Volume One: The Thousand-Year Stream Chapter 36: A Kindred Spirit

Sun Zikai propped Cheng Xu against a tree. Cheng Xu did not seem particularly surprised. As he had said before, he knew that the Yanming Sect would never send an ordinary person to restore its reputation.

Sun Zikai touched Cheng Xu’s leg only twice before locating the fractures. Enduring the pain, Cheng Xu said, “You could have killed the Ghost-Horned Rhinoceros.”

“Yes, but I thought killing it would draw too much attention.”

“You did the right thing.” Cheng Xu continued, “This outcome is perfect. We’ll wait here for a while. When they arrive, we’ll tell them that the two of us, arrogant and overconfident, went ahead to hunt the Ghost-Horned Rhinoceros and were utterly defeated. I broke both legs, while you suffered only minor injuries. That is exactly the result they will be happy to see.”

Cheng Xu reminded Sun Zikai again, “Do not reveal your strength any further. We are hundreds of miles from the sect. Anything could happen here. Everyone tacitly understands that this is merely an opportunity for fellowship between sects. If you continue to stand out like this, the Yanming Sect will receive a report saying that the hunt for the Ghost-Horned Rhinoceros failed, and that a disciple of your esteemed sect died in the battle.”

Sun Zikai was rather surprised. “Brother Cheng, why are you helping me to such an extent? Aren’t you afraid of me?”

Cheng Xu shook his head. “The path of cultivation is a game played by geniuses and mediocrities. Geniuses stand above, mediocrities below, and I am somewhere in between. Whether I advance or retreat, that remains unchanged. There is no need to grow jealous merely because one is ordinary.”

“But if I were terrifyingly powerful—powerful enough to surpass all of you—wouldn’t you, for the sake of the greater good, be obligated to kill me?”

That was how Sun Zikai thought. He would never allow the child of a barbarian to escape from his grasp. He would rather slaughter them all than leave behind a future threat. Putting himself in Cheng Xu’s place, he imagined that Cheng Xu ought to wish the world free of a genius like Sun Zikai.

Cheng Xu said, “If only mediocre people remained in the world, no one would ever advance along the path of cultivation. We are always chasing after the shadows of geniuses, and gradually we ourselves become geniuses in the eyes of others. In order to catch up with those ahead, more techniques are created. You need not fear the terrible possibilities a genius might bring you in the future, because the position you occupy means that you are destined to encounter such people and such events at any time. Those were my master’s words to me. I know Senior Fu Zhe’s character well. Though my master hates him, she has never believed him to be a bad person. A disciple taught by him cannot be truly evil.”

Sun Zikai was dazed for a moment, then sighed and said quietly, “I carry hatred with me. I was never meant to be a good person. I am a demon who has killed countless people.”

“Why did you kill them? For yourself?”

“No. For the people behind me—for the sake of keeping them alive.”

“Then what have you done wrong? You are a good person.”

“What?” Sun Zikai asked in confusion. “But I still killed people. Killing is easy for me, as ordinary as breathing.”

“How many people have you killed?”

“Several thousand.”

“…”

Sun Zikai shrugged and gave a bitter smile. Cheng Xu appeared to struggle inwardly for a long time. At last, he patted Sun Zikai on the shoulder and said, “Junior Brother, just do what you believe is right.”

Sun Zikai sprang to his feet. “You think I am doing the right thing?”

“Do you believe that everything you have done until now was wrong?”

Sun Zikai hesitated for a moment, then answered decisively, “I have always been doing the right thing.”

“Then keep going.” Cheng Xu’s expression twisted, and he winced in pain. “Junior Brother, since you studied under Senior Fu Zhe in the Medicine Sect, you should know something about healing. Please treat me. It hurts even more now than it did before.”

Although Sun Zikai had taken Fu Zhe as his master, he had not yet had the chance to learn the Medicine Sect’s healing arts. He crouched down and felt along Fu Zhe’s leg bones, sending a little energy into them. As expected, it eased Cheng Xu’s pain.

Sun Zikai said, “My master believes I am wrong, even if I have reasons for killing.”

Cheng Xu replied, “Our master comes from a city renowned for its literary culture. There, men and women, young and old, all cherish books and speak of benevolence, righteousness, propriety, and wisdom. Every one of them abides by countless old rules. Yet no one in the world has a more restless mind than a scholar with a book in hand. The more tightly a person clings to rules, the more he longs to glimpse the world beyond them. That is why your master was so moved when she met the free-spirited Senior Wu Lanmu. After all these years, my master has become more and more like Senior Wu. She never says so aloud, but she no longer lets those vulgar rules and regulations bind my legs. I can face everything I have experienced freely. Perhaps she, too, wishes to become the sort of person Senior Fu Zhe would love.”

Sun Zikai did not understand love. To change oneself for the sake of loving someone was beyond his comprehension. He would only choose to do what was right.

Sun Zikai entered the Xia Ke Mountains. Half an hour later, he returned with a heap of wild game and medicinal herbs. With the knowledge he had accumulated over years of treating the sick and wounded at Ansheng Pass, a broken leg was hardly a difficult problem.

He smeared medicinal paste over Cheng Xu’s legs, then secured them with wooden splints. He arranged the bones of several beasts he had hunted, chose the largest as a cooking vessel, dug out its marrow, poured in clear water, and placed the other bones inside. Then he lit a fire beneath it. The broth would need to simmer for a very long time.

Cheng Xu naturally recognized that this was not the method of a cultivator skilled in healing arts. Sun Zikai answered honestly, “I only became my master’s disciple recently and have not yet learned medicine. This is an ordinary person’s method of treating illness.”

“It’s fine. It’s quite good.” Cheng Xu lay back and closed his eyes.

Sun Zikai felt a measure of admiration for him. Cheng Xu seemed to walk lightly between freedom and restraint, stepping in and out of either at will. The more he lived that way, the more carefree he became.

For an hour, Cheng Xu dozed while Sun Zikai remained unable to sit idle. He recalled the four spiritual arts Cheng Xu had used earlier and began weaving and reconstructing them in his mind with threads of energy.

After glancing back at Cheng Xu, he could not resist getting to his feet. He walked five or six steps away, then condensed his energy and slowly formed an energy knot, creating a structure of earth. Following the spiritual-energy structure Cheng Xu had used earlier, he copied it into an energy technique. He pressed his palm to the ground and murmured, “Northern Thornburst.”

In an instant, countless earthen spikes, each as tall as a man and as thick as a tree stump, thrust outward in a fan-shaped spread. The farther they reached, the taller and thicker they became. They extended for seventy rods, destroying an entire stretch of forest and shattering even the hardest stones.

Clouds of dust rose into the air. Sun Zikai summoned a gust of wind and blew them away.

Cheng Xu’s voice came from behind him. “Junior Brother Sun, is that the Northern Thornburst Technique of the Yanming Sect?”

“Er, no. It was the technique you used when fighting the Ghost-Horned Rhinoceros just now. I merely copied it.”

Even Cheng Xu, broad-minded as he was, could no longer remain calm. He asked in disbelief, “You are not joking? You only saw me use it once?”

“That’s right.”

Cheng Xu was silent for a moment, then said, “Try learning this.”

He circulated his spiritual energy and formed a spiritual art. With a low chant of “Heaven’s Blessing Gate,” twenty more gate-shaped manifestations of spiritual energy descended from the sky and crashed into the ground nearby.

Sun Zikai observed the structure of the spiritual energy with complete concentration. He did not want to use energy to create false manifestations of the art. Instead, he wove threads of energy into a wooden structure, then formed it into a ring and cast the ring toward the sky. Using energy, he constructed the technique and murmured, “Heaven’s Blessing Gate.”

Moments later, seventy-seven enormous wooden doorframes descended from the sky. Each stood thirty feet high. They crashed down one after another, smashing vast craters into the earth. Water from the lake flowed through the openings, forming a large pond thirty rods across.

Cheng Xu stared in stunned silence. He had not believed Sun Zikai, which was why he had used the Heaven’s Blessing Gate, a unique art of his own sect, to test him. He had never imagined that Sun Zikai had not been boasting at all.

Moreover, the Heaven’s Blessing Gates this fellow had created were not false. No matter how real another person’s manifestations might appear, they would vanish the instant their spiritual energy was exhausted. But the wooden doors Sun Zikai had created were genuine. They might not disappear even after several hundred years.

Cheng Xu could not describe his feelings. His faith in the path of cultivation had been shaken. That was only natural—anyone who encountered such a thing would have found it impossible to remain calm.

Sun Zikai turned around and added fuel to the fire with a grin. “Well? Do you feel like killing me now?”

Cheng Xu laughed. “That… surely isn’t something Senior Fu Zhe could have taught you.”