Ch. 115 – Endless Vitality
Feng Ye clutched his chest, trying to calm his wildly-beating heart. But those inexplicable feelings stirred restlessly within his blood like a stream flowing through the woods, ever in motion.
Yet the power of that stream was limited. It couldn’t sweep away a dam built of stone, let alone the barrier built at the threshold of Feng Ye’s heart.
Feng Ye turned his head away, avoiding Hao Chen’s gaze.
The surging of his blood subsided along with the gradually calming wind. The clouds had scattered away under the force of the gale, and moonlight spilled across the earth.
Cao Zirui quickly picked up the compass and seized this opportunity before it could pass them by.
After the wind subsided, the Peng bird had silently scattered into feathers under the cover of night, returning to Hao Chen’s hand. When he brought that hand back in front of him, the folding fan looked just as it always had.
Hao Chen fanned himself leisurely and followed Fang Yang over to Cao Zirui’s side, along with the now composed Feng Ye, to watch as he operated the compass.
After absorbing the essence of the moon, the motionless arrow of the compass suddenly began to rotate, alternately fast and slow. Cao Zirui wandered back and forth with the compass in his hand, heading whichever way the needle spun the fastest.
The group followed Cao Zirui in a wide circle. The arrow spun faster and faster, until at a specific spot at the edge of Nine-Step Cliff, it spun faster than ever before.
“This is it!” Cao Zirui exclaimed excitedly, looking down at the ground beneath his feet.
Feng Ye followed behind Cao Zirui and observed the terrain before him. It was certainly rich in vitality, but everything around it was equally lush, and he was unable to determine which spot in particular had the most life to it.
But the compass could. This must be the place where the vitality was most concentrated.
Feng Ye crouched down and scooped a bit of soil into his palm, rubbing it between his fingertips. The Living Soil must be here, but it wasn’t above the surface.
The vitality of this area was only high relative to other places, nowhere near the level of the regenerating Living Soil, which must be hidden deeper down.
“Let me use your scabbard for a second.” Feng Ye held his hand out toward Fang Yang.
Fang Yang gave an “oh,” then undid the strap tying his sword across his back and grabbed the hilt, sliding the scabbard off before handing it to him. Feng Ye then used the scabbard like a shovel, scooping away the soil.
When Fang Yang realized what he was doing, he immediately used his iron sword to do the same.
The digging went quicker with two of them. Cao Zirui held the compass, closely observing the movement of the needle, while Hao Chen alone stood idly in place.
But Hao Chen felt no shame. After all, he didn’t have a sword. Surely they didn’t expect him to dig with a folding fan?
This was the excuse he came up with, but in reality, he could have borrowed Cao Zirui’s sword if he actually wanted to help.
He didn’t want to.
His lazy and obsessively hygienic nature reared its head, and Hao Chen relied on his thick skin to crouch down beside Feng Ye and shamelessly fan him while he dug.
When the dirt had been mostly loosened, he waved his hand and sent a cloud of dust flying up.
“Cough, cough.” Feng Ye covered his mouth and nose.
Hao Chen sent him a guilty, apologetic smile.
Feng Ye glared back at him.
“Stop!” Cao Zirui suddenly shouted.
Fang Yang paused in the middle of his enthusiastic digging, and Feng Ye and Hao Chen looked over.
Cao Zirui stared at the continuously spinning arrow and murmured: “This is the Living Soil.”
“This is it?” Fang Yang lowered his head and gazed at the half-meter-deep pit they had just dug.
The soil on the surface was a yellow-ish brown, but as they dug, the soil underneath had gradually turned reddish-brown.
As he spoke, Fang Yang reached out to touch that darker soil, but Feng Ye stopped him.
Fang Yang sent him a puzzled look, but Feng Ye didn’t explain. Without a word, he reached out and took a pinch of it, rubbing it between his fingers.
He could indeed sense an incredible vitality within this soil, constantly renewing and seemingly inexhaustible.
But….a deep furrow appeared between Feng Ye’s eyebrows. He could faintly sense that something else lay beneath that vitality.
It was deeply hidden, and Feng Ye hadn’t actually detected the thing itself. He just had an intuitive feeling that it was there.
Feng Ye gave it some thought, then suddenly unwound the bandage from around his left palm and deliberately tensed the muscles there, causing the wound to split open.
Hao Chen gave him a look of reproach when he saw what he was doing, but was too late to stop him.
A single drop of blood trickled from the re-opened wound and fell straight onto the soil below.
Red blood soaked into the brownish-red soil, and in the blink of an eye, it vanished without a trace.
The process was so quick that Fang Yang and Cao Zirui barely managed to catch a clear glimpse.
Feng Ye and Hao Chen looked up at the same time and exchanged a glance. Both wore the same expression of grave alarm, and saw the same answer in each other’s eyes.
The moment that drop of blood soaked into the soil, the thing that lay beneath the dense aura of vitality showed itself for a brief moment. It was only a trace, but even that much was enough to give them a clear answer.
It was…..resentful energy. An immeasurable pool of resentment hidden beneath an equally immeasurable vitality.
Although the snake pit was used by the people of Western Qiang as a method of worshipping the serpent god, it was also a very cruel form of punishment. The victims were bitten by snakes, but didn’t die immediately. Various toxins were injected into their bodies, causing their nerves to break down and their blood to coagulate.
Some venoms caused almost instant death, while others inflicted pain and itching so intense that the victims clawed at their own bodies until not a single patch of intact skin remained, leaving behind a heap of mangled, bloody flesh.
Such an agonizing death gave birth to extraordinarily powerful resentment in the victim’s final moments.
The bodies of those unjustly killed decomposed in the soil, but their undying resentment lingered on for thousands of years.
The true source of the Living Soil didn’t lie in the nutrients provided by those corpses. At least, not entirely.
The Living Soil got its name because of its inexhaustible vitality, but that ‘life’ wasn’t exactly what ordinary people imagined it to be.
No amount of corpses were able to provide infinite nutrients, and although the soil here was indeed fertile, it fell short of endless vitality.
But resentment was different.
Resentment gathered here, and instead of dissipating, it grew in power over time. This was the true nature of the Living Soil, its vitality nothing more than a shell for the ceaseless flow of resentment.
When it encountered blood, its bloodlust exposed its true nature.
The answer to the question of what went wrong one hundred years ago had finally been found: the problem lay with the Living Soil.
Such soil contained an enormous amount resentful energy, and as Jianmu absorbed its vitality, it inevitably absorbed the resentment as well.
Trees had no emotions, and this resentment and hatred normally wouldn’t have affected Jianmu.
However…..Jianmu had fused with a human heart.
This heart may have originally been pure, but without its owner’s knowledge or awareness, it had absorbed more and more of the resentment and hatred felt by the human sacrifices in their final moments.
Like attracts like, and the resentment of the mortal world called out to the resentment that made up the Emberless Horizon, opening a pathway to it.
Feng Ye was ultimately alerted by this situation, which led to the tragedy of Jianmu collapsing into the Eastern Sea.
This also explained why the small island created by the Living Soil that Ling Yun scattered in the sea was destroyed after being scorched by heavenly fire, and also why there was nothing unusual about the Jianmu fragment itself.
The resentment lingered, but heavenly fire was the nemesis of such dark energy. So when that resentment was scorched away, the Living Soil lost its regenerative properties and reverted back into ordinary soil, while Jianmu was purified and reborn.
“Shixiong, what’s wrong with the Living Soil?” Fang Yang couldn’t help but ask.
Feng Ye and Hao Chen both wore solemn expressions. There was no need for discussion between them, because they had already reached a tacit understanding.
But Fang Yang and Cao Zirui were still in the dark. They had failed to notice the brief upwelling of resentment, and had no idea of what was going on.
“It’s nothing.” Feng Ye didn’t offer up an explanation. He clapped his hands to brush off the dirt clinging to them and instructed: “Dig out all of this reddish-brown soil.”
“Ah? All of it?” Fang Yang was a little perplexed.
There was actually not a large amount of the Living Soil, and if they were to dig it all up, it would only amount to about ten or fifteen catties.
They didn’t actually need that much. Although Fang Yang didn’t know why his Useless Shixiong had come looking for the Living Soil, it had to be for the sake of cultivating some sort of spiritual plant. Even Jianmu, a towering tree that pierced the sky, only required a small amount of the soil.
Just digging up a small handful would be enough. Draining the pond to catch the fish wasn’t the right way to go about it. Just like Ling Yun hadn’t taken all the Living Soil for himself back then, they should leave some of this treasure for others to find.
Taking all of it was a little…..too greedy.
Fang Yang’s expression turned hesitant, and Cao Zirui shared the same view. He said: “Isn’t taking all of it a bit too much…..”
But Feng Ye’s decision was set in stone, and he repeated: “All of it.”
Cultivating ordinary plants in such resentment-steeped soil might not cause any problems, but if a plant or tree spirit were to form here and develop the seven emotions, it would inevitably be affected by the resentment just like Jianmu after it fused with Ling Yun’s heart.
Even if it lacked Jianmu’s ability to connect to the Emberless Horizon and the heavens, it was impossible to foresee what consequences might arise.
For this reason, Feng Ye had to destroy the Living Soil before the resentment within it could grow as powerful and destructive as that within the Emberless Horizon.
As for the method of destruction, hacking and slashing at it would do nothing. The only option was fire – heavenly fire.
But Feng Ye carried nothing to spark heavenly fire, and he wasn’t even responsible for starting that blaze one hundred years ago. That heavenly fire had ignited due to the intense heat created when the rapidly collapsing trunk of Jianmu chafed against the spiritual energy of the heavens like flint and stone.
Heavenly fire was not something that just anyone could ignite. Feng Ye couldn’t do it, and Hao Chen certainly couldn’t either. That fish was already half-dead from the dry air. If he tried to play with heavenly fire, which was thousands of degrees hotter than a normal flame, he would likely turn into a dried fish.
However, Feng Ye knew exactly who to go to for heavenly fire. He needed to take this Living Soil back to the heavenly realm.
Despite Feng Ye standing by his decision, Fang Yang and Cao Zirui didn’t immediately obey. Hao Chen patted the two of them on the shoulder: “Listen to your shixiong. He has his reasons for doing this.”
It was true that his Useless Shixiong wasn’t a greedy person. Fang Yang wondered what secrets were hidden in the Living Soil, but his Useless Shixiong refused to reveal anything to him and Cao Zirui, leaving them in suspense.
Fang Yang let out a sigh, then picked up the hilt of his sword and began to dig.
Cao Zirui gave it some thought, and ultimately chose to trust Feng Ye. After all, this was the person who had saved him. Taking a cloth bag out of his storage pouch, he began to help Feng Ye collect the soil.
As the two boys got to work, Feng Ye was not idle himself. He picked up his scabbard and set to digging beside Fang Yang.
Hao Chen stood to the side, waving his fan. Once again, he was the only one with nothing to do.
He would never be caught digging in the dirt. There was absolutely no way he would ever do such dirty, exhausting work, not even if you broke his legs.
He couldn’t use his fan to help from the sidelines. Hao Chen had already learned his lesson.
So…..what else could he do but stand around with nothing to do?
Hao Chen propped up his chin on the handle of his fan, deep in thought.
As he pondered, his gaze drifted to Feng Ye’s face. He noticed a smudge of dust there, and instinctively started to lean forward to wipe it off.
However, when his hand was only halfway there, Feng Ye turned his face with a frown. His gaze was piercing and vigilant, so sharp that the instant their eyes met, it felt like being pierced by a blade.
Hao Chen was momentarily stunned, but he realized something in that instant.
This was how someone looked at an enemy.
And he saw the silhouette of that enemy in Feng Ye’s pupils – standing right behind him.
Hao Chen abruptly turned his head, looking up at the man who had appeared like a ghost at some unknown moment and now stood up in a tree, swaying along with the branches that shifted in the wind.
Ling Yun.
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