Chapter 190 Strict teachers produce outstanding students
Chao Chengwen noticed that his field of vision was changing rapidly.
Yue Ming knew that his slender fingers were twisting and deforming before his eyes, gradually turning into an old, withered appearance like withered tree bark.
"No--!"
A piercing scream tore through the air.
Chao Chengwen felt a wave of dizziness, as if someone had used an iron hook to forcibly pull his soul out of Yue Mingzhi's body.
He struggled desperately, but could only watch helplessly as the young and handsome body receded further and further away from him.
The moment his soul returned to its place, Chao Chengwen collapsed into his old, frail body.
He touched his cheek, trembling.
Deep wrinkles, loose, sagging skin, and age spots that can never be washed away.
"No...this isn't me!" Chao Chengwen frantically scratched his cheeks with his withered fingers, screaming hysterically, "Give me back my face! Give it back to me!"
A mournful wail echoed in the secret chamber, like the wailing of a vengeful ghost.
In that frenzied moment, a whip flashed through the air like lightning.
The Crimson Scale Whip pierced Chao Chengwen's throat with pinpoint accuracy, abruptly cutting off his scream.
Chu Xuanji flicked her wrist, and a string of blood beads shot out from the tip of the whip: "Shut up."
Chao Chengwen stared intently ahead with his bulging eyes, his face filled with resentment and bitterness, before collapsing heavily to the ground.
The old face still bore a twisted, crazed expression.
The commotion inside the secret room eventually disturbed everyone in the Grand Tutor's residence.
The footsteps outside the secret room grew closer, accompanied by the panicked cries of the servants.
Lu Yao and Chu Xuanji exchanged a glance and nodded in tacit agreement.
With a wave of her wide sleeve, Lu Yao collected the Earthly Fiends Reversed Heaven Book into her sleeve.
"Walk."
Before they finished speaking, the two transformed into two streaks of light, one gold and one red, and flew out of the window, disappearing into the night.
When the servants broke down the door, they found the place in complete disarray.
Four heretics lay sprawled on the ground, some unconscious, others already dead.
Meanwhile, the newly crowned top scorer, Yue Mingzhi, lay quietly in the corner, breathing steadily, as if he were simply asleep.
At the door of Chao Chengwen's bedroom, a servant knocked lightly but received no response, so he had no choice but to push the door open and enter.
"Master, something has happened in the study..."
The words stopped abruptly, and the teacup shattered on the ground with a "crack".
The servant, his face ashen, stumbled back several steps and scrambled out of the room.
"Master...Master is dead!"
Inside the Imperial Preceptor's residence, bestowed by the old emperor, a dim lamp flickered.
Lu Yao and Chu Xuanji sat facing each other in front of a jade table, on which lay the strange book, "The Book of Earthly Fiends and Heavenly Inversion".
Despite being sealed by seven layers of seals, the pages of the book still occasionally emitted a faint blood-red glow.
“Even the Samadhi True Fire can’t burn it…” Lu Yao frowned as she looked at the extinguished flame at her fingertips, “It can be split open and then regenerate on its own…”
Chu Xuanji stroked the Crimson Scale Whip, then her eyes suddenly lit up: "Why don't you entrust it to me for safekeeping? I will take good care of it. If the seal fades, I will reinforce it again."
Lu Yao looked at her master with a half-smile: "Master, could it be that you want to take this opportunity to enter and test your whip on those evil spirits?"
"Hehe." Chu Xuanji chuckled awkwardly, touching her nose, her thoughts exposed. "Little Yao'er still understands her teacher so well..."
Lu Yao sighed softly, channeling spiritual energy into the final seal on the book cover with her fingertips: "This is all we can do for now. Once I find a way to break the seal, Master will surely return this book to me intact."
"Don't you trust your teacher to do things?"
Chu Xuanji patted her chest loudly, then casually stuffed the evil book into her personal storage bag.
The master and disciple spent several days together at the Imperial Preceptor's residence.
Chu Xuanji initially watched Lu Yao handle court affairs with great interest, but by the third day she couldn't sit still any longer. She brandished her Crimson Scale Whip in the courtyard, startling all the birds in the trees into scattering.
On the morning of the fifth day, she finally couldn't hold back any longer and barged into the study with her packed luggage.
"Little Yao'er, your master must continue searching for the Kunlun Secret Realm. If I don't exercise these past few days, even my whip will rust."
Lu Yao looked up from the pile of documents and saw the mud stains on her master's boots that were still wet. She knew that she had probably gone to the back mountain to test the whip before dawn.
She stood up and straightened Chu Xuanji's crooked clothes: "Take care, Master. Remember to send me messages often."
Before she could finish speaking, Chu Xuanji swept out the door like a gust of wind.
A hearty laugh echoed under the eaves: "I know! I'll bring you snow lotus next time!"
In the blink of an eye, the crimson figure had already leaped into the clouds.
The master and apprentice originally maintained an agreement to exchange one letter every quarter.
Chu Xuanji always sent sketches of local scenery from various places.
Sometimes it's a quick sketch of an eagle on the snowy peaks of Kunlun, with a note next to it: "This feathered beast only behaved after being whipped three times."
Sometimes the paintings depict exotic flowers and plants from the dense forests of southern Xinjiang, with a small figure standing with his hands on his hips and wielding a whip added to the corner.
On the day of the Beginning of Winter in the third year, the Bluebird delivered a piece of paper with a hastily drawn image of waves crashing against the shore.
The words written next to it in a flamboyant style were:
【My little darling, your master is going to sail out to sea to find the immortal mountains!】
Year after year thereafter, the bluebird never arrived, and letters ceased.
Lu Yao stored the yellowed letters in a sandalwood box, and often took them out to read them carefully in the quiet of the night.
The scent of ink on the letter had long since dissipated, but Chu Xuanji's free and unrestrained handwriting remained vivid.
Until Lu Yao was suppressed under the Soul-Severing Ridge.
Unfortunately, he didn't get to see the returning sailboat before his last wisp of consciousness faded away.
"Master..."
A thousand years have passed before my eyes, and the winding road whispers softly.
She stood atop Jinglan Mountain, with countless lights scattered like stars below. A passenger plane pierced the clouds, leaving a long contrail across the sky.
The hustle and bustle of the modern city makes this place seem even more desolate.
When she was still an infant, Lu Yao was abandoned by her parents at Qingyun Temple.
The richly dressed couple claimed it was "temporary foster care," but they didn't even leave her a single bundle.
Out of respect for the Lu family, the abbot reluctantly accepted them as his sweeping boys.
From then on, before the morning bell rang, she would get up and fill ten vats with mountain spring water.
Even after the evening drum has stopped, one still has to kneel and wipe the blue bricks of the Sanqing Hall.
The idle men from the nearby villages gathered outside the temple, pointing and gossiping about her increasingly beautiful appearance.
That night, a torrential downpour occurred, and Lu Yao, hungry, was tidying up incense and candles in the woodshed.
The wooden door was suddenly kicked open, and a butcher, reeking of alcohol, lunged at you with a sinister grin.
She grabbed the candlestick to resist, but was slapped and slammed against the wall.
Just as the rough hand tore open her collar, a crimson shadow burst through the window and coiled around the butcher's neck like a venomous snake.
With a slight flick of the whip, the burly man, weighing over a hundred pounds, was flung out of the door like a rag doll, crashing heavily onto the rain-soaked ground.
"Little girl, you have good potential."
The woman holding the whip walked in through the rain, her black outfit remaining completely dry.
She bent down and used the handle of her whip to lift Lu Yao's chin, then suddenly laughed: "These eyes are perfect for learning the art of physiognomy."
From then on, Chu Xuanji taught her to observe the stars and divine the six lines, and taught her the Purple Star Sword Technique and the Crimson Scale Whip Technique.
Sometimes, when she was transmitting her skills late at night, Lu Yao would fall into her arms, exhausted. She would pinch her cheeks and scold her with a smile: "Lazy girl, you look just like my daughter."
Chu Xuanji was so strict and unapproachable when teaching.
If you misremember a single phrase, you have to copy it a hundred times; if your sword move deviates even slightly, you have to practice it a thousand times.
Lu Yao often practiced with the peach wood sword until her arms trembled, until the tip of the whip lightly touched her wrist: "Wrong, try again after you've angered Taiyuan Xue."
But once the exercise is over, the hand holding the whip will magically produce sugar cakes.
Despite having long since abstained from grains, Chu Xuanji would always sit on the rooftop with her disciple, watching her wolf down three baskets of crab roe buns.
On the Lantern Festival, her master secretly took her down the mountain and they sampled all kinds of snacks in the brightly lit streets.
On the day Lu Yao completed her studies, Chu Xuanji packed her luggage under the lamp.
With his right hand, he tucked the talisman into the interlayer, while his left hand continuously stroked the top of his disciple's head.
“I’ve taught you everything I needed to,” she said, pressing Lu Yao’s head onto her shoulder. “The rest, you’ll have to learn by yourself.”
She is like a strict teacher, an elder sister who can't bear to see her younger sister suffer, and even more like a mother who cruelly pushes her fledglings away from the nest.
In a daze, the sound of the Crimson Scale Whip cutting through the air seemed to still echo in my ears.
Lu Yao subconsciously reached for her waist, but only touched the cold metal frame of her smartphone.
The wooden box, letters, and peach wood sword from my memory have all been lost in the long river of time.
Only the Local Fiend Book of Heaven, which had traveled through a thousand years, appeared in Zhong Zhengming's hands.
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