In the quiet of the night.
Qi Dian sat on the ground, gazing intently at Yue Wen, his eyes glimmering and his face faintly flushed.
Yue Wen silently took a step back.
Lately he had kept scrolling past rumors about cultivators from Tianfu Prefecture, and he couldn't help feeling a little jumpy about such things.
Only after a good long moment did Qi Dian sigh. "Brother Yue, I owe you an apology. Before this, I looked down on you a little for being a rogue cultivator. I never imagined that not only would your cultivation level prove so remarkable, you would also step in so honorably and save my life. This is truly — I'm mortified."
Whew.
So the blush was embarrassment after all.
And here I was thinking he'd gone shy on me.
That nearly gave me a scare.
Only then did Yue Wen set his mind at ease, and he smiled. "It's nothing. You did buy me fried chicken, after all."
He wasn't worried in the least that revealing so much strength would make Qi Dian guess he carried some treasure and draw covetous eyes, or anything of the sort. That was the kind of plot novels loved to use. In reality, far too many things shaped a cultivator's combat strength — magic implements, cultivation methods, supernatural powers, elixirs, talismans, spirit pets... Qi Dian hadn't even seen the fight, so there was hardly any chance of his getting ideas.
Besides, this was a society under the rule of law now, and keeping order in the urban districts was the highest priority. Killing someone over a treasure wasn't so easily done.
If this had been a wasteland zone, lawless ground, Yue Wen would certainly have kept a much lower profile.
"A serving of fried chicken could never repay the debt of having my life saved." Qi Dian's face was solemn. "Fellow Daoist Yue, is there anything you need? As long as it lies within my power, I will do everything I can to repay you."
Oh?
Now that was worth hearing. Yue Wen perked right up.
If Qi Dian hadn't asked, he would never have pressed the favor for a reward — slaying the man in black had already netted him plenty. But if you insist on delivering yourself to my door...
Heh heh heh...
Yue Wen thought for a moment, then said, "We're both cultivators of the righteous path. Helping each other out is only proper. And I certainly didn't save you for the sake of a reward. But — if you truly want to leave no knot in your heart, Brother Qi, there's no need to bring out anything valuable. I'm rather interested in the sorcery you used for that entrance of yours just now."
When Qi Dian had first appeared, his display had been awe-inspiring — flashing light and rolling thunder, enough to put even that heretical cultivator on high alert. Only later did it become clear that his cultivation level was nowhere near enough to produce effects on that scale. Beyond all doubt, they must have been bolstered by some supernatural power or sorcery.
His cultivation level was anyone's guess, but when it came to showing off, he had quite the flair.
"Oh, that." Qi Dian laughed a little stiffly. "Those are the two supernatural powers every Linjiang Sect disciple must rigorously master upon entering the sect. Our master says that whenever a disciple of ours faces an enemy, he must open with these two moves to display the sect's prestige. One is the Thunder Roar Art, and the other is the Flash Art."
"I see."
No wonder, Yue Wen thought. When true masters made their entrance, their true qi racing through its full cycle stirred the surrounding spiritual qi into strange phenomena — lightning and thunder, unearthly radiance, that sort of thing. The Thunder Roar Art and the Flash Art were, in effect, a way to switch those special effects on by hand, man-made, achieving the same audiovisual result.
This Linjiang Sect really had something to it. No wonder it had grown into a power in Jiangcheng City.
"Since you're interested, Brother Yue, let's exchange contact information first, and I'll send you the visualization diagrams for those two sorceries." Qi Dian took out his phone.
"No problem." Yue Wen scanned his QR code.
At once, a contact page appeared on his phone under the name "Young Hero Qi, Roaming the Jianghu with His Sword." Yue Wen accepted the friend request and glanced up — Qi Dian's face had gone redder still.
This Brother Qi had quite the taste for the dramatic.
Then Qi Dian noticed that the friend request had come from someone calling himself "AAA, Proprietor of the Yue Cultivation Agency," and he looked up at Yue Wen as well.
Now it was Yue Wen's turn to blush.
Sure enough, no one could stand having their screen name held up for public scrutiny.
It was the two strings of digital code Qi Dian sent over that broke the awkwardness. "These were forwarded out of our sect's scripture library. Brother Yue, just log in with my access key, 9527."
"All right." Yue Wen nodded.
In this world, cultivation methods and supernatural powers were all passed down in the form of "visualization diagrams."
A visualization diagram drawn in Dao rhyme holds the truths of a sorcery within it, and only by comprehending it thoroughly can one master the cultivation method or supernatural power it carries. The more profound the diagram, the stronger the comprehension needed to grasp it.
And to take a rubbing of a visualization diagram requires a very high cultivation level.
Qi Dian had trained these two powers himself, but he clearly lacked the ability to reproduce them. All he could do was forward the links to the diagrams in the scripture library. These two powers were classified at a low secrecy level — Linjiang Sect disciples could browse and forward them freely. It was just that whoever's access key was used to log in would be billed for the time spent contemplating.
That's right.
When Yue Wen opened it, he discovered that every second he spent comprehending was being continuously charged.
He hastily backed out.
"Don't let it bother you, Brother Yue. Just keep contemplating until you've fully mastered them," Qi Dian said.
"You know how it is — I'm a rogue cultivator. I don't have much experience contemplating supernatural powers." Yue Wen smiled apologetically. "It may take me quite a while."
"No matter." Qi Dian tossed his bangs back generously. "Compared with having my life saved, what does that amount to?"
...
Qi Dian had scarcely woken before Yue Wen phoned the Supernatural Management Bureau. While the two of them chatted, the Bureau's cleanup crew arrived as well. Yue Wen and Qi Dian each gave a brief statement, then went their separate ways home.
The man in black had been a heretical cultivator through and through, suspected to still stand named on Fulei Province's most-wanted list. Killing him carried no legal risk for Yue Wen at all, and if it was confirmed later, a cash reward would even be paid out. Even without the man dropping any evil-suppressing coins this time, Yue Wen had still come away with a full haul.
You could say he'd been a treasure trove from head to toe.
Riding his electric scooter, Yue Wen returned to the agency. As always, there were no commissions and no messages; the only new thing on the door was a notice for the water and electricity bill.
He tidied up a little, then sat down cross-legged. First he logged into that link and opened the visualization diagrams inside, closed his eyes, stilled his mind, and sank into contemplation.
In a blink, his divine sense had entered the world within the diagrams, without the slightest hindrance.
The Thunder Roar Art's diagram was like a pool of thunder, alive with ceaseless rumbling and strange sounds, and overhead there seemed, faintly, to be the Thunder Lord and the Lightning Mother endlessly cleaving open heaven and earth.
The Flash Art's diagram brimmed with dazzling colors and radiant light, endlessly resplendent, shifting through a thousand changes — enough to leave one's divine sense dizzy before one knew it.
Twenty minutes later, he had comprehended both the Thunder Roar Art and the Flash Art thoroughly.
He had indeed learned few supernatural powers and sorceries, but the very first method he had cultivated upon entering the path was the True Dragon Dao Method.
Having contemplated the visualization diagrams of the True Dragon Dao Method and the sword-control art, turning now to the diagrams of two minor powers like these was like having fought Taro and fought Zero, only to be told that today's opponent was Kirara Asuka.
Not merely simple — it was even a little bland.
Finishing both in twenty minutes? No sweat at all.
When it was done, he couldn't help marveling a little: with an immortal sect's resources at your back, things really were better. These twenty minutes of practice would come to no more than a few hundred yuan. But if you went to the open market to buy the visualization diagrams for two little powers like these, it would cost no less than tens of thousands.
Making money was indeed easy for cultivators — yet anything connected to cultivation was ruinously expensive. Those who managed to save anything were either people with backing, or people who had no intention at all of spending another coin on getting stronger.
Only after learning the powers did he put his phone away and take stock of the day's gains.
The cash he put away for safekeeping first. As for that half black-gold skull, he had no idea what it was for — he would ask around at an immortal-goods shop later; and if that failed, melting it down to sell as material would still fetch a tidy sum.
And that piece of purple silk fabric — he took it out and examined it closely under the lamplight, and still could see nothing in it.
There was nothing on it but that single snake-and-tiger emblem.
After a long while, he pulled open a drawer and took out a black card.
The card seemed to have been ground and polished from some kind of crystal; it had none of the feel of plastic, bearing instead a frosted, crystal-bright luster. The back was pitch black; on the front, in gold lacquer, was painted the snake-and-tiger emblem.
Once again, countless long snakes with flicking tongues, coiling around a vicious tiger baring its fangs!
This snake-and-tiger emblem was identical to the one on that piece of purple silk fabric.
Three years earlier, Yue Wen's parents had taken him on a drive. Suddenly a tremendous boom rang out, and the next moment heaven and earth were spinning.
Directly ahead, a colossal black rift had appeared, pulling with a powerful suction like a whirlpool — and faintly, it seemed, a pair of enormous eyes was peering over from the other side of the rift.
That ancient, dreadful gaze still made Yue Wen's skin crawl when he thought of it now.
Inside the tumbling car, his father had suddenly seized hold of him and said, grave and heavy, "There's a black card tucked inside the book I gave you at your graduation. You must keep it safe and let no one see it. When someday you have the strength, then go and seek it out."
Yue Wen had no idea what his father meant. After the car slammed into a building at the roadside and jolted to a stop, he watched through a dim haze as his parents climbed out and walked into the black mist seeping from the rift.
Then his consciousness gave way, and he knew no more.
When he woke again, half a year had already passed.
When he finally returned home, many places bore traces of having been disturbed — the Bureau's people must have searched the house — but the card tucked inside that graduation gift book was still there. This card likewise revealed nothing the least bit mysterious, with no ripple of spiritual nature about it whatsoever, just like ordinary material.
It was precisely for that reason that it had escaped the search.
As for the snake-and-tiger emblem on it — Yue Wen searched all over the internet, and the one thread of a clue he finally found came, of all places, from a paper his father had once published, which related that the emblem came from one place.
Snake Mountain Tiger Tomb.
Chapter 12