Translator: Dj22031
Editor: Dj22031
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Xie Lingya already felt a sense of relief, so he didn’t need to adjust his mood. He first used his mind seal to summon the Yin Temple strongmen. “I am ready. I will perform the salvation today. Please prepare to receive the souls.”
The strongmen, assuming they had already been assigned, nodded and held out their chains, feeling that they alone were sufficient.
The next moment, Xie Lingya solemnly raised his three swords, facing the sea of heads. Then a surge of enlightenment struck him, and he chanted, “The Supreme Command, liberate the lonely souls!”
The three swords shone with a golden light, spreading from near to far, encompassing all the dead souls, plucking them from their place of suffering, and liberating their souls.
In that brief moment, Xie Lingya saw the expressions of both sorrow and joy on their faces, and his own realization came to him. After sheathing his swords, he sank to the ground, his expression still dazed.
Even more stunned was the Yin Temple strongman. He had witnessed Xie Lingya liberate countless souls with a single sword strike, and felt a sense of wonder: “Who am I? Where am I? What has happened?”
We agreed to separate the operations into groups. Who are you, Master? Why did you liberate them all at once?
Xie Lingya came to his senses, feeling a surge of excitement. Seeing the powerful strongman still in a daze, he said, “Haven’t you figured out where to start?”
The powerful strongman, sweating profusely, shook his head repeatedly, looking at Xie Lingya with a hint of awe. “Master, Master, you are so righteous! I will call my colleagues to begin the process.”
He had previously called Xie Lingya Master out of courtesy, but now, considering his position as the Minister of the City God’s Seal, he was completely convinced.
The ghost messengers gathered, drawing the stranded souls to the underworld.
Xie Lingya caught a fleeting glimpse of something, and turning to look, saw a small shadow flit through the darkness, trailing a long tail.
A weasel?
Xie Lingya stared at the weasel, a premonition building within him. After seeing him liberate the souls with the Three Treasures Sword, the weasels would likely stop bothering him.
Shi Changxuan carried Xie Lingya to the tent to rest. His cultivation had advanced further than before, so he wasn’t completely paralyzed, but he struggled to walk after just finishing the salvation.
Shi Changxuan sat, and Xie Lingya leaned against his chest, struggling to lift his chin to eat the chocolate bar he offered, feeling a sense of strength flowing in.
Although Xie Lingya wasn’t physically disabled, he’d been experiencing this from time to time since his part-time job as a semi-immortal, which had always been a test of his will.
“My dear, I’ll stay with you. I can’t move either,” Xie Lingya said, not forgetting to comfort Phytolacca God.
In less than a day, Phytolacca God had fully recovered.
Xie Lingya attributed this to the merits he had gained through their food offerings and salvation. Phytolacca God and Liu Lingtong were delighted.
Phytolacca God cried out, “Take me over here! I want to kiss Xie Lingya! He’s so delicate!”
Shi Changxuan cupped Xie Lingya’s face and kissed him on the cheek.
Phytolacca God: “…”
Shi Changxuan kissed Xie Lingya’s lower lip intensively from his cheek, and they kissed silently for a while.
Phytolacca God was almost mad, “That’s too much.”
“I’m crippled.”
“But Shi Changxuan’s respect lasted less than twenty-four hours?”
Xie Lingya laughed softly, tilted his head to kiss Phytolacca God, and then kissed Shi Changxuan, whispering: “One of you is a big cutie, and the other is a little cutie, okay?”
Shi Changxuan touched Xie Lingya’s face, smiled a little, and said nothing.
Phytolacca God said shyly: “Although I am small, I am much cuter.”
“Then do you want to change your name to Keaiduo[1]?” Xie Lingya was about to finish speaking when he heard a cough next door. So he stopped talking and listened carefully.
He thought Fang Zhe and Hai Guanchao had already rested, why were they still not asleep?
Shi Changxuan looked around, pointed at the tent and asked him to look at the shadow.
Xie Lingya suddenly realized that he had turned on the light here and it was quite bright. The guys next door wouldn’t have seen the shadows of them kissing just now, right?
In order to make it easier for everyone to accept, Xie Lingya had been laying the groundwork vaguely. Even if they didn’t believe it, they wouldn’t be too surprised in the long run.
So at this moment, Xie Lingya was not particularly panicked, but just thoughtful.
However, there was no more sound coming from next door. Xie Lingya suspected that he had made a mistake and it was just a coincidence. He was paralyzed for a while and then was stuffed into a sleeping bag by Shi Changxuan to sleep.
….
Fang Zhe next door couldn’t fall asleep for a long time. He then saw a strange shadow in the tent next to theirs and asked Hai Guanchao.
Hai Guanchao taught him that this was just a dislocation. It was such a small tent, and Shi Changxuan had to take care of Xie Lingya. What was strange about the overlapping figures?
Although Hai Guanchao had teased them before, he was always at his most honest at this moment: “It’s already late, and you still have the mood to tease our ‘good friends’?”
Fang Zhe: “…” He then closed his eyes in frustration.
Okay, okay.
Due to Xie Lingya and Fang Zhe’s physical condition, they were delayed a whole day before reaching the foot of the mountain. Shi Changxuan carried Xie Lingya on his back for most of the first day, and Hai Guanchao even praised him, saying, “What a real man! He carried a grown man without a murmur.”
When they reached the foot of the mountain, Xie Lingya saw the head of the training team he had contacted. He was squatting at the foot of the mountain, smoking, and seeing them, he seemed to breath a sigh of relief. “I’ve been checking in on you guys these past few days, just to make sure you’re all right… Are you injured?”
Although Xie Lingya hadn’t asked him to, he was concerned about these people who were on their first snowy mountain climb. He had a vague idea that these people weren’t just ordinary mountaineering enthusiasts but had other motives. So seeing them injured, he felt a sense of predictability.
What surprised him even more was that these people, despite being injured themselves, had managed to bring the rooster down with them—though not unscathed, as its butt hair was gone!
“Nothing serious,” Xie Lingya said. Luckily, the other party had arrived in a car, and so he took them straight to the hotel. After a day of rest, they would leave Kunlun and head to the airport.
Before leaving, the hotel owner urged Xie Lingya and his friends to sell him the rooster, saying it had survived the days of climbing up the mountain and was a truly good rooster. He wanted to keep it and find a hen to breed with.
Xie Lingya refused to sell it to the hotel. After breeding, they would probably slaughter it if they needed food. Besides, he knew there were weasels in the area.
Looking at the battered Pheasant and Rhubarb, Xie Lingya made a decision: he would bring these two birds, a combat hero and a reserve hero, back to Zhuyang!
Only then could they be guaranteed a natural death, after a full and carefree life.
Although this would require them to go through the paperwork for shipping a living creature, everyone agreed that Brother Pheasant had saved everyone’s lives, so it was only right to take him back and take care of him!
So, Xie Lingya checked the two chickens in and they accompanied them on their flight back to Zhuyang.
After landing at the airport, Xie Lingya went to claim the chickens with the receipt marked “Two male yellow chickens.” The airport staff looked puzzled as he brought him the cages. He had no idea what was so special about these two chickens. The young man had flown them thousands of miles back; the air freight and upfront handling fees alone would have been enough to buy several more chickens.
Xie Lingya looked over and saw Rhubarb chirping restlessly in his cage, while Brother Pheasant remained calm, crouching in a corner. It seemed that after the battle in the snowy mountains, Brother Pheasant had become a better person, his state of mind completely different from his companion.
Nearly two weeks after this long journey, the four returned to Baoyang Temple, laden with luggage, and Shi Changxuan also carried the cages containing the two chickens.
Upon seeing them, the people waiting inside the temple quickly took the items and herded them to the backyard. “Thank you for your hard work,” Xie Lingya thus instructed Shi Changxuan to hand the cage to Zhang Daoting, saying, “Daoting, find some rice to feed them.”
Zhang Daoting looked at the two chickens and said seriously, “Teacher Xie, we can’t see or hear them being killed, and we can’t kill them for our own benefit. If you want to make soup with these to nourish your body, you should send them to the restaurant next door.”
Xie Lingya: “…You’re overthinking it. These chickens are our lifesavers. I specially airlifted them back from Kunlun. We’ll provide them with loving care from now on.”
Zhang Daoting: “???”
Xie Lingya, now free, sat down and told them about his experiences on the snowy mountains, especially the episodes about the weasel’s revenge and the lakeside camping. The audience was terrified, and they understood why they had brought the chickens back.
“I was wondering why the chickens had bald butts.” Xiao Dian stroked the chickens’ butts lovingly. “Look at these chickens. They look like they could ascend to heaven at any moment. They’re filled with peace.”
He didn’t know if it was a psychological effect, but he did have that feeling.
Zhang Daoting placed Pheasant and Rhubarb in the yard and fenced off the vegetable patch with bamboo poles and ropes to prevent the chickens from entering and consuming the vegetables. While it wasn’t unreasonable for them, as Teacher Xie’s savior, to eat some of the vegetables, it would be unwise for them to do so recklessly.
….
Besides that, there was the matter of the Phytolacca God.
At Xie Lingya’s behest, Fang Zhe devoted himself to research and crafted a prosthetic limb with a ball joint from locust wood. He attached it to the Phytolacca God and chanted a spell to connect his spiritual energy and merge them into one.
With his outer clothes on, the two hands appeared seamless, though there was a slight color difference, given the different materials. The Phytolacca God reluctantly accepted it, knowing that even the most skilled hands of those who followed the “Lu Ban Book” could never produce something exactly alike.
To fuse the Phytolacca God with his prosthetic limb, Shi Changxuan chanted a spell daily and placed the Phytolacca God by his pillow at night to connect his thoughts.
Seven days later, Xie Lingya awoke from a dream, only to feel a strange sensation on his face. Turning to look, he saw Phytolacca God’s prosthetic arm, which had been placed beside him, had somehow risen and poked the corner of his lips.
This newly added hand, with its joints, could be posed in any desired position.
Still half asleep, Xie Lingya stared at the ceiling, wondering, was this Shi Changxuan’s last night’s tinkering? Is our senior brother so playful?
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[1] This is a reference to the ice cream brand “Cornetto”, he means that if you are so sweet, you should be called Cornetto.