Chapter 52
Yu Sui raised her hand to greet Xue Mushi and walked toward him, with Li Jin Shuang following behind.
"Go somewhere quieter to talk?" Yu Sui said.
Xue Mushi didn't refuse, so they walked all the way to the Yin-Yang School's Five Elements Field.
The period for new student enrollment had passed, so there weren't many people here, and it wasn't time for martial arts advancement challenges either. Besides them, there wasn't a living soul in sight.
It was indeed an excellent setting for private discussion.
Yu Sui told Xue Mushi her proposal: "Li Jin Shuang wants to train her sword spirit in Asura Hell, I want to practice Nine Schools Arts and improve my realm, but exiting the formation requires your divination technique: Energy Stabilization to help destroy the Military Formation's Five Elements Energy."
So for this proposal, the ideal partners were actually Xue Mushi and Yu Sui. It wouldn't work without either one of them.
Moreover, Yu Sui's Five Elements Light Cores had increased in both strength and number, making this method more reliable than last time.
Seeing Xue Mushi's expressionless face, Yu Sui added softly: "Your Seven Kill Trigram probably hasn't reached perfection yet. If you want to become stronger, the best place to practice is here. The Academy isn't like your own home in Taiyuan, there are people everywhere, plus 24 Saints overseeing things, so it's easy to be discovered."
This was the most convincing point for Xue Mushi.
Xue Mushi looked around, thinking Yu Sui was very bold: "Special-grade Military Formations are extremely dangerous. One mistake could really mean death."
"Great wealth comes from great risk." Yu Sui smiled with curved eyes, but wasn't deliberately joking, her tone gentle yet composed. "Based on our timing last time, as a precaution, we can destroy the balance and leave when time is up, repeating this to ensure safety."
Xue Mushi found this feasible and added: "Last time there were four people."
Yu Sui's expression remained unchanged: "This time there are three people. I'll move the timing up even earlier."
Xue Mushi didn't ask why they weren't bringing Wei Ren along. He and Wei Ren weren't close enough for that, and he had heard privately circulated stories about Yu Sui being attacked by the Agricultural School, which he guessed was related to Wei Ren.
But since these two hadn't exposed the forbidden technique matter even in that situation, they were still reliable.
After a moment of silence, Xue Mushi nodded in agreement: "Alright."
He looked up at Yu Sui and said: "Let's try it now."
"Huh?" Yu Sui was somewhat surprised. This person was more direct than she had imagined.
Xue Mushi looked hesitant: "I also want to confirm whether you can still open Asura Hell a second time."
Li Jin Shuang also looked at Yu Sui: "He's right."
"I don't mind. I'm not busy today, I can skip both Medical School and School of Names elective courses." Yu Sui said while stepping into the Star Sea within the Yin-Yang Five Elements Field, raising her hand to activate the star chart and selecting Military Formation. "Then I'll open it!"
The star chart sensed Yu Sui's power and activated the Military Formation. The three disappeared instantly from the Yin-Yang Five Elements Field.
What met their eyes was the familiar gloomy sky and flashing Legalist School Thunder Punishment. Between thunder and lightning, distant city-guarding king generals stood with flames beneath their feet, countless tiny sparks falling from the sky, seemingly carrying unspeakable anger to ignite the entire earth.
Based on Yu Sui's strength, the star chart still opened a special-grade Military Formation: Asura Hell.
The three stood in the wasteland, far from the city gates. The ground was scattered with bloody corpses and bones, fallen weapons and dead warhorses. Some had died years ago and turned to white bones, others seemed to have just perished, still flowing with trickling blood.
The wind that swept across their faces was fierce, as if trying to knock them to the ground.
Li Jin Shuang immediately became alert, her distinct-jointed hand gripping the sword hilt, her peripheral vision scanning the surroundings, vigilant for changes.
Yu Sui gazed at the city-guarding king general in the distance. It was as tall as a giant, comparable to city walls, casting shadows that completely covered the city behind it. Its eyes were like torches, slowly and arrogantly scanning, causing flames to ignite wherever its gaze fell.
Evil spirits wielding swords emerged from the flames.
Xue Mushi sensed the Five Elements Energy within the Military Formation and said hesitantly: "It's gotten stronger."
"Hm?" Yu Sui and Li Jin Shuang looked at him.
Xue Mushi looked at Yu Sui: "Military Formations opened by star charts are uncontrolled Military Formations, so their danger and difficulty are reduced by about half."
"But this time, compared to last time, the Military Formation's power seems... to have gotten somewhat stronger."
Yu Sui realized: "If it's judging strength based on my cultivation realm, then I have indeed made some progress recently."
But this didn't sound like good news right now.
The evil spirits gathered into groups, eyeing the three people in the center of the battlefield hungrily.
Yu Sui asked: "What do you think? Should we fight, or exit first, make full preparations and come back?"
"Exit first." Xue Mushi scratched his head. "I'll go back and prepare some related Taoist talismans."
Yu Sui said alright, and Li Jin Shuang had already drawn her sword and dashed forward to intercept the charging evil spirits. Xue Mushi's copper coins flew and danced, making crisp sounds when they collided.
Xue Mushi's divination technique: Energy Stabilization extracted the Fire trigram belonging to fire from within the Military Formation. Yu Sui then amplified and enlarged his divination technique, increasing both speed and range, finally destroying the Five Elements Energy balance of the Military Formation and exiting.
When they emerged outside, it was already noon.
Yu Sui looked up at the blazing sun, slightly stunned.
"Last time, thinking back afterward, I found it strange. We clearly hadn't stayed in the Military Formation that long, but when we came out, it was already night." She said softly.
The other two had also noticed this.
Li Jin Shuang said: "Some Military Formations cause time confusion, where time flows differently inside the formation than outside, but this is an active skill of the formation master."
"Like now, relying on destroying the Military Formation's Five Elements Energy to break the formation creates a time difference."
"I see." Yu Sui rubbed her eyes, uncomfortable from the sunlight, and asked Li Jin Shuang curiously: "Why didn't you mention this last time?"
Li Jin Shuang paused and said quietly: "You didn't ask."
Yu Sui: "Oh."
Truly worthy of being the Military School's mute.
Xue Mushi calculated: "This time about two hours passed."
Yu Sui said: "It's probably not a fixed time, but won't exceed a day at most, right?"
Xue Mushi suggested: "If there's a time difference, we'd better choose to come at night, so it won't interfere with daytime classes."
This suited Yu Sui perfectly, since she couldn't sleep at night anyway.
Li Jin Shuang had no objections either.
The three separated, agreeing to meet again at the hai hour tonight.
……
Noon, Mechanism Island.
Compared to the Academy, the climate here was even more scorching. The ground was too hot to walk on barefoot. The practitioners busy in the ancient buildings were all sweating profusely, each holding tools and hammering away at their assigned mechanism sections.
Because the mechanism techniques in the ancient buildings required high-temperature forging, they couldn't use Taoist or Ghost Way talismans to dispel the heat.
Mei Liangyu was on the first floor of the ancient building, in a very spacious area with several sections of Cloud Carriage Flying Dragon bodies stopped on the ground, surrounded by a pile of strange components.
The Wenyang brothers, Wenyang Zhou and Wenyang Xiu, were also there, currently holding blueprints while fanning themselves as they looked, the slight breeze better than nothing, sighing to each other: "This really isn't work for humans. I'd rather go repair Dragon Stairs."
Wenyang Xiu sighed: "When will the Dragon Stairs in the Academy dormitories break again?"
The two couldn't help but look at Mei Liangyu behind them, who was hammering away at the Cloud Carriage Flying Dragon. The man was shirtless, and after just about a day here, his originally pale complexion had darkened somewhat in the high temperature.
His previous injuries were still wrapped in white medicinal cloth, but they could see his waist, back, and abdomen had many old scars, menacing marks.
As Mei Liangyu worked on repairs, his entire shoulders and back were covered with moist sweat. He assembled scattered wooden frames together, pressing or pulling with force, his tensed forearm lines full of explosive power. His hands wrapped in medicinal cloth still flexibly held small components between his fingers, placing them one by one into the holes that needed them.
After assembling a complete mechanism joint connector, Mei Liangyu began inscribing characters and bestowing talismans on the wooden frame, giving them the power to operate.
Wenyang Xiu looked at Mei Liangyu and said: "No wonder the dormitory Dragon Stairs haven't broken yet. The culprit hasn't returned."
Wenyang Zhou took the blueprint over to fan Mei Liangyu, saying: "When you go back, you must remember to break the Dragon Stairs again and call us to fix them."
Mei Liangyu was focused on his work, his usually somewhat lazy demeanor completely restrained, concentrated and serious, completely immersed in his own world. He ignored the two brothers' teasing, his movements steady and calm, handling every detail perfectly.
"I still can't figure out how the Dragon Stairs broke last time." Wenyang Xiu also walked over to Mei Liangyu. "Do you use the Dragon Stairs that frequently?"
Wenyang Zhou jumped on top of a section of Cloud Carriage Flying Dragon and squatted there, laughing: "Taking his Junior Sister around."
Seeing blood seeping through Mei Liangyu's medicinal cloth, Wenyang Xiu shook his head and poured him a cup of water: "You, at your age, just listen to your Master and cultivate properly at the Academy. Don't go to the Outer City to fight with them. Look, you're injured all over and can't even rest properly, having to come to this hellish place to earn points."
"You're seriously hurt this time." Wenyang Zhou observed.
Mei Liangyu was inscribing characters on the mechanism wooden frame, his fingers covered in Five Elements Energy touching the smooth wooden surface. Without looking up, he said: "Four against one."
Wenyang Zhou laughed: "No martial ethics."
But Wenyang Xiu laughed heartily: "I remember you were like this as a child too. When outnumbered, you still wouldn't run, just stood there and fought hard. If I hadn't come to save you, your brain would have been knocked around a few times."
Mei Liangyu slightly curved his lips: "Now it's not that I can't win."
"How old was he then?" Wenyang Xiu asked his elder brother.
"Thirteen or fourteen." Wenyang Zhou stroked his chin, recalling. "Just this tall, so skinny, frail as a willow, would fall with a push. Looked so easy to bully, but had such a bad temper. Either wouldn't speak, or would explode at the slightest provocation, haha!"
Following his brother's words, Wenyang Xiu also remembered and laughed along: "Right, right! He was so unlucky from childhood. Just standing there doing nothing, people would still find him disagreeable and pick fights. But he couldn't win back then, and after getting beaten, he'd even cry, haha!"
Wenyang Zhou exclaimed: "He cried?!"
"He did!" Wenyang Xiu's memory became clearer, saying definitively: "It was that time I saved him. I said stay here and don't move, I'll go get my brother to help you get revenge. Then when I brought you over and you went to fight, you didn't see it, but I saw him lying on the ground wiping tears with his sleeves while crawling up, haha!"
Mei Liangyu: "......"
He glanced at the two brothers who were laughing more and more heartily and held back.
Once this topic started, the two brothers couldn't stop, beginning to sigh about the contrast between Mei Liangyu's past and present.
When Mei Liangyu first came to Taiyi, he didn't remember anything: where he lived, what family he had, what his name was, what he came to Taiyi for, he knew nothing when asked.
But when it came to Nine Schools Arts, he knew a little of everything.
As Saint Chang Gen's disciple, he always received somewhat special treatment. Saint Chang Gen was also very protective of this disciple. Because of his talent in mechanism techniques, Mei Liangyu had dealings with all the mechanism families on the island.
Mixed in with the children, because his abilities were outstanding and he stole others' spotlight, plus he was an outsider, not a child of the mechanism families, he was always privately discussed and cursed by other children.
But young Mei Liangyu knew nothing and didn't know how to get along with these children. All he could do was talk less and work more.
Who knew that the more and better work he did, the more the other children hated him, eventually leading to group fights.
When young, he couldn't win. When he grew up, the children who wanted to fight him didn't dare provoke him easily anymore.
Seeing the Wenyang brothers laughing happily, Mei Liangyu just lazily glanced at them without interrupting, hooking the mechanism wooden frame and turning it around. After confirming there were no problems, he installed it into the Cloud Carriage Flying Dragon and began making the next mechanism joint.
By the time those two finished laughing, Mei Liangyu had already put down his work and sat among the mechanism components, drinking the water Wenyang Xiu had poured for him earlier.
Wenyang Zhou's Wind-Listening Ruler buzzed, called to check somewhere else, so he jumped down from the Cloud Carriage Flying Dragon and waved goodbye to Mei Liangyu.
Before leaving, Wenyang Xiu asked him: "Have you remembered anything over these years?"
Mei Liangyu stretched his long legs onto another small stool, touching his cup as he drank water. At this question, he tilted his head slightly, as if thinking, then looked back at Wenyang Xiu: "No."
"Take your time." Wenyang Xiu smiled. "You'll definitely remember. You probably cried quite a few times as a child."
Finishing his words, he used Wind-Riding Techniques to escape before Mei Liangyu could take action.
Mei Liangyu stared at the direction the two had left with a moment of speechlessness. What child doesn't cry?
He tilted his head back and finished the tea water, but it neither quenched his thirst nor cooled him down. His whole body felt like it was smoking, his skin feeling moist and stuffy as if he couldn't breathe.
He poured himself another cup of cold water and inadvertently saw his blurred reflection in the water as he looked down.
Sweat slid down his skin, the sticky feeling and heat making him irritable. Mei Liangyu maintained his calm, keeping himself constantly thinking. Whether about anything at all, as long as he didn't let his brain go empty or fall into having nothing to do, he could barely suppress his desire to destroy everything in anger.
That anger had accumulated too deep and too long, not disappearing at all with his memory loss, but instead becoming more intense with the loss of memory and passage of time.
So he couldn't stop thinking and fighting.
Even thinking about what to eat today, what to eat tomorrow, how today's meat was cut, whether tomorrow's meal would taste better than today's: these trivial matters, thinking about them could help him get through a moment, delaying destruction for another instant.
Master told him to learn to control his anger, not to be provoked or influenced by emotions, thus doing things that would make him regret.
The youth, clean and fragile as a blank sheet of paper, grew up year by year, from knowing nothing to knowing everything.
Young Mei Liangyu didn't know why he was like this either, why others remembered things he couldn't remember, but Master always said there was no need to mind the past, people live in the present, just look forward.
He believed it and only looked forward.
But Mei Liangyu had a premonition that when he learned the source of his anger, even Master wouldn't be able to stop him.
He was also considering whether to spend his whole life trapped in Taiyi, knowing nothing, or to seek his missing memories.
He had been hesitating for several years.
Last time in the Outer City when he killed Wei Kun and was trapped in Shadow Swallow, he seemed to sense something. In that square black box where all he could see was darkness, overwhelming black, it seemed someone had once placed him in this darkness too, but without malice.
Each time Divine Mechanism Arts: Heavenly Official eliminated his Nine Schools Arts, it seemed to bring something else. The Five Elements Energy distorted by Divine Mechanism Arts struggled and tore at each other, and in the struggle between two forces, it unexpectedly nearly awakened memories sealed deep in his mind.
Heavenly Official symbolized a kind of authority in Nine Schools Arts, capable of performing Legalist punishment techniques, School of Names character bestowing, Agricultural School heaven and earth wind and weather divination, and could also modify and cancel Five Elements power within a certain range.
The laws by which all things in heaven and earth flowed and operated due to Five Elements Energy could be changed by it. This was its "authority."
Since this person wanted to kill him, they probably wouldn't stop at this one failure. There would be opportunities to face off again in the future.
Only facing off and fighting this person might bring some unpredictable consequences.
At this moment, Mei Liangyu continued thinking, from how the tea water was cold but didn't quench thirst and had no flavor, to missing the soft, sweet apricots of the Ghost Way Saint Hall. Even if this year's weren't as sweet as previous years due to excessive rain, they should still taste better than the current tea water.
There were so many apricots on the tree, surely Junior Sister couldn't finish them all within three days?
Wait, if she liked eating them, it wasn't impossible?
Better hurry up and finish things here to go back and eat apricots.
Mei Liangyu finished the cold tea and stood up to continue working.
……
Yu Sui pulled at the apricot tree branches and tried standing on tiptoe, but finding she couldn't reach them by hand, she gave up and used Eight Trigrams Living Arts to convert wind sounds, shaking all the ripe apricots from the tree.
Playing like this for a while, she discovered this was also a way to train precise control of Five Elements Energy.
Precisely controlling Five Elements Energy to pick apricots from the tree one by one and let them land gently on the ground without the fruit getting damaged, this kind of subtle detail control required Yu Sui's complete focus. At first, she would let apricots fall to the ground, but with her improvement, by nightfall she could finally make apricots land safely in the food box on the ground.
What Senior Brother and Master could accomplish with just a casual point of their finger, she still had to repeat carefully and attentively with full concentration. The gap was truly vast.
Yu Sui washed the picked apricots in water, then dried them and ate them, puffing out one cheek as she stood by the table flipping through the Ghost Way basic mental cultivation techniques Senior Brother had written. Near the hai hour, she timed her arrival at the Yin-Yang Five Elements Field.
Li Jin Shuang and Xue Mushi arrived at about the same time.
The three didn't waste words and directly opened the star chart to enter the Military Formation.
Floating stars fell from the sky, night pressed low as if the sky would soon collapse. Flames rose from the ground, swallowing wind-blown battle flags, and tall flames swayed as shadowy figures of evil spirits emerged wielding swords.
The evil spirits' brilliant red-gold eyes were like bright lamps illuminating the battlefield in the darkness.
Yu Sui heard Li Jin Shuang drawing her sword and asked: "What is the Military School's sword spirit like?"
She had seen Second Brother Su Feng's sword spirit before, but what she actually wanted to ask about wasn't the Military School's, but Li Jin Shuang's own.
Because Zhongli Que couldn't cultivate and wasn't even Third Realm, even though she'd watched her father teach her brother family sword techniques since childhood, she hadn't developed a sword spirit.
"One with the person, living and dying together." Li Jin Shuang gazed ahead, gripping her long sword tightly. The sword blade momentarily reflected its master's contemplative appearance. "Only those who develop sword spirits can learn true Nine Schools sword techniques."
Yu Sui guessed: "The Nanjing Li family was once called the Military School's God of War, so you should have your own family sword techniques too. Is your sword spirit's instability due to family reasons or your own reasons?"
Li Jin Shuang remained silent without answering, perhaps she herself hadn't figured it out.
"Alright, then I'll ask one last question." Yu Sui watched the evil spirits charging toward them. "If your sword spirit loses control and we break the Military Formation to exit, will you be in a state of sword spirit out of control, or sword spirit disappeared?"
Xue Mushi seemed to just remember this issue too and froze: "Why didn't we ask this outside?"
"I just thought of it." Yu Sui also looked at him in confusion. "Why didn't you think of it outside?"
Xue Mushi couldn't argue and looked at Li Jin Shuang along with Yu Sui.
Li Jin Shuang pursed her lips and answered: "Hard to say."
So both were possible.
Other people's sword spirits were loyal to their masters, appearing when told to appear, disappearing when told to disappear. Hers was good, appearing or disappearing entirely depending on its mood. When in a good mood, it would appear and conveniently devour the master's mind. When in a bad mood, it wouldn't appear and let the master die.
For example, right now, the sword spirit was in a good mood.
The evil spirit charging at the front leaped with its sword, filled with killing intent as it attacked Li Jin Shuang who stood at the front.
Just as Li Jin Shuang swung her sword, she unleashed a fierce air blast. Extremely powerful sword energy cut the airborne evil spirit in half at the waist. Yu Sui and Xue Mushi behind her reacted quickly and retreated to avoid being hurt by the sword energy radiating outward from Li Jin Shuang as the center.
The two looked at Li Jin Shuang in surprise.
Black energy surrounded Li Jin Shuang, binding her sword-holding hand and the long sword together, impossible to break free.
She pressed her brows, her peripheral vision sweeping behind her, faintly seeing the dangerous gleam of blade edges.
The sword spirit's body was massive, casting a shadow on the ground comparable to the city-guarding king general ahead. Four torsos with only upper bodies pressed back to back, merging into a giant form that enveloped Li Jin Shuang.
Compared to the massive body, their heads appeared extremely small, with dark gold light faintly flickering in the pitch-black eye sockets, as if awakening.
Eight bone arms gripped handleless long swords and raised them, crossing each other behind Li Jin Shuang. The sword spirit's heads slowly twisted, making the cracking sound of bones moving. Its gradually brightening red-gold eyes gazed at the evil spirits surging from all directions and let out threatening low growls.
As the long swords spun horizontally, Yu Sui and Xue Mushi heard the sword spirit emit piercing roars, so sharp they seemed about to burst their eardrums. Even their hearts felt uncomfortable, as if heavy objects were pressing down. The two quickly used Eight Trigrams Living Arts to resist the sword spirit's sonic barrier attack.
Some of the charging evil spirits were stopped in place by the sword spirit's sonic barrier attack, their sword-holding hands trembling in fear. Higher-level evil spirits, unafraid of sonic barrier attacks, charged toward Li Jin Shuang.
The sword spirit hurled the long swords in its hands, heavy sword energy sweeping all around, cutting all the evil spirits jumping in the air and running on the ground in half at the waist. The sound of breaking sword blades continued endlessly.
Yu Sui and Xue Mushi were again forced back by the fierce sword energy, watching Li Jin Shuang in the distance and thinking this was bad: they might be killed by Li Jin Shuang's sword spirit before being defeated by the Thirteenth Realm black armored cavalry across the river.