Chapter 94: Windcloud Heights
Hearing the reward and deduction of the icy cold Karma points, Meng Qi and others all felt it was especially b.l.o.o.d.y and cruel because every reward or every deduction meant the disappearance of a living human life.
The Group-rival task was very dangerous!
As the darkness disappeared, there was a lot of humming sounds like countless flies’ fluttering into Meng Qi’s ears.
Meng Qi raised his eyes and found himself in the corner of the lobby of an inn, and in front of him, there were heavy beams and square tables crowded with people.
There were many people with weapons who must obviously be Jianghu men, but they never noticed there were eight more people in the corner now.
Meng Qi turned around and glanced at Jiang Zhiwei, Zhang Yuanshan, and the others. From their eyes, he got the same meaning that the Dominator of Samsara in Six Realms was really awful!
At first, Meng Qi had thought the Dominator of Samsara in Six Realms would put himself and others in the World of Samsara where there was n.o.body who would pay attention to them in order for them not to be noticed. Who knew? No one thought anything unusual even if they were placed in the center of a noisy market or in a lobby of an inn. People thought nothing out of the ordinary even when they occasionally looked at them.
“The Dominator of Samsara in Six Realms is so powerful that his means are beyond our imagination. At least, before we achieve the Dharmakaya, we should cut off all unnecessary actions,” Luo Shengyi said smilingly. He seemed to have read Meng Qi and the others’ minds. He didn’t think much of the ident.i.ty of the Dominator of Samsara in Six Realms but just regarded him as an immortal.
“Thanks, Brother Luo for your kind warning,” Zhang Yuan Shan politely replied.
Luo Shengyi raised his hand and pointed to Xia Dandan and her brother. “Xia Dandan who has opened Four Apertures and is adept at the Loving Couple Swords. She is also an expert at the Lightness Skill, concealment, and communication after just opening her Eye Aperture this early summer. What about you?”
Xia Dandan and Xia Chulin seemed to admire Luo Shengyi very much. When he spoke, they restrained their facial expression without any eye movement.
Seeing Luo Shengyi showing his sincerity, Zhang Yuanshan pondered for a moment and said, “I have opened the Four Apertures, and I’m skillful in sword art.”
He pointed to Jiang Zhiwei. “Junior Sister Jiang has long opened the Four Apertures and she is adept at sword art as well. What’s more, she is much better at attacking.”
Jiang Zhiwei had opened her Ear Aperture before the second Samsara task. After Duo Ercha’s Samsara task and her single-person task, and with one and a half years’ intervals, she finished concentrating all Aperture acupoints related to the Nose Aperture. She didn’t exchange for the “Pill of Heavenly Vision and Earthly Hearing” to get a breakthrough just because she thought that over a period of training, she could directly make a breakthrough by herself.
Meng Qi now speculated that she had either already opened Six Apertures or very close to it. Because he had not yet communicated with her about it, he couldn’t be certain.
“Jiang Zhiwei, who has opened Four Apertures, is good at the attacking sword skill.” Hearing Zhang Yuanshan’s introduction, Luo Shengyi suddenly realized, “Could it be Lady Jiang in the Sword Was.h.i.+ng Pavilion?”
A girl, who had yet to have been officially tested in Jianghu, was already included in the Ranking List of Young Masters. Therefore, Luo Shengyi had to pay more attention to her. When her name was just introduced, he had some speculation. At this time, after he heard her strength standard, he was more determined about her ident.i.ty.
Jiang Zhiwei gently nodded. “It is me.”
She was neither proud nor modest.
“With Lady Jiang’s force, this task would be a lot simpler.” Luo Shengyi changed her address to improve their relations.h.i.+p.
Jiang Zhiwei did not answer, and Zhang Yuanshan continued to introduce, “Junior Brother Qi has opened Two Apertures and possessed extraordinary martial arts. His punching and kicking, lightness skill, and sword art are excellent.”
These martial arts such as punching and kicking, internal strength, lightness skill, and so on were included in the Book of the Chaos.
Zhang Yuanshan was not familiar with Qi Zhengyan, Luo Shengyi, Xia Dandan and Xia Chulin at all, so he only nodded to them.
“Junior Brother Zhen Ding, who has opened Two Apertures, is skilled in the bladesmans.h.i.+p with a good Hard Kung.” Zhang Yuanshan paradoxically introduced on purpose. On one hand, he almost explained the way of Meng Qi’s fighting, making it easy to arrange him. On the other hand, he misled others on the direction. The Hard Kung was quite different from the Golden Bell s.h.i.+eld.
Luo Shengyi and Xia Chulin had a look at Meng Qi and only nodded to him while Xia Dandan stared at him from head to foot. Her eyes paused on his Red Sun Evil Blade for a moment. After all, she was adept at the bladesmans.h.i.+p.
“Junior Sister Fu, who has just opened the Eye Aperture, is good at the dirk, palm smas.h.i.+ng art, Lightness Skill, and alchemy.” When he got to this part of the introductions, Zhang Yuanshan paused for a moment. “We don’t have the partners who are at the Qi-cultivation Stage. Does this indicate there are such ones in the enemy team?”
Luo Shengyi seemed to have quite rich experiences in the Samsara task so Zhang Yuanshan asked him.
“Yes, but only a few. Generally speaking, both task sides of the Group-rivaling have similar strength by the Dominator of Samsara in Six Realms’ arrangement. Even if one side is much stronger, they can compensate for it through the force of the natives in the World of Samsara.” Luo Shengyi agreed with Zhang Yuanshan.
Meng Qi took a light breath. What they said was similar to what he had thought, “It seems that the strength of the hunted is better than us by quite a bit. So we must go to the Windcloud Heights as soon as possible.”
“Ah, the little master is right, and I think so. Chulin, first you go to inquire about the circ.u.mstances, and then we set off later,” Luo Shengyi told Xia Chulin.
Xia Chulin stood up with a big smile and walked to a distant table. He quickly joined in those five or six people of the table, toasting to them time and again. They nearly became sworn brothers in this special way.
While Meng Qi and others were intently listening to the information from Xia Chulin, Luo Shengyi continued to say, “However, strength and actual combat power are two different things, and sometimes there may be a landslide situation.”
When it came to this, Luo Shengyi’s facial expression, which had been calm for a long time, changed and vaguely showed a little haze, but he immediately held it back.
When they began to chat, Meng Qi was worried that Luo Shengyi had some special-eavesdropping tricks, so he didn’t attempt to use the psycho-sonic beam to ask Jiang Zhiwei if she had opened her Nose Aperture. After a while, Xia Chulin, who looked more obscene, came back with a red-drunken face.
“The Windcloud Heights is just outside of this city.” The first sentence coming from Xia Chulin made everyone feel at ease.
“Here are all the Jianghu men who want to join in the four sects to encircle the Devil Cult in order to be famous and get some benefit. Among them, there are many small gangs and groups. So we cannot draw much attention.” Xia Chulin’s second sentence let everyone feel relieved.
“However, we have so many people with special relations.h.i.+ps, we’d better pretend to belong to the same band in order not to be separated.” After he had finished his third sentence, Xia Chulin took up the cup of tea and had a sip.
Luo Shengyi laughed, “Then let’s set up a temporary band. In your opinion, what is a good name for it?”
He had a very convincing way of expressing his words and deeds making others unconsciously take his advice and follow him.
“Giving it a name? That’s my pleasure.” Meng Qi’s evil addiction broke out and he said, “Let’s call it Power Band.”
“At present, our strength is not very powerful, so we don’t give our band a swagger and mad-tyranted name like ‘Jie Denomination’ or ‘Celestial Court’. With regard to ‘Cyan GarbTower’ or ‘Golden Wind Drizzling Tower’, they are too literary, which don’t match us.”
“Power Band? That means we seize power and have beautiful women around us. It is really a good name,” Luo Shengyi joked. “Little master Zhen Ding, does this name have an allusion?”
“I once heard a storyteller tell me that there were seven young people who were ambitious and wanted to control the world. Therefore, they became sworn brothers and used ‘power’ as their band name, and they swore that before their cause was completed, they wouldn’t use their real names and would only address each other according to their ages, such as Big Li, Five Liu,” Meng Qi blabbed with a big laugh.
Luo Shengyi’s eyes immediately brightened, “What good pa.s.sion, good ambition, and good action! Big Li, Five Liu… I really like those addresses.”
As he said this, he looked at Jiang Zhiwei and the others, “If we become best friends that are ready to die for each other, we would swear to create a great cause to be fair to the hards.h.i.+p of the Kung Fu and our ability.”
For his self-invited performance, Meng Qi and others only laughed.
Luo Shengyi was not angry, but complacent, and he imposingly asked Meng Qi, “Have these seven brothers created a great cause yet?”
“Of course they have,” Meng Qi replied with a smile.
Luo Shengyi continued to ask, “What about their final outcome?”
“After their success, only Five Liu was still alive.” Meng Qi did not tell them the final outcome.
Luo Shengyi became silent, playing with a wine gla.s.s with his right hand. After a while, he said, “Let’s set off for the Windcloud Heights. Chulin, you go on talking about the information you asked about.”
Ten miles outside the city was the extremely broad Windcloud Heights. All the way, Meng Qi and others got to know about common sense from Xia Chulin, such as the four main sects indicating the Windcloud Heights, the Wanjian Sect, the Star-picking Tower, and the Xiaoyue School. They each had an endless-powered Sect-ballasting Supreme Weapon, which was why they became the main four sects.
And all the top martial artists either came from the four main sects or from the Devil Cult. For hundreds of years, there were no top ones from the “unknown” sects.
This made Meng Qi feel rather weird, and the Sect-ballasting Supreme Weapon also let him guess time and again. Of course, they couldn’t be the real Magical Arms, but they might be Precious Weapons of the Exterior level.
There stood a lot of servants outside of the Windcloud Heights gate to welcome all the Jianghu heroes. Seeing Meng Qi and the others coming over, the servants politely greeted them.
“The Power Band?” After hearing Luo Shengyi’s reply, the servant frowned, thought for a while, and then politely smiled. “Every hero, our hotel is full. Please go to other ones first and come back till the Allied Conference begins.”
Luo Shengyi said nothing, and he raised his right hand, clenched his fist, and gently hit the stone lion at the gate.
Pow, pow, pow, the stone lion suddenly turned into a pile of gravel, making people open their eyes wide.
The servant was panicky and scared, looking up and down at Meng Qi’s group. After quite a while, he said, “You, heroes, please come in and have a cup of tea. Let me report to our heightslord.”
Upon entering the heights, Luo Shengyi said to Meng Qi and others, “If we don’t show our strength, we wouldn’t draw any attention. Our side’s strength is a little poor, so we must get in touch with the senior masters of the four main sects as soon as possible.”
“We thought the same,” Zhang Yuanshan politely answered
Meng Qi, Jiang Zhiwei, and Qi Zhengyan glanced at each other, knowing immediately that they had similar ideas. Luo Shengyi’s decisions and disposal methods were correct, but he did not discuss them with others at all, which was a little bossy.
In a flower hall, several people were having tea, waiting for the heightslord to invite them.
“Boss, can I go for a stroll nearby and search for some information?” Xia Chulin cautiously asked.
After getting Luo Shengyi’s permission, he went out with a big smile since he couldn’t sit still for a long time.
A moment later, there came a servant, respectfully saying, “You, our honored guests, our heightslord invites you to his study.”
“OK.” Luo Shengyi stood up and said, and then questioningly mumbled, “Why has Chulin not come back yet?”
When he had hardly finished speaking, the Dominator of Samsara in Six Realms’ voice came to several people’s minds.
“Xia Chulin was killed by the Samsara traveler of the Devil Cult camp. Everyone should deduct 100 Karma points.”
What? Meng Qi and others were a little sluggish and shocked. They didn’t expect the enemies would come so fast! Besides, they did directly do it in the Windcloud Heights!
The danger had already come!
Xia Dandan’s face became pale, and she rushed out with a serious expression. Jiang Zhiwei, Meng Qi, and the others, who didn’t dare to neglect this, quickly kept up with her. The servant was so puzzled that he asked the guards to chase them.
Inquiring about her brother’s accident, Xia Dandan found Xia Chulin’s whereabouts. He was dead in a guest room.
She opened the door and stepped inside. She suddenly exclaimed and subconsciously took a step back.
Meng Qi stood on tiptoes and only saw Xia Chulin and an old man both fell in the room with a serene and happy look. Their skin under their heads was shrunken and jaundiced and shaped like a mummy.
“Ajati Finger,” Meng Qi surprisingly talked to himself.