There was no warning when Lin Fuqing took action.
An invisible force yanked the city lord up.
Before the man’s face could show a look of fear, his body slammed painfully the half-collasped wall with a loud bang, causing cracks to spread.
“Ku…!”
The city lord’s eyes rolled up and he spat out a large mouthful of blood.
Everything changed instantly. The redness faded from everyone’s faces, and even Fang Zhiyian snapped his head up in shock.
The city lord’s wife screamed and rushed over like crazy, “No! Husband, husband!!”
Lin Fuqing’s eyes were dark and his white robe fluttered without wind. He pointed his right hand forward, with his fingers slightly bent, in a vague grasping gesture, “Why shoot him?”
His left hand lifted, and the crying woman’s legs and feet became numb and she fell to the ground.
“Couldn’t you see that he wanted to lead the yin monster away for you?”
The city lord’s face was pale. The muscles at the corners of his mouth twitched in pain, but he didn’t speak.
To be honest, when a cultivator sees a person with a yin body, his first reaction was to get rid of him as quickly as possible. Who would carefully look at what the yin body was trying to do?
Furthermore, the yin body was such a little child. Who would believe that he wasn’t thinking of seeking shelter in crowded places, and that his first reaction was to leave the city?
The city lord was still unwilling to believe it.
He had been the city lord of this small town for twenty years. All the people loved him and praised him for his bravery and righteousness. He had never wronged a good person since he took office.
But just now, the scene of the yin-body child holding a sword to protect him was no less than a slap in the face, the sound crisp and burning.
Seeing that the city lord didn’t speak, Lin Fuqing’s expression became even more gloomy. He grounded his teeth slightly in anger.
Why……
Why call someone “filthy” just because they had a yin body?
That kind of world was too absurd.
If he wasn’t Fang Zhiyuan… if he was just an ordinary yin-body child, how desperate would he be, watching his body being torn apart by yin monsters?
He could have avoided dying at the hands of the yin monster. But because he didn’t want to affect the town, he instead ended up nearly dying at the hands of a fellow human cultivator…
As a feeling of nausea spread throughout his body, Lin Fuqing’s eyes narrowed. Suddenly, he felt the corner of his sleeve being pulled lightly.
“…It’s alright.”
Perhaps because he had never experienced someone else venting their anger for him, Fang Zhiyuan looked a little embarrassed.
He sat there, holding his injured right arm with his eyes lowered, and said in a muffled voice, “Why are you wasting your breath on such an ignorant mortal?”
Lin Fuqing looked at him with mixed emotions.
Then he nodded softly. “Okay, I won’t waste my breath.”
In the next moment came the sound of a sword.
The young immortal in white summoned Tunan, and the long sword slowly came out of its sheath.
Lin Fuqing looked at the motionless city lord and said coldly, “It’s you who should have died. Since you’re willing to protect the people, I will spare your life in exchange for your two arms, as payment for shooting that arrow.”
Fang Zhiyuan’s expression shifted in horror. “…Lin Fuqing?”
The city lord’s wife screamed. She struggled and cried, “Little Immortal, Little Immortal…! Please don’t, don’t!!”
The people in the city were also in an uproar. They knelt down and kowtowed continuously. Some even burst into tears.
“Goddess, please show mercy, Goddess, please show mercy…”
“The city lord is only trying to protect the common people…”
Lin Fuqing remained unmoved and took a step forward.
The city lord closed his eyes desolately.
The crowd became even more chaotic. Fear surged in the hearts of these ordinary people. The looks they gave Lin Fuqing became more and more fearful.
Suddenly, someone from the crowd rushed out, pointed at Fang Zhiyuan and shouted angrily, “This is not someone, not an ordinary child! A yin body suddenly appeared, bringing yin monsters. Whoever sees it must be killed?!”
He was a young man in his twenties. The old man next to him tried to cover his mouth in fear, but was pushed away.
“The yin body deserves to die. If it hadn’t attracted the yin monster, we wouldn’t have this current problem! We mortals just want to live a good life! Can’t we just live our lives?!”
The young man’s face was red, and he pointed at the half-collapsed wall in frustration, “That was the house that the Li family saved money to build last year, and now it’s collapsed. Is this bastard going to pay for it?!”
He glared at Lin Fuqing with bloodshot eyes, and cried out in fear and madness, “You’re not an immortal at all. Where in the world are there immortals who massacre mortals? We worship the immortal temple every day. Shouldn’t immortals protect mortals? You’re a demon! A demon!”
Before the young man said the last sentence, Fang Zhiyuan had remained silent, as if he wasn’t the one being called “bastard.”
But when the sharp word “demon” exploded in his ears, Fang Zhiyuan’s face instantly turned pale and he suddenly stood up!
His lips trembled as if he wanted to say something, but he was suddenly so angry that he felt his lungs twisted. White light flashed before his eyes, and a mouthful of hot blood choked out of his throat.
Lin Fuqing’s pupils constricted.
It was this touch of blood that killed his remaining calm.
This was his person…
He was the one he wanted to protect…
He was his shidi…
He was his favorite little calamity star!!!
He was actually trampled and insulted by this group of mortals in front of him, and they twisted right and wrong like this, so…
When he came back to his senses, the young man had already been hit in the chest by spiritual energy, causing him to vomit blood. With a fierce look, Lin Fuqing hooked his five fingers, and the white sword pointed directly at the city lord’s throat!
“Lin Fuqing!”
As if from a distance, he heard Fang Zhiyuan’s voice calling him, but there was a layer of buzzing tinnitus in his ears and he couldn’t hear it clearly.
Lin Fuqing’s breathing became more rapid, and a layer of eerie shadow covered his originally clear eyes as his vision swept across the miserable faces of the mortals in front of him.
Look, look.
Didn’t you all love the city lord? Didn’t you all feel sorry for him?
Then why, when he really showed his murderous intent, did no one dared to stand up and block the sword for their beloved city lord?
It was quite ridiculous, wasn’t it? Even the “yin body” “bastard” that they despised could protect people he’s never met, yet none of these people dared to step up?
His inner demon revealed its hideous true face, and stretched out countless claws from the mud, dragging him down.
His chest was stuffy as if it were filled with lead, and a nauseating smell of blood rose up, followed by an inextinguishable humiliation and grief.
Lin Fuqing thought in great pain, This was the world?
This was the world that Master wanted him to save? The world that so ruthlessly wanted to destroy his beloved star?!
This world was extremely dirty and ugly. Did he really want to devote his entire life to saving such a world?
This world, this world—
….
“—Shi-ge!”
Lin Fuqing instantly gained clarity, with a cold sweat on his back.
The boy’s voice was still as cold and hard as usual, but there was suddenly some softness, with a hint of panic and an intimacy in the meaning of the title he’d just called out.
In a panic, Fang Zhiyuan scrambled up from the ground. He grabbed Lin Fuqing wrist with his bleeding right hand, and said hoarsely, “No.”
Lin Fuqing was suddenly stunned.
The murderous coldness in his eyes was diluted by the sudden shock.
Not only him, but also the people who were begging, the crying city lord’s wife, and even the city lord who had accepted his fate and was waiting for death, were all stunned in disbelief.
Fang Zhiyuan panted. “What are you doing? Put away the sword.”
Quiet.
Everything was quiet.
The crying and shouting stopped.
The wind stopped, the clouds stopped moving, and the insects and birds stopped singing.
The demon in Lin Fuqing’s heart also stopped.
Lin Fuqing’s eyes were red, his voice tight as a bow string. “Why?”
Tuanan’s tip moved an inch closer and was now pressed against the city lord’s neck, which was covered in cold sweat.
Fang Zhiyuan gritted his teeth, tightened his grip on Lin Fuqing’s wrist and pressed it down, his strength increasing instead of loosening. “No!”
His right hand was violently shaking. The wound on his arm had opened up with his sudden movement, and blood flowed more and more, dripping onto the ground in a pool.
Lin Fuqing said angrily, “Let go! You don’t want your right hand anymore?!”
Fang Zhiyuan’s voice became even more stern. “You let go first!!”
Lin Fuqing raised his chin slightly and said coldly, “Why should I let go?”
That indifferent tone intensified their emotions, and the already tense atmosphere between them suddenly exploded.
“—Didn’t you say you wanted to ascend to become an immortal?!”
Fang Zhiyuan suddenly seemed to be on fire, and with a fierce look in his eyes, he shouted angrily, “Is the sword of an immortal meant to point at these stupid trash on the streets of a broken city in this mortal world?!”
Lin Fuqing was stunned speechless.
The black-clothed boy was trembling all over, his pupils were out of focus, and only his high-pitched voice was still steady.
“You wanted to vent your anger for me, right? You wanted to teach someone a lesson for me, right? Lin Fuqing, you are so naive… Can’t you see what kind of person I am?!”
It was too sudden.
Lin Fuqing couldn’t understand where this boy’s bad temper came from. It was as if something that he had been suppressing since coming to Xuyun suddenly exploded at this moment.
“I am the star of calamity! The star of calamity with a dark destiny!!”
Fang Zhiyuan’s bloodstained right hand suddenly gripped his own collar, his thin fingers shaking violently, almost making people suspect that he wanted to dig out his own heart.
“Hundreds of people had hurt me, and thousands of people wanted to kill me. Can you teach them all a lesson? Then your life will be ruined!!”
Lin Fuqing was already stunned by this sudden roar, and his control on Tuanan subconsciously loosened.
Fang Zhiyuan quickly grabbed the sword from mid-air, snatching the scabbard from his hand.
Then he staggered back two steps, breathing unsteadily, and stared at him with the eyes of a trapped beast on guard against the enemy.
Confusion gradually emerged in Lin Fuqing’s eyes.
In a blink of an eye, with his sword and scabbard snatched away, and his murderous aura instantly dissipated. He stood there motionless with his hands empty.
Why?
Does Zhiyuan think that he has to hurt mortals only for his sake?
Is it so disgusting…or even terrifying…that he had been stained with his blood?
No one among the people around dared to speak.
Only Lin Fuqing whispered blankly, “It’s you who don’t want to do it yourself, I…”
How could I just stand by and watch you being bullied?
“…Do it myself?” Fang Zhiyuan sneered coldly, looking at Tunan in his hand. “In your eyes, am I that much dirtier than you? Do I like to kill people and get bloodstained all my life?”
Lin Fuqing could no longer keep up with this man’s train of thought. He gritted his teeth, his temples throbbing with pain.
The darkness deep in his heart, the unsolvable darkness that had trapped him for years, was shaking and trembling…
Fang Zhiyuan stared at him steadily, and his tone suddenly softened. “Didn’t you…say that I’m your shidi? Shi-ge.”
“Since you want to become an immortal, I might be able to ascend to heaven with you and become an immortal tpgether.”
“When that happens, no matter how rampant the yin monsters and villains here are, they won’t be able to hurt me any more, and I won’t have to look back any more. Isn’t that good?”
Lin Fuqing felt dizzy.
He heard a crisp sound of breaking.
The hard black shadow that had covered his heart for a long time violently shattered, and cracks appeared, allowing the dazzling light of the scorching sun to shine in.
Once upon a time, he traveled all over the world in search of solutions.
The more he saw, the more he hated the ugliness of the world, and the more he felt disheartened by the darkness in people’s hearts.
Lin Fuqing never thought that fate would allow him to meet such a person one day.
A person who had endured the most severe malice in the world. He was in purgatory, but what he saw was the clear light outside.
As he looked at Fang Zhiyuan absentmindedly, he felt his own soul shaking.
It rose to the sky above the nine heavens, overlooking the scene at the street corner of a small town in the mortal world from outside the clouds.
The black-robed boy, labeled a star of calamity by the world, lowered his handsome eyes and said in a calm voice, “Before that, I don’t want to let such ignorant mortal blood—“
With his still-bleeding right hand, he quickly and swiftly put the snow sword back into its sheath.
A clear sound rang out.
Lin Fuqing was so shocked by this sudden turn of event that his mind went blank, his heart pounding.
Fang Zhiyuan pushed Tuanan into Lin Fuqing’s arms and finished what he was saying.
“—dirty my path to becoming an immortal.”