Xi Qingyi listened to that voice, a strange confidence blooming within him, a sense that something momentous was about to occur.
He took a deep breath, cast one final look at the ancestral tomb being devoured by raging flames, then closed his eyes in feigned sorrow, his chest heaving. Then, he bellowed out, "I told him to burn it!!"
His voice, so full of conviction, echoed throughout the entirety of Sword Peak.
Even Jun Wuxie, who was diligently stoking the fire, couldn’t help but shudder at these words, tears quickly welling in his eyes.
An indescribable emotion spread through him.
Senior Brother is truly Senior Brother! Even when burning our ancestral tomb, he didn’t forget to shield me! Afraid I’d take responsibility? So he shouldered it all himself! In that case, I absolutely cannot let Senior Brother Xi Qingyi down.
Jun Wuxie raised his head, his gaze meeting Xi Qingyi’s, which was also fixed on him. In that instant, an inexplicable sentiment surged between them.
Warm sunlight spilled down and fire clouds spread, as if only the two of them remained between heaven and earth.
"Senior Brother! I won’t let you down!" Jun Wuxie declared.
"Junior Brother, burn it without worry!" Xi Qingyi replied.
Su Bei watched Xi Qingyi with a baffled expression, then glanced at Jun Wuxie. Jun Wuxie stood before the stele, head tilted back, clutching a large wine jug, GLUG GLUG GLUG, pouring it into his mouth.
Is it me who’s got a problem, or is it the Sword Sect? Su Bei wondered.
Wenren Pingxin’s eyebrows twitched. Hearing Xi Qingyi’s declaration, she felt she must have misheard.
What the hell? You told Jun Wuxie to burn your ancestral tomb?
"Xi Qingyi, what nonsense are you spouting?" she demanded. "Hurry up and make Jun Wuxie stop!"
Wenren Pingxin took a deep breath, her chest heaving violently. Her hands, emerging from her long sleeves, and the partially visible, fair nape of her neck, clearly showed her skin’s creamy whiteness, surpassing snow and frost.
Wenren Pingxin was furious.
It was one thing for Su Bei to cause trouble, but he actually produced the Qingping Sword! Jun Wuxie is also a habitual troublemaker, but what on earth is wrong with Xi Qingyi?
Hearing Wenren Pingxin, Xi Qingyi merely smiled faintly. Mimicking Su Bei, he clasped his hands behind his back, looked up at the sky, and presented an inscrutable silhouette.
"I said, it was I who told Sixth Junior Brother to burn it! It was all my doing!"
He then shot Jun Wuxie an encouraging smile.
In his mind, he could already see a peerlessly sharp sword blooming! Ha! Su Bei! My Sword Peak has a Big Treasure Sword too! Three thousand disciples paying homage to the ancestors, three thousand disciples facing the sword—what a magnificent spectacle that would be!
Wenren Pingxin was stunned, momentarily speechless. She leaned weakly against Su Bei’s shoulder, her hand trembling as she pointed at Xi Qingyi. "You..."
Jun Wuxie looked at Xi Qingyi and nodded vigorously, feeling he absolutely could not disappoint the Second Elder.
Then, clutching the wine jug with both hands, he took a massive gulp and sprayed it towards the sky thick with fire clouds.
A colossal fireball instantly ignited the surrounding air, charging towards the stele with ferocious momentum.
"Blazing Fireball Technique!"
Dust and smoke billowed everywhere.
The Sword Sect disciples watched all of this, stunned and wide-eyed.
In their eyes, the Second Elder and the Sixth Elder, who should have been locked in a deadly battle by now, were instead acting as close as brothers who shared the same pair of pants and used the same stick!
This... what in the world is happening?
"Could it be that the Second Elder also foresaw something?"
"This... could something truly amazing emerge from this?"
"The Second Elder isn’t a fool. He’s about to celebrate his eight-hundredth birthday; surely he wouldn’t bring ruin upon himself!"
"Indeed. For his eight-hundredth birthday, he’ll surely invite guests from all Twenty-One Provinces. The Second Elder wouldn’t make such a blunder."
"I just wonder what kind of treasure will burst forth!"
"I’m really looking forward to this..."
From the heavens above, a shower of fire rained down, fiercely bombarding the ancestral tomb’s stele.
Finally, as Jun Wuxie unleashed his last gout of flame, the towering stele shattered with a deafening BOOM!
"It exploded! It exploded!"
"The stele exploded!"
"Ahhh! What peerless treasure is going to appear?"
"Wow, ashes are floating everywhere in the sky..."
An eerie silence fell over Sword Peak as the warm sun cast its last fading ray. Sword Peak itself stood majestically within the Sword Sect, stretching for tens of li from east to west, dotted with numerous pavilions and bamboo groves. Though it was midday, the sounds of discussion could be heard everywhere.
From high above, one could faintly hear what sounded like the lamenting souls of Sword Peak’s ancestors, their ethereal cries carried on the wind with the scattering ashes to every corner of the peak. These cries seemed to be a mixture of exquisite profanities and faint, unwilling sighs.
The cinerary urns, now scattered across the snowy ground and scorched red by the flames, glinted under the warm sun.
As if praising Xi Qingyi for his filial piety. Well done.
Discussions among the Sword Sect disciples continued:
"So, the Second Elder was just bored and decided to desecrate a grave?"
"Hmm, I’ve never seen so many ashes..."
"Of course. Thousands of years’ worth of ashes are all here. These are ancient ashes, accumulated over millennia."
"Then... is he going to spend his eight-hundredth birthday at the Cliff of Reflection?"
Xi Qingyi blinked his eyes, unwilling to give up. He fumbled for the shiny cinerary urns on the ground, shivering all over as he muttered, "No way! Where’s the Big Treasure Sword? Where is my Big Treasure Sword?"
Then he shot up and lunged for Jun Wuxie, who, seeing things had gone awry, was preparing to flee.
Spittle flew as his face contorted with rage. "Didn’t you say this was a geomantic treasure spot? Didn’t you say there absolutely had to be a sword?"
Just then, a faint voice drifted over. It wasn’t loud, but it reached everyone’s ears.
Su Bei gently pushed away Wenren Pingxin, who had seized the chance to lean on him and was surreptitiously touching him all over. His expression was calm, the corners of his mouth curving into an exceedingly elegant arc. So tender, so heartwarming, such a picture of gentlemanly grace.
"Law Enforcement Elder?" Su Bei called out. "Deliberately instigating and damaging the Sword Sect’s ancestral tomb—according to Sword Sect law, what is the sentence for that? Oh! And the ashes were scattered too."
The Law Enforcement Elder subtly raised an eyebrow. He glanced briefly at the expressionless Wenren Pingxin, then at Xi Qingyi, who was still stubbornly clutching at the ashes. He cleared his throat and spoke, "Ahem! For destroying the Sword Peak ancestral tomb... the sentence should be fifty years of confinement at the Cliff of Reflection for introspection..."
The words had barely left his mouth when Xi Qingyi, his eyes wide as he stared at the already distant Jun Wuxie, protested vehemently, "I didn’t burn it! Jun Wuxie did! Jun Wuxie was the one who burned it! You all saw it! You watched with your own eyes!"
Jun Wuxie blinked his eyes, hands clasped behind his head, casually whistling. He then shrugged nonchalantly, gazing at the sky with a feigned look of melancholy as he said softly, "Second Senior Brother, what are you saying? You’re the one who told me to burn it... Everyone heard you. I really didn’t want to burn the ancestral tomb! After all, disturbing the peace of our Sword Sect ancestors... burning the tomb weighed heavily on my conscience. Alas, as a junior brother, how could I refuse my Second Senior Brother’s request? So, I had no choice but to burn it!"
PS: Thanks to the supporters, including Justice is Cute, Liu Chengxiang, book friends 2021...882, 2021...482, samtan98, Godzilla, Joyful Kitten, Commander, Shadow Seeker, and Fang Ruoyun, for your monthly tickets!! THUMP, THUMP, THUMP! *Kowtows deeply*!