魔道祖师肠道串珠

Volume 8, Chapter 2: Kaiser’s Path, Liola’s Road

This chapter was brought to you by AnmesicCat, Masadeer, and StellarAshes.

“Right, what’s with the people on the ground?” Gle impatiently kicked Lin Jiyun on the ground.

Though Kaiser told Gle about their story, it ended when they entered Purity’s black hole, and therefore, he didn’t know of Lin Jiyun, Void, and Yulie.

When Kaiser heard him, he told Gle what happened in the past year, especially Lin Jiyun’s story. He hoped Jiyun wouldn’t wake up to see the idiot-like Xin Jietian, and then run up and kill him with a sword. Although it wouldn’t matter to Kaiser if he killed Xin Jietian, he feared the action might anger Gle, and he might not even have a corpse for burial.

“Oh, I see.” Gle’s expression remained normal, and he didn’t seem to care at all.

“Can we let Lin Jiyun kill Xin Jietian himself?” Kaiser asked carefully.

Gle glanced at Kaiser, and his response did not answer the question, “To make a person suffer, killing him is the stupidest way. There is no pain when he dies. If he seeks revenge, then he should keep his enemies alive, then strip away his everything, make him wish he were dead!”

Kaiser shivered uncontrollably. The devil Gle did make sense. Had it not been for Gle’s personality, framing him to be the devil wouldn’t have been so easy.

Kaiser suddenly saw Lin Jiyun’s body shaking slightly, and his hand was strangely reaching into his pockets, as if he was trying to reach for something.

‘Could it be that Lin Jiyun was pretending to be asleep? And did he want to try to kill Xin Jietian when Gle wasn’t paying attention?’

Kaiser was in shock, if Gle finds out… No, Kaiser paused. Gle was someone whom even Liola couldn’t beat. If Kaiser could notice Lin Jiyun was pretending to be asleep, Gle must have already known for a while.

Kaiser could never forget Liola’s terrifying ability of being able to examine enemies hundreds of meters away. Gle’s alertness must be above Liola’s.

“Why…” Kaiser opened his mouth to ask, but he saw that Lin Jiyun was already getting up, so he shut his mouth.

“Thank you, senior, for avenging my father’s death.” Lin Jiyun got up, then suddenly knelt down to kowtow.

Gle didn’t even look at Lin Jiyun, and instead said with disgust, “Nobody avenged your father’s death! This guy used Shalong Hall’s name and blamed me for the death of the Lin family. Hmmph, I abhor people framing me, so he’s practically asking for it!”

Lin Jiyun raised his head, and continued to thank him, “Senior, you helped Lin Jiyun seek vengeance. Lin Jiyun is beyond grateful. From now, no matter what senior tells Lin Jiyun to do, even if it would cost me my life, Jiyun would obey without question.”

Kaiser swore secretly! He didn’t realize this Lin Jiyun guy was even more of a suckup than himself. (He’s sincere, you’re the one who’s a suckup!)

Gle seemed very satisfied of what Lin Jiyun said. He originally didn’t even want to look at him, but now he seemed to be glancing at him. His mouth, however, still had a smile that would make Kaiser’s hair stand.

Gle said, “I was just thinking your vengeance was a bit too easy, and too boring. Since you said I can ask you to do anything… Okay! You will receive training from me alongside Kaiser. When you’re done with training, I will release the hypnosis on Xin Jietian. At that time, you must rely on yourself to fight against Xin Jietian. This fight will be on every level: intelligence, martial arts, and your connections with other people. Haha, the World of Martial Arts would be in turmoil then, and it will be fun.”

‘Devil! A devil indeed!’ Kaiser suddenly felt the Dragon Emperor didn’t even need to frame Gle. He may very well have, in time, found it boring and became the devil himself.

“Training…” Gle spun the emerald in his hand, and it reflected off his eyes, “Since this jewel is here, let’s do an experiment.”

‘Experiment?’ Kaiser stood stupefied, didn’t he wanted to train them?

If it was Liola standing here, hearing the word “experiment”, his face would’ve immediately turned pale. Gle’s experiments were always extremely bizarre, and the success rate was less than 10%. It wasn’t a training normal people could pass!

“Training!”

Lin Jiyun, who was kneeling on the ground, seemed to have flashing eyes when he heard “training.” He was originally worried his low strength couldn’t be a match against Xin Jietian, but Gle was now here to help him train, and he had also successfully trained the top Assassin. Lin Jiyun could almost picture the day when he becomes one of the strongest Martial Artists…

Even though Kaiser was lazy, he remembered he might once again end up in his original world, just like the White Dragon must’ve spent ages planning, and it wouldn’t possibly leave Liola in this world.

Thus, to Kaiser, learning more magic to protect his life would definitely be a good idea. He wouldn’t possibly dare to ignore the troublemaking ability of the Aklan Troublemaking Squad. It would already be a miracle if they don’t run into the Dragon Emperor plus Lancelot the moment they go back.

“Good. Luckily there’s a pile of idiots who could be your training targets.” Gle rubbed his chin like usually, and a thick smile formed on his face.

“Idiots?” Kaiser’s mind had trouble connecting the dots.

Gle raised his eyebrow, “Those idiots competing for a sword.”

“Uh… I don’t think that’s a good idea. If something goes wrong, we could be the enemies of the entire Martial Arts World. Even if you’re the Alliance Leader, we can’t just screw around like this, right?” Kaiser was hesitant, because he didn’t want to take refuge in a third world.

“Hmmph! There’s nothing to be afraid of.” Gle looked completely relaxed. “I’ve got plenty of Amnesia Honey. This stuff is enough to make someone completely forget about being the Alliance Leader. Worst case scenario, we’ll grab all these people, and pour it down their throats. Are you really afraid they won’t forget?”

… Such a horrible guy. An idea flashed across Kaiser’s mind, and he asked with hesitation, “Have you already done it before?”

Gle’s eyes slowly glanced at Kaiser. Whether he had done it… Kaiser knew the answer without hearing a word.

* * *

On the way, Yandi quietly followed Liola. Since she had spent some time with Liola before, she was familiar with his personality. Seeing his darkened eyes, Yandi knew deep inside, no matter what question she asked, it was impossible to get the answer. The Liola before her eyes was no different from the original Assassin, the one Yandi hated the most, the Assassin Silver Moon.

The first time she saw Silver Moon was during one of his mission. It was a summer day, hot enough to make people sweat bullets.

Having been around the Martial Arts World, Yandi had a nickname from people who hated her; Flaming Butterfly. The people who hated her the most were probably the Assassin organization; Shalong Hall. Though no one knew what their Leader looked like, everyone would instinctively think of the top Assassin when they think of Shalong Hall — Silver Moon.

At that time, her sworn sister, Anise, had been kidnapped by Shalong Hall. People of the Martial Arts World were all discussing how they were going to save her. The number of people saved by Anise at this point was countless. As soon as anyone mentions Shalong Hall, they all wanted to have their own “rescue plan”.

“Hmmph! What rescue plans? If she gets killed while you guys are coming up with a plan, then we wouldn’t need to save her!” Yandi said coldly after hearing the long debates between the crowd.

Many people loudly protested, saying things like a rushed attack would be suicide, and they would not be able to save the godly healer…

Yandi knew full well what these people were thinking. Having lived in the Martial Arts World since she was young, she knew them very well: these people did indeed want to rescue Anise. After all, they all knew Anise practically never rejected anyone who asked for her help, and injury was quite common among Martial Artists.

If they were injured, they wish a godly healer would come and help them. The problem was, however, it was Shalong Hall who abducted the godly healer, and it was the largest Assassin organization.

Out of these people, many of them had actually hired Shalong Hall before, or ones who may one day hire them.

The former was afraid their secrets may be revealed, and the latter was worried that when they do entrust Shalong Hall for something, they would be rejected or, in the worse scenario, Shalong Hall may hate them for doing so, then they would really have to worry about when their heads would fall off or when a sword would pierce through their chests.

Yandi wasn’t afraid of any of this. Her life was rescued by sister Anise, the worst case scenario was for her to give her life back in return.

Originally, if they weren’t going to take action today, Yandi planned to sneak into Shalong Hall by herself and rescue Anise. However, she remembered something and it caused her to completely give up on the idea.

It was such an inexistent existence. She couldn’t call him cold, because cold didn’t exist in his eyes. Or, perhaps more accurately, there was nothing in his eyes. Had she not known it was a person, Yandi would’ve thought the two darkened things were two pieces of iron instead of human eyes.

As Yandi stood still, and terror crept up on her face, the people around her gradually noticed something was wrong. They all looked in Yandi’s direction, and then suddenly realized, there was an unknown person there. One must understand, the place was filled with Martial Artists, and there was no shortage of famous masters among them, but no one managed to notice this person coming in.

Everyone was stunned, all because of the “void” in those silver eyes.

The silver-eyed man didn’t seem to take any actions. He was simply standing there quietly, but an action as simple as “standing there” placed fear in the hearts of the bystanders, and none of the masters would dare to make a move.

Yandi finally escaped from the void-like silver eyes, and carefully examined this person. If she were to look away from his eyes and manner, the person would look like a delicate man.

His black hair was as dark as the depth of the night, and it covered his shoulders. Along with the tight-fitting black clothes he was wearing, he was practically completely black. Nevertheless, it didn’t look strange, as if black had been his color ever since he was born, just like the night’s color.

Had there been any radiance in his eyes, he would’ve looked like a full moon on a dark night…

Yandi couldn’t stop herself from saying, “Full moon in a dark night, silver light… Silver Moon, is it?”

As soon as Yandi finished, even she, herself froze. Everyone seemed to have received a sharp warning.

Everyone knew who this void-like silver-eyed man was, and no one would doubt for a second the man was Shalong Hall’s top Assassin — Silver Moon.

But, strangely, Silver Moon didn’t move at all, and nobody dared to make a move, fearing they would become the first victim of Silver Moon’s onslaught.

Yandi had a strange feeling Silver Moon wasn’t here to kill. Because if he were, then everyone present would have been long dead, and even herself would’ve died before noticing anything was wrong.

Yandi’s instincts were correct. After the deadlock between Silver Moon and the crowd for two hours, Silver Moon disappeared without a trace. Yandi didn’t even see his figure clearly, and he seemed to disappear into thin air.

From then on, whenever the Martial Arts World held a meeting about attacking Shalong Hall, they would undoubtedly find Silver Moon standing quietly in the corner.

One time, some people even tried to attack Silver Moon. The result was, anyone who touched their weapons would have a blood-oozing wound on their throats, and from then on they no longer had to worry themselves with the problem of saving the godly healer.

Yandi, who actively participated in planning the godly healer’s rescue, became the person who saw Silver Moon the most. Perhaps it was because she was also looking at her surroundings, she was often the first person to discover Silver Moon. Many of these meetings had been interrupted by Silver Moon, and Yandi naturally hated him more and more.

But what she hated most was herself, for being afraid to go save her sister all on her own after seeing Silver Moon.

Finally, Anise was freed, but what followed her, was the terrifying Assassin.

“This is Liola, he’s the top Assassin. This is Long Yandi, my best sworn sister.”

Anise acted as if she had no clue how dangerous the man next to her was, but instead introduced Silver Moon with a smile. Yandi had no choice but to nod stiffly.

Anise happily poured tea, and asked the two to sit down, then began her endless “chit chat”. Even though Anise was the only one who talked the whole time, Silver Moon looked as if he was listening carefully, while Yandi was on guard while looking at Silver Moon, fearing he may suddenly attack.

The void-like eyes looked like they had something within them now. Yandi examined Silver Moon with surprise. His steel-like eyes looked as if there were ripples throughout.

Silver Moon seemed to have noticed Yandi examining him, and his silver eyes turned towards her. A shiver climbed up Yandi’s spine. When those silver eyes looked away from Anise, they turned into those voids again.

Silver Moon was, after all, the terrifying top Assassin, so Yandi’s hand never once left the whip on her waist.

* * *

Yandi woke up from her flashbacks. She saw Silver Moon had already gone far away, so she hurried to catch up.

When she reached Silver Moon, Yandi turned her head to examine Silver Moon’s face from the side. Ever since she met Silver Moon again, she had been surprised, Silver Moon’s silver eyes seemed to react to other people too, rather than just Anise.

But now… Yandi was suspicious. What could have happened to make Silver Moon act this way? His eyes were beyond freezing, but it still wasn’t like the first time they met, the terror of the void in his eyes.

‘Did sister do something to cause him to go crazy?’ Yandi’s heart was heavy.

She knew, even if Anise was the devil, Silver Moon probably wouldn’t be mad at her, and he may even become her right-hand man. Because of this, Yandi could not even imagine what could possibly make Silver Moon look this infuriated.

Since he was in a hurry to find Anise, then it must have something to do with Anise, right?

“What exactly happened?” Yandi was murmuring to herself. She had no plans of getting an answer from Silver Moon.

Who knew, not only did Silver Moon hear her, he suddenly stopped and turned to look at her.

Yandi was shocked, and she thought Silver Moon might have been unhappy with her asking questions and planned to kill her on the spot. Despite her keeping her hands on her whip for a long time, Silver Moon did not do anything.

Suddenly, Silver Moon turned and walked again, but his footsteps were slower. He began to slowly and quietly speak. Had it not been the fact that there was absolutely no one near them, Yandi would actually question whether it was Silver Moon telling the stories.

She listened carefully and quietly. Silver Moon talked about seeing Anise for the first time, then the time when he was pursued by everyone in Martial Arts World, and finally falling into an alien world.

When the story continued until the point where they came back to this world, then run into the Leader. When she found out the Leader was Gle, Yandi’s face seemed to sink.

Finally, Liola told her everything that has happened thus far. He spent almost a full day telling the story. It was Kaiser’s version, not the simple version Liola told.

Liola finished telling her what has happened recently in a mono-tone. But when he got to the point where Gle told him Anise was purely an illusion created by the White Dragon, there was a slight tremble in Liola’s voice.

After finishing the story, Liola didn’t say anything else. He didn’t want to say anything, and just wanted to listen: listen to what a person more familiar with Anise than him would say? Would she say Anise was an illusion? Or would she loudly refute, thinking Anise was real?

Liola couldn’t hold back his anticipation, hoping it would be the latter. If Yandi spoke with the firmest attitude Anise absolutely was real, then Liola would continue to believe Anise indeed was the talkative and kind Anise.

“I met sister Anise when I was eight.” Yandi neither confirmed nor denied, but instead began to tell her own story.

“At the time, she already looked like she was twenty something. I had always thought she had received the gift of beauty. Even a dozen, almost twenty, years later, her appearance still didn’t change much.”

‘As expected!’ Liola held his fist tight, so tight that his short nails had dug into his flesh, leaving behind a deep imprint.

Yandi seemed to have noticed Liola acting strange. She said impatiently, “I listened until you finished, now it’s your turn to let me finish, Silver Moon.”

Hearing this, Liola tried as hard as he could to control his emotion. He slowly released his fist.

Yandi continued to talk about her youth, and the time she spent with Anise.

“At the time, I was sick with a strange disease. My master had looked for every doctor, but none could cure me. Everyone in the Wave Faction practically gave up on me, they even stopped teaching me martial arts, and let me do whatever I wanted, while I wait for day to die peacefully.”

“But I still wanted to learn martial arts, so I always sat quietly next to my sisters when they were training. Until one day when I woke up and felt strange. My chest felt completely empty, but I also felt well. It was then when I understood it was my time to die. I didn’t go see my sisters train, and I thought that, because my master had always treated me well, I shouldn’t bring her any trouble when I die.”

“I walked alone to the top of a mountain, thinking I could end it all by jumping off. My foot was already on the edge of the cliff.” After having said this much, Yandi began to smile.

“Stop! I told you to stop, can’t you understand?!”

When Yandi’s little foot was lifted half way, her body flutter around like a broken kite in the wind, and someone yelled for her to stop, with a rather strange way of yelling too. Yandi turned around to look to see who stopped her.

In the time she did so, a thin figure immediately charged at her, and grabbed her away from the cliff. The figure also held her tightly, to the point where it began to hurt.

Nevertheless, Yandi didn’t feel the slightest bit of pain, but instead felt the warmth of the person’s body beginning to warm her frozen body and soul. Tears dripped out of her eyes.

The person carried her and walked for a long time before letting her down, and wiped her tears while comforting her. It was then when Yandi had finally seen the person in front of her. She was a rather unique woman. Nobody who had ever seen her could ever forget her long, cream hair.

“You’re still so young, why must you end your life?”

“Because I am about to die.” Yandi finally felt the terror of death. She didn’t want to die, but she had no choice. To escape the pain of waiting for death by the second, she would rather choose to die first.

The woman with the long, cream hair carefully examined her, then smiled lightly, “My name is Anise, and you have to remember, no one can possibly die before Anise.”

It was a declaration worthy of being considered arrogant to the point of madness. Yandi willingly followed Anise, and she really did not die.

Yandi turned around, and said solemnly to Liola, “Now you’re telling me, an illusion saved my life?”

“And you! Before meeting sister, you weren’t even a person. You did not have a heart, or a life. If Anise was an illusion, do you think something lifeless could bring life to others?”

Liola was stunned. He turned to look at Yandi, and a slight sign of weakness leaked through his face.

This weakness softened Yandi slightly. She sighed, “The time you’ve had your heart is too short. Your heart is always weak, and it can’t endure the slightest of ordeals.”

She said earnestly, “But, think back! Silver Moon. Think back to the time you spent with sister; think back to her every emotion, every sentence, and every action. Were those things an illusion could have done?”

After hearing Yandi, the talkative, gossipy, and sympathetic long-haired woman returned to Liola’s mind. Silver Moon’s “void” gradually faded, and what replaced it was Liola’s expressionless face Kaiser had often called “ice cubes”.

Liola said somewhat panickedly, trying to find the answer, “B-but what Gle said, about the White Dragon…”

“I don’t know.” Yandi said directly, but then added, “We will find the answers eventually. When we find Anise, the truth will be clear. I believe the Anise, who gave us both life, indeed exists.”

‘Come find me, come find me.’

Liola suddenly saw the Dragon Cross Necklace around Yandi’s neck flashing a white light, as if it was anxious. He couldn’t refrain himself from putting his hand on the necklace. The light had always been warm, but depending on his feelings, what he sensed was often different.

‘I believe you, Anise, I will believe you…’ Liola lightly stroked the necklace.

“Do I really need to remind you that your hand is on my chest?” Yandi reminded somewhat rigidly, “I’m a woman, you are a man. I trust even an ice cube like you should know a man shouldn’t touch a woman’s chest?”

“Sorry…”