Gu Yu and Luo Yin turned at those words and saw Su Mo collapsed across the threshold.
Su Mo no longer looked as he had when they last saw him.
Before, Su Mo had worn spotless white robes, his neatly bound hair crowned with a headpiece. A calm smile had always graced his refined face, confident and friendly.
Now, Su Mo wore black, a drenched cloak hanging behind him. The reek of blood clung to him, and even unconscious, his face was filled with exhaustion and sorrow.
Luo Yin helped Su Mo up, conflicting emotions stirring in her heart.
Why had he recklessly come here?
He was only a mortal...
What did those people's lives or deaths have to do with him?
Luo Yin wiped the blood from the corner of Su Mo's mouth and lowered her head, lost in confusion.
Just what kind of person are you?
"What happened to my junior brother?" Gu Yu turned to ask the monk Zhixuan and the Daoist Mude.
Zhixuan recalled that Arrow Like a Startled Swan Su Mo had fired upon entering the courtyard, and a gleam flashed in his eyes.
"Benefactor Su... first killed someone at the late stage of Foundation Establishment with a black Featherless Arrow." Mude began recounting what had happened.
Gu Yu froze.
"You said he killed someone at the late stage of Foundation Establishment?" Gu Yu could hardly believe it.
Since when had late-stage Foundation Establishment cultivators become sitting ducks?
A mortal... killed a Foundation Establishment cultivator?
"Was that late-stage Foundation Establishment cultivator gravely wounded and dying?" Gu Yu guessed.
But Zhixuan shook his head and interjected, "No, he was at full strength. Moreover, Benefactor Su fired only one arrow, and that Foundation Establishment cultivator died."
"That arrow was like a weapon of death from the netherworld. Silent and still, without the slightest fluctuation of spiritual power."
Even recalling that arrow, Zhixuan still found it unbelievable.
"And then?" Gu Yu set aside the matter of Su Mo killing a Foundation Establishment cultivator with a single arrow for the moment.
"Then we entered the Underground Palace and discovered the Great Calamity underground beside the blood pool... Afterward, Benefactor Su seemed to be possessed by the Great Calamity. He came back up and killed three late-stage Foundation Establishment cultivators who had just arrived." Mude considered it, then continued truthfully.
"What?" Gu Yu's and Luo Yin's expressions changed sharply.
Gu Yu immediately circulated his spiritual power to examine Su Mo's condition, but found nothing unusual.
He only discovered that Su Mo was extraordinarily weak, as though he had just fought a great battle and exhausted himself.
Luo Yin glanced at Gu Yu and said quietly, "Let's take him back first. Everything else can wait."
Gu Yu nodded... In any case, they had found his junior brother. He could tell the Dean about the rest and let that old schemer nurse the headache.
"Go about your business. You needn't concern yourselves with this place anymore. I'll report the Blood Pill and the Great Calamity to the Dean and let him decide. Keep it quiet for now, lest it cause a panic." Gu Yu turned and instructed Zhixuan and Mude.
"Understood!" Zhixuan and Mude both agreed.
Gu Yu and Luo Yin took Su Mo and sped toward the Academy...
Once the three had left, Mude and Zhixuan exchanged a glance and shrugged.
"So he's the Academy's seventh disciple. That explains it... I was wondering where a monster like him came from," Mude said.
"It makes sense now. There's not a single normal person in the Academy." Zhixuan nodded in agreement.
"The Academy's legacy has been passed down for over a thousand years, and it goes further astray with every generation... That's why I didn't join," Mude said shamelessly.
Zhixuan gave him a sidelong look. "You wanted to, but would the Academy take you?"
Mude's gaze instantly turned hostile... This damned baldy had no sense of tact!
"Do you think... that Great Calamity left Benefactor Su's body?" Zhixuan asked.
Mude thought for a moment and said, "It probably did. I didn't sense the Great Calamity's presence on Benefactor Su just now."
"Then... where do you think the Great Calamity is now?" Zhixuan asked further.
Mude pondered this. A cold breeze blew past, instantly raising goosebumps all over him.
He exchanged a glance with Zhixuan.
"Danger's brewing..."
"Let's scram!"
The rain that had fallen for days finally stopped...
Wisps of mist rose from the mountaintop, evoking an empty mountain after fresh rain, with autumn settling into the evening air.
As the saying went,
A bamboo lodge among the mountains, two or three wisps of cooking smoke.
Birdsong stirred the heart, wine's fragrance whetted the appetite...
Su Mo slowly awoke, dazed and hazy, with no idea where he was.
Only the faint fragrance of wine stirred the wine-loving worm in his belly.
Su Mo sat up and looked around, discovering that he was inside a bamboo lodge.
He rose and pushed open the door, only to discover that the lodge stood atop a mountain. Looking out was like admiring the scenery from the clouds, though mist obscured what should have been an extraordinarily expansive view.
In the lodge's courtyard, an old man in blue robes was burning wood to warm wine. Its fragrance drifted from the wine pot.
"Sir... may I ask where this is?" Su Mo entered the courtyard and respectfully addressed the old man in blue robes warming the wine.
"Awake? You've recovered quite quickly. I thought you'd sleep for at least a few more days..." The old man set down his fire fan and turned to Su Mo with a smile. "This is a place between the worldly and the otherworldly... Are you in a hurry to know?"
The fragrance of the old man's wine roused the hungry worm in Su Mo's belly, and he smiled sheepishly.
"Well, I'm not in that much of a hurry... Sir, is that Apricot Blossom Village you're warming?"
"Care for some?" the old man in blue robes asked with a smile.
"Then I'd be more respectful accepting than declining!" Su Mo immediately hurried over and sat at the stone table.
He acted as though he had known the old man forever.
The old man in blue robes shook his head helplessly and poured Su Mo a cup.
Su Mo lifted the cup and sniffed it, his mouth instantly watering.
Just as he was about to drink, he suddenly remembered something and paused...
Then he slowly poured the wine onto the ground...
"The Apricot Blossom Village I promised you... I'm borrowing flowers to offer to the Buddha... Count this as me keeping my promise." Su Mo murmured under his breath, his meaning unclear.
The old man in blue robes said nothing at the sight and simply refilled Su Mo's cup... though a flicker of heartache crossed his eyes.
Su Mo drained the cup in one gulp, and comfort instantly suffused his entire body.
"A clean, mellow fragrance, perfectly balanced flavors, sweet and gentle, with a crisp, clean finish, smooth and refreshing... What fine wine." Su Mo could not help exclaiming, then immediately felt a little regret over the cup he had just poured away...
The old man in blue robes said nothing. He poured himself a cup and slowly began to drink.
Su Mo watched with longing eyes...
"Such fine wine, and you gulped it down in one breath. What a waste..." Only after drinking did the old man in blue robes speak slowly.
With an air of perfect righteousness, Su Mo slowly recited:
"Two drink together as mountain flowers bloom,
One cup, another cup, and yet another..."
Su Mo borrowed Li Bai's "Drinking with a Hermit in the Mountains" from his previous life to persuade the old man in blue robes: drinking ought to mean "one cup, another cup, and yet another"...
A fine poem, put to a rather shameless use... The old man in blue robes secretly curled his lip, clearly having understood Su Mo's unspoken meaning.
"If I told you... that you just swallowed over ten taels of silver in one gulp, how would you feel? And you still want one cup, another cup, and yet another? Who drinks an eighteen-year-aged pure brew like that?" the old man in blue robes said unhurriedly.
At those words, Su Mo instantly wanted to scrape back up the cup he had poured onto the ground.
Keeping a promise to a departed soul... perhaps there wasn't such a hurry after all...
Before you continue