Chapter 101: A chess piece I told her a long time ago, but she didn't care...
She was asking Lu Guiyan, but the one who answered her was Shen Juansheng.
He still stood there quietly, the wind blowing up his black clothes and the golden hair. Under the vast sea of clouds and sky at the top of the cliff, he looked so gorgeous that he didn't seem like a real person.
Young Master Jin Sheng turned his head, and his eyes, which had just regained their clarity and were as clear as glass, looked straight into her face.
"In terms of blood," he said coldly, his words clear and cruel, "probably, he's my brother."
Qing Guiyu only felt a buzzing in his head.
The internal energy in his hand stagnated and he almost lost his breath.
Lu Guiyan's already pale face darkened even further. Then, as if he had thought of something, he suddenly turned to look at Qing Guiyu.
"I heard the Dragon City Blood Feast was known to the world, and the words of the Tianji Pavilion's Suanni before his death have spread throughout the martial arts world. So... he never explained it to you afterward."
Qing Guiyu was stunned by his question and didn't know how to answer.
More than being unaware, she was practically kept in the dark, like a foolish bird that was clueless. With her girlish arrogance, she had plunged headfirst into this bloody web seven years ago.
Lu Guiyan understood her expression. He shook his head and looked at Chen Juansheng, his eyes filled with undisguised disgust and contempt.
"If he won't tell you, then I have to tell you. Otherwise it would be unfair to you."
Lu Guiyan's gaze, as calm as water, fell on the young man in black. It was cold, a mixture of disgust and pain.
"I followed my master into the valley when I was four years old, but it was also many years ago that I learned from my father's last letter that he had a baby brother."
He paused, a hint of sadness in his voice.
"I thought he had died a long time ago, never imagined..."
He never thought that he would be raised by his enemy and given a cold poison so that he could steal the Bingxi Qi Washing Technique.
Shen Yan, this madman, is such a cruel person.
The young man in white shook his head.
"Chen Yan considered himself a martial arts prodigy, yet he didn't dare to personally test the sinister Cold Marrow Technique. So he wiped out my entire family, but spared the child."
Lu Guiyan's eyes swept across his carefully tailored black robe and the golden threads swirling in the mountain breeze.
"Junior sister, you saved him out of kindness as a doctor. But you must understand," he lowered his head, his voice clear and indifferent. She could only see the jade crown tying the frosty hair.
"He's a lackey raised by Chen Yan, a member of the Tianji Pavilion. How can he have any of the integrity of our Snow Mountain Sect?"
The rebuke was extremely severe, but Shen Jiansheng beside her still stood quietly, without even moving his eyebrows, as if Lu Guiyan was talking about another person.
The young man in white raised his head, his expression lonely and cold, as if he was carrying the ice and snow and wronged souls of the snow-capped mountains for twenty years.
"He who accepts a thief as his father is full of deceit in his blood. He does not deserve to live."
The Wuwang Sword and its scabbard emitted a sharp buzzing sound.
"Whether he's dead or alive now has nothing to do with you or me." Lu Guiyan's voice was calm. He turned to her with a soothing tone, "Junior Sister, you don't have to worry about him anymore. My Snow Mountain Sect will settle this blood debt with the Tianji Pavilion."
He stood up, took a step forward, and pushed her to the side behind him. The cold light on the Wuwang Sword flowed, and the ethereal and resolute sword intent spread out again.
"Pavilion Master Chen," Lu Guiyan said coldly, "Since you've admitted it, you must also know that between you and me, the only issue is life and death. Today, do you want to obtain the Bingxi Jue again for your father? Or do you want to end it all with me here?"
Qing Guiyu felt a little nervous and was about to speak subconsciously.
Putting aside Shen Juansheng's words, she really came here to find Junior Brother's Bingxi Jue.
But how could she say it? She was afraid that Shen Juan would agree. If he agreed, this place would be a desperate situation where they would fight to the death.
I was also afraid that he would make excuses. If he did, with his eloquence and his ability to make things look right, he could even turn black into white.
In my heart, I was cursing this ridiculous fate.
Shen Juansheng took action first.
He took a slow step forward, putting him three feet away from the two of them. The wind from the mountaintop was strong, blowing the intricate dark patterns on his clothes like ripples on water.
Without looking at Lu Guiyan, his eyes were fixed on Qing Guiyu's face quietly, even gently.
"Miss Qing," he began, his voice a little muffled by the mountain wind, but still clear and pleasant, "you don't have to be embarrassed."
Young Master Jin Sheng smiled slightly, and that smile didn't show any embarrassment of being exposed and rebuked, but rather a bit of detached clarity.
"Every word that Brother Lu said is true." He admitted casually, then changed the subject.
"My father is a man of deep scheming and cruel methods. He subjected me to freezing nails and profound ice since I was young, a test of my Cold Marrow Skill. This is indeed true."
"Brother Lu shouldered the deep blood feud of the Snow Mountain Sect single-handedly. His integrity and aloofness are admirable. Shen Yansheng is nothing more than a shady knife in Chen Yan's hand, a stain on the lintel of the Snow Mountain Sect, and it is also a fact."
These words were spoken neither humbly nor arrogantly, and were clearly and logically organized. He used the calmest tone to dissect his long-rotten inner self.
Lu Guiyan's expression grew even more gloomy, and the clanging of his Wuwang sword intensified. "Why bother, Master Tianji? Are you still trying to show off your eloquence at this very moment?"
"Hmm." Shen Juansheng shook his head, his eyes returned to Qing Guiyu, and he casually plucked the tangled strings.
"I was just wondering why Miss Qing, such a good person, would save a... disgusting and filthy thing like me."
He spoke softly, as if talking to himself.
Qing Guiyu was really sad.
How could a newborn baby survive such a bloodbath?
She remembered the young man in the medicine house seven years ago, who was covered in blood, dying, but stubbornly refused to live.
However, even that encounter was a beautiful plot.
——Come to think of it, how could it be such a coincidence that an orphan girl from the war in Yaowang Valley would find the young master of Tianji Pavilion on her own doorstep?
This is a chess piece placed behind Chen Yan's elbow. It has been carefully polished for more than ten years and is a living key to unlock the secret treasure of the Snow Mountain, "Ice Creek Washing Meridians".
But she didn't care and used the secret technique of golden needles that she had just learned to interfere without permission.
The young man had long known his life experience and the purpose of this trip, but he still pretended to be shy, innocent, and even trapped in love in front of her.
From the very beginning, he was full of lies and poison, waiting for her to come quietly and silently.
She was speechless, and suddenly her eyes felt a little hot.
He could only stare blankly at Chen Juansheng, watching the blood drain from his face and something in his clear eyes rapidly collapsing.
Chen Juansheng also looked at her, seeing the shock, sudden realization, and the hesitation because of Lu Guiyan's words, and finally watching the flash of pity for him, the "son of her enemy", in her eyes.
He suddenly smiled softly.
The laughter was light, but it was like a sharp ice edge, cutting through the tense air.
"I told her a long time ago."
Qing Guiyu was stunned by his move and was about to speak.
But he suddenly raised his eyes, the blood color on his face disappeared, and his eye sockets were burning red.
"I told her I had nothing. Even the name was stolen. She knew I was a calculating lunatic."
He stared at her intently.
"I have nothing and she doesn't care."
He bit these four words very hard, with a bloody smell and a cruel self-mockery.
"Look," he suddenly stretched out his hand wrapped in golden threads, trembling, and pointed to his heart.
"She doesn't care who I am or where I come from. She doesn't care what's hidden under my skin."
The bright light in his eyes was now completely drowned by the surging pain and despair. Tears welled up in his eyes and slid down his pale cheeks.
"All she cared about was that I was dying."
The black-robed young man reached out and grabbed her wrist with such force that it nearly crushed her bones. He yanked her fiercely towards him, and then he himself stood at the edge of the cliff.
The wind from the cliff blew into his sleeves, his black clothes fluttered, and the golden threads flew. He looked like a wisp of evening cloud that was about to be torn apart by the strong wind, but he used up his last bit of strength to hold on tightly to this only support.
"I shouldn't have been alive," he said, lowering his head. "I should have died long ago."
"In the snowy mountains, in the cold pond, anywhere, you'll die."
"But she saved me," Shen Yansheng suddenly turned back, with drops of water falling.
"She saved me," he repeated, raising his head. The golden threads swirled, cutting through the mountain wind with a sharp, subtle sound. A bright light suddenly welled up in his tear-filled eyes. "Twice."
Yes, twice.
Once in Yaowang Valley, he used half of his life to keep him alive.
Once, at the bottom of a cold pond, she risked her own life so that he could see the light again.
He considered these two chances of survival his only secret joy in this world, clutched in his hands. But now, even this secret joy was being labeled a "conspiracy" and a "scheme," and was abruptly shattered.
Qing Guiyu felt her heart choke when he looked at her.
Lu Guiyan's face was ice-cold, his Wuwang sword trembled silently, the sword light swept across, and a cold aura emanated.
Young Master Jin Sheng suddenly gave her an extremely faint, yet frighteningly gorgeous smile.
"If you want my life, you can."
He took a step closer to her and stopped before the sharp edge of the Wuwang Sword.
"I figured it out a long time ago. When Miss Qing came out of the cold pond, I figured it out. If she wants to use me to save someone, that's fine."
Shen Yan said softly,
"Use it in exchange for your brother's life, to restore the safety of Yuzhou City, or to find a way to bring peace to the world. Anything is possible."
He stretched out his hand, and placed the slender and cold hand wrapped in gold threads in front of her.
Qing Guiyu stared at him blankly.
This beautiful venomous snake, she sighed in her heart.
He also planned to take apart all his flesh and bones, pick out the most beautiful, harmless and most compassionate pieces, put them together and present them to her.
He hid all the hideous, painful and unbearable parts of himself under this carefully tailored black robe, letting them rot and not letting her see even a glimpse of them.
Whenever this person feels that he is being abandoned, he will test the waters on the edge of life and death.
"first,"
She said, first grabbing his hand and carefully pulling him back, "Stay away from the cliff."
If you fall down, it will be really troublesome and even gods cannot save you.
"Then," Qing Guiyu took a deep breath and began to try to sort out this mess. He felt a little annoyed and just said it out loud.
"First," she held up a finger, her expression serious, "you and you... my senior brother..." She was a little tongue-tied by the title, and finally said vaguely, "It was Chen Yan who did this, not me."
"Second," he held up a second finger, "I saved you because I wanted to. It doesn't matter whether you're his brother or not. Even if you were a monkey that popped out of a crack in the rock, as long as you collapsed at the door of my medicine house, dying, and I liked you, I would save you. Do you understand?"
"Third," he stretched out his third finger, pointed at himself, then at Lu Guiyan, "My junior brother and I are from the same sect, and we are close friends. I can't ignore him when he's in trouble. This has nothing to do with you. Don't think too much about it."
"at last."
She felt extremely guilty when she said this, and all she wanted to do was talk about the Ice Stream Pulse Cleansing Technique. "First, stabilize my brother's injury."
"As for you," Qing Guiyu nodded towards Chen Juansheng, feeling truly troubled. "Let's go back first. I need to discuss these messed up things with you first."
She didn't say anything, but the young man in black seemed to be inspired by the word "we". The resolute and dead look on his face instantly disappeared, his face flushed for a moment, and he nodded at her eagerly.
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