AVL Chapter 36

No matter how much they asked, Xi Minghuai only repeated “I don’t know,” “He can hear.”

 

The one and only clue they’d finally found was broken.

 

Xi Jianlan’s brow furrowed so tightly he could barely keep up the act.

 

Sheng Jiao seemed to have had enough of his “clumsy” performance, and with a cold face, stepped forward to seal the mad Xi Minghuai into a soul-prison, saying icily, “Let’s go.”

 

Xi Jianlan’s eyes reddened. “My brother…”

 

Sheng Jiao looked down at him from above, then shot Feng Yu a cold glance.

 

From those two looks, Xi Jianlan keenly picked up the message: “That’s enough, there’s an outsider here, I’m saving your face.”

 

Xi Jianlan: “……”

 

He could only swallow his tears, refusing even to glance at Sheng Jiao, and went to Feng Yu with a stony face.

 

Feng Yu, seeing him so upset, actually managed to muster a little conscience and tried to comfort him: “Cheer up, at least he’s still alive. Let’s go find the Medicine Sect—Little Poison has gotten amazing at healing in recent years!”

 

Xi Jianlan’s face was cold: “And his poison skills? Can he make even the number one in the world die with a single drop?”

 

Sheng Jiao, listening nearby: “……”

 

Feng Yu thought he was talking about avenging the Xi family, so he threw an arm around Xi Jianlan’s shoulder and agreed: “He can, he can! If we find the real culprit, we’ll cripple their cultivation, let Little Poison use them for experiments, torture them for eighty-one years without relief.”

 

Xi Jianlan still wasn’t happy, fiddling with the little wooden figure at his waist, breaking its limbs with a series of sharp cracks.

 

—Like a sulking child.

 

Feng Yu, playing the mom for once, tried to comfort him: “Soul-loss syndrome is something the Medicine Sect can probably cure, but your own illness has no clear cause, so there’s no way to treat it… What’s that thing you’re holding? The sound is creepy.”

 

“Nothing, just venting.” Xi Jianlan said gloomily, crushing the faceless wooden head as well, but whatever it was made of, it soon reformed.

 

He got more and more annoyed, breaking it again and again until his finger pads turned red.

 

“Stop playing with the wooden doll.” Feng Yu slung an arm around his shoulder. “The urgent thing is to cure your brother first.”

 

Xi Jianlan nodded. “Gege, you’re the best.”

 

Feng Yu: “……”

 

That gave Feng Yu goosebumps. His first instinct was to throw this sappy brat out, but seeing how heartbroken he’d been, he softened, forcing a twisted, grimacing smile.

 

“Good didi, of course.”

 

Xi Jianlan: “……”

 

Suddenly, Sheng Jiao stepped forward.

 

Xi Jianlan pretended not to see, still whispering with Feng Yu, arms around each other.

 

Feng Yu, heartless as ever, giggled with him.

 

—It was obvious they were up to no good.

 

Sheng Jiao’s face turned even colder. Suddenly he said, “Give me the wooden doll.”

 

Xi Jianlan instinctively hid the little wooden figure behind his back, ducking behind Feng Yu: “Tell him, no way.”

 

“…” Feng Yu, “Can’t you talk for yourself?”

 

“I don’t like talking to him,” Xi Jianlan said.

 

Feng Yu sighed, “Nonsense, you used to pester him all day at Tianyan Academy, he’d ignore you for a whole day and you’d still chatter and argue.”

 

Xi Jianlan: “……”

 

Some brother you are.

 

Sheng Jiao ignored their banter and said coldly, “Ying Zhuo is up to no good. Puppets are always ominous things.”

 

Xi Jianlan glared at him and told Feng Yu, “Tell him, I was judged a criminal by five Tianyan pearls, of course a venomous person would like ominous things. Makes perfect sense.”

 

Feng Yu: “……”

 

Caught between the two, Feng Yu was at a loss, but the drama was so entertaining he couldn’t bear to break it up, so he just grinned and held his breath, watching the argument.

 

He’d thought Sheng Jiao would clam up like he did in their youth, leaving Xi Jianlan to perform a solo act, but to his surprise, Sheng Jiao actually frowned and said, “I won’t.”

 

Feng Yu sucked in a breath.

 

Heaven above, the blockhead can argue now!

 

…Even if it’s a completely off-topic argument.

 

Xi Jianlan wanted to laugh at that “I won’t,” and gave a heavy humph.

 

Sheng Jiao wasn’t one for words, so when Xi Jianlan didn’t cooperate, he brushed Feng Yu aside and strode forward to snatch the wooden doll.

 

Xi Jianlan quickly retreated several steps, glaring warily: “You’re even going to control me for playing with a little wooden doll? Are you my father, my mother, or my dao companion?”

 

Sheng Jiao’s hand paused.

 

Feng Yu didn’t intervene, his eyes shining with anticipation: “Fight, fight!”

 

With a flick of his fingers, Sheng Jiao, despite Xi Jianlan’s lack of spiritual power, sent him tumbling straight into his arms.

 

Xi Jianlan: “……”

 

Feng Yu: “Ohhh!”

 

Xi Jianlan never expected Sheng Jiao to be so forceful in front of Feng Yu. One of his hands was grabbed and lifted high, wide sleeves bunching at his elbow, and the large hand gripping his wrist was like an iron clamp—he couldn’t break free at all.

 

“Let me go!” Even so, Xi Jianlan kept trying to hide the wooden doll behind his back. “It’s just a wooden doll—am I breaking some Xiezhi Sect rule?”

 

Sheng Jiao’s face was expressionless. “You know perfectly well.”

 

“How would I know?” Xi Jianlan stomped hard on Sheng Jiao’s foot, glaring at him in anger. “Or is Lord Heaven’s Will going to judge me again? Then just use the Tianyan pearls and pass judgment—strike me with thunder and kill me, so Rang Chen’s prophecy comes true.”

 

Sheng Jiao: “You—”

 

Feng Yu, hearing the conversation take a bad turn, stopped watching the show and hurried over to pull Xi Jianlan free, glaring at Sheng Jiao in disapproval.

 

“He’s always loved strange little trinkets since he was a kid. It’s just a wooden doll, what’s the harm in playing with it? If you’re worried about Ying Qiao’er’s tricks, just check it thoroughly—why get physical?”

 

Xi Jianlan’s hand, squeezed so hard it was turning blue, trembled as he clung to the wooden doll, long lashes quivering, looking utterly wronged.

 

He turned slightly, his handsome profile so finely sculpted it was almost like a puppet—strikingly beautiful.

 

Sheng Jiao fell silent.

 

Feng Yu, though he usually didn’t get along with Xi Jianlan, would always side with him against Sheng Jiao, now fuming: “What do you mean, ‘he knows perfectly well’? Is there some secret to this wooden doll? And you just grabbed him like that—look at his hand, you nearly broke it!”

 

Xi Jianlan’s thick, crow-feather lashes trembled, and a silent tear fell.

 

Sheng Jiao was stunned.

 

It wasn’t until the tear landed on his hand that Xi Jianlan seemed to realize it, wiping it away in disgust.

 

Even knowing Xi Jianlan so well, Sheng Jiao couldn’t tell if that tear was real or fake.

 

Sensing Sheng Jiao’s gaze, Xi Jianlan turned his head and suddenly gave a sly smile.

 

Sheng Jiao: “……”

 

Feng Yu, perhaps emboldened by the drama, started rattling off complaints at Sheng Jiao, looking like he could go on for days.

 

Sheng Jiao, face dark, suddenly waved his hand.

 

Xi Jianlan’s hand stung as he was knocked back half a step, the wooden doll slipping from his grasp and falling to the ground.

 

Feng Yu exploded: “Sheng Wuzhuo! Looking for a fight?! I’ll tell you, I might not beat you, but I can take a punch!”

 

Sheng Jiao: “……”

 

Sheng Jiao couldn’t take Feng Yu’s noise any longer and flicked a strand of spiritual power.

 

Xi Jianlan, eyes still red, crouched to pick up the wooden doll—only to see Sheng Jiao’s golden spiritual power land on the doll’s forehead, making it suddenly glow brightly.

 

With a muffled “bang,”

 

Feng Yu, still ranting, was startled into silence as he looked down.

 

The restriction on the wooden doll had been forcibly broken, and in its place on the ground was a blood-soaked, twisted human body, its face smeared with blood and tangled grass-like hair, impossible to recognize.

 

Xi Jianlan: “……”

 

Feng Yu: “……”

 

After a long silence, Feng Yu’s voice shook as he looked at Xi Jianlan in disbelief: “…You’ve been… breaking apart… a person this whole time?”

 

No wonder the sound of snapping limbs and crushing skulls was so creepy.

 

It turned out to be a real person disguised as a puppet!

 

Thinking of Xi Jianlan so casually breaking the “wooden doll,” Feng Yu’s skin crawled.

 

Xi Jianlan’s act of being wronged hadn’t faded, and now looked even more innocent. He held up his long, slender fingers and said softly, “But he’s covered in blood. If he didn’t turn into a wooden doll, he’d get my hands dirty.”

 

Feng Yu: “……”

 

Sheng Jiao: “……”

 

Feng Yu broke out in goosebumps.

 

So turning a living person into a wooden doll makes it okay to break them apart?

 

“Jue… Jue’er,” Feng Yu said weakly, “Let’s just go straight to the Medicine Sect after this. I think you might be really sick.”

 

Xi Jianlan grinned sweetly: “Hee hee.”

 

Feng Yu shuddered at that “hee,” crouching in front of the poor soul on the ground: “My heavens, with Tianyan as my witness, it’s a miracle this guy’s still alive.”

 

Xi Jianlan avoided looking at Sheng Jiao, keeping his gaze on Feng Yu.

 

Whether his good brother was truly heartless or just used to seeing so many ghost corpses, he only ever looked worried about Xi Jianlan’s mental health, never showing the slightest fear or distance.

 

Xi Jianlan smiled, and, as if showing off, tapped Qu Xiangren’s brow and said, “I’m keeping him alive. He won’t die so easily.”

 

Feng Yu clicked his tongue in amazement, not even bothered by the mess. He pushed aside the blood-matted hair, peered for a while, then gasped in shock.

 

“Qu Xiangren?”

 

Sheng Jiao, silent until now, stepped forward.

 

Xi Jianlan’s back stiffened, but soon relaxed.

 

Qu Xiangren was barely alive, held to consciousness by some strange spiritual force, forced to endure Xi Jianlan’s cruel torment whenever he felt like it.

 

Xi Jianlan hugged his knees, crouched in a small, obedient ball, his face streaked with smudges like a stray cat, grinning as if the battered man before him had nothing to do with him.

 

He was just playing with a wooden doll.

 

Feng Yu took a deep breath. “No wonder…”

 

“Sect Master Sheng.” Xi Jianlan looked up with a bright smile. “You’ve seen enough—can you turn my wooden doll back to normal?”

 

Sheng Jiao’s face was blank as he gently pinched two Tianyan pearls between his fingers.

 

Crack.

 

A silent thunderbolt struck down, as if to turn Qu Xiangren to dust.

 

“No!” Xi Jianlan, though he couldn’t hear the thunder, instantly realized what Sheng Jiao intended. He threw himself forward, shielding Qu Xiangren with his body. “—You can’t kill him!”

 

Sheng Jiao’s thunder was always fast and ruthless—he almost didn’t stop it in time, nearly striking Xi Jianlan’s back directly.

 

At the critical moment, Sheng Jiao forcibly dispelled the heavenly thunder, nearly suffering backlash himself.

 

Enduring a wave of searing pain through his meridians, Sheng Jiao grabbed Xi Jianlan’s hand and yanked him upright, his voice cold and sharp: “Xi Jue!”

 

Xi Jianlan was dragged hard into Sheng Jiao’s arms, but instead of struggling, he leaned in, grabbed Sheng Jiao’s collar, and planted a kiss at the corner of his lips, grinning: “I’m not done playing yet. I can’t let him die just like that.”

 

Sheng Jiao clamped a hand over his mouth and pushed him back, his expression dark and ugly.

 

If it had been before, Feng Yu would have exploded at the drama, but even he could sense something was off now. He thought Sheng Jiao was blaming Xi Jianlan for being cruel, so he quickly tried to smooth things over.

 

“Qu Xiangren was never a good person—back then, he nearly killed all of us from Xingxing Zhai by activating the sundial’s Zi waterway. I still remember that grudge.”

 

Sheng Jiao ignored him, coldly saying to Xi Jianlan, “Hand him over to me.”

 

“No.” Xi Jianlan replied with perfect confidence, “He brought people to kill me today—that’s a capital crime. Since I caught him, he’s mine. That’s the rule.”

 

Sheng Jiao’s jaw tightened. He tried several times to speak, but not a single word came out.

 

This kind of nearly mad Xi Jianlan was a stranger to him.

 

Sheng Jiao even started to regret letting him go all those years ago.

 

Xi Jianlan didn’t care about Sheng Jiao’s expression. He crouched down and formed a few hand seals, turning the dying, blood-spitting Qu Xiangren back into a wooden doll.

 

He seemed to have given up on everything, and deliberately snapped the doll’s arms in front of Sheng Jiao, smiling triumphantly.

 

But there wasn’t a trace of laughter in his eyes.

 

Sheng Jiao closed his eyes for a moment, then raised his hand and used spiritual power to open the exit to Shentian She.

 

Feng Yu didn’t even have time to react before he was thrown out.

 

Only the two of them were left in Shentian She.

 

Sheng Jiao stared straight into Xi Jianlan’s cold, emotionless eyes, his grip on the Tianyan pearls tightening.

 

Just then, all 106 Tianyan pearls suddenly began to spin rapidly again.

 

Judgment.

 

Lightning flashed, illuminating their expressionless faces.

 

Amid the whir of spinning beads, Xi Jianlan spoke calmly: “Does Sect Master Sheng know how many punishments there are in Xiezhi Sect?”

 

Sheng Jiao said nothing.

 

“Sixty-two,” Xi Jianlan answered himself, lips curving in a faint smile. “In three months, Qu Xiangren used all sixty-two punishments on me three times. My ears… were ruined by him too.”

 

Sheng Jiao’s pupils contracted, his grip on the Tianyan pearls tightening until his eyes flashed with a savage red.

 

His ears…

 

No wonder back then, Xi Jianlan hadn’t understood a word he said—he only knew how to cry.

 

So he’d already lost his hearing by then.

 

Xi Jianlan stroked the wooden doll’s face with pity: “I repay every grievance, kill to stop killing. Sect Master Sheng should know my temperament well after those judgments in Shentian She.”

 

Sheng Jiao’s lips trembled: “I…”

 

“You and I are no longer the same people, and I’m not the Xi Jue of the past.” Xi Jianlan cut him off. “If you really want Qu Xiangren, I’ll give him to you in three months. Or, if you want to take him by force, just kill me.”

 

Sheng Jiao’s trembling fingers nearly dug into his palm.

 

At last, all 106 Tianyan pearls stopped spinning.

 

There had originally been only five “Execute” beads—

 

Now there were ten.

 

Xi Jianlan couldn’t help but laugh, as if he’d expected it.

 

“Ten already—Lord Heaven’s Will, are you still sure that if all 108 Tianyan pearls turn to ‘Execute,’ you’ll ‘never’ do it?”

 

Before Sheng Jiao could answer, Xi Jianlan turned and left Shentian She without looking back.

 

That answer, Rang Chen had already given him six years ago.

 

Sheng Jiao stared at the Tianyan pearls for a long time, his grip so tight he nearly crushed them to dust.

 

Suddenly, as if realizing something, his expression changed drastically and he rushed out of Shentian She at top speed.

 

Thunder and lightning raged over Xiezhi Sect, the roaring nearly splitting his eardrums.

 

Sheng Jiao shot out of that eerie “eye,” and as soon as he landed, he heard Feng Yu’s urgent shout—

 

“Fix the soul!”

 

Boom—

 

Deafening thunder mixed with pouring rain.

 

A sense of foreboding gripped Sheng Jiao’s heart. He followed the sound and saw, in the torrential rain, Feng Yu cradling Xi Jianlan, who was kneeling on the ground, desperately forming soul-fixing seals.

 

“Fix the soul! Come back—Xi Jue! Shi’er—!”

 

Sheng Jiao rushed over, face ashen.

 

Shentian She and the real world ran on different times; in theory, the three of them should have returned to Xiezhi Sect within a few breaths of each other. But in just that short moment, Xi Jianlan, just back in the real world, was caught off guard by a clap of thunder.

 

Now, Xi Jianlan’s eyes were blank, his face pale as paper, like a delicate puppet sitting lifeless in the puddles, unmoved no matter how Feng Yu shouted.

 

Sheng Jiao pressed two fingers to Xi Jianlan’s brow, his heart sinking.

 

Xi Jianlan had been startled by the thunder…

 

His soul had left again.

 

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 (advanced chapters available on kofi)