บท 10: 10. A tale of warriors and men.
For the Thrice Exalted Holy Light Immortal Venerable, searching the mind of a mere child was a trifling matter.
He disappeared and reappeared in front of Yao Lei. He put his jade-like hand on the boy's forehead. He carefully watched the boy's life. Nothing was indicated that demonic sects or any other forces were involved. The boy had just got snot kicked out of him every day and as a result, learned how to read people and conspire against them. Everybody had their talents.
Holy Light Venerable clicked his tongue. No wonder this guy's plans always involved acting like a dirty dog. He lived a dog's life up until this point.
This dirty dog had to learn some loyalty. Holy Light Venerable was a cultivator accomplished in mental arts. His face beaming with light was just a trick. The truly terrifying thing was the fact that nobody had a hard time looking at his face. They just forgot that they gazed upon his visage the moment they averted their eyes.
Holy Light Venerable implanted something he called a "memory package" into Yao Lei's mind. This memory bag's primary objective was to make Yao Lei think that he thought some things through and decided on the answer. Implanted memory was "remembering thinking about things in the sect and reaching a sect-friendly conclusion."
The next moment, the sect master disappeared. Yao Lei forgot that he saw the sect master, as the sect master intended.
The next day, Yao Lei left the sect on a mission. He was to investigate the Yin energy spark near the inn on the outskirts. It was highly likely that there was a yin apparition haunting the area.
Yao Lei went down from the mountain and spent some coins to hire carriage services.
There was no point visiting the inn during daytime as yin apparition would be surpassed via sunlight. That is if Yao Lei went by the standard way to do things.
He wanted to learn about who the Yin apparition was a reflection of. It had to be someone who died recently, otherwise, this apparition would've been degraded until its structure didn't support a coherent existence anymore. It would have disappeared by virtue of being a copy of a copy.
There were old ghosts out there that lived for a long time. They mostly haunted mass graves. Other yin apparitions expel enough Yin energy to sustain these things for centuries. Since a Yin apparition doesn't consciously cultivate immortality, they lasted four hundred years at most.
The inn was owned by a mother and a daughter. The daughter was married to a live-in son-in-law.
Yao Lei opened the inn door and saluted the innkeeper. The inn has been kept tidy. There are no visible signs of wear and tear. There was a sword meticulously crafted sheath lying on a wooden pedestal behind the front desk.
"Hello, My name is Yao Lei, I'm from the Namjin Mountain sect. Do you know anyone who died around here recently? I'm looking into a possible ghost case. Did you ever feel a chill at night?"
There was a piece of jade in the delicate-looking boy's hands, signifying that he was a member of the esteemed Namjin Mountain Sect. Although, unaccompanied children weren't the kind of people folk were keen to take seriously. However, things changed when it came to cultivators.
"My name is Zhou Tu. A drunkard died a week back. He got into a fight and got stabbed by an angry ruffian." Her eyes darted around.
"Other than that, my father died two months ago."
Yao Lei nodded. "Could you tell me more about your father?"
She pulled a chair from a nearby desk and gestured for Yao Lei to sit on the chair directly in front of it. She twiddled her thumbs as if she was trying to emotionally prepare herself to talk about her deceased old man.
"He always thought of us. He was kind and strong. He never stopped thinking of us for a second until he died. He taught my husband how to swing a sword. We are still in safe hands. I can't imagine anything that would make him want to linger in this world."
Yao Lei moved his hand in a circular motion, requesting for her to continue.
"He never stopped training with the sword. He would get up every morning and swing his sword in different poses."
Yao Lei nodded. He brought out some coins and handed them to the woman in front of him.
"I'll stay the night to investigate. Please prepare some accommodations."
Zhou Tu nodded and gave Yao Lei a wooden plaque that said "Two". Yao Lei went into room two, unloaded his baggage, and stretched. A long carriage ride was nothing but uncomfortable.
He had made his preparations and all he had to do was wait for night to come.
The sun slowly set on the horizon. Yao Lei appreciated the four-hour-long respite from all the stressful sect events and terrible people. When the last on the horizon perished, it was finally time to work.
Yao Lei walked into the yard and scribbled a simple energy trap formation so yin energy wouldn't dissipate into the air as fast. He aimed to help the Yin apparition appear faster. Unsatisfied, Yao Lei let out some of his qi into the confines of the formation.
Soon enough, he felt a chill go down his spine. There was something else there with him. He performed a technique and filled the formation with some dust particles made of qi.
There he was. a solitary figure, swinging a sword. Even as a degraded ghost, his movements are as elegant as the moon. Yao Lei was curious about something. Normally, this would be the moment he would blast the apparition with yin qi and dissipate it. That was what the sect manual said about yin apparitions anyway.
Yao Lei cupped his fists and greeted the apparition.
"Yao Lei has met the warrior."
The apparition gazed upon Yao Lei with its hollow eyes. It then cupped its fists in response. Yao Lei smiled with joy. He was right. Yin apparitions didn't only copy the body of a deceased person but they also copied their minds. Yao Lei hypothesized that the copying of the mind was as imperfect as the copying of the body.
Yai Lei put his hand out and tried to touch the ghost's forehead to use mental arts on it. The apparition dodged. It took two steps back and pointed toward Yao Lei's sword that was hanging from his waist.
Yao Lei obliged.
He pulled out his sword to intercept the ghost's sword. The swords, however, went through each other. The apparition looked at his sword in confusion.
Yao Lei decided to humor the thing until it allowed Yao Lei to touch its forehead and invade its mind. When he swung his sword at it, he stopped when he met the ghost's sword as if they had clashed. It was a practice for mortal swordsmanship.
The next two hours were the two outwitting each other in mortal swordplay. there were attacks, counterattacks, and defenses. This apparition taught him body positioning and tricks. Sometimes Yao Lei had a sword on his throat, other times the apparition.
After that, Yao Lei thanked the apparition with a bow. He then attempted to touch its forehead once again. The ghost didn't resist. He put his understanding of mental arts into the knowledge he was putting into the apparition's mind. He also requested it to use mental arts on him after the apparition learned it.
It agreed and put its ghostly fingers on Yao Lei's head. Its memories flew into the small compartment Yao Lei had created in his mind.
When Zhou Xue was ten years old, he dreamed of becoming a righteous cultivator. Because he had been saved by one several months prior. When the Namjin mountain sect visited, they tested kids for spiritual roots.
Zhou Xue had a medium-grade earth element spiritual root. He went on a mission with the young master of the Wu clan to eradicate low-level monsters at the periphery of the forest near the Namjin mountain.
He had a little argument with the young master when the young master decided to treat the hunt like a game and took unnecessary risks. At that moment Zhou Xue was reminded of the time he was stabbed by his brother. His brother was playing with a knife with a silly grin on his face. He was pretending to stab him and amusing himself with Zhou Xue's terrified expression. His brother had accidentally stabbed Zhou Xue in the shoulder at that time.
Something inside Zhou Xue snapped and he smacked the young master of the Wu clan three times. Unbeknownst to him, Wu clan warriors were tailing the two at a distance. Seeing their young master getting smacked around, they beat Zhou Xue black and blue and left him there.
Luckily for him, the monsters in the forest were too busy eating the dead monsters to go after skinny Zhou Xue.
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