Chapter Eighty-Seven: Ambush and Unease

The pass was true to its name. Sheer mountains rose up on both sides, with a narrow track pinched between them like the neck of a gourd. It was indeed an ideal place for an ambush.

Inside the carriage, Yu Lang sat with his eyes closed in meditation, adjusting body and mind to their finest condition. His outwardly released spiritual sense tracked every stir of wind and grass beyond the wheels. With a cultivation at the upper realm of Comprehending the Profound and the third layer of the Northern Dark Art, his perception was exceptionally keen. He carefully swept the entire pass and confirmed that no hidden troops lay in ambush.

This meant either no one had come to ambush them at all, or else the ambushers possessed truly superb methods of concealment and had evaded Yu Lang’s spiritual sense. If it was the latter, then there could not be many of them, perhaps three or five, perhaps only one.

They had traveled for the better part of the day without incident. Now, with the exit right before them, everyone let out a quiet breath of relief.

Yet there sat, cross-legged at the narrow gate, a handsome young man in wide robes and loose sash, a zither laid horizontally across his knees.

The zither was made of ancient pine-patterned wood, with no strings upon it.

Yu Lang removed the wooden sword from his waist and brushed its smooth blade lightly with two fingers, as though caressing a lover’s cheek. This sword had been fashioned from the finest heartwood of the boxwood in his own courtyard, and for that purpose he had specially sought help from Instructor Lu of the weapon-forging hall at Moon-Washing Academy. As expected of a master swordsman, Instructor Lu had not only, by secret methods, greatly increased the sword’s resilience, but had also made full use of the wood’s own translucent nature, bringing its advantage for channeling power to perfect fruition.

Yu Lang had named the wooden sword "Self-Planted," after his favorite essay from his previous life: "In the courtyard stands a loquat tree, planted by my own hand in the year my wife died; now it rises high and broad like a great canopy." The phrase "planted by my own hand" in the original text spoke of the passage of people and things. Yu Lang had chosen the name to remind himself always to cherish the friends and family around him, and to pour heart and soul into fighting for their protection, leaving no regret behind.

This wooden sword was not as sharp as a whetstone blade, nor as wondrous as one; yet into it Yu Lang had poured his whole dao heart. Though the blade was common wood, the sword’s spirit was far from ordinary.

Yu Lang leaped down from the carriage and stood facing the zither player.

Sword spirit against zither heart.

The zither player’s ten fingers moved in rapid succession. The zither notes resonated with the elements of heaven and earth, and a blade of sound tore through the air. "Self-Planted" flew from Yu Lang’s hand and hung before him, dividing once into two, then twice into three, a strand of sword qi taking form to fight the sound blade.

The sword qi was square and upright, vast and heroic; the sound blade was long and supple, lingering and graceful. Each displayed its own strengths as the two clashed in the void for a time.

Seeing that he could not win quickly, the zither player raised two fingers before his brow and released his own dao mark.

His dao mark was six zither strings.

Xue Wenyang and Xie Zhiqian were both only at the initial stage of Shattering the Void; they could not discern how the battle stood, and could only grow anxious in their hearts.

Old Guo, however, wore a grave expression and explained to the two, "That zither player’s six string-mark dao imprints each have their own merits. Though they spring from the same lineage, they contain the six auras of wind, forest, fire, mountain, thunder, and cloud. One might say he bears six dao imprints at once."

Xue Wenyang’s face changed in alarm upon hearing this. In his understanding, it was already exceedingly difficult for an ordinary person to enter Comprehending the Profound by means of a single dao imprint; yet this man possessed six dao imprints of different properties. His strength was truly formidable. It remained to be seen whether Yu Lang could withstand his onslaught.

Xie Zhiqian’s thoughts, however, went elsewhere. "A zither ought to have seven strings. Why does this one have only six? How strange."

Yu Lang, though, did not answer with his own dao imprint. He merely used the afterimages of "Self-Planted" sword qi to contest the six great zither-string dao imprints in the same manner.

Controlling "Self-Planted" to face two opponents at once, Yu Lang still appeared completely at ease, not showing the slightest sign of being at a disadvantage.

The zither player’s cultivation had already reached the peak of Comprehending the Profound, and he could also see that Yu Lang’s strength was only at the upper realm of Comprehending the Profound. Yet he faintly felt that this man’s boundless qi sea and swift-changing techniques were even superior to his own, and he was secretly astonished.

He had received a secret letter from Madam Lan. Yang Yuhuan was being escorted toward Chang'an by several students of Moon-Washing Academy. He had been full of confidence in this assassination mission, and had never expected that this plain-clothed, country-boy-looking youth would prove so troublesome.

The zither player suddenly struck the zither body, and the seventh dao imprint, long concealed and never before revealed, shot out with a violent tremor, flying straight for Yu Lang’s face. Six imprints hidden within the body, one hidden in the zither; with all seven released at once, even an ordinary cultivator at the initial stage of Namelessness would be unable to withstand them. This was the zither player’s greatest reliance.

Yu Lang had been waiting for this very moment. The Singular Point dao imprint abruptly appeared before him.

The zither player was baffled. He had faced countless enemies in his life, yet had never seen such a bizarre dao imprint, one that looked so utterly unremarkable.

The Singular Point flickered once, and the seven dao imprints were swallowed whole, like kites whose strings had been cut.

The zither player, suddenly stripped of his seven dao imprints, could no longer hold on. He bowed his head and coughed up a great mouthful of blood. The source of his dao imprints still remained within him; so long as his realm endured, the lost imprints could be formed again. But the cultivation he had lost would require a long, long time to recover.

He stared at Yu Lang in disbelief, unable to accept that such a strange existence in this world could actually devour the dao imprints of others.

Yu Lang was not in good shape either. Within him, the power of the Northern Dark Art had not yet been fully absorbed; the dao imprint he had previously swallowed from Chen Wu Ning still left residues behind, and now he had swallowed the zither player’s seven dao imprints as well. His qi sea and meridians were both under unbearable strain, and his whole body seemed as though it might burst apart.

"Not good!" Old Guo sensed the disturbance within Yu Lang and sprang forward, pressing the major acupoints throughout Yu Lang’s body in an attempt to suppress the abnormality within him.

Unexpectedly, this only made matters worse. Under the crushing pressure, the power within Yu Lang’s body rebounded violently, so that streaks of blood seeped through his skin. Bathed in blood, he looked utterly horrifying.

When the zither player saw this, he was overjoyed. To seize another’s cultivation was an act defying heaven, and it would surely be met with heaven-defying punishment. He gathered the remaining strength in his body and prepared to finish Yu Lang with one stroke while taking advantage of the moment.

"Hold it right there! Leave this merit to us!"

Another pair of brothers clad in beast skins suddenly leaped out. Their cultivation was only at the middle stage of Comprehending the Profound, and under normal circumstances they would naturally have been no match for the zither player. Seeing him gravely wounded, however, they had come out to pick up the spoils.

"So it is the two brothers of the Jian family from the forested hills and tiger passes. If you want to snatch this chance from Jiao, you’d best weigh yourselves properly first," said the zither player surnamed Jiao, naturally unwilling to hand over the merit he had won through fierce battle and loss of cultivation.

At that moment Red Silk in the carriage heard that Yu Lang was injured, and though she fought again and again to restrain herself, she could not suppress her concern any longer. She lifted the curtain to look at Yu Lang’s wounds.

The three men no longer bickered. All eyes were fixed tightly on Red Silk.

The elder Jian brother said, "No wonder the ladies all refused to let this woman return to Chang'an. She really is a rare beauty. Damn it, if I had a woman like this, I wouldn’t want the throne anymore."

The zither player, surnamed Jiao, had once, years before, gone to the Prince of Shou’s residence to perform on the zither and had caught a glimpse of Yang Yuhuan there. He had not noticed anything amiss, only felt that Yang Yuhuan had grown a bit slimmer over these three years, which showed that Red Silk did indeed bear some resemblance to her.

Yu Lang’s body convulsed without cease, and the blood seeping from his skin was growing ever more abundant. The searing pain was nearly swallowing his consciousness whole.

Xue Wenyang, Xie Zhiqian, and Obaba all drew their weapons, shielding Yu Lang and Red Silk behind them. They had already made up their minds to live and die with Yu Lang.

Old Guo, the coachman, sighed, holding back the two Jian brothers and the zither player with grim determination. "Leave. This old man does not wish to kill today."

"You, a mere coachman, dare..." The elder Jian brother had not finished speaking when a streak of gray-black sword qi carved a mark through the void.

That mark was a rift in space itself, from which flowed the stillness of utter extinction.

The two Jian brothers turned and fled without a moment’s hesitation.

The zither player frowned deeply. "So you are Guo Lusheng, the one who has died seven times."

Guo Lusheng, who had died seven times and attained insight into the sword imprint of life and death, held a status among cultivators no different from the god of death. Though his cultivation was only at the upper realm of Comprehending the Profound, he had slain great cultivators of the Heavenly Awakening realm. Among the upper three realms of cultivation theory, he was without question a revolutionary figure.

The zither player’s expression shifted several times, but in the end he still could not suppress his fear of death. No matter how much glory and wealth one might have, one had to live to enjoy them. He too turned into a wisp of blue smoke and fled far away.

Chen Wu Ning had invited Guo Lusheng to drive the carriage for Yu Lang, expending an enormous favor to do so. He had only managed to secure Guo Lusheng’s agreement to drive; whether he would take action in a crisis depended entirely on Guo Lusheng’s mood.

Guo Lusheng had always been cold and indifferent, so his intervention this time had been wholly beyond Chen Wu Ning’s expectations.

The Singular Point dao imprint was something Guo Lusheng could not possibly remain unmoved by. Years ago, it was that very same dao imprint that had pulled him back from the gates of hell. Had that senior not stepped in to help, there would have been no legend of Guo Lusheng’s seven lives and seven deaths, and his enlightenment of the sword imprint of life and death.