Blue Phoenix

by Tinalynge

  “Young master.” The City Lord finally opened his mouth; his face was forced into a welcoming and polite expression, but Hui Yue could tell that he was not very used to greeting guests. This city truly seemed to be isolated from the rest of the underground world.

  “It would be our pleasure to allow for you and your…. friends…. to stay with us for as long as you wish. We are setting up a banquet tonight, perhaps you would like to join us?”

  Seeing as though he was contemplating, Hui Yue paused for a slight moment before a smile spread on his face. “That would be my honour, but for me to join, I wish to bring my friends with me. Being in a new place, they would never allow for me to go alone.”

  Such a request was only natural, and the City Lord had already guessed that he would have no way of inviting this boy with a decent cultivation technique, so he nodded his head in confirmation. Every time his eyes landed on Sha Yun, complicated emotions were visible on his face.

  There was a gleam of lust mixed with arrogance and curiosity. Sha Yun was clearly not your average human, but it seemed as though the City Lord did not think that she was a magical beast. It is possible she could be a human from another tribe where they had changed throughout the years.

  Wresting himself from his deep thoughts, the City Lord stood up and walked towards Hui Yue. His eyes glanced towards Sha Yun multiple times as though he could never get enough of seeing her, yet at the same time knew it was inappropriate.

  The snake-woman’s eyes were narrowed in displeasure, and her usually beautiful lips were curled up into a sneer.She felt deep enmity towards this City Lord who showed only the minimum amount of respect towards Hui Yue, but Sha Yun did nothing apart from sneering and glaring at the black-haired City Lord who was now advancing, soon to be standing next to Hui Yue.

  “We thank the City Lord for his generosity,” Hui Yue said with a clear voice, in no way intimidated by the taller and much more sturdy man.

  “Please, call me Liu Wei.” The voice was filled with friendliness and flattery, so much that Hui Yue fought hard not to roll his eyes at the older man. Instead, he clasped his hands and made a slight bow towards the City Lord, introducing himself, “I am Zhang Xiao.”

  Hui Yue did not have any positive feelings about these elders nor the City Lord, making him come up with the most generic name he had in mind. A sigh of relief was breathed internally as Hui Yue noticed how the others showed no surprise on hearing the name. Although these elders were no longer in their prime, they were still able to look through even small lies by observing the facial expressions of the ones in question.

  Hearing the name, Lord Liu Wei once more nodded his head as he spread his arms open in an attempt to seem even friendlier. “As long as you stay in my mansion, you are welcome anywhere you wish to go. The servants will help you find your housing.” He gestured to some of the servants. Hui Yue nodded as he got ready to follow them.

  “We’ll see you at the banquet tonight.” Hui Yue smiled as he turned around and moved away together with his friends.

  As soon as Hui Yue’s shadow vanished and he was out of sight, the smile vanished from the City Lord’s face, replaced by annoyance.

  “Why would so many high ranked experts appear here?” he asked with furrowed brows.

  “They must have come from beyond the tunnels,” another elder said, his face twisted in displeasure.

  “Beyond the tunnels?” Lord Liu Wei’s face turned ashen as he said the question, yet before any of the elders had time to answer, he shook his head, a determined expression appearing on his face.

  “They cannot have come from beyond the tunnels,” he said with a steady expression. “His group appeared from the forest side of our land. It would not have been possible for them to sneak across our entire city without attracting attention, so they must be from the forest. Could there be a village left within the forest that managed to salvage some cultivation techniques?”

  Hearing the suggestion, all the elders eye’s opened wide and one of them started panting slightly in greed. All of them knew how hard it was to cultivate with no techniques. Each person had to find their own way of cultivation, specialized for themselves, but their way was nowhere near efficient enough to allow for youngsters like Zhang Xiao.

  Finally, the elder seated right next to Lord Liu Wei sighed deeply as he said, “Let us see what they have to say during the banquet.” Hearing his voice, everyone present in the room nodded their heads in unison before they split up, deciding to get themselves, and the mansion, ready for the banquet they had promised the newly arrived guests.

  While the elders were discussing the newly arrived guests, the group of youngsters had followed the servant tasked to show them their courtyard. Looking around, Hui Yue had to admit that although this place was underground and a lot smaller than Riluo City, it was far from a small place and mapping out the area took him much longer than expected.

  The young people finally arrived at a courtyard where they all sat down quietly. The rooms were filled with memory stones which recorded anything that happened, yet fortunately enough these memory stones were not able to record audio, and they slowly started discussing their further plans now that they had finally found a place to stay.

  ….

  On the surface world a frenzied search had been going on for the better of four months, trying to locate one youngster who had disappeared from the face of the earth.

  This youngster was obviously Hui Yue, and the search was started by the royal family who wished to discuss which methods the white-haired youngster had been practicing, so that they, themselves, could hope to reach Saint rank at such a young age.

  At first the royal family assumed that the experts within Riluo City lied, as they felt embarrassed by having a King ranked expert killed by a mere Master ranked expert; however, as soon as they used the truth potions on these experts, they found that it was in fact a Saint who had appeared that fateful day. Unfortunately, this expert disappeared as quickly as he appeared.

  The royal family ordered everyone within Riluo City to keep quiet about Hui Yue and his rank; however, some rumours had already left the city, causing ripples to appear within the usually silent Taiyang Kingdom.

  Fortunately, these rumours ended as just that. Everyone heard about this amazing youth who had reached the Saint rank before he had been twenty years of age, yet no one knew where he was now nor if in fact this was true or not.

  Everyone quickly agreed that it was started by the experts of Riluo City for the sake of fame or to explain the disaster of a Great Hundred Names King ranked expert being killed by his son.

  The royal kingdom had sent a handful of their silent ravens to every corner of the kingdom, yet not one had emerged with even the slightest trace of the genius youth and his friends.

  “What do you mean he disappeared?” Zhong Fai’s voice was raised much more than usual; his handsome youthful face twisted in annoyance as the frozen man was standing in front of him, shrugging his shoulders.

  “We lost track of him after the battle for City Lord of Riluo City,” the frozen man explained once more. Although it was obvious that Zhong Fai was his superior, he showed no signs of fear upon seeing the agitated young man.

  “Good. Very good,” Zong Fai said while leaning back against his icy throne. His face was straight as he pondered slightly, and suddenly, a brilliant smile lit up the room.

  “Let us see how long he can stay hidden. Send the seven crusaders out to find him!”

  Chapter 103 - Being a Guest

  * * *

  Chapter 103: Being a Guest

  Seated within the courtyard Hui Yue let out a deep sigh as he no longer emitted the haughtiness from before, instead he once more seemed like a calm and collected youth who was stunningly beautiful but his noble air had dispersed.

  “We will have to stay here for some time,” Hui Yue said apologetically as he looked around, noting every location of the recording stones, then he started to destroy them, one after an
other with the help of Black Blood.

  Infusing it with spiritual energy, Hui Yue threw the dagger which landed on the stones with precision after which he recalled it by activating the spiritual energy that was stored within. Having removed every stone in their new residence, a big smile appeared on his face. A satisfied sigh escaped his lips as he leaned back against a tree, happiness evident on his face.

  “As far as we know, Sun should be within this city right now.” As they all sat down, Hui Yue stated their reason for entering the city.

  “At first I was slightly hesitant to enter this place because I feared our strength would not be enough, but looking at these cultivators I think we are safe, even though our foundation is still rather unstable after the spiritual energy spring”

  Pausing for a bit, Hui Yue looked around. “We need to find Sun, but we know nothing about her. We don’t know what she looks like, we don’t even know if Sun is her real name, nor do we know why they brought her here. All we can do for now is to slowly investigate in a way that they won’t guess that we are planning something.” Hui Yue looked stern for a short time as he knew that although they were higher ranked than the majority of the cultivators in the city, it would not be a great idea to abuse this strength to fight the citizens just because they had not been careful enough.

  “Let’s try and see how much information we can get from them tonight at the banquet. Then tomorrow we will try and enter the markets and see if we can buy some information. I am sure that everything we brought from the surface will be able to sell incredibly well in this place with such low cultivating.”

  The group all nodded their heads. Anything from inscriptions, even the weakest which could only spark a fire, to simple and weak martial art skills could all be sold for a fortune. One could guess how much they would be able to earn should they feel like selling cultivation techniques.

  Hui Yue was, however, not willing to sell anything which would change the lives of these citizens. He still felt guilty for providing the Deng family with the means to revolt, as he had given them the mechanism used in the watermills.

  Not only the Deng family but also the Rong family had changed severely due to the technology Hui Yue had given them from his old world. His sudden thought about sharing his knowledge, which he previously had given out because of gratitude, had changed the lives of thousands upon thousands of citizens within Riluo City, not to mention the many casualties a result of the war.

  Knowing that he was partly at fault caused Hui Yue to put himself at risk for the sake of ending the fighting in Riluo City once and for all. Although it ended with Deng Wu personally executing his own father and Wang Ju Long losing her father as well, Hui Yue knew that neither of them blamed him. But he still blamed himself, and this caused him to be much more tight-lipped with everything he knew. His knowledge was only for he, himself, to use, and in the worst case scenario he would share it with his very closest friends, but only if they were in a life or death situation.

  This was the reason Hui Yue only allowed Deng Wu and the others to sell items with next to no value on the surface when selling at the markets the following day.

  “Well, that is for tomorrow,” Hui Yue ended up saying, “Tonight we are going to be guests at the banquet so we better get dressed.” Hui Yue said laughing as he picked out a celestial blue cloak with silver embroiderys created with the finest materials which money could buy. Donning the celestial cloak, Hui Yue once more looked like a young master.

  Deng Wu could not help but laugh a little at the transformation. He then quickly picked out a black robe with a red belt that had red embroidery on the edges. This was also made from the finest material making Deng Wu’s status seem no less than Hui Yu’s.

  Wang Ju Long owned no clothes for women but she too dressed up in a beautiful golden robe with red and orange embroidery of phoenixes, causing Lan Feng to approve of her style.

  Looking at the three young masters Sha Yun snorted in disdain. She was an enchantress and she prided herself with her good looks, so when she removed her cloak she instantly found some jewellery which she wore on top of her alluring and scaled figure.

  ‘One day you ought to make some small snake-babies,’ Lan Feng said with a dreamy voice, as he enjoyed the exquisite beast in front of him. Even Hui Yue could feel a dangerous heat rising from within and he quickly looked away, much to Sha Yun’s displeasure.

  Coughing awkwardly Hui Yue turned back to see a knowing smile on Deng Wu’s face, a slight blush on Sha Yun’s cheeks as she looked at him coquettishly, and Wang Ju Long impatiently stomping the ground as she was everything but satisfied. As to why she was so unhappy, she blamed it on the stupid snake for showing off her figure. Although Wang Ju Long was a woman she would never try to be so alluring and for some way it rubbed her the wrong way every time Sha Yun caused the two men within the group to become strange.

  Hui Yue taking his cue from the stomping foot, instantly straightened out his expression and released the blue mist from within his dantian, allowing for his entire being to be enveloped in tranquillity.

  A sudden hint of a smile was visible on his face and his eyes once more had a haughty expression as though everything was beneath him. By his side were Wang Ju Long and Sha Yun while Deng Wu had decided to walk behind him, covering his back.

  Most people were unable to trust a person who had killed his own father, but Hui Yue trusted Deng Wu with his life. The young man behind him had the time to kill him multiple times yet he had never even told his secret to anyone. Although Deng Wu was a flirt he was reliable in the strangest situations and this was one of those. Hui Yue was willing to give his all for Deng Wu’s attempt to save his clan and in turn, Deng Wu was willing to give his life for the sake of Hui Yue.

  Deng Wu and Wang Ju Long had both been banished from Riluo City, but they managed to succeed in their goal of allowing their families to continue living and as such both were eternally grateful for Hui Yue and his assistance. Both had since then decided that the rest of their lives would belong to the white-haired boy, and to their surprise this young boy whom they followed was someone who would take them journeying across the land and exploring places no one else had ever seen.

  All these thoughts were swirling around inside Deng Wu’s head as he walked behind Hui Yue, and he firmly swore to himself that he would follow this young friend of his, even if it meant an early grave.

  Hui Yue, completely unaware of the important oath Deng Wu just made with himself, was chatting merrily with Sha Yun. During this time the air around him caused everyone within the City Lord’s mansion to not dare come close to him, as he moved closer and closer towards the Main Hall.

  The main hall which previously was just one empty room with five throne-like chairs at the back was now filled with one large table which was placed in a square in the middle of the room and cushions were placed on the floor all around the table, inviting the guests to sit down. The table itself was filled with all kinds of delicacies, and Hui Yue could not help but to feel slightly taken back by this banquet which they had managed to produce within such a short amount of time.

  Hui Yue sat down and noticed how the City Lord Liu Wei sat down next to him, Deng Wu quickly moved to sit by Hui Yue’s other side, not allowing for the elders to follow suit and isolate Hui Yue from his retainers.

  In the end Hui Yue had Deng Wu by his side who in turn was seated next to Sha Yun and then finally Wang Ju Long. On Hui Yue’s other side was Liu Wei and next to him the five elders in a row.

  Apart from these nine people were a lot of people of high status from within this interesting city, mainly noble families yet none of them peaked Hui Yue’s interest as they all relied on the lower dantian.

  Hui Yue was deeply confused as he did not understand why someone as strong as Sun would follow such weaklings to a city where they did not even seem to use her powers.

  “Perhaps you could enlighten me as to where you are from?” Liu Wei asked curiously, as he grabbed various trays
of food and offered them to Hui Yue who politely accepted.

  Hearing the question, Hui Yue could not help but chuckle slightly. “Where do you think I am from Lord Liu Wei?” The question completely took the city lord aback as he was quite shocked to not receive a straight answer. Currently the City Lord was certain that Hui Yue had not arrived from beyond the tunnels, yet he had no way of knowing where else he could have come from. This cave was known as the final destination within their world, yet somehow a person had appeared from out of nowhere, and he was not a nobody.

  “I would guess that you are from beyond the tunnels, yet I am curious as to whether or not I am correct,” The City Lord asked, trying to tempt Hui Yue into saying that he was indeed not from the tunnels, but to his disappointment the white-haired boy was not new to being interrogated, as he had experienced it a lot from his old girlfriends in his old world, and a complacent expression was visible on Hui Yue’s face as he answered “where else could we have come from?”