Guardians of Mountain and Sea - Chapter 7

Without anyone needing to restrain him, the strange man crouched submissively to one side, listening to the conversation between the two with bated breath, not daring to make a sound.

When the two sect members finished speaking and turned toward him, his sturdy frame shuddered. He kowtowed repeatedly, his voice trembling with terror yet sounding like the delicate chirp of a songbird. “I did not know you were a disciple of the True Lord. I have offended the Young Superior and disturbed the True Lord’s carriage. I deserve ten thousand deaths! I beg the True Lord for mercy, and ask the Young Superior for forgiveness!”

It had to be said that this voice, even when pleading for mercy in terror, was still quite pleasant to hear.

Apu could not help herself and blurted out, “Are you a man or a woman?”

The strange man froze, then bowed his head toward her. His feminine tone was filled with suppressed pain.

“I am grateful for the Superior’s inquiry. I was originally born a woman. One night, the sky collapsed upon my sect; everyone was killed or wounded, leaving only me to survive in a daze. To secretly investigate the culprits and seek revenge, I went to the black market to buy a Shape-Sculpting Pill to change my appearance. I never expected to buy a poisonous pill. When I woke up, I had become this filthy mess, shaming my ancestors and offending the Superior’s eyes.”

The woman in yellow looked thoughtful. “In the last hundred years, three sects have collapsed without cause. Various factions investigated together, and all reported no survivors. Which one were you from?”

The strange… woman buried her head even lower. “The True Lord is merciful. In my current state, I truly dare not speak the name lest I insult my master’s house. I have simply given myself a new title: Wuyanzi (The Faceless One).”

The woman in yellow nodded slightly without further questioning. A red lash of light appeared out of thin air, binding the person kneeling on the ground after striking them twice.

Though the strikes looked as light as feathers, the person’s veins bulged with unbearable pain. They knelt there shivering, cold sweat washing away the facial powder.

Then, an exquisite silken pouch flew out from the person’s robes. The drawstring pulled open automatically, and a piece of blue-green ore floated out. The ore expanded in the wind before shrinking back down to be tucked into the woman in yellow’s sleeve.

“The Bronze Sparrow Terrace was skilled in artifact forging. Fifteen years ago, it collapsed in a single night; the Sect Leader and elders died miserable deaths, and the entire sect was buried alive with no survivors. Disciples of that sect were granted profound ores by their elders based on their cultivation. This dark blue heavy iron is a rare profound ore only given to personal disciples of the Sect Leader. You harbored evil intent to harm my junior; do you have any objections to me taking this item?”

The strange person, hands bound behind their back, only kowtowed in silence. As the makeup faded, a bronze skin tone was revealed beneath, looking exceptionally comical.

“The evil intent can be offset by this item, but you forced my junior to jump from the sky with a heart ready for death. Your life cannot compensate for hers.”

The stranger kowtowed until their forehead bled, but because of a cultivator’s special constitution, the wound healed as quickly as it was broken again. They wailed piteously, “I beg the True Lord to spare my life! This little woman carries a blood feud of over ten thousand lives on her shoulders alone; I truly do not dare to die! Once I have avenged my sect, I will immediately seek out your immortal mountain and end my life before the Superior!”

Apu had observed enough by now to get a sense of her senior’s temperament. She was informal but had a clear sense of right and wrong; she did not bully others with her status but would not tolerate offense; she did not coddle her juniors but was protective of them.

The girl spoke up, “Your sect has fallen, and based on what you said earlier, you intended to join the Beast Taming Sect?”

Wuyanzi gave a bitter smile. “In my current state, a female soul in a male body, neither yin nor yang, it is difficult to practice the five elements. Which sect would take me in? The Bronze Sparrow Terrace excelled in forging but was poor at combat. I could only find a sect willing to take me in to study magic arts before seeking revenge. I heard an elder of the Beast Taming Sect offered discipleship in exchange for rare beasts. I searched everywhere and saw the Young Superior’s mount, which led to my wicked thoughts.”

Apu turned to her senior. “Senior, although she was wrong, I am unharmed after all. It would not be right to just kill her, especially since she is the last spark of her sect. If she dies, that lineage truly ends. How about we place a restriction on her? If she does not repent and continues to do evil in the future, you can take her life with a single thought.”

Apu had grown up in Mang Mountain; she was sharp and good at reading people. Lacking blood relatives, she had placed all her devotion on Priestess Granny. Now she had a sect, and regardless of its quality, the woman in yellow had cared for her and saved her life. She was the type who could not stand it when others were good to her; she wanted to give her heart and soul in return.

Now, her senior’s principles were clear: she wanted to punish the stranger for hurting her. But the stranger’s background was also clear: a fellow sect whose members were dead, leaving only this one sprout. Her senior wanted to act but felt a trace of pity.

Therefore, Apu decided to take the lead. A life spared, kept for now, and watched for later.

The woman in yellow had lived for thousands of years and seen the depths of the human heart; how could she not see what the little girl was thinking? Inwardly, she thought even higher of her.

She turned to the bound person on the ground. “What say you?”

Wuyanzi was overjoyed, straightening her upper body. Within the masculine frame, there was still a trace of graceful, feminine charm, making the sight even more bizarre. “Wuyanzi thanks the True Lord! Thanks the Young Superior!”

“No need to thank me. She is her, and I am I. Since she is willing to spare your life, I shall punish you by making you her attendant. Called an attendant, but in truth, master and servant.”

Wuyanzi’s eyes filled with tears of gratitude.

Technically, when the woman in yellow had risen to fame, the founder of the Bronze Sparrow Terrace had not even started their sect yet. It was not shameful at all to be a servant to a Young Superior of her lineage. But since her entire sect was dead, she represented the final dignity of her master’s house; being a servant or slave was absolutely out of the question.

However, entering a Great Sect under the title of an attendant meant being a registered disciple of that sect, which provided a place to stay. Since she had turned into this ghostly shape, she had never felt such kindness.

Tears turned the powder on her face into a mess. A masculine man clutching a handkerchief and crying delicately was a sight that even a world-weary True Lord could hardly stomach.

The woman in yellow’s mouth twitched, and she brushed him aside with a sleeve.

“This avatar of mine is about to dissipate. The matter of the restriction must be done by my true body. Let the big cat take you the rest of the way.” As soon as she finished speaking, the woman in yellow turned into a streak of red light and vanished into the distance.

Once again, the young girl sat at the tiger’s neck, gripping the fur. The tiger leaped across mountains and rivers, but this time, a man in a tight red outfit flew alongside them.

“Sister Wuyanzi, I just came out of Mang Mountain. Why don’t you tell me about the cultivation world?”

“In my current state, I am not worthy of such a title from the Young Superior.”

Having said that, the man thought for a moment and cleared his throat. He suppressed his naturally melodious female voice and shifted his internal breath. When he spoke again, it was the voice of a normal man.

“You may just call me Wuyanzi.”

It turned out there were six Great Sects in the cultivation world: four righteous and two “evil.” Among them, “evil” did not mean they were all bad people doing wicked things; it simply meant their actions deviated from the righteous path and differed from the mainstream.

For example, the Ten Thousand Demon Sect worshipped the Nine Heavens Demon Gods. Their disciples had their own beliefs, and though they acted erratically, they did not interfere with the mortal world or other sects, focusing only on their own cultivation.

“Worshipping demon gods? Are they not evil then?” the girl asked, puzzled.

“All living beings have desires and obsessions. Every desire and obsession corresponds to a demon god. Are the seven emotions, like greed, anger, and obsession, considered evil? Furthermore, the disciples of the Ten Thousand Demon Sect have their own rules. For instance, those who worship the Demon God of Greed will do anything to trick or steal a treasure before it has an owner. But once it has a master, they turn and leave immediately, never lingering. Moreover, they are protected by their demon gods; when facing heart-demons, they have techniques to refine and transform them into cultivation. Thus, ‘falling into madness’ simply does not exist for them. For that alone, many are willing to join them.”

“The other evil faction is the Beast Realm. It has no mountain gate or fixed base; spirits and demon beasts naturally belong to this faction. Demon beasts naturally huddle together and admire the strong, so the Demon Kings living in various places represent the entire Beast Realm. The Demon Kings do not care for cultivation politics; when there is business, the other five Great Sects discuss it, notify the Demon Kings, and the Kings pass the orders down to the Beast Realm. I heard there are several Demon Kings in the southern Great Mang Mountain…”

The tiger beneath Apu roared toward the sky, seemingly in agreement.

“As for the four righteous Great Sects, they are the Yushan Sword Domain, the Qingling Sect, the Ghalan Fahua Temple, and the Huangdao Alliance.”

“Which one do I belong to? And who is my senior?”

Wuyanzi hesitated for a moment and spoke timidly, “This… since the True Lord did not say, she must have her reasons. Why don’t you ask her yourself?”

Seeing her fear of speaking, the girl did not mind. She didn’t even know who the woman in yellow was, let alone which sect she was joining. In all these days, her senior hadn’t even asked for her name! The girl felt a little huffy inside.

“Then I won’t ask you that. Earlier, you mentioned several sects had accidents like your own?”

At this, Wuyanzi’s mood darkened.

“I heard from my elders that it likely started seven hundred years ago. Since then, sects have met with disaster one after another, though I never expected it would reach the Bronze Sparrow Terrace.”

During these seven hundred years, the first was the Corpse Refining Sect, which was wiped out in a single night. As the name suggests, their disciples refined corpses into magical tools. Unless one was a monster with no humanity, most cultivators found this practice unacceptable. Consequently, the Corpse Refining Sect mostly stayed closed off, having little contact with others.

One day, the new leader of a nearby sect took office and sent disciples to deliver invitations. Only then did they discover that everyone from the Sect Leader to the lowly servants had died a horrible death. The Great Sects investigated and concluded that the refined corpses had all rioted at the same time, killing their masters. No one survived.

Such tragedies occurred four more times over the next six hundred years. But in the most recent century, three happened at once, the Bronze Sparrow Terrace being the third.

“That day, I was refining a Mother-and-Son Medicine Cauldron and secretly asked a senior sister to help. We were exhausted afterward and rested together in the forging room. I don’t know how long I slept, but when I woke up, the room had collapsed. My sister was pinned to the stone door by a longsword from the outside; before she died, she used her spiritual power to weld the door shut for me,” Wuyanzi said in a low voice.

“By the time I managed to break the seal and crawl out, everyone was dead. There were ruins, thick smoke, and black fire everywhere. The tripod from the front of the great hall had been taken. The Sect Master was clutching the broken chain of the tripod, charred to a crisp while half-kneeling on the ground.”

Beneath the burly frame of the masculine man, one could almost see the hollow, lost shadow of a woman.

Apu did not know how to comfort him, so she remained silent. Wuyanzi was lost in memory and did not speak again.

The giant tiger ran eastward without stopping. It snatched up birds and beasts along the way without slowing down. They ran from the grasslands they saw after leaving Mang Mountain to barren rocky cliffs, then from the desert to golden sands. The food in Apu’s bundle had spoiled and was inedible; fortunately, Wuyanzi had many Fasting Pills in her storage pouch. They were dry and tasteless, but they kept her full.

“Wuyanzi, how many days has it been?” the girl asked weakly, slumped against the tiger’s fur.

“It is the nineteenth day since I met the Young Superior.”

A tiger roar vibrated through the air. Apu sat up with a jolt and asked excitedly, “Are we there, Tiger Senior?”

The giant tiger snorted and accelerated into a gallop.

Apu had been on the tiger’s back for nearly a month and felt she was on familiar terms with it, so she carefully climbed through the thick golden fur to the top of its head. Wuyanzi followed alongside, using a Wind-Guiding Spell to support her.

The sands had been left behind a few days ago. Now, the land rushing past was a black, cracked, and boundless expanse. This land saw no sunlight; dark clouds covered the sky, and a heavy black mist hung low.

In the distance, they could see a towering, continuous black mountain reaching into the clouds. Thick smoke billowed from the summit, and the body of the mountain glowed with a faint, dazzling red light.

It was a massive active volcano.

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