The blue light from the ice spell make everyone's heart feel chill, just like the day Yan Hui left Chen Xing Mountain. Icy air spilled from the spell. It was so much that even the boiling lava cooled and dimmed several degrees.
Yan Hui was still lost in memories when a blue slight suddenly shot out of the spell array and into her abdomen. The blow caused her to stumble back three steps. Yan Hui caught herself right before reaching the edge and tumbling into the lava.
In a blink of an eye, the suppressed Ling Fei disappeared without a trace.
What was left in her place was an aura Yan Hui knew all too well. Yan Hui narrowed her eyes. A white-robed cultivator stood where Ling Fei laid by the disciples.
His appearance was cold with the same imposing manner. It had been three months since she left, and entire change of a season. However, her shifu hadn't changed a single bit. He looked like how he did 10 years ago. Time didn't even a slightest trace on his face.
"Senior brother...." Ling Fei gazed at Ling Xiao. The rim of her eyes immediately turned pink. "You came." It was like she had suffered some great abuse.
Yan Hui couldn't help coldly laughing when she heard those words.
Her extremely disdainful laugh was heard by everyone. Ling Fei turned and looked at her. She sharply frowned and fumed behind gritted teeth: "This Yan Hui colluded with the demons a few months ago and didn't admit she released them. And now, she's even more involved with helping them do evil deeds. They came today to steal the Heavenly Jian, which goes too far." She glared at Yan Hui with hate. "Senior brother, you can't be soft-hearted to this scum anymore like back then just because you were once master-disciple."
Yan Hui couldn't help laughing again --- Ling Fei said it like Ling Xiao cared they were once master and disciple.
All of Chen Xing Mountain and even the entire xian sects all knew her former shifu was upright, fair, and selfless.
Yan Hui tossed away the Heavenly Jian. The point sunk into the ground, and the blade hummed as it wavered. It was clear she threw it with some force. "I don't want the Heavenly Jian. The one who released the demons was me, but I didn't collude with them. What you say now about me helping the demons is correct, but I didn't want to steal the Heavenly Jian." She looked unflinchingly at Ling Xiao.
Master and disciple. Four eyes locked. Both with solemn expressions.
"That is all I have to say. Believing it or not is up to you."
When she finished speaking, Yan Hui secretly formed a hand seal behind her back. Tian Yao was still in the lava lake; she had no time to waste. She had to rescue him: "Cultivator Ling Xiao...."
Yan Hui yelled it out, planning to use that to distract everyone's attention. Unexpectedly she didn't even manage to get those three words out when Ling Xiao's figure suddenly disappeared.
Yan Hui knew something was up. Her first thought was to hide, but when she backed up a step, she bumped into someone's chest. Yan Hui tilted her head back. Ling Xiao was coldly looking down at her.
Yan Hui was shocked. Again, she took out the dagger tucked away in her sleeve and quickly trust it backwards.
But she was nowhere as fast as Ling Xiao. Or in other words, Ling Xiao long ago already anticipated her next move.
When Yan Hui was reaching into her sleeve for her dagger, Ling Xiao had reached out his hand and grasped her elbow. It was a light grasp, like playing with a child. Yan Hui was grasped by the elbow from behind by one hand. The other hand struck Yan Hui's hand. Yan Hui immediately felt her hand become numb all the way down to her fingertips. She didn't have the strength anymore to grasp the dagger.
The dagger slipped through numbed fingers onto the ground. It slide and fell into the lava and melted immediately.
That was right. How could she win against Ling Xiao with martial arts. He was her shifu. Every improvements she made in the past 10 years was all done through Ling Xiao's teachings. What move, what plan she had, Ling Xiao probably knew more clearly than her.
As for magic.....there was no need to bring that up.
All of a sudden, a light bulb went off. Actually, that wasn't the case. Yan Hui had learned other magic. Magic that Ling Xiao didn't know of!
At once she gathered up her inner breath. With a twist of her hand, magic gathered rushed out of her elbow and struck Ling Xiao's hand aside.
Ling Xiao only thought Yan Hui was trying to struggle free. He countered using the way to supress xian magic, but he didn't expect her magic to penetrate his block. It went into the muscles and bones in his hand. Demon magic wound around his entire hand.
Ling Xiao immediately let go. Yan Hui promptly retreated. She floated above the lava, three meters away from him.
She looked at Ling Xiao. There was a strange sense of happiness at seeing Ling Xiao's cold mask falter.
Look, even without you teaching me, I can still learn a lot.
Yan Hui knew she was acting like an ignorant child showing off to adults what she had learned, wanting the adults to be astonished, wanting the adults to pay all their attention on her.
Although she knew she was acting childish, it was hard for Yan Hui to stop acting juvenile in front of Ling Xiao.
Ling Xiao looked at Yan Hui for a long time. He didn't say anything for a long time. Then he lowered his eyes and looked at his own hand. He slowly forced the demon magic out. When he raised his head again, there was harshness in his eyes: "You cultivated demon magic." He wasn't asking. He was certain.
"So what if I did?"
Ling Xiao's face darkened: "Completely preposterous!" He scolded her, emphasizing it with pauses between the words. This furious tone was something Yan Hui rarely heard.
"How is it preposterous?" Yan Hui didn't understand. "I was expelled from Chen Xing Mountain. Since I'm no longer a disciple there, what I do has nothing to do with Chen Xing Mountain."
The corner of Ling Xiao's mouth tightened. He looked at the stubborn Yan Hui who stood there with a stiff back, not admitting her mistake. He was silent for a moment: "I shouldn't have let you leave Chen Xing Mountain." His voice was freezing. "You've become insolent." With those words, Ling Xiao put his palms together and slowly pulled them apart. A jian made from ice from hilt to tip appeared between his hands.
Yan Hui knew that was the jian he used against demons. Now he was going to use the sword against her.....
However, Yan Hui didn't think she was insolent and wrong to the point that Ling Xiao would want to behead her with that ice jian.
"I've been expelled from Chen Xing Mountain. I have no more relationship with Chen Xing Mountain nor with you Cultivator Ling Xiao. And now I'm the one who decides what to cultivate my body with. You still have Ling Fei. What qualification do you have to criticize and judge me." Yan Hui stood in mid-air and evenly spoke. "I even more shouldn't accept you people's penalty and punishment."
Ling Fei harshly spoke from behind: "Demons are evil. Cultivation demon magic is entering the path of heretical cultivation. Unless you're the most righteous person in the world, no qualifications are needed."
Yan Hui looked at Ling Xiao in silence.
Do you also think demons are evil?
The one who taught here there must also be mercy in her heart even when killing was such a person?
He probably thought that way too. Was that why he agreed to traffic fox demons to refine their blood into fragrance to satisfy those "noble" people's desires? Was that why he became Su Ying's helper, called the conference, and killed Zhenren Qi Yun because she might object? Was that's why he was like Su Ying and prepared to start a war? All to conquer Qing Qiu and annex the southwest into Central Plains?
Yan Hui didn't voice these questions. Thus, she didn't wait for a response, but she did wait for Ling Xiao to strike with that murderous ice jian.
She focused her eyes and resigned herself to this fight. She used all the heart techniques Tian Yao taught her. For the first time, she felt the Heart Protection Scale in her heart heat to burning levles. It was probably because she had never used so much power at once.
The burning scale in her heart gave her both support and strength.
In a fight against Ling Xiao, Yan Hui didn't even have to think to know that she would lose, but she couldn't convince herself to not fight. Because not fighting would be like conceding to their system of beliefs.
That's why even though losing was inevitable, she would prove to them that she still stood firm to her own beliefs. She would never admit to something that went against her own "righteousness."
Even if the entire world stood against her.
Ling Xiao had only struck three times when Yan Hui's protection spell broke. Ling Xiao aimed his jian at her jugular. But right before it reached her neck, he flipped his jian and struck with the hilt.
Then Yan Hui sensed her world go dark. She collapsed forward and return to those arms that carried her to Chen Xing Mountain when she was little.
It was still cool like before, but now she couldn't sense the hidden warmth.
"We're returning to Chen Xing Mountain."
Ling Xiao held Yan Hui, who he had knocked unconscious. He lightly spoke that order.
Ling Fei frowned when she saw Yan Hui was merely unconscious: "Senior brother, Yan Hui has committed many disgraceful deed. As such, why didn't you just kill her?"
Ling Xiao carried Yan Hui and walked past Ling Fei. He resolutely said: "She was my disciple for 10 years, so I won't take her life. When we return, I will have my own method of punishment."
Ling Fei impatiently said: "When she was expelled from Chen Xing Mountain, she should've also been whipped. That time, you pardoned her from it. Are you going to keep protecting her?"
Ling Xiao momentarily paused. He looked at her out of the corner of his eye, and she stiffened at that contact.
With the xian disciples still surrounding them, Ling Xiao stayed quiet for only a moment. He continued: "When we arrive at Chen Xing Mountain, I will personally whip her. She will be whipped for nine days, 81 lashes each day. She will be whipped until her entire body loses magic, until her muscles and bones lose their xian meridians, and until she can no longer cultivate again to discipline her. In Cultivator Ling Fei's eyes, is leaving her with her life still protecting her?"
Destroying the magic, breaking the body to break the xian meridians. All to prevent her from being able to xian cultivate for the rest of her life...
If Ling Xiao really did that, then Yan Hui wouldn't be able to cultivate any type of pathway. Even walking would become an issue. For someone who had never cultivated the xian pathway, this punishment might not be a big issue. But for someone who entered the xian sects and freely soared the skies with the Propelling Sword technique, this was the harshest punishment.
With this kind of punishment, it was better to let her die....
The disciples present were silent. Ling Fei also didn't speak again.
Ling Xiao carried Yan Hui in his arms. He walked in front and exited the lava cavern.
No one else hurried to catch up, so they didn't know that when Ling Xiao left the cavern, his eyes dropped to Yan Hui's face. He silently gazed at her for a long time. Then he looked at the bloodstain where she stabbed her own heart. He still remained in silence.
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NOOOOOOOOO DON'T DO IT!!!!!
I like to think that if Ling Fei didn't force Ling Xiao to say something in front of all their disciples, he wouldn't have sentenced such a harsh punishment. It's basically torture!!! First, physically by crippling!! And then mentally by taking away such an important part of them!!
Ugh. Ling Fei, I hope you suffer!!!! Ling Xiao, protect your disciple!!!!