Chapter 461: Old Wuen
Translator: Transn Editor: Transn
While Heavenly Fairy bounced around the Heavenward Sword, Meng Qi’s Spiritual Qi movement became entangled with that of Sword Emperor. As their spiritual Qi movements stimulated each other, he moved up to a realm that he hadn’t reached before.
At this moment, he felt that nature mingled with his spirit as if he had been part of the world. With the merging of the world and himself, his reaction was the same as that of the world. The movement of every hair of the people near the crest seemed to be appear clearly in his mind.
He submerged himself in the surgent invisible Vital Qi Sea around him. All of his pores were open, longing to smoothly absorb the Vital Qi. It felt as if he had returned to his mother’s embrace again!
He felt an unprecedented sense of comfort. This was the realm of Oneness of Heaven and Men.
He had briefly entered the realm through the guidance of Sword Emperor’s Qi movement as well as the sword stroke they couldn’t change!
The various experiences that he had experienced, the subtle status at present and the grand path in the future all this crossed his mind. When he looked at Sword Emperor, he was glad but also a little upset.
Their Energy, Qi, Spirit and Will had been condensed into a dot during the peak gesture, resulting in the marvelous changes collapsing into a deep dim black dot.
As the black dot stretched, a rift appeared. The white light breaking forth from the rift suddenly blocked his view.
Before the white light swallowed him, Meng Qi saw how Sword Emperor’s flesh had collapsed and he had killed his own External Devil with his fingers. He also saw his transparent Vital Spirit which had become youthful and looked somewhat familiar.
While the brilliant white light faded and became as dim as before, Meng Qi heard a melodious chirping sound. There were still some birds that did not fear the early winter chill.
The snow covered the grassroots, the dormant vitality, the messy stones, and the pedestrians in the distance. Everything emerged clearly in Meng Qi’s mind.
However, the strange feeling of merging with the world had faded. Reverting to his previous state, he could still faintly sense the strength of the heaven and grasp the law of natural cycles. But it was hazy for him since there was an schism he couldn’t break through at the moment.
Meng Qi sincerely smiled after briefly experiencing stepping into the Oneness of Heaven and Men realm. He believed that he could reach the realm before the next mission if he preliminarily establish his own path. At the moment, he only had to discipline his Kung Fu will and temper his mind by killing Wolf King. He wanted to see if he was keeping in line with the path that he had previously sought out. If not, he would have to temper himself again. There wasn’t any use being so anxious since he couldn’t go back to the Hidden Latch once he started.
If he was still walking on the path he had built and stepped into the Oneness of Heaven and Men realm, he could save two or three years of thinking compared to He Jiu and Wang Siyuan. He only needed to spend some time on consolidation and adjustment.
Patting his green robe, Meng Qi slowly stood up and looked around. Muddleheaded and absorbed in his thoughts, he didn’t know the specific Samsara time in which he had been drawn by the External Devil. He also couldn’t tell the difference in the rate of time flowing on both sides.
“What happened to External Devil? He pulled me in but was killed without rhyme or reason…” Meng Qi believed that he must be the most muddleheaded person to overcome the countercharge of External Devil. Thus, he could only use such a phrase to describe External Devil’s action. “Sword Emperor looks familiar when he’s young, but there are many people who look familiar…”
He thought for a good while but came up with nothing. So he tried identifying his position instead and walked in the opposite direction, away from the grassland.
…
Early into November, a once-in-a-century white snow buried the grassland.
It was the “white disaster” that herdsmen hated the most!
The snow was piled on thickly, with ice layers appearing even with thin snow cover. Since the flocks and herds of animals couldn’t claw the surface layer to eat the forage grass underneath, many died of the cold and hunger in batches. Most tribes had driven their livestock toward the larger tribe, even if they had to give up more than half of their properties. In the larger tribe, there were powerful shamans from the Changsheng Denomination. They were the grassland martial artists capable of melting the snow and dispeling the white disaster.
Migration had seen many tribe members arriving at Gegengol. The winding serene river, untouched by the winter, was surrounded by many tents.
Since it was close to the border, it was also a gathering place of commercial trades filled with people with different accents. The goods from the south always attracted the biggest crowd, but only larger tribe leaders of noble lineage could afford them.
While listening to the noisy braying of the flocks and herds and smelling all kinds of strange fragrances, Old Wuen tightened his old fur clothes and looked at the drunk martial artists and herdsmen in the tents. Contented, he counted the silver coins, copper coins and the fur of cattle and sheep, believing today to be his harvest day.
The emergence of the white disaster had drawn more tribes to Gegengol than ever before. When the people from the grasslands gathered, their favorite past times were horse racing, wrestling, archery, martial arts competitions and drinking!
Thanks to it, business became increasingly brisk in his tavern.
“Old man, I heard that you were a great huntsman who could catch and kill the wolf monsters deep in the forest,” a half-naked drunkard said.
Old Wuen smiled, the wrinkles on his face moving like blooming flowers. “No. I don’t even believe that I’ve had such a past.”
“That was what I said! How could you be a great huntsman with your thin and weak body?” The drunkard sat down with satisfaction. “With the External Sky above me, I’d never make a wrong judgment!”
Old Wuen said nothing and looked at the fur of the cattle and sheep as if he was recalling something. His eyes turned somewhat deep.
“Great Khan had decreed that the new copper and silver coins should be used for trade, but why are these people still coming here with the fur of cattle and sheep…” Old Wuen sighed as he complained about people from small tribes. The grassland was vast, with scattered tribes. While it was easy to gather all of the members of the tribes to rob the south, it wasn’t as simple to make something popular.
Suddenly, someone opened the felt curtain of the tent, allowing a burst of cold wind to enter. He shivered.
A man wearing the winter clothes of the grasslands entered. His hair was hanging over his left lapel and he had a decent mustache and a pair of black gem-like eyes.
The man, who looked very young, went up to Old Wuen. There seemed to be no difference between the long saber on his waist and that of a wandering swordsman.
“Pay first, then drink,” Old Wuen told him the tavern rules without even looking up.
“One gram of gold for one gram of wine.” The young man spoke with a strange accent, appearing to be unaccustomed to the prairie language.
Old Wuen stopped counting the fur of cattle and sheep and slowly looked up.” The wine is for lending, not for sale.”
He spoke slowly as if he was worried that the young man couldn’t understand the prairie language.
“Lend me nine jars,” the young man replied without hesitation.
Old Wuen ordered a mute boy who worked for him to guard the tent before turning around to lead his new guest toward the small tent in the rear.
“Where’s the seal?” After they entered the tent, Old Wuen questioned the young man in fluent Central Plains, which was also the official language of the Great Jin Dynasty and the North Zhou Dynasty.
The young man took out a green office seal on his palm. The seal glowed with hazy light and had four words carved on it: ‘Chasing After the Wind.’
“To earn the Green-ribbon Arrester title when you’re this young… I only got the title after working hard for half of my life…” Old Wuen gave the young man a once-over, believing him to have an impressive strength that had earned him the title at such a young age.
Old Wuen’s guest was none other than Meng Qi. After leaving from the grassland border, he had followed his preparation and gotten in touch with a rat of the Six Fan School of the Great Jin Dynasty in the North Zhou Dynasty. He tried to find Wolf King through the school’s grassland information network.
Having received the introduction, he set out for Gegengol.
Old Wuen was a famous martial artist in the grasslands when he was young. But later, he offended a certain tribe noble, resulting in him nearly being killed and his wife and daughter nearly becoming slaves. Luckily, he won the recognition of Six Fan School and a rat killed the noble. While the sons and daughters of the noble fought over the family property, he took the opportunity to escape to River Gen along with his family.
Since then, he despised those unfettered nobilities and devoted himself to work for the Great Jin Dynasty.
Meng Qi touched the two ends of his mustache which he had deliberately kept with a smile. “I finally get the chance to speak the Great Jin language! To avoid exposure by talking too much, I can only pretend to be grim these days.”
He could only understand a little of the prairie language after taking up language training for a month, never mind speak it.
“The prairie language isn’t hard to learn. The Great Jin dynasty language, on the other hand… Ha! I spent exactly ten years to speak it fluently.” Unbearable memories crossed Old Wuen’s mind before he turned serious and asked, “We’re all colleagues. What would you like to know?”
He didn’t ask the purpose of the Secret-searching Nark.
“I came to kill Wolf King,” Meng Qi said matter-of-factly as if he was speaking of a trivial matter.
“Kill Wolf King?” Old Wuen was stunned, not sharing Meng Qi’s calmness.
He stared at the mustached young man in front of him as if he was looking at a monster.
Did he not know Wolf King? Right now, Wolf King was first place on the Ranking List of Young Masters!
Wolf King’s murder of many grassland masters had aroused public indignation. However, to this day, no one could do anything to him. In the past, there were even Exterior masters of the tribe who had tried finding him but failed!
He could escape and dodge attacks quickly. That alone was enough of a challenge for people, let alone his strength.
Did this young man think it was easy to kill Wolf King?
Meng Qi smiled. “Yes. Will you please help me find him? He’s on the arrest writ list of Six Fan School.”
The reason Wolf King had been recorded in the arrest writ was precisely due to his murdering of the Great Jin Dynasty masters.
“If it was so easy to find him, he’d have been killed over a hundred times.” Old Wuen frowned and shook his head.
Meng Qi nodded, completely in agreement. He had received detailed information about Wolf King from the former rat that included most of the names of his victims, the time and location of their murders, their strength at time of death, as well as their backgrounds. The information merely suggested that Wolf King had killed at random without a specific direction. The strengths of his victims ranged from low to high. It was difficult to find out the potential reasoning for his actions if Meng Qi didn’t take enough time to analyze them.
The only thing they could learn was that Wolf King would lose his bloodlust for those weaker than him after increasing his power. But he still killed a few of them as if he had killed them incidentally.
If there was no any way to chase after Wolf King, Meng Qi had to take the risk to draw Wolf King out to attack him. However, Wolf King must be sensitive to danger to have survived to this day. Perhaps he couldn’t come out at this time but waited with patience. He might make a sudden attack to kill Meng Qi when his strength had broken through enough to be perfect.
“Do you have any information about Wolf King?” Meng Qi sincerely looked at Old Wuen, who was a Turf Lord on the grassland.
After thinking about it for a while, Old Wuen said, “I don’t have any more information at the moment, but perhaps others do.”
“Who?” Meng Qi asked hopefully, wondering who on earth would truly have a clue.
Old Wuen replied quietly, “Wolf King had killed many grassland martial artists, most of them being talented young men with extraordinary strength. Some were the sons of the tribe nobles and disciples of famous martial artists. So their families and friends wanted to avenge their deaths.”
“The people who hated him most had secretly established the Wolf-slaying League to get in touch with each other, exchange information, and kill Wolf King. They spread all over the grasslands, so maybe they know more about his whereabouts.”
“Wolf-slaying League…” It was the first time that Meng Qi had heard of this organization.
Old Wuen sighed. “I don’t know much about the organization, only several of its members. If you’re interested in joining, I can introduce them to you. But I don’t know if you’ll be in danger after joining them.”
Meng Qi thought for a little while and saluted him. “Please introduce them to me!”
He spoke decisively and without the least bit of hesitation.