There was a stunned silence as everyone processed Huang Qian Jin's words. For my part, I was still struggling to deal with the fact that the friend I met in the Crimson Forest turned out to be the fourteenth prince.
Good lord. This was definitely unexpected.
"All right, all right." The referee finally recovered from his shock. "Whatever the case, this match is over, so get off. I need to start the next match soon."
"Oh, sorry." I hurried off the stage to join Lan Bei Er, who was personally healing Sui Mei's wounds. She looked up when I approached, smiling wryly.
"You did quite the number on senior Sui Mei," she remarked.
"At the risk of sounding juvenile, she started it." I shrugged. "What else was I supposed to do? Let her hit me? Because she's a girl? I don't think so."
"Oh, no. I'm not criticizing you. It's just that I've to use quite a bit of qi to heal her. That said, I agree. Senior asked for it."
"I was doing it for your own good!" Sui Mei insisted. Lan Bei Er stared at her incredulously.
"Even after all this, you're still saying such nonsense? You're causing me more harm than good!"
"No, I…" Sui Mei trailed off, noticing that Huang Qian Jin was still glaring at her intently. Hui Ying adopted a neutral expression as he accompanied his young master to speak to me.
"Yo." I waved at the blond kid. I wanted to ask him when we became sworn brothers, but I couldn't do that in front of Sui Mei and the others, or everyone would suspect him of lying. I wasn't the type who couldn't read the mood.
"Brother Hei Ye! Congratulations on advancing to the third round."
"Still lots of rounds to go," I said with a shrug. "I'll be lucky to make it to the fifth round."
"I'm sure you'll be fine." Huang Qian Jin held out a fist, and I bumped it.
"I'll do my best."
The other matches flew past, and as usual Chi Yan won his, an overwhelming victory over someone called Yang Kai from Dragon Phoenix Sect. An inferno dragon collided against a golden dragon, and poor Yang Kai was blown off the stage, his body charred. Like I said, Jian Shen wasn't the only one who died in these matches. A lot of people were either crippled or killed, though there were also many who survived.
I'm not sure what else to say. I didn't recognize most of the other participants, so I didn't care if they won or lost. And just like that, we went to the next round. As usual, the organizers gave us a break to rest and recover, and the third round would begin the next day.
Yay, I guess?
"Let's have dinner!" Huang Qian Jin suggested enthusiastically. He also gestured for Chi Yan to join us. The red-haired dude simply snorted and abstained, preferring to be by himself. What a loner. Huang Qian Jin looked a little disappointed. "Aw…I thought it would be great if we all get together again. I have delivered the payment to him as reward for the True Fire, but I still want to befriend him."
"Don't worry about that, he's always like that." I snickered. "Chi Yan might be aloof, but deep down inside, he's actually a good guy."
"Yeah. I was expecting him to fight us, but he let us have the True Fire. Not many people would do that."
"Actually, many people would. Only in cultivation stories would you have greedy, selfish characters conceived by the authors solely so that the protagonist is justified in massacring them."
"There you go with all these weird and incomprehensible analogies and references again." Lan Bei Er sighed. Huang Qian Jin turned to her with a bright smile.
"Um, you're sister-in-law! I wish I was there for the wedding, but…royal family duties and all that."
"No, not at all. I understand. I don't think the Lan family will be able to properly receive the fourteenth prince, but you're still welcome to visit Azure Cloud City anytime!"
"Thank you! I will!" Huang Qian Jin grinned. I believed this was the first time he actually met Lan Bei Er. They might have passed by each other in the Silver River Pavilion, but we were all wearing masks that time, so they wouldn't recognize each other.
We all had dinner together, inside the dining hall of the venue for the intersect tournament. Unsurprisingly, Huang Qian Jin drew tons of gazes from the other residents, all of them staring at him in awe. He sighed and nodded to Hui Ying, who stood next to him.
"Very well, young master."
Hui Ying stepped on the ground and suddenly a black shadow wrapped around our table in a sphere, obscuring everyone else's vision and preventing them from listening in to our conversation. Only the waiters were allowed inside to serve us food or take away empty plates.
"Man, I still can't get used to this," Huang Qian Jin complained. "This is why I keep a low profile."
"Yeah, most people don't recognize you outside here," I agreed. "I didn't expect you to reveal your identity in front of everyone like that."
Huang Qian Jin sighed. "The only reason why they know me is because the royal family has frequent dealings with the seven major sects. So at least the elders and several of the core disciples will recognize me because they would have seen me in the royal place before. There's no reason for me to conceal my identity. Sooner or later, they'll find out. Besides…" He grinned. "I'm here to show my support for you."
"I appreciate it, but will it bring you trouble?"
"Not at all," Huang Qian Jin assured me. He leaned back in his seat and grinned. "You've helped me and Hui Ying a lot. We owe you our lives."
"You helped me get my sword," I pointed out, placing a hand on my spatial pouch. Huang Qian Jin raised an eyebrow.
"Speaking of which, I haven't seen you use Abyssal Edge yet. What happened? I hope you didn't break it already."
"Hah! I didn't need Abyssal Edge to defeat my previous opponents." I grinned, and then sighed. "But yeah, I'll probably have to rely on it against more skilled opponents in the later rounds. It's just that, given Jian Shen's caliber, why would I need to use Abyssal Edge against him?"
"He died in a single slap," Huang Qian Jin said with a chuckle. "Nobody expected that."
"I didn't too!"
"Well, that was a good match to watch." Huang Qian Jin chuckled. Then Hui Ying cleared his throat.
"Young master, don't forget why you wanted to speak to sir Hei Ye in the first place."
"Oh?" I raised an eyebrow. "What happened?"
"There's been…movement in the palace," Huang Qian Jin explained, leaning forward. "I thought you might be interested to know. The patriarch of the Inspired Mind Sect has sensed the use of Heaven and Earth Formula the other night, and they are dispatching the holy maiden to investigate. They're panicking because a demonic cultivator has gotten so deep inside the Huang Kingdom. We hope he doesn't have anything insidious planned, or it'll be a catastrophe."
…whoops. I shouldn't have used Heaven and Earth Strike on the Yun family that night. That was my mistake.
Lan Bei Er was giving me a worried look. I nodded and reached out to squeeze her hand reassuringly.
"They don't have to worry. The demonic cultivator isn't going to be stupid enough to do anything major this deep inside the Huang Kingdom. I guess he only used it because he was attacked by idiots and was forced to defend himself."
"Ah, I see." Huang Qian Jin nodded. "The Yun family is known for being idiots, except for the second son who's a scholar. It's not strange that they would be annihilated when they were stupid enough to provoke someone they couldn't afford to offend."
"Yeah…Yun Jian Tian is an exception." Then I stopped. "Wait, how do you know about the Yun family?"
"Are you kidding? A major family in one of our cities being destroyed overnight? How can we not know of such news?"
"No, I mean how did you link that to what we were talking about earlier? The demonic cultivator?"
"Brother Hei Ye…we're not stupid." Huang Qian Jin nodded at Hui Ying, who remained stationary. "We can guess your origins. We know you're not really from the Black Shadow Sect."
I scratched my head. "Uh, well…"
Huang Qian Jin glanced at Lan Bei Er, who was frozen from fear. "I'm sure sister-in-law also knows, given how she was worried earlier when I brought up the Heaven and Earth Formula. But rest assured, I have no intention to say anything about it. You are my sworn brother, after all, and Hui Ying and I owe you a lot. Our bond goes beyond that stupid orthodox and demonic divide."
"Thanks." I chuckled. "Speaking of which, when did we become sworn brothers?"
"Ha ha, the timing doesn't matter. We can hold the ceremony now." Huang Qian Jin held up a cup of tea. "Let's make our vows! Even though we are born from different parents, but we share the same lot in life and death. Blood is not thicker than water, we can still be related. Your life is mine, and my life is yours, we'll watch each other's backs. We'll live together and die together! Here's to an unbreakable brotherhood!"
"Cheers." I held my cup up and knocked it against his, and then we both drank tea. There was no liquor or wine. I didn't drink alcohol and Huang Qian Jin was underage. Tea would suffice, and I love tea anyway.
The only tea I didn't like were green tea bitches. But I like drinking green tea. Just not green tea bitches. Whatever, you know what I mean.
Anyway, I couldn't help but reflect on this unexpected turn of events. I didn't think I would get myself a brother like this. What did it feel like to have a younger brother? Ever since I was transmigrated here, I didn't have anything I could really call my family, aside from my in-laws. My fellow disciples in Heaven and Earth Sect were more interested in backstabbing and climbing over each other's corpses to rise in rank, power and position, so I never felt any real kinship with them. There was nobody in Heaven and Earth Sect that I could truly call my brother or family. Rather, they were more of my enemies. As they said, keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer.
Maybe it wasn't so bad to defect to the orthodox side. I felt a stronger emotional bond with these orthodox people than I did with demonic cultivators. Lan Bei Er, who was now my wife. Hui Ying, who was more of a mentor than the tyrannical and cold-hearted Supreme Overlord. Chi Yan and He Shan Jie, who were comrades. Hong Yao Yao was the only exception, being a demonic cultivator like me, but she appeared to be influenced by living with orthodox cultivators for too long. And now I had a sworn brother in Huang Qian Jin.
Life could be funny sometimes.
"But my father the emperor will now have his eye on you now that I publicly announced my support for you. You've to make sure you do well in the intersect tournament."
Way to give me pressure just after swearing to be my brother.
"What is he expecting?" I asked sourly, sipping more tea. Huang Qian Jin shrugged.
"He knows of your strength…and depending on how well you finish in the intersect tournament, he might ask you for a favor. Of course, he'll reward you. There's no way we'll ask you to do anything for us for free."
"What sort of favor? You know I'll help you if you just ask."
"Hmm…okay. But I'll only tell you after the intersect tournament. I want you to focus on progressing as far as you can."
Ugh…and now he decided to keep me in suspense. That brat.
"All right, all right." I sighed and picked up some food with my chopsticks. There was no point worrying about this. I was going to have to put this off my mind and concentrate on the intersect tournament until it was over. "I hope it isn't anything too troublesome."
"About that…" Huang Qian Jin looked away guiltily. "Well…"
Hui Ying cleared his throat. "Given your abilities, I'm sure you'll be fine, sir Hei Ye."
"Will it be dangerous?" Lan Bei Er asked worriedly. Of course she would be concerned. Hui Ying shrugged.
"Given sir Hei Ye's abilities, I believe you don't have to worry, Mrs. Hei."
"Whatever it is, I'm coming along." Lan Bei Er gave me a stern stare. I nodded, unable to go against the wishes of my wife. Besides, her healing techniques would be necessary if this turned out to be a dangerous task. And yeah, there would definitely be danger. There was no other type of request Huang Qian Jin would give a cultivator like me – otherwise he would have gotten other people to do it already.
"Okay. Just let me know after the tournament is over."
"Speaking of which…" Hui Ying raised a hand. "Sir Hei Ye, if you're free after dinner tonight, perhaps I could teach you a new Black Shadow Sect technique that I've just developed."