Chapter 15.1: Beheading and Carving Souls
Yin Hanjiang beat on the Burning Sky Drum using his void realm cultivation so that Wen Renhe wouldn’t die in battle.
Before the war, he promised Yin Hanjiang that he would live through the battle and Wen Renhe never broke his promise. At the last moment he retained his strength and shielded his body, which gave him a chance to be saved by Yin Hanjiang.
Wen Renhe breathed a sigh of relief and lost consciousness after telling Yin Hanjiang that he was still alive.
He was so badly injured that his spirit fell into a daze. He could vaguely hear Yin Hanjiang calling him but his eyelids were heavy and could not wake up.
In the book’s plot, Wen Renhe was also in a coma for a long time. When he woke up, he saw Baili Qingmiao busily taking care of him and a ray of rising sunlight shining on her. Baili Qingmiao’s expression was gentle and firm, making her look very beautiful when she was determined to save someone. Under that sunlight or divine light, the Devil Venerable was moved.
At first, Wen Renhe didn’t realize he had fallen in love, so he just coldly told this younger disciple that he could promise her a reward. Stunned Baili Qingmiao shook her head and said: “I just want you to live.”
Wen Renhe suffered from a very serious internal injury and was not willing to go back with Baili Qingmiao to Shangqing sect for treatment. Baili Qingmiao had no choice but to use the summoning talisman given to her by her master Qing Rong to tell her fellow disciples that she had some important matter to attend to and needed to leave for a period of time.
Before the start of the war, the Shangqing sect gave a jade slip to each of the disciples in charge of rescuing and healing to relay to them urgent knowledge about healing and where certain spiritual medicines grow. During the three months of Yin Hanjiang’s seclusion, Baili Qingmiao and her fellow disciples were busy reciting knowledge from jade slips and practicing the healing formulas.
She found that Wen Renhe’s injury was serious and his dantian was in disarray, and even his genuine Qi had disappeared. In order to save him, Baili Qingmiao decided to take him to the Jiuding Mountain recorded in the jade slips to find Jiu Yang, which can bring back the flesh and bones of the dead. She fought with the beasts that guarded the spiritual plant and after she got Jiu Yang, she boiled it into a soup without even tasting a mouthful of it and she fed it all to Wen Renhe.
In the original book, after he recovered from his injuries he looked at Baili Qingmiao with joyful smile and his heart finally become her’s. He did not reveal his identity, but left a token, telling Baili Qingmiao to call out to him in case of trouble, no matter how difficult it would be, he would do anything to help her.
Baili Qingmiao didn’t even think of asking for a reward, but she was happy to save his life. After bidding farewell to Wen Renhe, Baili Qingmiao returned to the sect and saw He Wenchao who had been emptied of his Nascent Soul cultivation making her heart suddenly turn cold.
He Wenchao who was seriously injured and frustrated asked Baili Qingmiao: “Younger martial sister, when I was injured, I just wanted to see you for one last time. Where have you been?”
Baili Qingmiao cried so much that she was out of breath. At that time she already found Jiu Yang but she did not use it to save her elder material brother, but gave it to a stranger.
In order to save He Wenchao, she asked her elders about the way to save him, and went to the Gold Coast Cliff alone. On her way she met Wen Renhe who was already paying attention to her movements and they went on this journey together.
This time, it was Yin Hanjiang who saved him. He didn’t know where Jiu Yang was. When he saw Devil Venerable unconscious, he could only take him to the small valley where he was cultivating before.
It was a small sect that Wen Renhe was in when he first picked up Yin Hanjiang. Wen Renhe was the sect master of this small sect and after he unified the demonic path he secretly gave this place to Yin Hanjiang, and even arranged a formation. Now it was Yin Hanjiang’s own place that other people had no knowledge of.
When Wen Renhe was fighting with the righteous master cultivators, Yin Hanjiang was alerted by the change of address by Altar Master Ruan to Devil Venerable. Demonic path was very ambitious, from the protectors, Altar masters to the disciples, they would all take advantage of your weakness to kill you. At this time, if Yin Hanjiang returned to Xuanyuan Sect with the severely injured Wen Renhe he was afraid that the first person he would need to kill was Shu Yanyan.
The Xuanyuan Sect had a marvelous army under Devil Venerable’s command when he was well but when Devil Venerable was seriously injured, the Xuanyuan Sect was a dog-eat-dog kind of place.
Yin Hanjiang did not dare to take him back to Xuanyuan Sect. He had two places in his mind, one was the border town where Yin Hanjiang grew up, and the other was the place where he was brought to by his Lord when he was young.
He took Wen Renhe and dived under the waterfall where he had been cultivating. There was a small cave full of spiritual energy, suitable for healing.
Devil Venerable was seriously injured. Yin Hanjiang took out all the pills from his storage belt, selected some mild and replenishing spiritual medicines, and put them all into Wen Renhe mouth.
After hearing no breathing from Wen Renhe and noticing he was unable to swallow the medicine pills after a long hesitation, Yin Hanjiang apologised “I am sorry” to Devil Venerable and opened his mouth putting a mouthful of genuine Qi into his mouth from a distance of several inches.
He was careful to not touch his Lord’s pale lips and deliberately avoided touching them with his teeth.
After taking the medicine, Yin Hanjiang put his genuine Qi into Wen Renhe body for about a week. He was relieved when he realized that Devil Venerable genuine Qi had begun to actively work and absorb the medicine.
After relaxing, Yin Hanjiang realized that he was unsteady on his own feet. He spurted out a mouthful of blood, and fainted at the feet of Wen Renhe.
Back then, the old Sect Master of the Xuanyuan Sect was the pinnacle cultivator of the Mahayana realm. When he beat on the Burning Sky Drum he would be trapped by the illusion and possessed by demons. Yin Hanjiang had just entered the Void realm, so when he used the drum his internal organs would naturally be severely damaged. However he was wholeheartedly thinking about saving Wen Renhe so he didn’t care about his injuries and didn’t feel the pain. It was not until Wen Renhe took a breath that Yin Hanjiang realized that he had also run out of oil.
Wen Renhe woke up after absorbing the medicines and found that he was in a dark and humid cave. The man in black was lying at his feet with his face against the cold stone stairs. Turning the man over, he saw a patch of green moss growing against his face just like in the folk ghost story book used to foil the cruel victims of ghosts.
Wen Renhe let out a breath, his dantian was in pain as if they were being torn apart. He took off his black robe and saw that his body was full of wounds, sword wounds, knife wounds, whip wounds, stick wounds …… caused by the eighteen kinds of weapons. From almost all of them.
The physical injury was a small matter but his dantian was almost completely destroyed. His genuine Qi was almost completely drained by Seven Star Killing Halberd which would not heal without Jiu Yang even if healed himself for a hundred years.
He propped up Yin Hanjiang and felt his palm become a little wet when he touched his clothes. When he untied his clothes, he saw that his flesh was split open. His thin body was split by some weapon and looked like it was sewn by a very thin thread. It was very difficult to find a piece of intact skin among various wounds.
Wen Renhe only saw wounds and blood making him feel shocked. He put his hand on Yin Hanjiang’s heart and tried to heal him, but he couldn’t mobilize a single bit of his genuine Qi and could only sit down weakly against Yin Hanjiang letting out a bleak laugh.
For more than three hundred years, since he entered the path of cultivation, he has never been in such a mess.
In the book, Baili Qingmiao found Jiu Yang to save him and now in order to get rid of the plot he gave up his hope for easy survival and chose a very difficult road.
“Protector Yin.” Wen Renhe said softly: “The most difficult time in my life was three hundred years ago when I was searching for my family in the mass grave,”
Two hundred and seventy-three decapitated bodies of the Wen clan all the way till their ninth generation. The culprit who was behind this massacre didn’t bury them, the beheaded bodies were burned and dragged to the mass graves. It was only seven days later that Wen Renhe rushed back to the capital, by then corpses were already so decomposed that he could not tell who was who.
He searched day and night in the mass grave and dragged out 296 headless corpses, the youngest of which was three months old. Except for those who had more special bodies, the remaining 237 corpses, Wen Renhe could not tell who they were.
There were also the corpses of other prisoners among them so Wen Renhe could not tell which of them was his own family.
His whole family was loyal and good but now there were only corpses left. The 16-year-old Wen Renhe broke down in front of 296 headless corpses and cried bitterly, unable to vent his hatred.
The Abbot of the Wuxiang temple was so powerful that he could not help reminding him of the things he had already forgotten after three hundred years. He looked sideways at Yin Hanjiang’s closed eyes, and a faint smile appeared in his eyes: “Protector Yin, do you know how happy I was when I walked past the mass grave and saw a pair of hands grabbing me?”
A hundred years ago, when Wen Renhe thought he had already forgotten what had happened, a small hand reached for the corner of his clothes. He took a child out of the pile of the corpses and touched his neck; it was not a beheaded corpse. After putting his ear to the child’s heart he heard a faint heartbeat of the child’s which sounded heavenly.
At that moment, the cold-hearted Wen Renhe held the little Yin Hanjing in his arms and tears fell from his eyes that he didn’t even notice.
It was as if the feeling of the powerlessness of the sixteen-year-old was being vented at that moment.
He finally saved a life.
Edited by: Ninja
Proofread by: Mari