It Takes All Sorts to Make the Martial Arts World.
Strangely, after his brief fight with Gu Feidi, when he returned to the camp, he was no longer troubled by insomnia and soon fell asleep wrapped in his blanket.
When he opened his eyes again, it was the next morning. Mei Shisan’s light patting on his shoulder woke him up.
Seeing Su Yang’s eyes open, Mei Shisan respectfully said, “Young Master, it’s time to go.”
His party of petal retainers had finished their preparations. Two of three elders who were more familiar with the terrain of the wasteland were studying the map to the rift valley. Su Yang saw that yesterday’s event affected no one, so he plucked up his courage, went to the lake to wash and tidy up. Ready to start the long journey.
On the other side of the lake, the members of the Tengyun Pavilion had also got up. They formed into small teams, discussing miscellaneous matters. It seemed that they wanted to search for traces of the sage’s tomb around this oasis.
These people didn’t know the plot, so it was normal for them to think that the tomb would be in this oasis.
Su Yang glanced at the stable by the inn on the opposite side of the lake. A slender woman with her back to him was feeding her horse.
He thought: Hormone enhancer supplements couldn’t be the norm in the Central Plains, right? Not only did Gu Feidi grow up so fast, even Pu Lingyun looks taller after only a few months’ absence!?
Then Xu Yunzhan came out of the guest house, went to the stable and said a few words to the woman. He raised his hand to tidy the strands of hair that were out of place and laughed tenderly.
Su Yang: “!!!”
Hold on, what is the meaning of your expression, Xu Yunzhan?
Pu Lingyun is your cousin…no, should this matter in this time period? The important thing is, Pu Lingyun, you are Gu Feidi’s future wife!
Furthermore, you will meet a lovely Lady Ying who you will cherish!
What’s the matter with you now?
The two talked in the stable for a while. Xu Yunzhan took the woman’s hand and went into the inn.
On the other side of the lake, Su Yang’s whole being was in a disarray under the first rays of morning sun.
Inside of his head: It appears that for the sake of passing inspection, there were a lot of changes made to the script. Has Pu Lingyun and Xu Yunzhan’s ‘love sprouting between cousins’ been removed?
No wonder the plot of Gu Feidi and Pu Lingyun’s alone time in the Sword Sage’s tomb was arranged to create opportunities for them!
Suddenly, Su Yang felt that his responsibility had unprecedentedly increased.
—What if he couldn’t push Gu Feidi and Pu Lingyun down the cliff together, Pu Lingyun’s affection would be captured by Xu Yunzhan, and the heroine would be gone!
Without the heroine’s role, what would happen to the plot where Gu Feidi got caught in the Evil Sect’s forbidden area? It would completely collapse!
Su Yang clenched his fists, punched the water hard, and quickly returned to his camp.
He summoned Mei Shisan and solemnly said, “Choose two people to stay at the camp, and we need to come up with a plan that leads Gu Feidi to the barren desert's rift valley by any means necessary!”
Mei Shisan was puzzled. “But Young Master, according to your deduction, the tomb is likely to be in that direction. Why do you want us to lead Gu Feidi there? It gives him the chance to steal the inheritance from under us.”
After thinking it over, Su Yang couldn't come up with any good excuse, so he pretended to be profound and insisted, “I naturally have my own plan. Anyway, all you have to do is to obey my order.”
Staying silent for a bit, Mei Shisan said, “Understood, Young Master.”
The members of the Evil Sect quickly packed up and left two petal retainers in secret, waiting for their return. The rest left the Willow Leaf Lake’s oasis and went toward the E’Luo Gui Faction’s territory in the north.
The petal retainer, who was familiar with the wasteland, said that based on the description of ‘rift valley with a river at the bottom’ given by Su Yang, the location was close to the Faction’s territory border.
The E’Luo Gui Faction’s territory was in the northwest, which was more remote than the Evil Sect’s. These people were a nomadic force in the Jianghu that opposed the Imperial Court, and their territory was almost on top of the ice field from the north.
It was said that this Faction was secretive and specialised in taming palm size, black and white boreal owls, which were used to deliver news. During the day, they released white boreal owls as they could hide in the snow desert with their white feathers, and released black boreal owls at night, which were hard to detect as they blended into the night sky.
When Su Yang first listened to his petal retainer’s lecture introducing the E’Luo Gui Faction, the first thing that came to mind was this brand of cold medicineI translated this into ‘painkillers’ before revision because this is what I take when I have a fever. They are called ‘白加黑’, literally means ‘adding black to white’. Supposedly for fever, headache, aching to your limbs, sneezing, runny nose, stuffy nose, cough and other symptoms. 
that was coloured white and black to indicate which one to take during the day and which one at night. The saying was: You take the white pill during the day, and you won’t doze off. You take the black pill at night, you will sleep soundly…
He thought: This was really a fictional world. It takes all sorts to make the martial arts world.
What he did not know was that, while he was complaining about these unworldly ‘black and white boreal owlsBoreal owls in Chinese is a combination of ghost and owl 鬼鴞, the ghost matched the E’Luo Gui Faction’s ‘Gui’. Maybe this Wuxia world doesn't have a classification for the birds, but it does exist in the real world.’, the particular strange bird was spreading a piece of information around the desert.
What the Sword Sage left behind was something that all forces in the Central Plains wanted a piece of. But what they feared the most was the forces behind Wulin Alliance Leader’s back, the Tengyun Pavilion, and its close ally, the Village of Mount Qianfeng, joining hands. With such an enormous force taking part in the search, it would be very difficult for the smaller sects to get in on the action and take part in the profits. Small sects would rely on sharing information and news among themselves, even if it meant handing the inheritance over.
This news, which was distributed from an unknown origin, just solved the dire situation that all the small sects were in.
“What is this? The Young Lord of the Tengyun Pavilion and the Young Master of Evil Sect had a private meeting by the banks of Willow Leaf Lake at night? Was the chat pleasant?”
“I heard they entered the House of Jade together, I can guess the result already! Just like the time when our current Wulin Alliance Leader and the Evil Sect’s Leader were in their youth, and caused so much trouble during that period as well…”
“Hush! Don’t bring that history up, you need to watch out for…”
“So now history is repeating itself, the Tengyun Pavilion is once again mixed up with the Evil Sect?”
“Looks like we can’t obediently follow that Young Lord of the Tengyun Pavilion anymore!”
“That’s right! A young man’s heart is uncertain. What if the Evil Sect bewitched him? We would be in danger!”
“So we must unite, we might have a chance competing with the two…”
This piece of information met the needs of every small sect, so it spread very quickly. Within a day, countless versions of it had been circulated all over the wasteland, including some new inferences that were more…inappropriate for younger readers.
“I heard that two years ago, during the House of Jade’s selection, that demon spawn was flirting with the Young Lord!”
“I heard that two months ago, a certain sect that the Evil Sect captured was suddenly released. From what I see, I fear that the Evil Sect’s Young Master dismissed his harem to win the Young Lord’s favour.”
“I heard that two days ago, Su Yang met with Young Hero Gu. They started a fight, but Young Hero Gu looked as if he wasn’t fighting back. He even blocked an arrow for Su Yang at the end of the fight and let him escape!”
Of course, no one dared to gossip about this scandal in front of Gu Feidi and Su Yang, but the Tengyun Pavilion and the Evil Sect had their own ways of obtaining information. So the next day, both Su Yang and Gu Feidi learned different versions of the gossip in different ways.
Su Yang was spraying saliva on the face of the petal retainer who reported this to him in anger.
“What!” He coughed a few times, fury in his eyes as he gritted his teeth. “How did the news get passed down to this? Who on earth created this rumour?!”
The petal retainer, keeping a calm and respectful expression while water droplets rolled down his face, said, “This subordinate dug into this. The original source of information was from the Wujiang Sect. They only spread your meeting with Young Hero Gu that night. The rest were probably spread falsely by other smaller sects.”
Su Yang’s eyes narrowed. “The Wujiang Sect?”
The petal retainer answered, “Correct. The Wujiang Sect has always been known for its well-informed and quick communication. This time, they spread the news first in the wilderness.”
This god damned sect!
Su Yang cursed in his dark inner thoughts.
This strange argument actually spread, even though he walked so carefully in the plot. This simply blocked all of his survival routes!
What if Gu Feidi also heard this news, and it accidentally drove a deeper rift between his and Pu Lingyun’s relationship! What would happen if she really fell into Xu Yunzhan’s arms instead?
Absolutely not! He needed to speed up the progress of searching for the rift valley. Gu Feidi and Pu Lingyun must fall off the cliff and have their alone time as soon as possible to cultivate their feelings!
But now that he mentioned it…He couldn’t imagine what kind of expression the old-fashioned Gu Feidi would make when he heard the rumours...
It was blank.
Gu Feidi made an expressionless face.
He raised an eyebrow and glanced at one of his guards, who returned to report to him the gossip. He said indifferently, “I see, you may step down.”
The guard left as he was ordered.
Xu Yunzhan looked at Gu Feidi with a complicated expression and asked, “Aren’t you angry?”
Gu Feidi replied, “The righteous members in Wulin love to add the finer details into a story, to make it more interesting. Many news stories have gone wrong at the end of the day. This won’t be the first and neither will it be the last.”
Smiling, Xu Yunzhan said, “I’m asking you, aren’t you mad about the Wujiang Sect’s way to spy on you?”
Gu Feidi didn’t answer right away, no indication was shown on his face.
He mumbled, “I didn’t agree to the involvement of the Tengyun Pavilion and the Village of Mount Qianfeng with the Sword Sage’s tomb from the start. But everyone in the Pavilion hopes I will be the one who gets the inheritance, even my father hopes I can establish my footing in Wulin as soon as possible. Both my hands are tied.”
After a pause, he added, “Those smaller sects are worried that we will take the plunder, and will do everything possible to find a reason to temporarily oppose us. From your experience, you should have expected as much.”
This made Xu Yunzhan laugh. “I didn’t count on them to be working with us. But I didn’t expect you to meet him in private late at night by the lake.”
Hearing this, Gu Feidi raised his eyebrow again and teased, “Listening to what you said, you make it sound like he is some kind of enchantress.”
Xu Yunzhan shook his head and smiled. “I jest.”
After a moment’s pause, Gu Feidi said, “Maybe he had a hidden motive for massacring the Wu Household.”
Xu Yunzhan pried, “Was that what you talked with him about that night?”
Gu Feidi didn’t speak, so Xu Yunzhan took his silence as a confirmation.
“His nature isn’t bad, but his identity is.” Xu Yunzhan said fondly, “You and I have our own responsibility. I trust you won’t act on impulse, you won’t want to lose a great deal through trying to save a little.”
Gu Feidi still remained quiet.
He lowered his gaze toward his hands that gripped the reins.
The tough leather wristband covered parts of the back of his hand. The skin was lined with a layer of colour from his hardships. Crossed between the green of youth and grey of maturity, full of vitality.
After four hours, they traveled around a rugged terrain of strange rocks, and they faced smoke and dust everywhere. It seemed that several groups were fighting.
A very eye-catching nimble red figure danced among the crowd, fighting one against three, but he showed no weakness at all. One attack after another, as if he was a cat playing with his food. But for an unknown reason, he stayed in his unlocked cage. Instead of looking like he was trapped, he looked like he was waiting for something…or someone.
Gu Feidi frowned slightly and as he was about to command his horse to go forward, Xu Yunzhan stopped him and asked, “Who are you going to help?”
Gu Feidi stayed quiet.
Xu Yunzhan continued, “The Wujiang Sect, Tongyun Monastery and Xuanji Temple have a good reputation in Wulin. If you want to help Su Yang, you must fight against them. Why don’t we wait and watch first?”
Gu Feidi closed his eyes and said in a slightly deeper voice, “I naturally would want to help the party from the Central Plains.”
At this time, Su Yang was twirling around with the three men who besieged him, trying to drag the ‘fake match’ on and hurting no one’s life.
This was not the first enemy he came across along the way.
Those sects that he encountered before were small scale, and most of them that dared to challenge his party did so because of their superiority in numbers. He already planned to stop a few en route. His ultimate goal was to wait for Gu Feidi and his party to catch up and arrive at the rift valley together.
This time, however, they met a group of opponents who were not as easy to fend off.
According to Mei Shisan’s warning, this time the Xuanji Temple and the Tongyun Monastery besieged them, second to that of the Tengyun Pavilion and the Village of Mount Qianfeng. They even conveniently brought along the Wujiang Sect, the one that specialized in spreading information. Fortunately, there were no elders in charge. There were only hall leaders, high-ranking advisors, and chief of guards. It was not too difficult to defeat them.
It was just that he didn’t want to kill anyone, so there was only a tiny bit of wiggle room for him.
During the fight, everyone in the field keenly caught the sound of approaching horses’ hooves.
Gu Feidi, dressed in white, rushed into the arena. He drew his sword and aimed at Su Yang. As soon as he entered the battle, he pushed the three men aside to face Su Yang by himself.
Su Yang barely blocked Gu Feidi’s attack, but he didn’t appear depressed at all. Instead, his eyes lit up.
—You’re finally here! I’ve been waiting for you!
That lit up expression is gonna cause so many misunderstandings can’t wait for it