Chapter Seventeen
-Xiao Lan-
Today is December 24, 2017, the day that Xia Youjie—no, squinty-eyed—is preparing to launch the "Night Parade of a Hundred Demons" in his declaration of war.
In early December 2017, I forget the exact time, Xia Youjie visited the Spellcasting College once.
We were first-year students who had just finished all our morning theory classes and were heading to lunch together when we suddenly heard a loud "boom." I reacted quickly and immediately summoned my Instantaneous Power to rush over, with Shaohan and the others close behind.
I hovered my sword in the air and spotted a small black dot in the distance. My eyesight is good, so I cautiously refrained from approaching and simply watched from afar. After a long while, I finally realized it was a bird-shaped cursed spirit, with what appeared to be three people sitting on it.
The bird-like cursed spirit flew closer, and I finally saw clearly who the three people above were. They were actually acquaintances—the squinty-eyed man, and the two high school girls who often followed him.
"Why did they come?" I stopped my sword beside Shaohan. "That's really strange."
"You're asking me? I know!" Shao Han was taken aback at first, then asked me incredulously, "Who did you say came? The Monkey King?"
Of course, I had no idea what this guy was getting so excited about, and I wasn't interested. Maki next to me frowned: "Satoru should still be at the high school, right? He's the only one here who can fight a top-tier curse master."
“He shouldn’t have left yet,” Panda said. “Isn’t he supposed to be leaving on a business trip tomorrow?”
"Salmon."
Although it's not good to dampen everyone's spirits at this time, I still have to say: "Um... well... it seems that Teacher Wu went out to buy desserts this morning, because I bumped into him at the school gate during my morning exercise."
Maki: "..."
Panda: "..."
"Okay, okay, it's alright," I comforted her. "If we can't do anything about it, surely Principal Moth can? There will always be a solution."
Shaohan stood to the side and started grinding her teeth again: "Fine, fine, oh, I couldn't find time to come find you, and you still came looking for me! Monkey King! Give my storage bag back right now!"
"..."
While we were talking, Xia Youjie had already ridden his spirit and quickly arrived in front of us. He smiled and his gaze swept over me, Shaohan, Panda, and Ji.
To be honest, I have a strange feeling that Xia Youjie's attitude towards me and Shaohan has improved a lot since the last Panxing Sect battle... Is it just my imagination?
I'm too lazy to go into detail about how Xia Youjie provoked us—in fact, I wouldn't be able to write it well even if you forced me to—so I'll just skip to the part where Xia Youjie is riding on the cursed spirit, looking down at us.
"On the upcoming December 24th, after sunset, we will begin the Night Parade of One Hundred Demons." A strange smile appeared on his lips. "The locations are the Great Forge of Curses, Shinjuku, Tokyo, and the Holy Land of Curses, Kyoto."
“We will release thousands of curses in each of the two locations, and the order given to them is self-evident: ‘Kill anyone you see.’ If you don’t want your city to turn into hell, then do everything in your power to stop us.”
"Come on, curse each other to your heart's content!"
This is the whole story of how Xia Youjie went to the Spellcasting Academy to provoke us that day. Let's jump back to December 24th. As expected, Shaohan and I were in different locations. I was in Shinjuku, and Shaohan was in Kyoto.
"Keep in touch." I rested my right shoulder on my phone, talking to Shaohan—the phone was a new one Teacher Wu bought for me. "Be careful, don't die."
"It's just backup, what's there to be afraid of?" Shaohan said on the other end of the phone. Judging from her tone, I could even imagine her casually biting her nails while talking to me on the phone. "On the contrary, aren't you just backup too? Why are you acting like you're going to fight on the front lines?"
“This is war, war—you know?” I shrugged. “By the way, I’m with Thorn and Panda now.”
"Ugh, I give up! I don't want to hear it! Why are all three of you, and even all the teachers at Tokyo Jujutsu High School, in Shinjuku, while I'm the only one in Kyoto?!"
“There’s nothing I can do.” I shrugged—though I knew she couldn’t see me over the phone. “Why did you insist on coming to Kyoto yourself when you heard Xia Youjie was going to cause trouble in Shinjuku and Kyoto? So, how was Kyoto?”
"Shut up, you brat! It was the Monkey King who made me yearn for Kyoto, the holy land of sorcery! It's all the Monkey King's fault! And there's this crazy old man staring at me like that, it's so annoying!"
"Haha," I laughed twice. "You reap what you sow. Bye-bye~ You can regret it over there by yourself~"
The last angry wail came through the phone, then abruptly stopped. I hung up and put the phone back in my pocket.
"Ready to begin?" the panda said. "Be careful, Xiao Lan."
Ji nodded, his expression serious: "Prince Ming."
Panda and Thorn have never gone on a mission with me. It's still Shaohan and Zhenxi who I usually team up with. Last time at the Panxing Sect, although they saw me and Xia Youjie going toe-to-toe, their attention was distracted for a while by Shaohan and my sharp banter, so they didn't really know how strong I was. I gave them a "V" sign: "Don't worry! I'm great! As long as I don't face Xia Youjie, I'm fine!"
Thorn and Panda exchanged a glance, their expressions suggesting they were highly skeptical of my words.
But now is not the time to argue about these things. I sniffed, sensing the presence of numerous cursed spirits: "They've arrived."
"I saw it." Panda squinted and stared for a long time before saying, "I've wanted to complain for ages, is your nose a dog's nose? It's as powerful as a dog's nose!"
"Impressive, right!" I got cocky after just a little praise, and I puffed out my chest. "Master Shaohan and the others have said more than once that my nose is amazing!"
"Speaking of Angela, is she really okay all by herself over there?"
"It's alright," I replied confidently. "You need to understand, she's my partner!"
Even so, I was actually a little worried. After all, since Xia Youjie took the storage bag, Shaohan lost a large portion of the yellow paper she used for drawing talismans. The leftover yellow paper from the last talisman-drawing session was reduced to just a few thin sheets. She still had some ink, but not much. These talisman-drawing tools were impossible to buy in this place, so she didn't give me many talismans as a backup before leaving for Kyoto this time.
But thinking about this now is pointless. I took a deep breath—instead of wasting time thinking like this, I should just deal with the cursed spirit in Shinjuku and then fly to Kyoto on my sword to help her… Wait! Speaking of which, how far is it from Shinjuku to Kyoto again? I don't have Shaohan's Shrinking Earth Talisman; if it's too far, there's really no way I can get there in a day!
I started squatting in the corner, counting the distance between the two places on my fingers—ah, I really, really hated arithmetic class the most back in the cultivation world!
"What are you doing?!" Panda popped his head out from behind.
"I'm calculating the distance from Shinjuku to Kyoto," I said honestly.
"You can just look it up on your phone," Panda said, feeling speechless.
【No, no, no.】Thorn started typing on her phone, 【This is absolutely not the time to discuss this! Look, a cursed spirit is coming.】
...That's true, I seem to have gone off-topic again. Okay! It's decided! After dealing with all the cursed spirits here, I'll check the distance from Shinjuku to Kyoto!
What Thorn was pointing to was a huge, frog-like cursed spirit. As for why I said frog-like, it's because when I named this cursed spirit "Frog Cursed Spirit," Panda muttered behind me, "Frogs aren't this ugly!"
Okay, whatever, whether it's a frog or ugly. Ultimately, it's just a hybrid of a toad and a cursed spirit—it has nothing to do with me. I whistled, and the Instant Sword slowly appeared in the air.
"Actually, there's always been one question," Panda blinked, "where exactly does your sword come from?"
"Ah, this is a long story. You can think of it as a relationship between me and Shunxi—that is, my sword, and Shunxi is his name—where you are in me and I am in you."
Upon hearing my words, both Panda and Thorn tilted their heads to the side at the same time.
"Let's talk about the specifics later, things are in trouble now." I fixed my gaze on the frog-like cursed spirit. "An old acquaintance, huh?"
...Wait a minute! This is a frog-like cursed spirit, isn't it? Why do I smell the scent of the two sisters who are always with Xia Youjie on this frog-like cursed spirit? Have they become cursed spirits? Wait, weren't they always with Xia Youjie? Since they've become frog-like cursed spirits, could it be that Xia Youjie has also... wait, is Xia Youjie here too?
"You seem to be thinking something quite rude, ape." The frog-like cursed spirit's mouth slowly opened, revealing two familiar figures inside. Almost instantly, my expression twisted in disgust—Holy crap, those two were hiding inside the cursed spirit's mouth? Aren't they filthy? Even though I'm not a germaphobe, I still felt utterly nauseous at that moment.
But he was an old acquaintance, indeed an old acquaintance.
I knew it! There's no way my nose could have any problems.
Thorn and Panda both took two steps forward, blocking my way and assuming an attack stance. I blinked, a warm feeling inexplicably welling up inside me—ah, it seems I've found a good bond in this world too.
"How come it's turned into an ape again? Last time it was a monkey." I muttered to myself.
“You are bound by the heavens and curses, as are your friends.” The two sisters—the one with brown hair (forgive me for not knowing which one is whose name at this moment)—said with particular certainty, “But unlike that annoying monkey, you can see cursed spirits and have special powers to fight them, you just don’t have curse power… That’s what Lord Natsuo said.”
"...?" I blinked. "Heaven and Curse?"
What are the Heavenly Curse and the Curse?
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
