Chapter Eighty-Nine: The Resistance of the Weak

She was taken completely by surprise.

Fang Hongjian’s outright refusal reminded Ji Youyun of the main hall of Huanhua Hall nine years ago, of being shut out just as utterly, with no room for retreat.

But things were different now. Nine years ago, it had at worst been a young girl’s ignorance of propriety; now, this was plainly a matter of courting death.

Convinced that Fang Hongjian could not escape his grasp, Ji Youyun showed no anger despite his surprise. He said coolly, “You are the one insisting on walking straight into a dead end.”

Hongjian was not afraid. She merely kept her guard up and feigned curiosity. “What do you intend to use me for?”

Ji Youyun gave a look that was both contemptuous and amused. He did not answer her question directly. Instead he said, “Actually, it would be very easy to make you obedient. I simply do not wish to keep a puppet at my side, someone with no thoughts of her own. You have defied me again and again. I think you have forgotten what I am best at. Everything you possess, so long as I want it, I can take for myself.”

He rose to his feet and came to stand before her, looking down at her from above. “Just like that sect-heir jade slip of the Dan Cliff Sect that you treat like a treasure. Yes, I do want it. Nine years ago, on Red Wheel Peak, I sensed a strange attraction. My secret art told me there was a chance there that could allow me to enter the Void Transformation realm. I leaked that information to Dai Mingchi. A hidden realm strong enough to support the Dan Cliff Sect’s renown throughout the world, a treasure that would greatly benefit even a Void Transformer—no risk would be too great to pursue it.”

As he spoke, Ji Youyun met Hongjian’s searing glare and leisurely raised his right hand. “I hear the sect-heir jade slip passed through your hands. There, there, don’t be afraid. Let me see what all you know!”

Hongjian’s heart sank. She knew trouble was coming.

When Hongjian and Chen Zaizhi had parted ways, he had, for safety’s sake, told her word for word the secrets on the jade slip concerning the spirit spring and the sect-protecting grand formation.

She now bitterly regretted her own excellent memory, for she remembered it all so clearly and firmly that not even the torture of the Divine-Devouring Needles had wiped it away.

She would not sit and wait to die. Throwing her head sharply back, she dodged Ji Youyun’s hand and asked, “You people caused Elder Jin to fall. Are you not planning to open the Heavenly Canopy again?”

That was a question she had been racking her brain over in the darkness these past days. It seemed to her that without that cooperation before, and without the same intentions, Jin Donglou and Lingxuzi would never have fallen so easily into each other’s traps.

Ji Youyun did not mind her little delay. Smiling, he answered, “For you to know even this much, it seems Sun Yougong has truly been good to you. Rest assured, the Heavenly Canopy will certainly be opened again, and I will certainly find the Mirage Palace.”

The overwhelming power of Ji Youyun’s Nascent Soul pressed down upon her. Hongjian could no longer evade him and had no choice but to let him press his palm onto the crown of her head.

She did not know what others felt when Ji Youyun held their heads and used his insight art, but she felt utterly bound, like a mouse pinned motionless beneath a cat’s paw.

A fierce unwillingness surged in her chest. She would rather die at once than let Ji Youyun pry those secrets from her mind.

Though Hongjian had always met Chen Zaizhi with stern displeasure, she also had immense faith in him. Junior Brother Chen had inherited the final teachings of the sect founder, and with his extraordinary aptitude and burning resolve for revenge, he would surely form his core and rise into Nascent Soul without incident.

But even if he reached Nascent Soul, facing Dai Mingchi and Xing Wuyai would still be like striking stone with an egg, not to mention the sinister Ji Youyun lurking behind them like a venomous serpent.

That spirit spring was the foundation upon which the Dan Cliff Sect’s future revival depended. With its aid, only on the soil of Dan Cliff Mountain would Chen Zaizhi have any real chance to fight.

Ji Youyun must not be allowed to succeed.

She ground her teeth in hatred, yet did not know that the easy smile on Ji Youyun’s face was slowly freezing over. He narrowed his eyes, his expression growing grave.

The room fell into an eerie silence.

At first Hongjian did not feel anything wrong where his palm touched her, but gradually she sensed threadlike currents seeping into her head and gathering little by little, growing ever more distinct. They carried warmth, as though warm water were soaking through her brain. It was oddly soothing and made her drowsy, so drowsy that her eyelids grew heavy.

Ji Youyun increased the force of his spell.

Hongjian did not know what was happening. Her understanding of this sorcery was still stuck nine years in the past, at Huanhua Hall, where she had witnessed Jiang Yan, Shi Qingxiang, and the others with her own eyes as Ji Youyun pressed their heads and “inspected” them, yet none of them had shown any abnormal reaction, let alone drowsiness.

She bit hard into the tip of her tongue. The pain sharpened her mind. Even against such a vast gulf in strength, she had to fight with all her might.

The sect founder had once taught her on that illusory island deep in the Endless Sea that if one wished to keep the soul from being easily controlled, one must not only guard the heart of the Dao but also deepen one’s obsessions.

Back then she had not yet established her foundation, nor did she have such deep-seated obsessions. That Nascent Soul demonic beast had easily beguiled her, leaving her unable to see through its illusion no matter what she did. But now the sect founder was dead, and Senior Brother was dead too. Avenging them and restoring the Dan Cliff Sect had become Hongjian’s greatest obsession, one she would not regret even in ten thousand deaths.

Ji Youyun was greatly astonished.

He had long since noticed that this young girl was somewhat unusual, an ideal candidate for cultivating his secret art. Yet he had not expected that, even after he had pushed his spell to this extent, what returned to his mind would be utter nonsense. More precisely, Hongjian’s soul was now filled to the brim with seething hatred. That emotion was so intense it blotted out everything else.

But she had only just reached foundation establishment. How could this be?

Unless she truly harbored a bone-deep hatred for him and his people, or else she had somehow learned something of this strange art from elsewhere and actually knew to resist it with such crude means.

Ji Youyun felt his authority had been slighted. A mere foundation-building cultivator, did she truly think she could leave him helpless like this? How naive.

“Hex!” he snapped. “At times of great calamity, do not doubt; turn heaven and earth in your grasp. Star-bright divine qi, steady the breath within a square inch…”

He spoke aloud, and the single sharp syllable carried powerful magic. Hongjian’s body trembled faintly, and her eyes suddenly brightened. As he recited the incantation, the stiffness left her neck, and her whole body, seated there, gradually slackened and softened.

Ji Youyun’s voice was gentle, carrying an irresistible spell. His power seeped slowly through his palm into Hongjian’s soul, as though peeling back a hard shell. He half closed his eyes and, taking advantage of the moment when Hongjian’s mind was in turmoil and her thoughts scattered, began to peer closely into her past and infer her future.

In those brief twenty-two years, amid the chaotic and shimmering fragments of light, Ji Youyun brushed aside the thin veil of hatred at the top and saw the child Hongjian separated from her parents, saw her senior brother explode before her eyes, saw Hongjian steering a flying vessel through torrential rain while teasing a flock of rain-feather birds…

Then came a beach, where Hongjian sat shoulder to shoulder with a handsome young man. The young man looked over and spoke with respectful deference: “Senior Sister, regarding the sect-heir jade slip…”

Suddenly a wave crashed over it, blurring the scene.

No, not a wave from the sea. It was the threadlike water essence he had intruded into Hongjian’s soul, Hongjian’s own divine qi!

Ji Youyun could hardly believe what he saw. He abruptly intensified the flow of water essence, and the image appeared again, intermittently. He could not make out what the young man was saying, and even that lasted only a moment before it dissolved into nothing.

The Return of the Ten Thousand Streams!

Like one seeing a ghost, Ji Youyun abruptly snatched his hand back. How was this possible?

He knew Fang Hongjian had talent, but even if she had stumbled into cultivating the Return of the Ten Thousand Streams, it was impossible that merely hearing a few lines of the incantation from him would let her produce divine qi as though aided by the gods.

Divine qi was a highly peculiar form of energy within the soul, precisely the foundation of the strange art he cultivated. Water spiritual roots were the easiest to refine into divine qi, yet even Ji Youyun himself, though he considered himself the cleverest and most resourceful person under heaven, had suffered much hardship and pain before he had ever entered the path.

And his strange art, when it encountered divine qi, shared the same root and source. Ji Youyun had already seen that the Fang Hongjian before him was a person of exceptionally steadfast will. Fortunately, her cultivation was still weak. If she were only a little stronger and could control divine qi, then deceiving him with false appearances would not be impossible—just like that person…

Ji Youyun suddenly came to himself and thought of one possibility, staring fixedly at Hongjian.

“Who taught you the Return of the Ten Thousand Streams?”

Hongjian struggled to regain her senses and snapped back, “Why don’t you see for yourself!”

Her words were fierce, but her face could not hide its pallor. She was deeply uneasy inside: just now, as Ji Youyun murmured his incantation, her thoughts had become possessed, beyond her control, her mind blank as snow. She did not know how much Ji Youyun had seen.

Ji Youyun’s expression turned somewhat ferocious. He gave a cold laugh. “So that is why you repeatedly refused to acknowledge me as your master! So that is the reason! I have been deceived by all of you!”

Hongjian pressed her lips together and watched him warily, unable to make sense of what this madman was muttering.

The Nascent Soul expert Ji Youyun, so skilled at putting on airs, was now like a cat whose tail had been stepped on. He paced the room several times in agitation, repeatedly glancing at her, his expression shifting between dark and clear, his hand at his side clenching and unclenching.

After a while, he seemed finally to have made up his mind. His expression eased somewhat, and he said to Hongjian, “Now you should understand that the Fiend Refining Prison is in my grasp. Since you would rather be locked in here until death than turn back, I will grant your wish and let you properly savor its delights.”

Once Ji Youyun had made his decision, he no longer hesitated. He immediately sent a transmission outside to have Mister Gong come in, and said, “I will trouble Elder Gong to escort her back.”

Mister Gong asked no questions. With a blank expression, he said to Hongjian, “Come along.”

Hongjian, dragging her heavy shackles, followed behind him. Being able to leave Ji Youyun like this caused some of the tension in her heart to loosen.

Mister Gong led her back to that black prison, completely cut off from spiritual energy.

After what had just happened, her water essence had fully recovered, but in that damned black prison it was no more than water without a source: every drop used was one less, let alone enough for cultivation.

Hongjian was locked into a new place. As she entered the black prison, she glanced upward. By the light of a lantern in the hands of an unfamiliar guard, she saw a wooden plaque hanging beside the cell door. On it were written the words: Vermilion Bird Thirteen.