After the Pretend Aloof Master Overturned His Cart - Chapter 4

Jiang Zhou walked out of his residence. He didn’t go down the mountain first, but instead sought out a clean cave nearby.

He cast a glance at the long sword that had followed him on its own accord, hung the universe bag onto its hilt, and began rummaging for clothes.

This current skin of his, along with his garments and ornaments, could no longer be used. Ji Yunlang recognized them, and the five major sects recognized them too. If he wanted to walk openly through the Immortal Continent, he would have to strip them all off together.

He pulled out a set of pure black bat-patterned close-fitting clothes pressed at the very bottom. Stroking the dense embroidery on the cuffs, his thoughts returned to several decades ago.

It was also a mountain cave like this. In the boundless cold night, before the warm yellow bonfire, that person smiled softly, holding up the finished clothes against his body to measure them.

“It just so happens there were some scraps of fabric left over. Wear it carefully; if you get injured again, I won’t patch it for you.”

In such a bloody, filthy, and stinking place, her body surprisingly always carried a faint fragrance, like a gust of spring wind wrapping around his entire embrace, dissipating those surging intents to kill, leaving behind only a few threads of gentle, compliant attachment.

That face blurred together with the firelight. Jiang Zhou furrowed his brows. His mind was merely thinking about the bonfire, so how was it that the scent of something burning also lingered around his nose?

Immediately after, he noticed the smoke drifting into the cave, carrying a few wisps of angry spiritual energy, pouncing toward him menacingly and fiercely.

The instant the smoke came into contact with him, the black sword hummed, abruptly transforming into a mass of black mist to envelop him, completely blocking off the aura on his body.

Jiang Zhou moved to the edge of the mountain cave to look outside. He saw that not far away, his residence had already caught a sky-high fire. Amidst the rolling thick smoke, a red-clad figure stood on the roof that hadn’t collapsed yet, eyes cast down, not knowing what he was thinking about.

Jiang Zhou cursed him silently in his mind. Run quickly after setting the fire, why stand there like a fool? Aren’t you afraid of being suffocated to death by the smoke?

The fire grew larger, and the smoke drifted higher and higher. Ji Yunlang finally felt the smoke was suffocating. He looked around the entire mountain with dislike. Before leaving, he added another heartless fire, putting on a posture as if he wanted to burn down the entire mountaintop.

Jiang Zhou withdrew his gaze, changing his clothes unhurriedly in the mountain cave, thinking to himself: Too willful.

Burning down the house, where will he live when he returns in the future?

Showing not a single shred of lingering attachment to the place where he grew up since childhood, and showing not a single trace of nostalgia for the beautiful times spent together with his Master, he just had to burn it, burn it all clean, completely ignoring the vital spiritual grass in the courtyard, and ignoring those delicate and beautiful toys made for him in the room.

He had been like this since childhood inconsiderate and annoying.

The fire burned over. Jiang Zhou threw the clothes he had changed out of into the fire. He grasped a clump from the black mist around his body, rubbing it in his palm, and then aimed it at his own face, forcefully suctioning that face-mask off.

The immortal’s face was handsome, elegant, pure, and detached, unstained by a speck of dust. It was ruthlessly rubbed into the black mist by him and thrown into the fire.

Didn’t Ji Yunlang like to burn things? The fire was so fierce and could burn everything clean; he might as well burn this skin that Ji Yunlang liked the most too.

Beneath the disguised face-mask was a completely different face. His countenance was awe-inspiring, his features wild and uninhibited, and his eyes were as cold as winter stars, carrying a blood-aura tempered from a hundred years of slaughter.

If Ji Yunlang saw this, he might hate it to death, Jiang Zhou thought.

Ji Yunlang liked to defile an immortal sitting high up in the clouds, yet he hated getting covered in filth the most. Seeing this face of his, let alone kissing it, his mind would probably be entirely filled with those people from the Bafang Region who had tortured him.

Ji Yunlang would definitely never want to kiss him again.

Thinking up to this point, Jiang Zhou regretted it. He walked into the fire again and picked the face-mask back up.

Fortunately, the black mist was relatively stubborn, so it hadn’t burned through yet.

A thing like a face-mask was merely a tool to satisfy desires. He had worn it for a hundred years—previously because of other people, and later because of Ji Yunlang—but when tracing it back to the root, it was all for himself.

There weren’t many things on his body that could interest his disciple. Ji Yunlang liked this face of his, so he had to keep it.

The fire grew increasingly fierce, waves of surging heat pressing down layer after layer. If he wanted to go down the mountain, he could only pass straight through the fire. Thanks to the black mist on his body, these fires couldn’t burn him, only passing a layer of warmth to him, like a warm fox fur cloak wrapped around him in the wind and snow.

Burning it to this extent, it seemed Ji Yunlang was very angry. The angrier he was, the more it proved he liked him.

People are all like this annoyed when close, yet thinking of each other the moment they separate.

As he walked past, the wooden wicker fence and the trees all over the mountain were devoured by the raging fire. The birds sleeping in their nests emitted sharp cries, and the small animals that had gone up the mountain to share the spiritual energy were all forced out, fleeing toward the foot of the mountain in terror.

Jiang Zhou strolled through the fire, catching sight of a squirrel out of the corner of his eye. It had just fallen from a tree in panic, surrounded by heavy flames, jumping around in anxiety.

He didn’t make any movements, yet a wisp of the black mist on his body drifted over on its own accord, wrapping around the squirrel’s tail to lift it out, placing it in a spot without fire.

The squirrel turned around, its black, bright eyeballs casting a grateful glance toward him, and then followed the other animals to run toward the foot of the mountain.

Jiang Zhou pinched that wisp of black mist that had just returned without letting go, as if he had caught a long tail.

Sometimes he couldn’t distinguish whether Tantan was a cruel, bloodthirsty, and ferocious beast, or a little cat that loved to poke its nose into other people’s business, or if it was actually a Bodhisattva. Otherwise, why would it accumulate merits for them, master and disciple, everywhere in this cruel world day after day, year after year, for decades?

The first time Ji Yunlang’s sword was sharpened, Jiang Zhou hid in the dark, watching the dying patterned tiger bleed profusely. Its strength spent and about to die, it was then healed by a move of “Rejuvenation” that Ji Yunlang had newly learned, plunging once again into a new flight.

The cycle repeated; the blood drained and then gathered, the wounds healed and then reappeared. Once the sword was thoroughly ground in the flesh, Ji Yunlang showed great mercy and spared this tiger, not delivering a fatal blow to it, yet he didn’t use “Rejuvenation” again either.

Ji Yunlang strolled away arrogantly. It just lay on the ground so weakly, the sword wounds on its body gushing blood outward.

That tiger’s gaze had once landed on Jiang Zhou as if begging, yet he merely stood quietly, not even raising a hand.

He thought, no wonder Ji Yunlang was different from other children.

The weak were meat and the strong ate them in the mountains and wilds. This unlucky tiger made Jiang Zhou understand that Ji Yunlang was a naturally born evil beast; he merely wore a layer of human skin to live in the Immortal Continent.

Fortunately, what Jiang Zhou was best at was dealing with such people.

However, before he could even map out a growth trajectory for his disciple, Tantan transformed into a mass of black mist and flew out, enveloping the tiger that was about to die, emitting a gentle light of healing outward.

It surprisingly saved that tiger’s life. Jiang Zhou felt astonished at that time, walking closer and squatting down to look, feeling that Tantan was like a Bodhisattva.

While the black mist wrapped around the tiger, it rubbed against him excitedly. Jiang Zhou generously let out a meow, letting it change into a kitten. The kitten shook its head again, its body growing large, changing into a fierce and powerful black tiger, carrying the weak patterned tiger on its back, walking toward the depths of the woods.

The grand Bodhisattva Tan surprisingly even personally escorted it home.

Jiang Zhou had no heart to think about his disciple anymore. He quietly followed behind for the whole way, during which he thought, this must be a beautiful tiger; Tantan liked it, so it generated pity in its heart.

Otherwise, how could this ferocious beast—which dominated the wilderness and made people blanch with fear at its mere mention—do such a kind and redundant thing?

If he followed over now, he might be able to see Tantan’s first spring of love.

Later he didn’t see it, because he was discovered by Tantan halfway through. The fierce tiger’s roar shook and echoed through the mountain forests, and with a sweep of its long tail, it swatted him entirely out of the woods.

His thoughts snapped back to reality. The mountain fire burned increasingly fiercely. Regarding the matter of building his own sweetness upon the suffering of small animals, Jiang Zhou suddenly felt a trace of shame.

Therefore, he let go of the black mist’s tail, letting it continue to save the other small animals along the way.

He thought in his heart, Tantan truly was a kind kitten.

Stepping into cat feces luck, it had let Ji Yunlang’s merits add one again.

Guanhai Peak had caught fire, and the Qingxiao Sect hurriedly organized disciples to go up the mountain to extinguish the fire.

After rescuing the last stranded small beast, the black mist wound back onto Jiang Zhou’s body. Jiang Zhou avoided those disciples to go down the mountain. When he was about to leave the Qingxiao Sect, he witnessed a rather uninteresting fight.

Several young disciples surrounded a person in the middle, punching and kicking him, from time to time blurting out two or three crude curses. Their vicious faces and the clean, magnificent clothes on their bodies set each other off, revealing an unspeakable comicality.

Jiang Zhou quietly walked closer, hiding behind a tree. With a single glance, he discovered that the one standing beside them holding his arms and looking at people with his nostrils was precisely that kid from the Jiang family who had turned his residence into a pigsty.

The one getting beaten surprisingly wasn’t him. Jiang Zhou peeled off a layer of tree bark with disappointment.

On second thought, it made sense too. The Jiang family possessed power and influence; getting thrashed certainly wouldn’t fall to this young master.

“Alright.” Jiang Mingyuan called a halt to those people, walked over, and glared down at the person in the middle whose body was covered in footprints, “Lin Xiao, today the only ones who have been up Guanhai Peak besides me are you. As for me, I certainly wouldn’t set fire to my own house. You’d better admit it earlier, go find the Sect Leader to acknowledge your mistake, and I will plead for mercy for you again; this matter can then be considered passed.”

“Jiang the Eighth, open your dog eyes and talk nonsense.”

Lin Xiao braced his body, spat a mouthful of blood toward him, and said through gritted teeth, “We went down the mountain together. Whether I set the fire or not, you know it best. What’s more, if you hadn’t forcefully occupied Jiang Zhou’s territory, the Sect wouldn’t have gone as far as lifting the restriction on Guanhai Peak to let just anyone go up. Now that something has happened, you know fear; what did you do earlier?”

A disciple beside him stepped heavily onto his mouth, pressing him entirely onto the ground, using the sole of his shoe to grind back and forth, “How are you speaking, Lin Xiao? Didn’t you like acting as our Master Eighth’s dog the most? Ah? Your dad is a dog, and you are a dog too. A dog only needs to be obedient. If Master Eighth says you set it, then you set it. You wouldn’t want to implicate the entire Lin family just because of you alone, right?”

Lin Xiao was stepped onto the ground, yet he paid absolutely no attention to him, his two eyes staring dead at Jiang Mingyuan.

Jiang Mingyuan furrowed his brows, and delivered a kick to knock that disciple down, “Zhao Heng, did I let you move? Roll out!”

Zhao Heng crashed heavily to the ground, looking at him in shock, “Young Master Eighth, didn’t you say I could beat him at random—”

Jiang Mingyuan glared at him fiercely, and he shut his mouth immediately, scrambling up from the ground, turning his head, and rolling out.

“Roll, roll, roll, all of you roll!” Jiang Mingyuan delivered a kick to each of those disciples’ buttocks. When they had all run away, he dragged Lin Xiao up, using his sleeve to wipe his face haphazardly.

“Don’t move, it hurts to death, Jiang the Eighth!” Lin Xiao flung his arm to the side, retreating backward with his body full of injuries to open up a distance between them, “Are you finished or not? This matter wasn’t done by me, I won’t admit it.”

Jiang Mingyuan was angered by him not a little. He flung his sleeve fiercely, “If you don’t admit it, then this matter has no target. They will certainly blame it all on me, and then blame it on my dad. My dad will beat me to death!”

“Then on what grounds should I go admit it?” Lin Xiao glared toward him, “You know the current plight of my family. If another matter like this occurs, they will have even more reason to send my family into the Bafang Region. Do you want my whole family to die?”

“I said before, I will go plead for mercy with my dad; I can protect you.”

“Jiang the Eighth!” Lin Xiao picked up a stone and smashed it at him fiercely, his two eyes red with anger, “I’ve been with you for so long, and it was never because I wanted you to protect me. My dad’s side is about to press me to death; the Lin family—he wants me to save the entire Lin family! I have no other way, and could only look for you. You are giving me such a path now, are you crazy?”

Jiang Mingyuan took a deep breath, already impatient to the extreme. Seeing the injuries all over Lin Xiao’s body, his expression softened again, “Lin Xiao, I’ll tell the truth, and you know it clearly in your own heart too. The matter of your family is already set; I cannot help. Even if I risked the danger of breaking off relations with my dad, I might not even be able to protect you alone.”

Lin Xiao fell silent.

“But there is a good opportunity right now.” Jiang Mingyuan walked close to him, “Guanhai Peak has been burned. That was the place where Ji Yunlang used to live before; he will certainly not let the matter rest. You acknowledge this matter, which precisely gives the five major sects a pretext to push the Lin family out. When that time comes, you will be a meritorious official. I will then go make a scene at my dad’s place, and I can demand you over.”

“Then what about my father and mother?”

“Originally, your father and mother were going to be sent to let that crowd in the Bafang Region vent their anger; nobody can protect them. Lin Xiao, I advise you to figure it out earlier.”

Lin Xiao looked at him for a long while. When Jiang Yuan was about to lose patience again, Lin Xiao grabbed his sleeve and asked, “You can protect me?”

Jiang Mingyuan was overjoyed, grasping him back, “Of course. Aside from being a bit wretched, you are good everywhere—accompanying me to eat and accompanying me to play, and even doing schoolwork for me. If you were let to go die, I wouldn’t be willing either. How about it, figured it out?”

Lin Xiao’s eyes were still red. He nodded his head, and asked one last time without giving up hope: “The matter of my family is truly set?”

Jiang Mingyuan looked around everywhere, and pulled him closer, “Yes, I eavesdropped at my dad’s doorway. What is the relationship between the two of us; would I lie to you about this?”

“Mm,” Lin Xiao cast down his eyes, his other hand grasping him too, carrying a bit of an appropriately timed tremble, “Then you go tell your dad first that I am willing to acknowledge this matter. I will also acknowledge the other matters of the Lin family on behalf of my father and mother. Let him guarantee he can protect me, and then I will go look for the Sect Leader.”

“No problem! When that time comes, it will be a grand merit for me as well,” Jiang Mingyuan curled his lips with self-satisfaction, “Let’s leave right now, you come together with me—”

“Young Master Eighth,” Lin Xiao stood without moving, tightly grasping his hand, looking toward him gratefully, pronouncing each word distinctly, “I only have you left.”

Jiang Mingyuan was startled, looking at this handsome little face in front of him, the red rims of his eyes, and his obedient and dependent expression. A strange feeling suddenly generated in his heart.

When Lin Xiao wasn’t being wretched, he was actually quite inviting of pity.

At this moment, he felt that he himself was a hero, using a warm and reliable chest to comfort a sorrowful little person. His gaze suddenly became resolute, his spine also became straight, and with a stretch of his long arm, he naturally gathered the person into his embrace, saying in a deep voice: “Call me Mingyuan.”

Lin Xiao’s entire person stagnated for a moment.

In the next moment, he tilted his head up incomparably obediently, “Mingyuan, you go look for your dad first, and I will return to the room to change my clothes, alright?”

Jiang Mingyuan furrowed his brows, “I go first?”

Lin Xiao looked toward him gently, “Mingyuan, I cannot wait. I want to go look for the Sect Leader to plead guilty too much. If I let you wait for me to change clothes, and then we look for your dad together, and only look for the Sect Leader at the very end, how much time that would waste. I truly cannot wait.”

Jiang Mingyuan’s brain hadn’t turned the corner, “What can you not wait for?”

Lin Xiao gave his chest a light slap, “Disagreeable, what else could it be? Of course I cannot wait to push the Lin family out. Sacrificing a few lives of my family members in exchange for a you who loves me so much—it’s worth it.”

Jiang Mingyuan suddenly saw the light, pinching his little face in praise, “You are still this wretched.”

The two parted ways, and Jiang Zhou lifted his steps to follow Lin Xiao.

Lin Xiao didn’t return to the room. Instead, he ran out of the Qingxiao Sect down the mountain at a rapid pace, twisting and turning to enter a hidden mountain cave at the base of the mountain, pulling out a large fat pigeon from inside.

Spiritual light flashed at his fingertips, writing out the two large characters “Run quickly” with strokes in the air, and then guiding the spiritual light into a small bamboo tube, hanging it onto the pigeon’s foot. He threw it upward heavily as if venting his anger, shouting with his energy sunk to his dantian: “Heaven-cursed Jiang the Eighth! I am your father! I will screw your ancestors of eight generations-tions-tions-tions—”

The echo circled through the woods, startling countless flying birds.

In the next moment, someone appeared behind him, pressing a sharp stone against the side of his neck.

Lin Xiao’s movements came to a halt, a forehead full of cold sweat startling up, “Ming… Mingyuan?”

That person replied to him very politely, “No.”

“Oh.” Lin Xiao let out a sigh of relief, yet he still didn’t act blindly or brashly. This person being able to appear behind him without a single sound proved that he wasn’t someone he could rashly move against.

He asked: “This big brother, do you have business?”

“Yes.”

Lin Xiao let out another sigh of relief, “It’s fine as long as you have business, it’s fine as long as you have business. I was truly afraid you came out to play at killing people when you had nothing to do.”

He pointed at the mountain cave beside them, “Can we go inside to speak, big brother? Sit down to rest, and it’s easy to chat over eating and drinking.”

The stone pressed against his neck was withdrawn, tossed onto the ground carelessly.

Lin Xiao felt thoroughly at ease. While turning his head around, he said, “Big brother, you are actually quite easy to talk to—”

Seeing that face, a streak of amazement flashed across the depths of his eyes, and then his gaze was attracted by the pure black collar on the big brother’s neck.

Noticing his gaze, Jiang Zhou said: “Don’t look.”

Lin Xiao removed his eyes immediately.

Jiang Zhou walked toward the inside of the cave, stroking the spirit-locking chain covered beneath the black mist.

That so-called “natal sword” of his was very famous, and the spirit-locking chain from Ji Yunlang on his neck was also very blatant.

After a series of operations, Jiang Zhou combined them into a completely new decorative item. In this way, he neither had to carry the sword transformed from Tantan, nor did he fail to hide the spirit-locking chain well it was concealed to the extent that even if his disciple himself came, he wouldn’t be able to catch a single trace of its scent.