Immortal Mortal

A dull roar echoed through gorge; the Life Sucking Beast crumbled into Yan Qianyin’s embrace like a little kitten. She quickly sat down, and weakly said to Mo Wuji, “Quickly give me the remaining Ephemeral Life Pills...”

Five pills appeared in his hands, and were passed to Yan Qianyin. Mo Wuji decided that he wanted to keep two for himself. Although he could produce Ephemeral Life Pills, but there was a particular spiritual herb, Life Incubating Grass. This sort of spiritual herb was very expensive, and could not be easily obtained. Thankfully for the batches of Ephemeral Life Pill he had concocted so far, all the Life Incubating Grass was provided for by Yan Qianyin. But now that the Life Sucking Beast had been subdued by her, it would be difficult for him to get any more. Moreover, she only needed to take three Ephemeral Life Pills in her current state, taking five would just be wasting two pills.

Nonetheless, Yan Qianyin gobbled down all five pills handed to her, took out a piece of rope, and restrained the Life Sucking Beast with it, before sending the beast into the burlap sack on her back. After all that, she then said to Mo Wuji, “Even though it was a waste for me to eat all of the pills, but leaving a few for yourself would be of no use anyway. This sort of pills will lose its effectiveness soon.”

To this, Mo Wuji responded with a slight smile, not saying a word. He kept a few Ephemeral Life Pills not to consume them, but for research purposes. In this aspect, the Ephemeral Life Pill, a Tier 2 Mortal Pill, paled in comparison to the Elementary Life Pill, a Tier 7 Heavenly Pill that could be kept for prolonged periods of time.

As long as the Ephemeral Life Pill could be stored longer, instead of losing its effectiveness within a short period of time, then even if it cannot compare to the Elementary Life Pill, it definitely would not remain as a mere Tier 2 pill. Regardless of whether it would work, leaving a few pills to study did not hurt anyone. This was a habit that he had developed back on Earth: to research anything and everything to see if it had any value.

“Follow me inside. Even though the Life Sucking Beast has been subdued, we still have to keep our guard up.” Yan Qianyin did not carry blabbering on after this single sentence, simply signalling to Mo Wuji before entering the depths of the cave.

Mo Wuji had gone into a demonic beast’s cave before, back when he entered the Winged Sea Leopard’s cave with Ji Guang and co. The Winged Sea Leopard’s cave was messy and stank badly. But the Life Sucking Beast’s cave was not only spick and span, but also had a frightening density of spiritual energy, which even made Mo Wuji consider staying there to cultivate.

Tens of meters down the spotless passage of the cave, a broad stone pavilion appeared before them. The first thing that caught Mo Wuji’s eyes was a broken sword. This half was the blade of the sword, stabbed into the centre of the stone pavilion. It emanated a killer aura even after who knows how long it was there for.

“The Fallen Tune Sword?” Yan Qianyin gasped uncontrollably, immediately leaping in front of the broken blade in one bound.

“Senior apprentice sister Yan, what’s the Fallen Tune Sword?” Mo Wuji questioned as he walked beside Yan Qianyin. Her eyes ran up and down the body of the blade repeatedly, before she finally replied, “Do you know of the Hanging Sword Cliff of our Formless Blade Sect?”

“Yes I do.” Mo Wuji answered quickly. In the past he was actually threatened by Shi Jun that he would be thrown to the bottom of the Hanging Sword Cliff if the pill refining failed. After agreeing with her, he seemed to understand what was going on, and followed up with the question, “senior apprentice sister Yan, are you saying that this broken half and the broken half at the Hanging Sword Cliff are from the same sword?”

Yan Qianyin nodded, “You’re right, they are from the same sword. The one at the Hanging Sword cliff is the hilt, while the one here is the blade. You still can’t recognise it yet as you have not started training in swordsmanship, but once you do, it will become very obvious.”

Mo Wuji thought to himself, even if I had trained in swordsmanship, I would not recognise that they are from the same blade as I have never even seen the half at the Hanging Sword Cliff before. Perhaps he was the only one in the whole Formless Blade Sect that saw the blade of the Fallen Tune Sword first.

“Is this sword very famous in the Formless Blade Sect?” Mo Wuji asked again. If this sword wasn’t famous, half of it wouldn’t be hanging from the Hanging Sword Cliff, and the other half kept within the Formless Blade Mountain. Yan Qianyin squatted down, running her hands over the backbone of the Fallen Tune Sword’s blade slowly before replying with a sigh, “its owner was someone called Mo Luoqu, who was a good friend of Zhuo Wuhen, the founder of the Formless Blade Sect.” [1]

Wow, this guy actually has the same surname as me, Mo Wuji thought in his mind.

Yan Qianyin continued, “Rumor has it that the Fallen Tune Sword was broken by the Formless Blade, which was the personal sword of our sect’s founder.”

“Why did that happen? Weren’t they the best of friends?” Mo Wuji was puzzled by this new piece of information. Yan Qianyin remained in her squatting position, but her hands had left the body of the blade, “It was rumored that this all happened because of a woman called Fu Yanfei. This woman was originally Mo Luoqu’s lover, but as Mo Luoqu helped Zhuo Wuhen set up the Formless Blade Sect out of friendship, she began to interact with Zhuo Wuhen more and more. Zhuo Wuhen was much more interesting and humourous than Mo Luoqu, and in a short period of time, Fu Yanfei had a change of heart. Soon enough, she was in love with Wuhen and got together with him. Not only that, she went on further to to help him backstab Mo Luoqu. Deeply hurt, Mo Luoqu left with his half of the sword and fled. Who knew he never left the Formless Blade Sect, but came to hide the Formless Blade Mountain.”

Mo Wuji gave a cold snort, “Heh, so it’s a sh*tty vixen and an adulterous man. If this fickle minded woman was in my hands, I would definitely not give her any mercy. To have made such lousy friends and fallen in love with such a cheap woman, this Mo Luoqu must have been blind.”

Yan Qianyin did not know that Mo Wuji had been backstabbed by his lover before boing reborn into this word. His criticism of Mo Luoqu was actually directed at himself too. Hence, she stared at Mo Wuji and asked, “You’re a disciple of the Formless Blade Sect, yet you dare criticise your founder?”

“Hehehe,” Mo Wuji chuckled. “Senior apprentice sister Yan, from the tone that you’re using, don’t you despise Zhuo Wuhen too? I’m just a service disciple who has neither prayed to the founder nor truly entered the door of the Formless Blade Sect. How could I even be considered a disciple in the first place?”

Yan Qianyin stood up and replied, “I’m just recounting some past events. I didn’t use any sort of tone just now.” At this point, Mo Wuji could not bother to argue with her any longer, since she could speak with such a tone, it was obvious that she also thought that Zhuo Wuhen was a person of poor character. He believed that she would not go back to the sect to tell on him, a lowly service disciple, either.

Yan Qianyin spoke again, “But you’re about to become a pill refiner of the Formless Blade Sect too, and once you do so, you will have to pray to the founder and all past sect heads. When that happens, you will be an actual disciple of the Formless Blade Sect. Do you think that a disciple should insult their founder as a piece of trash?”

Mo Wuji’s gaze fell on the broken sword in the ground, and his voice became softer, “Kneeling down to pray to this sort of person is a real disgrace, so I won’t become Formless Blade Sect’s pill refiner any more. This way I won’t have to pray to anyone, so senior apprentice sister Yan, you don’t have to help me. I’ll just remain as a service disciple.”

It was not because of how morally upright Mo Wuji was. He simply hated people who betrayed their friends. This Zhuo Wuhen not only betrayed his close friend that helped him establish his sect, but also stole his friend’s wife at the same time. Someone who did such horrendous acts would already be considered as the scum of the world, but Zhuo Wuhen did not stop there. Together with Fu Yanfei, he backstabbed Mo Luoqu. He would rather cultivate elsewhere than to become the disciple of such a man.

Yan Qianyin was not bothered by Mo Wuji’s words, instead pointing at the piece of broken sword, “Since you empathise with Mo Luoqu that much, I’ll leave this half of the sword with you.”

“I don’t even train in swordsmanship, what use would this sword be?” Mo Wuji asked. He did not know much about swords as he did not train with them, but even if he could get a sword, it shouldn’t be a broken sword right?

“Whether you want it or not, it is up to you.” Yan Qianyin casually told him, before carrying on deeper into the stone pavilion.

After some thought, Mo Wuji bent down to grab the spine of the blade, drawing the broken blade out of the ground. To have established a sect, regardless of how good or bad he was, Zhuo Wuhen must have been a pretty impressive guy. As someone on par with Zhuo Wuhen in reputation, Mo Luoqu couldn’t have been that far off either, so Mo Wuji decided to keep this piece of the sword.

[1] Luoqu = Fallen Tune, and Wuhen = Formless. So the swords/blades were named after their owners, and the Formless Blade Sect was named after the founder, Zhuo Wuhen

[2] TL Note: we will be using italics to highlight the thoughts of the characters