gaze was caught by a symbol on the bottom left. The symbol was very complicated and a bit mysterious. Di Jiufeng furrowed her brows, searching through her mess of memories, before she finally caught a few threads.
Di Jiufeng opened her eyes wide, unknowingly putting more force into the hand holding on to Ning Guang. “Ning Guang! This is the map to the witch tribe’s tribe! Look at that symbol, it’s the witch tribe’s emblem.”
Di Jiufeng knew her memory was not great. She hurriedly took out a jade slip, carving every detail of the map onto the surface.
When she had finished, the starlight burst into points of light with a poof, circling around and around in their places set into the black fog, forming a vortex. Then, with a boom loud enough to startle the heavens, they exploded into an eye-piercing light.
She reflexively closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, an ashy-grey hole had appeared in midair. It flowed with patterns like ripples of water and swallowed all of the surrounding black fog.
Di Jiufeng and Ning Guang looked at each other, coming to the same hypothesis.
Without any more hesitation, they took each others’ hands and flew up into the air.
Di Jiufeng approached the vortex first and felt the demonic energy emanating from the other side, making even her pores relax with its presence, and immediately confirmed her suspicion. “Ning Guang, this should be the path to the demonic realm, let’s go.”
Ning Guang nodded. She would always follow Di Jiufeng, even through mountains of swords and seas of fire. And now, she did not hesitate before pulling Di Jiufeng along into the vortex, herself a half step ahead.