Chapter 388: Accepting the Punishment
Yun Qingqing looked at the girl's pale face and said solemnly:
"It's really... too ridiculous!"
"Then my lord...is there any solution?" Seeing her like this, Chu Jingyan became frightened, afraid to hear bad news.
"It was almost too late to save the situation." Yun Qingqing glanced at him.
“…May God bless you! May my Lord have mercy on you!” Chu Jingyan’s pale face regained color and he wiped his face vigorously.
"Don't be too happy yet." Yun Qingqing said calmly, "She could have been reincarnated safely, but you locked her soul and body together. Now her soul is almost gone. You have to take good care of her for at least a year. Don't make any mistakes."
As she spoke, she took out the Qiankun Furnace.
After she took this thing away, she thought about whether to return it to the Seven Stars Palace, but later she became their master, so it didn't make any difference whether she returned it or not. It was just right to use it to save people now.
Yun Qingqing clasped her hands together, and the Qiankun Furnace glowed faintly and rose into the air.
She moved her fingertips lightly, quickly drawing on the outside of the furnace, densely drawing several circles of formations, and finally pinched her fingers, and the glowing formation gradually shrank, imprinted on the furnace, and finally disappeared into the furnace.
When the formation was completely hidden behind the furnace, a ray of light suddenly shot out from the furnace mouth and shone on Chu Jingxue. After a moment, her body suddenly turned into a ray of light and flew into the Qiankun Furnace.
Finally, the light disappeared, Yun Qingqing reached out and took the Qiankun Furnace back in her hand and handed it to Chu Jingyan.
"Keep this. She is nurturing her soul in it. As long as the Qiankun furnace is not broken, she will be absolutely safe."
"I'll write you a list of soul-nourishing items later. If you can collect the items on it, you can throw them into this furnace. It will help her recover."
Chu Jingyan let out a long sigh, held the Qiankun Furnace carefully, nodded, and wrote down everything.
"Then...how long will it take for Axue to wake up?" he asked impatiently.
"It can't be rushed." Yun Qingqing said calmly, "It will take at least a year and a half, and at most three to five years. And I want to remind you, no matter what happens inside, you must not open the furnace on your own initiative. You must ask me to deal with it, understand?"
"Yes!" Chu Jingyan obeyed her and responded without hesitation.
This time it was over. When Yun Qingqing looked at Chu Jingyan again, her expression became serious:
"One more thing. If you make a mistake as a disciple of the Seven Stars Hall, you should accept the punishment according to the hall rules. I will not cover up for you. Do you understand?"
Chu Jingyan bowed deeply:
"That's how it should be. Thank you, Lord, for making it happen."
Yun Qingqing nodded with satisfaction and handed him a badge:
"Do what you should do. After you go down the mountain, you can go directly to the Imperial Capital Tianming Pavilion and show this sign to the shopkeeper. Go ahead."
…
The highest point of the Seven Stars Hall's mountain gate is the punishment platform.
As dusk approached that day, the punishment platform was surrounded by disciples, and all of them looked at the person kneeling in the center of the platform.
"Tianxuan Hall disciple Chu Jingyan followed his master's instigation and committed a serious mistake. His first crime is..."
The head of the Discipline Hall read out his crimes one by one, and finally asked:
"Do you plead guilty to all of the above?"
"I admit it!"
"Since you have admitted your guilt, you are hereby sentenced to seventy lashes and expelled from the sect. You are not allowed to call yourself a disciple of the Seven Stars Hall again!"
Chu Jingyan closed his eyes, took a deep breath, crawled on the ground, and said loudly:
"Disciple, accept the punishment!"
The disciples in the audience below the stage let out low cries of surprise.
"Hiss... Seventy lashes! Isn't this... too heavy?"
"I don't think the Discipline Hall wants to expel him, they want to kill him!"
"Stop arguing. Didn't you hear what he did? He was the one who kidnapped the Regent!"
"Can this guy still walk out of the mountain gate alive?"
"Life and death are up to fate. When you make a mistake, you should be prepared to be punished. You should still fulfill your duties as a human being..."
…
The top floor of Xuanyuan Tower.
Ji Wujiang was leaning against the tea table by the window, playing with the teacup without sitting still, looking meaningfully at a certain master who was busy flipping through a book.
"Tsk tsk, you really don't intend to plead for him? Seventy whips! Someone who has just started practicing Qi could have been beaten to death. Even if his realm is not bad, he still has internal injuries. Aren't you afraid that something bad will happen to your newly recruited right-hand man?"
Yun Qingqing didn't even raise her head and said calmly:
"If it was that easy to die, his sister wouldn't have lived to see me. There's nothing to worry about."
Ji Wujiang chuckled and didn't bring up the topic again.
Yun Qingqing put down the book and looked at him:
"I have read all these ancient books, but I still can't find where the name of the Nine Heavens Mysterious Lady came from. I can understand why they call me the savior, but why the Nine Heavens Mysterious Lady?"
Ji Wujiang put down the teacup, looking bewildered:
"I don't know about that. Neither the ancestral teachings nor the legends mention it."
Yun Qingqing suddenly recalled a conversation she had with Xiao Changheng.
She considered and said:
"Then do you know that in ancient times, there was a legend about a mysterious woman creating the world?"
"I know this. It is a relatively orthodox legend about the origin of the world. According to legend, the world was originally a wasteland..."
"Alright, alright, I know this." Yun Qingqing knew that this was a long story, so she interrupted him quickly. "What I meant is that there are several contradictions in this ancient legend, and I've always felt that they don't make sense. In the past two days, I've felt that these contradictions are not that simple."
"Hmm?" Ji Wujiang was stunned. "What contradiction?"
Yun Qingqing thought about it and said:
"According to this legend, the goddess' name is Feng Xun. She felt pity for the world because it was too desolate, and then she transformed herself into all things and created the world."
"This...is there any problem?" Ji Wujiang said.
"I haven't finished yet. If this is regarded as the original version of the story, then what the goddess did was the creation of the world. But the legend has another version, called Xuannv Saves the World, which says that a great catastrophe occurred in the world and the goddess appeared... and then the story of saving the world became the creation version again."
Ji Wujiang seemed to be thinking:
"You mean... one of the two versions of the ancient legend is a false story? Xuannv also suddenly appeared in the version of the savior... Could it be that your deeds were actually mixed into the ancient myth?"
"Whether this cause and effect exists or not is still unclear at the moment." Yun Qingqing frowned and said, "Not only that... in my last life, there was no legend of a goddess of creation in the world. Why is it that two thousand years after my death, a goddess of creation appeared in more ancient myths?"
"Huh? Wasn't there anything like that back then?" Ji Wujiang asked curiously.
"Indeed not." Yun Qingqing was sure.
At first she never thought that this was the world two thousand years after her sacrifice, and there were reasons why the ancient legends did not match.
"Generally speaking, myths and legends will evolve little by little over a long period of time, but they can always be traced back to their source. Unless someone in history deliberately controlled them, they would not be created out of nothing, or would be completely changed beyond recognition..."
Yun Qingqing was organizing her thoughts.
"Maybe." Ji Wujiang's head hurt after hearing this. He propped his cheek up and looked at Yun Qingqing who had a serious face. "Why is the master suddenly interested in this title? How did the title come about? Is it important?"
Yun Qingqing frowned and said nothing.
She intuitively felt that there was something crucial in this matter, hidden under various legends, but the amount of information was too little and she could not find a breakthrough.
"He really survived. The master's judgment was correct."
Ji Wujiang's words interrupted her thoughts.
"What...Oh, you mean Chu Jingyan." Her thoughts were still on the ancient legend, and it took her a while to come back to her senses.
Ji Wujiang curled his lips and said:
"After the seventy whippings, his debt to the Seven Stars Palace has been completely repaid. He can follow the master with a clear conscience."
Yun Qingqing looked at him expressionlessly.
Is this guy hinting at something?
Ji Wujiang felt the air getting colder, and he quickly coughed with his hand on his chin, changing the subject:
"I mean, after being whipped, this kid was able to take away a super-grade spiritual weapon from my Seven Stars Palace. He didn't lose out at all!"
"And he also damaged the Xumi Scroll, which is also a super-quality item... Thinking about it this way, seventy lashes is still not enough. We are the ones who suffered..."
He started to babble with a pitiful look on his face, which made Yun Qingqing so angry that she laughed.
"The Qiankun furnace is just OK, but the Xumi scroll is simply a fake. How can it be considered a super-grade spiritual weapon? Take it."
She threw a few scrolls to him:
"If you want a super-grade spiritual weapon, refine it yourself according to this."
Ji Wujiang opened one and immediately smiled happily.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
