Book 5: Chapter 23: Who Does This Jade Pendant Belong To?
Bai Qiuran stretched out his hand and grabbed it, and the cyan jade pendant in the boy’s hand was taken by him. He looked at it and then asked:
“Where did you get this jade pendant?”
The boy looked at Prime Minister Yun Kun on the side and did not answer.
“I understand, it was [cannot be said] too, right?”
Bai Qiuran put away the jade pendant and said lightly:
“But this jade pendant can only trade for one life, what about your own?”
“This jade pendant is his, not mine.”
Prime Minister Yun Kun got up from the ground and said while touching his throat.
“Enough, Prime Minister Yun Kun, this time you will listen to me.”
The young man smiled bitterly:
“Compared to me, the Demon Realm needs you more… More importantly, I don’t think the Lord Sword Patriarch will kill me, do you?”
“Oh? Where do you come from being confident that I will not kill you?”
Bai Qiuran tilted his head.
“Don’t tell me it’s because of your blood relationship with Su Xiangxue. You should know she doesn’t care, thus I won’t care either.”
“Of course I don’t place my hopes on the blood of the Demon Emperor. I don’t care myself, let alone my half-human and half-demon sister.”
The boy settled down. Bai Qiuran could see that he was a little nervous, but he still mustered up the courage to say:
“I don’t think you will kill me, it’s because if I’m alive, it’s more useful to you, or to the human race, isn’t it?”
Bai Qiuran looked at him without speaking.
“When the Ape King and Dragon King found me and we returned to the City Lord’s Mansion together, I found that you did not kill the White Bear King, but sat and watched him being taken away by the White Fox King. You are not just looking for the map to the Imperial Mausoleum of the First Demon Emperor… What you want is a demon world where the two sides are opposed, with heavy losses and unresolved conflicts.”
The boy paused and continued:
“Therefore, you need the White Bear King to live and let him live as the leader of the North Demon and the spiritual banner of the vast middle and low-level demons. At the same time, you also need me, the Demon Emperor who inherited the royal blood of the Demon Emperor, to live as the leader of high-level demons who opposed the White Bear King. Look. The cla.s.s gap determined by the bloodline, unless violent means are used, otherwise, there is no way to solve it in a short time… Basically, in these few civil wars, you managed to consume most of the demon realm’s warfare ability. In the next time, the demon race has to survive this period of pain, and there is absolutely no way to produce a decent threat against Nine Provinces and Ten Lands.”
“Did you guess this by yourself?”
Bai Qiuran was silent for a while, and suddenly asked.
“No, I don’t have this ability yet.”
Cang Huangyu arched his hands:
“It’s just a combination of the plan left by Prime Minister Yun Kin and the various actions of the princess sister.”
“Well, what’s your name?”
“I’m Cang Huangyu.”
“Cang Huangyu, right…”
Bai Qiuran raised his hand and said:
“You exchanged your jade pendant for the life of Prime Minister Yun Kun, and used this rhetoric to save your life. Then, what are you going to use to save the lives of the two demon kings outside? You know, if there is a smart advisor like Yun Kun on your side, coupled with the monkey outside and your dragon cousin, the power comparison between you and the White Bear King becomes unbalanced.”
“This is the last map fragment, which will be kept and pa.s.sed down by the royal family for generations.”
Cang Huangyu groped out a fragment of a map from his arms, and came to Bai Qiuran with both hands.
“Cang Huangyu is willing to use this map fragment to exchange the life of my teacher and Uncle Long from Sword Patriarch.”
Bai Qiuran raised Wise Immortal’s head and identified this map fragment. After getting an affirmative answer from Wise Immortal, Bai Qiuran put away the map fragment in the treasure chest together with Cang Huangyu, and said:
“The transaction is established, wait for our arrangements.”
Watching Bai Qiuran dive into the underground lake and disappear without seeing him, Cang Huangyu hurriedly walked over and reached out to support Prime Minister Yun Kun on the ground.
“Your Majesty, you shouldn’t give him the map to the tomb of the First Demon Emperor.”
Prime Minister Yun Kun gasped for two breaths, and then said:
“That is the root of the Demon Emperor’s Nine-Headed Dragon Bloodline.”
“What is the glory of the demon royal family? I don’t understand this. I’m just an illegitimate child.”
Cang Huangyu replied:
“I only know that the current Demon Realm is at a time of despair. Compared to the illusory Mausoleum of the First Demon Emperor, I care more about talents like you. You are the key to the rejuvenation of the Demon Realm… more than a dead man’s tomb. Much more important.”
——————-
Bai Qiuran returned to the previous city and found that Su Xiangxue had successfully entered the city.
When White Fox King has discovered that Bai Qiuran had not been successfully subdued, but just pretended to be, he slipped into the city lord’s mansion and rescued the White Bear King who was unconscious.
When the Dragon King and the Ape King saw this, they hurriedly left the city to look for Cang Huangyu. After uniting with the Demon King to rescue Prime Minister Yun Kun, the two demon kings knew that Bai Qiuran might kill them, so they did not dare to go back. Instead, they found a place to hide separately.
Therefore, the remaining Northern Demon army and the Imperial Army in the city, when faced with Su Xiangxue who had the strength of the Demon King level, decisively chose to surrender.
When he returned to the City Lord’s Mansion, Su Xiangxue was taking the only twenty soldiers left in the West Demon Realm to accept the prisoners of war from the opposite side on the ruins of the City Lord’s Mansion.
In this war, the White Bear King of the Northern Demon sent 20,000 demon warriors of the Golden Core stage and above, while the imperial court sent more than 10,000 elite imperial capital troops. As a result, during the war, they were ma.s.sacred by Bai Qiuran’s rain of sword beam, and when the two armies a.s.sembled again, they lost half of their people. In addition, they had to resist Su Xiangxue’s high-intensity offensive for several days, and they had also paid a considerable price.
Now on this piece of scorched earth that was burned to ashes, one or two thousand demon soldiers from the Northern Demon army and the Imperial Army stood spa.r.s.ely. This was the only remaining force of the two major forces.
In a short period of time, let alone attacking the Nine Provinces and Ten Lands, with just this military strength, it might even be difficult to smooth out the chaos in the demon world.
Bai Qiuran’s whereabouts were not concealed, Su Xiangxue, who was receiving the prisoners of war, quickly saw him, dropped the prisoners of war, and walked towards him with a smile.
“You’re back.”
When Bai Qiuran nodded, Su Xiangxue saw Cang Huangyu and Prime Minister Yun Kun behind him, so the smile on her face narrowed down, and she took Bai Qiuran’s arm to the side and asked in a low voice:
“Why didn’t you kill that Yun Kun?”
“Because of this thing.”
Bai Qiuran raised the cyan jade pendant in his hand.
Su Xiangxue looked at this jade pendant with some familiarity. After thinking about it carefully, she stunned:
“The mark on this… isn’t this from your Qingming Sword Sect?”
“Yes, in the Qingming Sword Sect, when accepting a disciple, the master will have to personally carve a jade pendant for him or her. This jade pendant symbolizes the disciple’s ident.i.ty and position in the sect, and is also in line with some of the sect’s services.”
Bai Qiuran explained:
“But more importantly, this jade pendant symbolizes the master’s message and blessings to his disciples. At the very beginning, the jade pendant of the Qingming Sword Sect was not a representative of ident.i.ty. My master Qingming Taoist began this tradition, he also carved a piece of jade pendant for me.”
Bai Qiuran said, took out his jade pendant from the storage bag, and said:
“The functions above are all added later. At the very beginning, it was just a piece of jade pendant. The word “Heng (Eternal)” was given to me by Master, which means that I should not stop practicing and persevere, until one day I will breakthrough to a higher level.”
This kind of jade pendant was the tradition of the Qingming Sword Sect that has continued for three thousand years. Even Tang Ruowei had one. As Bai Qiuran’s disciple, Tang Ruowei’s jade pendant was carved for her by Bai Qiuran himself, and Bai Qiuran bestowed it on her. Her word is “Jian (Hard)”.
Although Bai Qiuran explained to her that he wanted her to work hard in her cultivation, in fact, Bai Qiuran only subconsciously thought of her hard chest at the time.
“This jade pendant, the technique used in carving is the most standard carving technique of the Qingming Sword Sect.”
Bai Qiuran looked at the jade pendant held in her hand by Su Xiangxue, and said:
“Based on the reactions of Prime Minister Yun Kun and your half-brother, I guess that this jade pendant is also from the Fusang Shrine of Dongying. However, the problem is that I have basically counted the whereabouts of the disciples of Qingming Sword Sect for more than three thousand years. In my memory, there is no Qingming disciple ever going to Dongying, and there are not even many people going to the sea. So the question is, who does this jade pendant belong to?”