Ze Tian Ji Chapter 731-732

Chapter 731 – The Black-Clothed Girl Walks Out of the Snow

Translated by: Hypersheep325

Edited by: Michyrr

“Does it really have to be this way?”

Chen Changsheng’s gaze looked across the lake.

The existence of these blue-clothed Daoists was no longer a secret. Many people knew that they were from the eastern capital of Luoyang, from a once-obscure Daoist monastery.

“I said before that I have never made any plans,” Shang Xingzhou replied.

Peaches and plums did not speak, but a path would form underneath them nonetheless1. The height of the sun decided the angle at which many plants grew.

For a powerful figure like Shang Xingzhou, no actions or plans needed to be taken on his part, and there would naturally be many people willing to kill Chen Changsheng on his behalf.

This was because he had already made his stance clear through many matters.

Chen Changsheng drew back his gaze to Shang Xingzhou and asked, “Even if it’s a war this time?”

According to the Pope’s dying wish, he had come to the Orthodox Academy to engage in this important negotiation with Shang Xingzhou, so he had naturally made arrangements.

The Li Palace was heavily guarded, and the Orthodoxy cavalry was ready to charge in at any time. When those blue-clothed Daoists had arrived by the lake, Mao Qiuyu and the others had probably arrived as well.

Most importantly, he was the current Pope. If Shang Xingzhou insisted on killing him, he would inevitably stir up a conflagration that would destroy the entire capital.

“I have many supporters in the Li Palace,” Shang Xingzhou calmly replied.

As the only Saint of the Great Zhou Dynasty, as the teacher of both the Emperor and the Pope, Shang Xingzhou already had an absurdly high reputation.

And he was also a member of the Orthodoxy’s legitimate line, so he had every right to be master of the Li Palace.

Let alone the normal priests of the Li Palace, even some cardinals and perhaps even some of the Five Prefects would be willing to accept his descent.

However, the Pope’s dying words and the means he had left behind were extremely unyielding, and the matter had already been announced to the world, allowing the Orthodoxy to maintain its unity.

If Shang Xingzhou was truly willing to take this risk, even if he could not personally attack, he still had enough strength to forcefully kill Chen Changsheng in the Orthodox Academy. As long as the act was fast enough and caused a small enough stir, what might happen next?

……

……

A snowstorm enveloped the capital and thus enveloped the Orthodox Academy. Together with this snowstorm, a dense mass of soldiers also surrounded the Orthodox Academy.

A girl walked out of the snow toward them.

She was dressed in black, her head slightly lowered. Her rather wide collar had become a black hood that obscured her face.

Miraculously, from the street to the entrance of Hundred Flowers Lane, not a single soldier had noticed her presence.

Only when she was close did the experts of the Imperial Court and priests of the Li Palace realize her existence through her footprints.

“Stop!” a person harshly yelled, either a general of the Imperial Court or a cardinal.

A major incident was highly likely to happen today, so the capital had descended into an extremely tense atmosphere. At this moment, a girl had suddenly walked out of the snow. Anyone would find it strange.

Upon hearing this voice, the black-clothed girl trembled. She continued to make her way into the lane, her steps even more hurried. She seemed rather scared.

Of course, this response could also be understood as arrogant.

“Are you seeking death?”

A sinister voice rose up from the shadows of the lane.

The buildings of Hundred Flowers Lane had already been leveled by the cavalry of the Imperial Court in the crises of the last few months. Only the shell of the tea house, which still had some commemorative value, remained standing.

Just as the girl walked past this building, that sinister voice spoke, followed swiftly by a cold and sinister sword glow as a shadow pierced towards her.

This sword glow was abnormally bright, yet it was unremarkable when mixed with the snow. Its sword energy was particularly frightening.

Even more frightening was that when this sword glow burst out, the shadow in the lane seemed to be exuding shards of starlight.

The Star Condensation assassin who had chosen to attack first was most likely from the Pavilion of Heavenly Secrets. As an expert that had just been subdued by the Imperial Court, they wished to prove their value as quickly as possible. Their encirclement of Chen Changsheng in the alley of the Northern Military Department had ultimately become a chaotic battle with no conclusion. Tonight, they did not want to miss out on another chance.

No could have imagined what happened next.

Nobody expected it, not the assassins in the lane, the experts of the military, the Guardians of the princely estates, or the Li Palace priests and experts of the academies at the end of the lane.

When the cold and sinister Qi arrived, the girl still had her head lowered, the face shrouded in the hood showing no reaction.

But then, the sword glow shattered into countless shards, vanishing into the night sky and truly mixing with the wind and snow.

The shattering here was a true shattering, as even the assassin’s sword had shattered, causing the sword glow to shatter with it.

There were very few people in the world that could deal with a Star Condensation assassin, and as for someone who could shatter the sword of a Star Condensation assassin…many people had never even heard of such a person.

This was not the true conclusion, as after the sword glow shattered, another similar object also shattered.

The assassin shattered.

There was a soft buzz.

A smattering of pink suddenly appeared in the snow falling over Hundred Flowers Lane as if someone had poured several large tubs of paint over it.

Immediately afterwards, several dozen chunks of meat rained onto the ground. Only with careful examination could one make out that these were the limbs and organs of some human.

A gale of blood and a rain of limbs—all this had happened in a brief instant.

Only after this could people clearly make out the scene.

The black-clothed girl still had her head lowered, her face still shrouded in the shadow of the hood and difficult to make out. However, she had extended a single hand forward.

This hand was very small and white, like a snow lotus. However, it was currently dripping with blood, creating a striking and ghastly sight.

At her hand’s current position was just falling snow, but it had previously been where the Star Condensation assassin was.

The dim lane was deathly still.

After a moment, several roars of anger mixed with shock rose up. An assassin from the Pavilion of Heavenly Secrets and two experts of the military transformed into three streams of snowy wind as they struck.

Plop plop plop. It was a sound like three ripe grapes dropping to the floor or three holes appearing in the ice.

These three streams of snowy wind instantly shattered.

These three experts of Imperial Court became three more rains of blood and shattered flesh!

No one could clearly make out what that girl had done, but in reality, she had done nothing at all.

She had just extended a hand into the snow.

The snow heeded her will to wipe out all that existed within it.

Then, she raised her head.

The black hood descended and her black hair fell like a waterfall, revealing the face of a young girl.

Her face was snow-white as if she had never seen the sun in her entire life. It was beautiful and elegant, but it also gave off an aura of biting cold.

Most striking of all were her eyes.

They had vertical pupils.

They were exceedingly monstrous and beautiful.

At this moment, her eyes were extremely perturbed.

There was reminiscence, unease, timidity, and also some madness.

This sort of eyes paired with her snow-white face stained with blood presented a most terrifying sight.

Suddenly, she stuck out her tongue and licked the blood on the corner of her lips.

This action made those experts hidden in the snow and the dark night feel a fear in the deepest depths of their soul.

______________

1. This line is from the ‘Records of the Grand Historian’. Its meaning is that though peach and plum trees do not intentionally draw people, their flowers and fruit result in people eventually treading out a path beneath them.↩

Chapter 732 – So She Thought (I)

Translated by: Hypersheep325

Edited by: Michyrr

The experts present were from the military, the Pavilion of Heavenly Secrets, and the Department for Purging Officials. They had experienced countless life-or-death battles and seen countless wretched sights. Logically speaking, the most terrifying of scenes should not have made their hearts beat in fear, yet this black-clothed girl licking the blood on the corner of her lips made them feel an unprecedented fear.

Some people of weaker will even began to tremble. This fear surpassed all experience and rationality and originated from the very depths of their souls. It was like countless years before they had even been born, this fear had been branded on their souls in the realm above the starry sky.

The girl stood in the snow, her feet bare, her ankles dragging along two chains. She looked just like a prisoner and was very easily pitied, but right now, everyone at the entrance of the lane did not have the mind to notice these details. They had already been frozen into blocks of ice by her eyes and her display of power.

In that rain of blood and flesh, those eyes of colored glass, whether they contained madness or unease, reminiscence or fear, transformed into only cold indifference.

An indifference towards death.

This was far too frightening. Just who was she?

Many people had already noticed that this girl possessed a pair of monstrously beautiful vertical pupils. Could this be some great monster that had hidden itself from the world? Was it somehow related to White Emperor City?

Some people subconsciously turned to the middle part of Hundred Flowers Lane. Xiao De, the strongest expert of the demi-humans’ middle generation, was currently there.

When these people turned to Xiao De, they were given yet another shock.

Xiao De was currently acting very strangely, as if he had been taken by some serious disease. His face was pale, and even in the late winter, he was constantly sweating. Countless streams of steam were rising up from his hair and leather gown and evaporating into the night sky, yet none of it could hide the shock and fear in his eyes.

As a great general of the demi-humans and expert of the Proclamation of Liberation, Xiao De naturally had confidence in himself. Even if he were facing off against the despair-inducing Wang Po who he had never once defeated, he would not have been frightened into this state…only when he had met the middle-aged scholar that was the Demon Lord by the stream in Mount Han did he have a similar reaction!

The crowd was stunned at this sight and once more called out a question in their minds.

Just who was she?

Everyone looked in horror at the black-clothed girl at the entrance of the lane.

Something unexpected occurred.

The girl suddenly bent over and began to vomit.

She was constantly vomiting as if only by vomiting out all the contents of her body would she finally feel comfortable.

After some time, she seemed to feel better and straightened her body.

But when she saw the mess on the ground, two red smears of anger appeared on her snow-white face.

She began to stamp her feet, grumbling about something the entire time as her black hair wildly danced around her. She looked just like a little girl that had been irritated or wronged and seemed very angry.

Her bare snow-white feet incessantly stamped on the snow, the chains constantly clinking.

Boomboomboomboom!

It was like thunder was constantly exploding in the lane. The snow shook and the world was uneasy. The cold air was incredibly compressed and then escaped into the distance.

An unimaginably powerful Qi appeared, tearing away at all things as she stamped her feet. Whether it was the softest snow or the hardest stone, whether it was the array just laid down last night or the old southern wall of Hundred Flowers Lane built three hundred years ago, it all fractured into the finest of pieces under this terrifying Qi.

The experts concealed in the snow and the darkness dared not linger. One by one, they were forced out and shot like arrows into the distance.

For a moment, the area outside the Orthodox Academy was filled with howls of air and panicked shouts.

After some time, the girl stopped stamping her feet. She stood with her head lowered, her chest slowly rising and falling.

The snow around the entrance of the lane had completely vanished, and the filth left by her vomit had also disappeared, leaving only the ground.

Ten-some deep cracks marred the ground, with hot air rising from all of them.

After venting her rage, she calmed back down. She was no longer so angry, but when she saw the blood on her body, her monstrous vertical slits once more blazed with the flames of anger.

This time, without waiting for her to move, the experts of the Imperial Court once more flew into the air in escape, wanting nothing more than to fly straight out of the capital.

Even the experts of the Orthodoxy surrounding the lane from the distance subconsciously retreated several dozen zhang.

Fortunately, she did not turn insane again, but maintained her composure.

With a glance, the bloodstains on her body were frozen into a sheet of frost by an extreme cold and rustled down to the ground.

This seemed like a very simple action, but in the eyes of the Star Condensation cultivators in the darkness, it was miraculous.

To be able to drop the temperature so much in such a short amount of time, just how much, and how pure, star radiance or true essence would be required?

Even if an expert of the Divine Domain like one of the Eight Storms could do this, who would waste so much star radiance or true essence to clean oneself?

The crowd was stunned once more, and once more called out that question in their minds.

Just who was she?

……

……

The black-clothed girl did not know what they were thinking, nor did she care. She was utterly unconcerned by their thoughts.

She walked forward into the lane, the chains on her ankles dragging on the ground behind her. Their clinking transformed into a thunderous boom.

The tea house that had accompanied the Orthodox Academy in its rise and fall, its ups and downs, and had witnessed many matches of the All-School Martial Exhibition, finally collapsed. The collapsing tea house was unable to send out any dust, because the moment it fell, a great snowstorm howled down from the sky and swiftly buried it under a thick layer of snow, covering the shattered stone and dust underneath.

She walked into the wind and snow, and the wind and snow gave way.

As a representative of one of the noblest and purest of bloodlines, as perhaps the only Black Frost Dragon that still remained on this world, she had always reigned over the wind and snow.

When she had climbed out of the abandoned well, she had not known where to go, so she had gone to the Orthodox Academy.

Of course, this was also because before the Green Leaf began to pull the chains from the stone wall, she had given her promise.

Though she had walked through the snow all the way from New North Bridge to here, she had never once felt cold. On the contrary, her cheeks were rather hot.

This was because freedom was truly a fine feeling, and it was also perhaps because she was going to see him as her free self.

But when she reached Hundred Flowers Lane, she felt unease and fear, because many people were hiding in the darkness.

These people could be considered experts of humanity. Although they were not enough to threaten her, they were quite enough to give her trouble.

But this had nothing to do with her unease and fear. She felt these things because…she was afraid of crowds.

Many, many years ago, when she journeyed from the warm seas of the south to this strange continent to seek out her father, she had once been surrounded by a crowd.

She did not like these human crowds to circle around her like ants. She found it rather disgusting, and it made her uneasy.

She felt that the explanation given by Chen Changsheng was quite correct. This was called ‘ochlophobia’.

She found it even more annoying that whether she was flying in the air or walking on the ground, some people would always point at her and yell, shout, or cry.

She did not understand—she hadn’t even done anything yet, so why were these humans crying?

Because they were weak and afraid? Then did that mean she should feel sorry for being strong?

So she thought.