Chapter 388: Accepting Punishment
Yun Qingqing looked at the girl's pale face and said solemnly:
"That's really... too much!"
"Then my lord... do you have any solution?" Seeing her like this, Chu Jingyan became frightened, fearing 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 fiercely.
"Don't be too happy yet." Yun Qingqing said calmly, "I could have been reincarnated safely, but you forcibly locked my soul and body together. Now my soul is almost dispersing. You must take good care of it 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 originally 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 it.
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's nurturing her soul in there. As long as the Qiankun furnace isn't broken, she'll be absolutely safe."
"I'll write you a list of soul-nourishing items later. If you can gather any of them, you can throw them into this furnace. It will help her recover."
Chu Jingyan breathed a long sigh of relief, carefully held the Qiankun Furnace, nodded, and wrote down everything.
"Then...how long will it take for Axue to wake up?" he asked impatiently.
"There's no rush." Yun Qingqing said calmly, "It'll 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 never open the furnace on your own. You must ask me to handle it, understand?"
"Yes!" Chu Jingyan obeyed her and responded without hesitation.
This time it was considered to have come to an end. When Yun Qingqing looked at Chu Jingyan again, her expression became serious:
"One more thing. As a disciple of the Seven Stars Hall, you made a mistake and must accept the punishment according to the hall's rules. I will not protect you in any way. Do you understand?"
Chu Jingyan bowed deeply:
"That's how it should be. Thank you, Lord, for your help."
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 Star Hall's mountain gate is the punishment platform.
As dusk approached that day, the punishment platform was surrounded by disciples, and their eyes were fixed on the person kneeling in the center of the platform.
"Tianxuan Hall disciple Chu Jingyan followed his master's instigation and committed a grave offense. 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 confessed your guilt, you are hereby sentenced to seventy lashes and expelled from the sect. You are never again allowed to call yourself a disciple of the Seven Stars Hall!"
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's the one who kidnapped the Prince Regent!"
"Can he still walk out of the mountain gate alive?"
"Life and death are determined by fate. When you make a mistake, you should be prepared to accept punishment. As a human being, you should still fulfill your duties..."
…
The top floor of Xuanyuan Tower.
Ji Wujiang was leaning against the tea table by the window, playing with the teacup without sitting down, looking meaningfully at a master who was busy flipping through a book.
"Tsk tsk, you really don't intend to plead for him? Seventy whips! Anyone who just started practicing Qi could be killed right away. Even if his realm is quite good, he still has internal injuries. Aren't you afraid that something bad might happen to your newly recruited right-hand man?"
Yun Qingqing said calmly without even raising her head:
"If it were that easy to die, his sister wouldn't have lived to see me. What's there 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've searched through all these ancient books, but I can't find where the name Jiu Tian Xuan Nu came from. I understand why they call me the savior, but why Jiu Tian Xuan Nu?"
Ji Wujiang put down his teacup, looking bewildered:
"I don't know about that. It's not mentioned in any of the ancestral teachings or legends."
Yun Qingqing suddenly remembered a conversation she had with Xiao Changheng.
She said carefully:
"Then do you know that in ancient times, there was a legend about a mysterious woman creating the world?"
"I know this, it's a relatively orthodox legend about the origin of the world. Legend has it that the world was originally a wasteland..."
"Alright, alright, I know that." Yun Qingqing knew the story was quite long, so she quickly interrupted. "What I mean is, there are several contradictions in this ancient legend that I've always felt don't make sense. And the past two days, I've felt that these contradictions aren't that simple."
"Hmm?" Ji Wujiang was stunned. "What contradiction?"
Yun Qingqing pondered and said:
"According to this legend, the goddess was named Feng Xun. She felt pity for the desolate world and transformed herself into all things, thus creating the world."
"This... is not a problem, right?" Ji Wujiang said.
"I haven't finished yet. If this is considered the original version of the story, then the goddess's actions constitute the creation of the world. But another version of the legend has emerged, called "Xuan Nu Saves the World," which tells the story of a great catastrophe upon the human world, the appearance of the goddess... and then the story of salvation becomes the creation version again."
Ji Wujiang seemed to be thinking:
"You're saying... that one of the two versions of the ancient legend is a lie? And Xuannv suddenly appears in the version about salvation... Could it be that they've actually mixed your story into the ancient myth?"
"Whether this causal relationship actually exists is still unclear," Yun Qingqing frowned. "Not only that... in my previous life, there was no legend of a creation goddess. Why is it that two thousand years after my death, a creation goddess has appeared in even more ancient myths?"
"Huh? Wasn't there one back then?" Ji Wujiang asked curiously.
"Indeed not." Yun Qingqing was very sure.
At first, she never thought that this was the world two thousand years after her sacrifice, and there was a reason why the ancient legends did not match.
"Generally speaking, myths and legends 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 manipulated them, they would only create something out of nothing, or completely distort it beyond recognition..."
Yun Qingqing was organizing her thoughts.
"Perhaps." Ji Wujiang's head ached after hearing this. He propped up his chin 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 beneath various legends, but the amount of information was too little, and she had never found a breakthrough.
"He really made it through. The Master's judgment was indeed 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 Temple has been completely repaid. He can now follow the Master with a clear conscience."
Yun Qingqing looked at him expressionlessly.
Is this guy implying something?
Ji Wujiang felt the air grow colder, and he quickly coughed, holding his jaw, and changed the subject:
"I mean, after getting whipped, this kid was able to take away a super-grade spiritual weapon from my Seven Star Palace. He didn't lose out at all!"
"And he even 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 the loss..."
He started to babble with a pitiful look on his face, which made Yun Qingqing so angry that she laughed.
"The Qiankun Furnace is passable, but that Xumi Scroll is a fake. How can it be considered a super-grade spiritual weapon? Take it."
She casually 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.
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