20demayo Chapter 27 The Awakening Bell
Chapter 27 The Awakening Bell
"Ah! That guy named Ren Yaofei, what's with all this rambling nonsense about 'body'? Is he trying to use my body to revive his junior sister?!"
Once she understood, Mu Qingfeng subconsciously rubbed her cheek hard. The thought that the pale scholar had touched her face while fantasizing about her in place of his junior sister made her feel disgusted.
What a load of rubbish about being devoted! These men are utterly despicable...
"Miss Mu, don't be afraid, I will protect you," Gu Mingfeng said with a fawning smile as he leaned closer.
Mu Qingfeng turned her head away, ignoring one of the nasty men in her mind, and looked at her senior sister with a curious expression.
"Whether Kunko truly possesses the ability to bring the dead back to life, I do not know. However, someone once told me that for Kunko to emerge from its cocoon, it must continuously parasitize human bodies. The more people it parasitizes, the faster it emerges. Those bodies parasitized by Kunko will become highly poisonous, just like Kunko itself. Moreover, as long as their heads are not severed, these people will not die no matter how severe the injuries they suffer. However, once the parasitized Kunko dies, the body parasitized by Kunko will die a painful death, as if being devoured by a thousand ants."
"So, Lord Cui killed them to give them a quick death?"
She patted her junior sister's head reassuringly. As a woman herself, Fei Xi naturally understood her junior sister's disgusting points. She explained so much not just to make her junior sister understand Ren Yaofei's despicable nature, but also to tell her and the others that Cui Chou wasn't indiscriminately killing innocent people. Although Cui Chou acted wildly and erratically, his heart was far cleaner than many seemingly virtuous people in the martial world.
"I can't be sure if only the parties involved know for sure. However, looking at the entire martial arts world, only Lord Cui dared to stand up for these poor women, unafraid of bearing the infamy of indiscriminately killing innocent people, and even less concerned about being criticized behind their backs, just to give them a release."
After Fei Xi finished speaking, she glanced around at the various expressions on the faces of the people present. When she met Ji Shidi's gaze, she remembered more details about the Immortal Flower and Kun Ke.
In his past life, Junior Brother Ji was bitten by a Kunko while consuming the Immortal Flower. The Kunko's toxins actually inhibited the effects of the Immortal Flower. Fei Xi spent a long time researching to treat his injury before realizing that neither the legendary flower that supposedly enhanced internal energy nor the Kunko tribe's sacred treasure, the Kunko, were good things.
One is a poisonous flower that sacrifices its life for a temporary boost in cultivation; the other is a parasite covered in deadly poison.
Both are heinous poisons!
Ironically, both the martial arts world and the Kunke tribe regard this harmful and self-destructive thing as a treasure.
"What exactly is your relationship with Cui Chou?"
Gu Mingfeng, standing to the side, grew increasingly uneasy as he listened. He recalled how the girl in front of him at Beiliang Lake clearly recognized Cui Chou. Now, her words were blatantly defending Cui Chou's murderous acts. And what about Cui Chou being the only one in the martial arts world? Had this woman forgotten that the mad butcher had recently beaten her until she vomited blood?
In his view, Cui Chou was clearly a madman.
"Lord Cui is our Qingcheng Sect's savior."
Her thoughts abruptly interrupted, Fei Xi's lips curled into a slight smile as she glanced at the Prince Rui beside her. This guy was like a piece of chewing gum that she couldn't shake off; no matter how they tried to get rid of him, he seemed not to understand and stubbornly followed them.
He kept fawning over his junior sister, not giving up even when she ignored him. Fei Xi felt something was strange. She didn't believe that the arrogant Prince Rui was some kind of devoted lover. Why wasn't he going to settle accounts with the people he claimed had deceived him? Instead, he was lingering in Sanhe Town. What was his real purpose?
……
Feeling utterly fooled again, Gu Mingfeng felt a sense of unease, like a plant swaying in the wind. Just as he was about to press for more information about the life-saving grace…
Boom!
The sacred and resonant sound of the bell, like a grand and majestic bell, echoed throughout the entire town of Sanhe. Everyone seemed to be enlightened by the sound, and involuntarily stopped in their tracks.
Boom, boom, boom!
The bell tolled softly, like a morning bell or an evening drum, or a sudden, sharp rebuke. In the resounding chimes, one's soul seemed to be cleansed, and one's entire being purified.
Just as everyone was immersed in the three chimes, as if a door to their souls had been opened and they were savoring the moment, the clear, resonant voices of a group of scholars, like surging waves, rolled in from afar.
"...Heaven and earth possess righteous energy, which manifests in various forms. Below, it becomes rivers and mountains; above, it becomes the sun and stars. In man, it is called the vast and righteous spirit, which fills the boundless sky..."
As the Confucian scholars approached, Fei Xi and his group could see clearly that a group of Confucian scholars, led by Dongfang Rui, were carrying a large bell that was nearly ten feet long towards them.
The top of the bell bears the three large characters "Awakening Bell"!
The Confucian scholars were solemn and their steps were steady, as firm as Mount Tai. When they passed Fei Xi and his party who were making way for them, they did not look at them and were as solemn as statues.
As the recitation of the Ode to Righteousness concluded, a surge of powerful inner energy erupted from the Confucian scholars like a raging torrent. The massive and solemn Awakening Bell, amplified by this powerful energy, emitted a clear and melodious thud, as resounding as a grand, resounding bell.
When the sound of the awakening bell reached the ears of the people of Sanhe Town lying on the ground, it was as if a gentle spring breeze had dispelled the miasma within them. People gradually awoke from their coma, and as the Confucian scholars passed by, their eyes gradually became clear and bright. Their original confusion dissipated like smoke, replaced by a firm belief in living on.
The Confucian scholars recited classic texts aloud, their voices like thunder, resounding through the heavens, filled with righteous indignation. Each word was like a ray of brilliant sunlight, piercing through the gloom in the hearts of the people, cleansing their minds and bodies like sweet rain.
As the awakening bell continued to toll, righteous energy swept through every corner of Sanhe Town like a surging tide, as if to devour all the evil and filth within the town.
This tragic dead town from its past life will be reborn in the hands of the surviving people, like a phoenix rising from the ashes, full of vitality.
If there's anything else to regret, it's that a hundred coffins were laid out in front of Fei Xi.
Nineteen girls went missing, but there were actually one hundred victims!
In her previous life, Fei Xi had only heard her junior sister mention that a woman had been put into a bottle, but she never understood what it meant. It wasn't until she witnessed the horrific scene in the secret chamber that she realized how naive and arrogant she had been.
She had previously used her junior sister as bait, intending to lure out the pale scholar Ren Yaofei, whom her junior brother had mentioned, in advance, thus preventing the tragedy in the mist a few days later. Unexpectedly, not only did the other party successfully abduct her junior sister right under her nose, but he also laid out the Nightmare Bewildering Array beforehand.
She never imagined that Ren Yaofei would be so depraved as to cut off the limbs of 100 innocent women and pull out their tongues for his own perverse personal likes and dislikes.
Raising Kun doesn't require turning people into human pigs at all!
It turns out that Ren Yaofei kidnapped the women not only to obtain their blood to nourish the human-faced spider.
If only she had discovered it sooner... no...
Even if she knew it, she couldn't change anything. The safety of her sect was more important to her than to anyone else.
Fei Xi understood her choice, but as a human being, looking at the corpses filled with despair, she couldn't help but feel guilty. To the best of her ability, Fei Xi carefully drew portraits of each deceased woman and recorded their details.
Of those who reported missing family members, only eleven families went to the mortuary and took away properly prepared coffins. The remaining eighty-nine bodies, however, remained unclaimed, with no one willing to accept them.
Fei Xi led his fellow disciples to painstakingly dig eighty-nine pits behind the dilapidated temple. After the Supreme Lord Lai finished reading the eulogy, the eighty-nine women were finally able to be laid to rest.
The fact that the Immortal Flower had appeared in Sanhe Town was tacitly suppressed by those in the know.
Time flew by, and it was already Lunar New Year's Eve. The hottest topics in the entire Nanxuan City were Xuehai Academy and the Awakening Bell. From high-ranking officials and nobles to ordinary peddlers, everyone was praising Xuehai Academy for its righteous act of saving lives. There was even a theatrical troupe that rehearsed a play overnight, titled "A Confucian Scholar Fights Against a Demonic Cult, His Righteous Spirit Saves All Beings," which was said to have become the most popular play in Nanxuan City.
"Hmph, we all put in the effort, and Ren Yaofei wasn't dealt with by Dongfang Rui and his group. All everyone knows is that Xuehai Academy rescued him in the end—that's just unreasonable!"
"Junior Sister Mu, don't be angry, try this dish."
Having just recovered from a serious illness, Tie Yi smiled and placed what he thought were delicious dishes into Mu Qingfeng's bowl across from him.
The extra food in her bowl made Mu Qingfeng pout. Looking up, she saw a young man opposite her, now thinner than before. Her eyes flickered, and Mu Qingfeng resisted the urge to throw away the disliked fish. She looked at the boy curiously and asked:
"Even if you're not going back to Thunderbolt Fortress for the New Year, why did you come to our Qingcheng Sect's side?"
On New Year's Eve, at the Qingcheng Sect's headquarters, while the sect disciples were busy preparing the New Year's Eve dinner, pasting Spring Festival couplets, and hanging lanterns to decorate the sect's headquarters in a festive atmosphere, Tie Yi, the young master of Pili Fortress, arrived at the Qingcheng Sect's main gate with all the disciples of Pili Fortress in Nanxuan City, pulling 10 carriages loaded with New Year's goods.
"My life was saved by my senior sister, so from now on I'm practically a member of the Qingcheng Sect."
Recalling the large, dark crowd and the abundance of delicacies and rare treasures scattered on the ground that she had seen that morning, Fei Xi felt a little uneasy. If it weren't for the dazzling array of things on the ground, it would have looked like a fight was about to break out.
After much persuasion, they finally managed to convince the people from Thunderbolt Fortress to leave with their belongings. However, Tie Yi refused to leave no matter what. Looking at his slightly pale lips, Fei Xi could only nod helplessly and agree to let him stay and spend the New Year with them.
“We are all strangers in this land, so it’s alright if we don’t stand on ceremony. But Junior Brother Tie, there’s something I feel I must tell you. I saved you with a selfish motive. The injuries on your body were caused by the Heavenly Gang Palm technique of our Qingcheng Sect. If anything happens to you, our Qingcheng Sect will also be held responsible.”
Tie Yi knew perfectly well that the person who attacked him used the Heavenly Gang Palm. However, he didn't care. Ever since he regained consciousness and learned that he had almost been on the verge of death, and heard that his senior sister had led everyone through the formation and bravely fought against the human-faced spider, he had been filled with excitement.
He knew full well that the senior sister before him was no ordinary person. Seeing her so composed now, he felt even more that she was worthy of his sincere friendship.
“Even if nothing had happened back then, I, Tie Yi, still believe that everyone in the Qingcheng Sect is an upright and honorable person, and would never be a treacherous villain who would ambush me. Senior Sister, who doesn't have selfish motives? The fact that Senior Sister can tell me these things shows that Senior Sister truly considers me, Tie Yi, one of her own!”