TIC Chapter 26: For Whom The Moonlight Was Unsheathed

The moon was bright in the sky.

This night was destined to be a sleepless night.

A snow-white sword flew above the streets of Liuhua Continent.

Lin Fuqing and Fang Zhiyuan sat side by side on the sword, the former leaning on the latter’s shoulder, looking up at the stars with lazy eyes.

Fang Zhiyuan hugged him and frowned anxiously. “Are you tired? You shouldn’t have come with me…”

Lin Fuqing shook his head and smiled, “I’m not tired. It’s just Mu Qingxue. If you keep being so overly suspicious, I’ll be annoyed by you.”

He raised his finger and pointed at a spot over his head, “I was just looking at you, little troublemaker.”

The sword flew through the cool breeze. There were a few stars in the sky, and hanging in a corner amongst them was a blood-red star, glowing faintly.

It was the Star of Calamity.

It was the murderous and terrible star in Fang Zhiyuan’s fate.

Lin Fuqing didn’t think the star was terrible at all. He had seen this star since he was a child and thought that it was beautiful. It was red and looked a bit like a coral bead and a bit like a small cherry.

It was so adorable that one wishes to cherish it and keep it as a treasure.

When he told Fang Zhiyuan about his feelings…Well, Fang Zhiyuan’s expression at that time was also very cute.

The wind was howling.

He looked down and vaguely saw the continuous eaves of the mansion below. The door was printed with the totem of Nine Fire Vermillion Qilin. The lights were bright as day, and there seemed to be many figures running around in a disorderly manner.

“We’re here. Let’s go down.”

Lin Fuqing tapped Tunan lightly, and the flying sword carried them both downward.

Fang Zhiyuan’s cruel treatment of Fang Chiqi was certainly not just for the purpose of venting.

More importantly, it was for what was coming next .

It was the same in their previous lives. Young Master Fang was seriously injured and was dying. His spiritual root was torn off, making him a complete waste.

Such a tragedy was enough to stir up chaos in the Fang family’s household that very night, giving them the opportunity to secretly enter the Fang Mansion. What followed was the real purpose behind Fang Zhiyuan’s obsession in returning to Liuhua Continent after so many years.

It was impossible for the residence of an immortal family to be completely defenseless. High-grad defense arrays and detection arrays were stacked one after another.

Back then, it took Lin Fuqing more than an hour to create a gap; however, now he naturally didn’t need to spend so much time and effort.

He tapped his index finger twice, and the magic array silently disintegrated. He leisurely raised an eyebrow at Fang Zhiyuan and teased, “If I go back to the inn and sleep, what are you going to do with these arrays?”

Fang Zhiyuan raised the corner of his lips. “Of course I will use my own method.”

The main house was brightly lit, and one could faintly hear a commotion in the front yard, which was probably Fang Chiqi being rescued.

They didn’t go that way, but followed a secluded path and found the back garden.

After putting away Tunan, Lin Fuqing made a “Daze” gesture and threw a small illusion spell at the Fang family guards on patrol. The guard’s eyes suddenly become dazed and unfocused.

“Go.”

They flashed into the back garden. It was autumn and the chrysanthemums were in full bloom. They passed through the flowers and entered deeper into the garden, where there was a lake and some rockery.

Fang Zhiyuan leaped onto the rockery, bit his fingertip, and smeared the blood that leaked out onto the stone.

Suddenly, a bright light encased the rockery, and the stone wall slowly turned, revealing a dark passage.

Lin Fuqing set up a soundproof array just in time to cover up the rumbling sound the rockery made as it moved.

Fang Zhiyuan sat on the rockery and chuckled softly. He tapped the stone wall with his fingers and said, “It still feels ridiculous even after the second time. These Fang family idiots are really too stupid.”

Lin Fuqing just smiled and said nothing. He knew that behind this secret passage was the place where Fang Zhiyuan was imprisoned. Only the Vermillion Qilin bloodline of the Fang family could open it.

Unexpectedly, the Fang family had made a lot of calculations; however, they overlooked the fact that Fang Zhiyuan was also a Fang family son with vermillion qilin bloodline. They never expected that he would return to this old place many years later and use his own blood to open the secret passageway…If one said it was too stupid, it was indeed too stupid.

They entered without disturbing anyone.

The secret passage was dark and narrow, and there was only the sound of footsteps and shallow breathing in the silence. When the two walked out, they were in the forbidden area.

It was a small courtyard that had been abandoned for many years. The steps were moss-covered, coldly reflecting the moonlight.

The door was made of iron, locked shut with two chains embedded with a magic spell. The door and chains were stained with congealed blood and had faint scorch marks from a fire, as well as showing signs of corrosion from yin monsters. A quick glance in the dead of night was enough to make the faint-hearted shudder.

Lin Fuqing wanted to go forward but Fang Zhiyuan pulled him back.

“Didn’t shige ask me what I would have done if you didn’t come?”

Fang Zhiyuan raised his hand and took out his pitch-black long sword, unsheathing it, “I’ll show you.”

The sword fell straight down, cutting the chain and iron door in half with a loud clang. The iron door collapsed with a loud bang, revealing the only room in the deserted courtyard.

Lin Fuqing’s eyes twitched. “Hiss, be quiet!”

“It’s okay. No one will hear you no matter how loud you shout here.” Fang Zhiyuan kicked the door open and walked in, but pushed Lin Fuqing back. “It’s dirty in here. Don’t come in yet.”

He swung his sword in the air, creating a gust of wind. The already dilapidated window cracked open, and the gust of wind blew out the window the years of dust that had accumulated in the house.

Lin Fuqing followed in, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. “If I’m so delicate, am I worthy of you being like this? I originally wanted to help you, but who asked you to serve me so carefully.”

Fang Zhiyuan’s response was to throw three purification spells into the mix. He didn’t lack that little bit of spiritual energy anyway.

After a few breaths, the dust was cleared away, and the horrifying scene in the house became clearer.

A beam of moonlight cast through the broken window. An iron rack stood in the middle of the room, and underneath the rack was a magic circle drawn on the ground, emitting a gloomy aura.

There were four broken black chains on the rack, and the front of each chain was connected to a shackle, all of which were stained with blood.

Lin Fuqing walked forward. He stretched out his hand to grab the chain, his expression dark: “Soul-Imprisoning Chain…How cruel.”

He rubbed at the dried blood with his fingertips but could not wipe it off.

This was the blood that Fang Zhiyuan had shed back then.

So much time had passed. Yet, the objects in this dusty little house still silently told the crimes that Fang family had committed here.

=========

In their previous life, after Fang Zhiyuan decided to stay in Xuyun, he didn’t mention his past for the longest time. At most, he just said that he wanted to return to the Fang family in Liuhua Continent to avenge a blood debt.

Lin Fuqing didn’t think much of it and never thought of prying, and so many years passed like this.

The time when Fang Zhiyuan actually took the initiative to talk about his past was exactly after he had crippled Fang Chiqi in the Golden Osmanthus Challenge and they broke into the Fang family home that very night.
That night, Fang Zhiyuan was in a good mood and was very happy.

When he was young, this man always liked to put on a cold and harsh face, but on that night, a bright and scorching fire was alight in his eyes.

The flames were so vivid and alive that Fang Zhiyuan himself probably had no recollection of them, but Lin Fuqing remembered them for many, many years.

Fang Zhiyuan became more talkative and couldn’t help but tell his senior brother about old times, and the latter quietly listened to him.

He said that he was seven years old that year when the great elder of Ziwei Pavilion looked at the star chart and discovered his fate of being the Star of Calamity. Fang Tinghai, the head of the Fang family, announced to the public that he had put the evil-born child to death for the sake of justice, but in fact, he had locked him up here. He handcuffed him to the rack with this special immortal chain.

He said that his nominal mother was a concubine of Fang Tinghai. Yin qi had invaded her body when she was pregnant with him and so she had died very early in his youth. He had no relatives or friends in the Fang family. Thus with Fang Tinghai keeping this matter very secret, no one knew about it until now.

He said that the Fang family carved the runes of a spirit gathering array that absorb spiritual energy from heaven and earth on his body, and used his shell to “cultivate.” The spiritual energy they refined was then guided directly to Fang Chiqi and Fang Zhilong using secret methods.

He said, this secret method…was very painful.

“They thought I was very talented and it would be a shame to kill me, so they came up with this idea of ​​using the ‘Star of Calamity’.”

The young man in black put his hands on the rack, his expression cold and arrogant. “Fang Tinghai’s first two legitimate sons were all trash, with low-grade spiritual roots. They looked so bright on the surface, but inside they were all fake geniuses created by secret methods.”

He cleared his throat, then suddenly lowered his eyes awkwardly, and hummed softly. “…Don’t think that my cultivation speed is not as fast as yours, I also..”

Lin Fuqing was stunned.

He could vaguely understand what A’Yuan was too embarrassed to say. What this person actually wanted to say was that before being destroyed by the Fang family, he did have excellent talents.

In Xuyun, they all learned martial arts from Yin Changxin. Lin Fuqing wasn’t devoted to practicing martial arts, but he had extraordinary talent and understanding. Sometimes, he would make breakthroughs just by looking at a flower or playing with a fish.

Fang Zhiyuan, on the other hand, practiced day and night, and persisted even when he fainted from exhaustion. He seemed to be holding his breath, and would not stop until he had drained all his blood and energy.

Whenever he made a slight breakthrough, he would pick up a sword and challenge Lin Fuqing to a fight. Unfortunately he would lose every time… and then his shige would gently carry him to bed to heal his wounds.

They kept quarreling and struggling like this, and before they knew it, seven years had passed. Even so, Fang Zhiyuan still couldn’t defeat Lin Fuqing.

Lin Fuqing suddenly felt very sad.

It was a kind of sadness that came from a broken heart.

Fang Zhiyuan didn’t anticipate that he would become the Immortal Sovereign Fang, who later realized that he would hold his shige so dear in his heart for fear of dropping him. So, naturally he wasn’t too careful when speaking of his past. Moreover, he was really happy today, and so he continued to speak.

He said that he was imprisoned here, locked in this room that rarely saw sunlight and where time seemed to have stood still. The secret method Patriarch Fang had used made the young child twitch and struggle in agony, causing the shackles to rub his skin raw and injure his wrist bones. Yet, no one heard his screams.

Nearly every day, his physique would attract yin monsters, and they would break into the hut and greedily gnaw at this small prey imprisoned on a rack and unable to fight back.

These yin monsters would then be killed by the formation, which would naturally be filtered into achievements for the Fang family.

And the bloodied child on the rack would be fed a life-saving pill.

Perhaps due to the special physique of his fate, Fang Zhiyuan’s recovery ability was far beyond that of ordinary people.

It left him a situation where he could neither live nor die.

Fang Tinghai wanted to drive this child crazy.

He was afraid, afraid of Fang Zhiyuan’s fate as a Star of Calamity, afraid of this terrifying gift that could turn his two sons with inferior spiritual roots into geniuses, and even more afraid that his evil magic and deed would be exposed to the eyes of the world.

Thus, he tortured Fang Zhiyuan in the most cruel way.

Under torture, may this child collapse and turn into a crazy madman, a confused fool, a living dead who could only drool and hum when asked questions by outsiders, and whose blood and talents would be sucked dried by the Fang family.

Fang Tinghai thought half a month would be enough.

At most, it shouldn’t take more than a month.

The Fang family’s supreme elder also agreed.

Half a month later, Fang Tinghai came to the hut to look at him.

The child on the rack struggled so hard that the chains rattled, and he looked as if he wanted to eat him alive.

Three months later, Fang Tinghai came again.

When he came, Fang Zhiyuan had no breath to struggle, but he still raised his head, his eyes stern under his messy hair.

Half a year later, Fang Tinghai returned.

This time he came at a very opportune time. Fang Zhiyuan had just been brutally tortured by a yin monster. He was covered in blood, his eyes were dazed, and his fingertips were limp and drooping, cramping slightly.

Fang Tinghai felt that it was about time, so he patted his pale cheek and called him a little bastard.

The “little bastard” trembled as if he was dying. He unexpectedly spat a mouthful of blood foam on Fang Tinghai’s face, then he closed his eyes and fainted.

A year passed and Fang Zhiyuan still hadn’t gone crazy, which had made Fang Tinghai feel extremely uneasy.

He couldn’t believe that a child could have such a strong and unyielding will, and the fear in his heart grew deeper and deeper.

But by then, his son’s reputation as geniuses had already spread, and he could not kill Fang Zhiyuan, so the Fang family had no way out.

Fang Tinghai decided to go all out.

On the night of New Year’s Eve, the sound of red firecrackers rang out in the Fang family mansion, and the aroma of Tusu wine wafted in the air, as people bid farewell to the old year and welcomed the new year.

In this small room where no sound of firecrackers could be heard and no aroma of wine could be smelled, Fang Tinghai used his evil secret method to forcibly pull out half of Fang Zhiyuan’s inner core.

…..

“That half of the inner core was sealed by Fang Tinghai under this formation, and it is connected to the spirit gathering array, allowing it to provide spiritual energy to the two brothers, Fang Chiqi and Fang Zhilong.”

“It’s less efficient than when inside of me, but it’s still good enough.”

In the quiet and deserted hut, Fang Zhiyuan spoke calmly.

“He wanted to make me lose my mind, so he deliberately placed the inner core three steps away from the rack, leaving me helpless but to watch. He told me not to endure it, and that this was the fate I was born with.”

“He thought that this would drive me crazy. But even after waiting another year, and another year, I still hadn’t gone crazy.”

“By the third year, not only did I not go crazy, I had even established my foundation.”

He had done this, with only half of his spiritual core left, and with his spiritual power in his meridians and dantian constantly suffering from the pain of being plundered by secret methods.

With endless yin monsters tearing apart his flesh, and the coldness of yin qi corroding his flesh and penetrating his bones. His life was worse than death.

Under such a desperate situation, the ten-year-old Fang Zhiyuan established his foundation.

When his two elder brothers, Fang Chiqi and Fang Zhilong, were building their foundation, immortal incense was burned in the house and spiritual formations were drawn. Several Nascent Soul elders were by their sides to protect them, and countless elixirs were always available to assist them.

While he was building his foundation, he was alone, huddled in the darkness, half-dead, hanging on the rack, with only the excruciating pain of the secret method to keep him company.

…and the yin monster that he could never rid himself of.

“As soon as I established my foundation, the spiritual flow attracted a powerful yin monster. I was tied up here and couldn’t move. The demon tore most of my body apart, and my intestines flowed out. I almost died.”

“But yin qi restrains spiritual energy, and the yin demon incidentally dispersed the spiritual flow of the soul imprisoning chain. Only then was I able to break the chain.”

The moonlight illuminated the cold and handsome eyebrows of the young manas he kicked the rack casually, and the broken chains on it made a rattling sound.

“The yin monster threw the Fang family guards into chaos, so I killed one of the guards, snatched his long knife and escaped. A big fire broke out that night. Fang Tinghai was afraid that this inhumane secret method would be exposed to the world, so he didn’t dare to send too many people to chase me.”

Fang Zhiyuan pointed at the rack and showed it to Lin Fuqing, “The bloodstains here, those on the door outside…were all left behind from that time.”

He laughed when he said this, a proud and happy laugh.

The corner of his lips raised up in a defiant arc, revealing a small fang.

“Back then, that old man Fang Tinghai swore that he had killed me, but I escaped and caused him to lose his dignity.”

“He had no choice but to change his story and say that he couldn’t bear to kill me. He had been trying to teach me to be good over the past few years, but unfortunately the calamity star was stubborn and rebellious, so he had to expel it with great pain. Haha… Anyone with a brain can tell that it was a lie.”

From beginning to end, Lin Fuqing remained silent and simply listened. The moonlight shone on his fur coat, and his eyes were filled with many uncomfortable emotions. At some point in the story, his breathing frequency had slightly changed.

Fang Zhiyuan bent down and brushed away the dust on the ground. There was indeed a transparent cover sealed in the middle. Inside was half of the inner core, thin and like a newly born bud, but with a layer of crystal fairy light.

“You’ve never seen it before. An inner core pulled out from a living person’s body.”

Fang Zhiyuan punched down fiercely, and with a snap, the cover shattered.

He took out the inner core and held it in his palm, ignoring the fact that his hand was torn and covered in blood from the recoil. “This is mine, and I’m taking it back.”

Before coming here, Fang Zhiyuan had said to Lin Fuqing –

“They broke my bones and tore my flesh, and took away my bloody thing. I will take it back with my own hands.”

That was actually not an exaggeration.

And this young man known as the Star of Calamity, what he sought when “collecting debts” was neither to slaughter all members of the Fang family, both young and old, nor to attack the Ziwei Pavillion and dealt a crushing blow to the elder that had cemented his fate, nor to harm all the immortals in Liuhua Continent that had discriminated against him due to this “fate”.

“Now that my inner core has been fully restored, shige,” Fang Zhiyuan’s eyes seemed to be sparkling, surprisingly bright, “if you continue to be lazy in the fortunate, you never know when I will…”

All he wanted was to get back the incomplete part of his inner core and defeat his senior brother fairly.

Who was Lin Fuqing?

He was unrivaled in all the three realms.

Therefore, as long as he could defeat Lin Fuqing, who else could be more worthy of his attention? The Patriarch of the Fang family or the elders of the Ziwei Pavilion?

Fang Zhiyuan turned around suddenly, with a smile that could be described as carefree on the corner of his lips.

But his expression immediately froze.

Lin Fuqing’s head was lowered, his eyebrows downcast, and the corners of his eyes were red.

The expression on his face couldn’t be described as tense, but sadness and pain seemed to radiate through his body. He tightly gripped the blood-stained chain in his right hand, his knuckles trembling slightly.

Suddenly, a tear rolled down his cheek, sparkling under the moonlight, and fell on the rack with a plop.

Fang Zhiyuan felt as if he’d been struck by a thunderbolt. His mind went blank, and he was incomprehensibly stunned.

———————————-
The author has something to say:
Qing’er: I feel so sad, let me cry.
A’Yuan: (Machine crashes)!!!!!!!!!?????????

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