Di Xueyan is running together with the masked man and his men away from the crime scene using their own techniques. Her eyes twinkled when she saw how they are trying to match her pace, one of his subordinate is even frowning faintly at her, looking as if he is already very tempted to carry her and run faster but can't. His reaction earned a light laughter from her which blended along with the faint sound of the night insects.
Their robes are fluttering against the night breeze. She decided to humor them and run faster, looking at their master who is about to collapse, blue veins are protruding in his neck and probably his whole face, clearly in immense pain. Though one of his arm is draped across his subordinate's shoulder while they are running, his back is still steel straight, as if the pain can't make him bow down, his face is still cold, as if nothing unusual is happening. If not because of his veins that are about to burst out from his body, he would probably look like boy who is just hugging his best buddy while running away, trying to escape from the people they fucked up. With this thought, her laughter intensified.
Never would she imagine that she would look like a rascal running away with her best friends right now after doing a mischief, of course, with only her laughing, seeming as if she was obviously the perpetrator and the others were just forced.
And about the attack a while ago? That was obviously a pure bullshit!
'Flames of justice my ass!'
She sneered in her mind. Where on earth would she find something like that? But after that incident, she thinks that it would not be bad to make a technique for herself with that name.
As a doctor, she already saw the veins beginning to popped out of his neck when she faced him while he ridiculed her. At first, she was curious, those were not there when she first scrutinized his body. It only became slightly visible when the clouds covering the moon for a bit moved side wards, making the moon light illuminates in his body. And that's how she knows how fucked up she was. She was surrounded by experts two or three realms higher than her, she even has the intuition that there are still a lot in between the trees around them. Seems like they know that their target is ill right now that they are very confident that they can defeat him. Coincidence or not, she is already cursing the masked man in front of her in her mind while maintaining a smile. In all bodies of water that are scattered in this forest, why the fuck did he has to appear and bath here?
She also knows that she can't leave unscathed anyway, so she made a split decision. Fortunately, the leader is very easy to rile up, if by chance he is not, she can say goodbye to whatever planet she is in right now. She maybe has a lot of tricks in her sleeves, but she can't probably use them all just in this situation. But if she wouldn't, she would die and would not be able to use those artifacts in the end.
Still, her heart ached with just the thought of it, luckily, a sudden idea popped in her mind. She suddenly remembers the bead bracelet in her storage ring. She has been wearing this around, but since she was bathing, she temporarily put it in her storage ring.
The beaded bracelet was made by her father. It has twenty five beads in total. He gifted it to her during her fifteenth birthday, the same year he vanished into thin air.
She has been treasuring the bracelet eversince he vanished. She wouldn't have had known the purpose of the thing if she haven't asked her mother when she told them that they need to find him.
The bracelet beads has five different colors; red, green, blue, brown and white. Five beads each color, each has its own representation; fire, water, air, earth and space. But, it actually has nothing to do with the elements and space, it is purely just her father's ridiculous choice of design.
The bead is designed to trick the enemy. Once she feels like it, she can just take one bead and tosses it at her enemy just like how her mother told them, and the other beads would then rearrange themselves as if nothing is unusual. The moment she took one, the cute little beads became slightly bigger to fit her wrist when she wore it.
As a novel reader, she knows that this masked man in front of her is very powerful to be surrounded by powerful people. But for fuck's sake, she isn't. The worst is, he even seems to have an illness that is obviously beginning to relapse. She looks at the moon, only to find out that it is full moon, just by connecting the dots, she already knew what damned illness this little bastard has and how worthless he is for being so careless as to not tightfully suppress any news about it.
'He is like some evil protagonist in the novels who were poisoned and will have a relapse once a month and blaah blaah blaah', she though while rolling her eyes as she ran. She looks behind and saw the light is already diminishing.
When she inject her aura in the cute little bead, the bead automatically exploded. It is not an explosion of qi or whatever, but of aura. The aura is so suffocating that even those realms above her will surely suffocate. Luckily, the bead has a tiny bit of her consciousness, she can think of who she wants to save, and they can move freely to run. Even she, was very amazed at her father's invention when her mother taught them how to do it. No matter how cliche the design is, it is still ridiculously amazing.
Since the masked man saved her when they were in the water, she decided to save him to make it even.
What she doesn't know was that when the light dispersed, the ground was littered with corpses, no one was left alive. If she only stayed and watched, she would have known how crazy her father was and how dangerous his things are. They are already a mile away from the incident, thus they already can't sense if those people are still alive or not.
---
In the western side of the central region, a manor is standing imposingly below a mountain range. A rushed footsteps echoed through the silent hallways. The peaceful sound of the insects and the light breathing of the people inside the courtyard is disturbed by a middle aged servant as he rushed at the entrance of the main room of Bright Glory Courtyard, the courtyard of the patriarch of the family. He was stopped by the guard of the place as he was about to just rudely barge in.
" How dare a mere servant like you disturbs his master's rest?", the guard arrogantly snorted. He saw the agitated face of the servant in front of him but ignores it as he remembers how the servant was about to rudely go past him without even a word. As one of the master's guard, he is well respected in this courtyard yet a mere servant is too arrogant to ignore him! He saw the white tiger insignia at the left side of the servant's robe, verifying his identity, only the old master has the ability to imprint the clan's insignia be it in clothes or paper. The servant's face turns black as impatience crosses his eyes.
" I have a very important report to the patriarch that not even the patriarch can shoulder, what more by a guard like you?", the servant coldly sneer as he looks at the idiotic and arrogant guard in front of him. Like master, like servants!
Even a mere servant like him doesn't knows why the old master will pass the patriarch title to a mere hedonistic and arrogant young master. He can only shake his head as he scrutinized the guard with clear disgust. Their Mu manor will surely decline by the hands of a wastrel! The current patriarch's succession became a talk to the town for weeks. If not for his graceful and talented daughter, he might be a nobody right now.
" Is the master someone you can visit at night just because you willed to? Do you even respect your master?", the guard airily replied, looking at the servant from head to toe. The servant rolls his eyes, 'where do you put your brain? Have you even heard of emergency? '.
The guard makes him disgusted at the current patriarch of the manor even more. Clearly, he doesn't understood the meaning of his words. If the old master have not said to relay the message to the patriarch, he would not have come here in a hurry! But no matter what, the patriarch is still the patriarch, so he calmed himself down.
" Would you shoulder the responsibilty if the patriarch will be enraged tomorrow because he doesn't even know what's happening because a mere guard stopped him from knowing? Are you rebelling to your master because you are dissatisfied with him? ", as an experienced servant, all he needs is to exaggerate his words to get this done. Who would dare to bear the name of treason? Since the guard can't understand implicit words, he does not have a choice but to bluntly tell him while looking at him as if he is an idiot.
The guard, understanding the servant's word at this time, broke into cold sweat. He still has a bright future following his master, how can he disregard it just for this?! So, he no longer blocked the servant's way and let him pass without another word.
After a few minutes, a loud painful wail erupts from the courtyard, sounds of breaking vases and sobs ruined the tranquility of the night, making everyone in the courtyard alert. The guards hurriedly dashed towards their master's room but stopped when their master, who only knows how to playfully smile and collects women, rushed out of his chamber with a dark face, his veins are popping in his head and his eyes is already red with anger, behind him, a weeping woman clutched her heart, as if thoroughly heartbroken by whatever news she heard. Her tears clouded her eyes as she nearly stumbled, making the maids around her panick and immediately helped her get into her feet. But the woman seems to lose all her strength as she collapsed in the ground while crying painfully.
" Hua'er! My precious hua'er!", she repeats her words until she passed out.
---
" Hey! I think that they are already too far, let us treat your master first before running again", Di Xueyan suggested as she felt that no one is following them all these time. The masked man stares at her in distrust as they already stopped running. She instantly got irritated at the ungrateful bastard.
" Excuse me, first of all, I am a physician and just by looking at your symptoms, I already know what illness you are inflicted at. Though that is very tricky, atleast we can suppress it", she frowns as she knows that his problem is indeed difficult to deal with. Even her mother might not be capable enough to save this sad boy here.
" Don't get me wrong, you helped me a while ago, so I don't want to be indebt to you", before he can think out of the box, she already cuts it off. Of course, only she, assumes that he will.
"Hey let's form a camp here. Not because your master does not even makes a sound, does not means that he is not in pain", she stares at his subordinates before turning away to set an illusion array. She doesn't saw how the masked master behind her stares at her back for a while before ordering his men to do what she said.
She took some purple grade spirit minerals from her storage ring and immediately sets up the array. Quiet luckily, the day she becomes a cultivator is the day that her brain can already comprehend mathematics a million way faster than her past poor self, so she does not worry about the coordinates anymore.
After setting the array, she immediately went to the tent where young master Ye whatever is in. She even has to argue against his guards as they don't trust her that much that they will entrust their master's health to a stranger. They even said that they already have something to suppress it and they didn't believe that she has the capability. Her pride was hurt but she really is curious at his illness that she wants to see it for herself for the first time. After a few rounds of persuasion, they reached a compromised and she was allowed to go in but the guards has to go in too.
Di Xueyan saw the misery of the man in bed. Even though he is already unconscious, his mask is still on, tss. She can see how his flesh looks like moving because of his overly popping veins, that are currently looking alive as it seems like beating for one moment, and moving the other moment. The sight looks so painful that even she can feel all her hairs rise up.
She sat on a chair a meter away from him before staring at the man with a serious face.
" The Moon's curse. He is inflicted with the moon's curse, right?", she asked to particularly no one, making the guards widen their eyes. Never have they imagined that she really knows their master's illness. They only let her in because she might disturb their master and they can't very likely silence or kill her just basing on their fight awhile ago. They can't afford to let their master unguarded. Since she has no malicious intent or whatever, they have to force themselves to agree.
" The Moon's Curse is a curse of the soul. It will happen once a month every full moon when the moon shines the brightest. The soul will try to unconsciously separate from the body, while the body tries to suppress the soul, resulting in this reaction", she emotionlessly watches the dancing veins in his body, which looks as if they are suppressing something, making them popped out. Everyone can imagine how painful it is, but the man lying in front of them has a peaceful face, if not for the light blood in his lips, no one will surely know what he truly felt.
The place became quiet as they stare at the man. His right hand is clutching something that Di Xueyan only notices now. It is a beautiful silver colored, palm sized half moon, with a red ruby drop in the upper middle. No one can see the entricate design because of his hand. Surely, that is the thing that helps him suppress the curse. She can't imagine how more painful it will be without it.
She saw how he clutches the thing tightly to the point that blood is already staining his robe where he rested his hand. She doesn't know what went into her mind when she suddenly stands up from the chair that she was sitting before turning her face to his subordinates.
" Let me help him ease the pain", she said with a determined face.