31 Lost in the Sea

"Kid!" the elder rushed towards me immediately.

He first felt my vitals but everything was intact and there seemed nothing wrong with the flow of both my qi and heartbeat. It was a relief on my part but not his own disciple. Though the man had other plans in mind first.

"Kid!" he shook me violently, almost resentfully. "Why did the beast call you Yugrus? Answer me! Don't die on me now!"

He kept shaking me uselessly. My consciousness was not close to restoring itself.

I heard him from beyond, in a muffled voice, he called me but I only listened unresponsively. My awareness was slowly fading anyway, but I yet managed to listen to the sounds around me.

"Lei Ba?" another person entered the premises after discovering the residue of the battle.

The old man stood up defensively, his eyes peeled and spelling animosity towards the trespasser.

"Master Gudu?" he recognised him immediately.

"Who are you?" he asked him, cutting to the chase.

"I'm Shui Wu" the man cupped his fist in respect and bowed his head.

"Leave this area now."

"I'm sorry master Gudu but this junior is actually looking for—"

His eyes strained at the body beneath the feet of the old master. His heart pounded quickly upon laying them on it.

"Master Lei Ba!"

Shui Wu attempted to go near me but Xing Chen barred his way. The weaker cultivator backed away with arms up, unsure what to do.

"Shui Wu…I heard you saying my son's name" more people brushed past the bushes. "Did you find him?"

They froze upon seeing the bodies. One of which they could link to me.

"LEI BA!"

My mother jumped over to me and hugged my unconscious state. Gudu did not threaten her unlike the Shui clan member whom he had no trust after what happened a few years back.

My father joined my mother in the sobbing. Yun and Ling stood in the back, Ling crying on his shoulder after seeing the scene.

"Friend Qi Tian…we meet again…under unfortunate circumstances" Gudu talked to him, but the hint in his tone did not suggest he was apologetic.

"M-master Gudu…please" Qi Tian wiped the tears off his face, "tell us what happened."

He approached them and moved them away from me, somewhat cruelly.

"You are his parents, correct?"

There was no mistaking it. They nodded, tears still wetting their cheeks.

"Tell me" Gudu leaned down and caught me by my loose trousers with his hand. "What is it you know about the name Yugrus?"

As he awaited their response, he walked towards his profusely bleeding disciple and peered woefully down on him.

He sighed.

What he was going to reveal now, he had skilfully but tiringly hidden for at least seven years.

He struggled a bit, but the sleeve of his tugged arm eventually tore apart like paper and his wounded hand dangled outside of his robe. It was charred, completely black like the texture of charcoal and had a rotten smell emanating when exposed to the air.

Among the confusion of the question he asked them, all the people present in the clearing of the forest gasped at that horrible sight.

"What does the name mean to you?" he reasserted.

"N-nothing...what does it have to do with anything? Tell us what happened with our son."

"No! If you can heal him, do it first."

He did not answer Bai Ling's request.

Like he did me, he caught Chu Qiang by the end of his robe and heaved him carefully with his destroyed hand. It made a small crack upon the applied pressure.

"I don't have time now" he faced the sun, where the city would be normally at this time of day. "When the sun retires and the moon takes over, meet me where it all began. Where I met you all."

With that he jumped away, disappearing behind the foliage of greenery, leaving the rest to weep among themselves.

"Oh dear" she kept crying shrilly.

"Calm down, Bai Ling" he was soothing her. "I'm sure everything will somehow turn out to be fine."

She dug her face into his arms and cried her heart out.

Wu still occupied the last spot he was standing in, his gaze could not disconnect from the sight of my body limping under Xing Chen's grasp. Of all people, he was the only one who knew that I had been training with expectancy.

"Is this what you meant by a few months left to prepare?" his mind explored back the time when we trained. "Just what kind of monster were you fighting, young master?"

Beside him, my two childhood friends lingered still, a fair share of tears spilt as well.

"Sister Ling" he was grabbing her as she tried to run after the master. "I'm sure this old man will know how to take care of him."

"No, no. You don't understand" she struggled more but Yun's strength was far greater than hers. "He can't die! I still haven't apologised! If he dies then I won't have time to tell brother Lei Ba of my feelings towards him."

Yun kept hold of her but spoke no longer.

"Let me go after them!"

───────────────────

About half a double-hour later, Gudu Xing Chen had finally reached the gates leading to TianJin city.

He was breaking the sound barriers with the speed he was performing in that moment. But in order to enter, like all other people, he needed to stop at the gates for them to allow him entry without creating trouble.

"Halt!" one of the guards screamed at him just as he was a few paces away from them.

"Quickly" he showed them whom he carried and in what state they were. "Move aside!"

The guards looked horrified by the wounds on Chu Qiang but even more so by the one covering his own arm.

"I SAID QUICKLY!" the iron bars rattled behind them and they flustered.

"But, we have to make sure of your identity—"

"I'm Gudu Xing Chen, the lone master of Star Mountain. If you know what is good for you, allow me entry immediately. If the two I carry die because of you, I will kill all your clans in retribution!"

Without hesitation, they moved aside. The mention of the name was enough to spike the fears of his threats coming true. Even if he wasn't whom he claimed to be, they couldn't risk finding it out after the damage had been done.

Gudu crossed without sparing them a glance.

"Who are the two injured people with him? One looked like he was in his late twenties while the other was still a kid…" they discussed.

"Didn't you see his right arm?" one of them pointed out.

"En. What of it?"

"Don't you know what this means?"

The other guards shook their heads in ignorance.

"If this is really Gudu Xing Chen, then after the information of the state of his arm gets out, other masters will try to attack him" the one guard explained.

The others seemed more confused about the theory of his. Dumb looks were exchanged.

"Ugh, you fools! Everyone knows that the lonely star is a master with countless treasures and techniques he has hoarded for himself. He is one of the pillars of this city" he grabbed his chin carefully, thinking more about it. "If I am not mistaken, one of the cultivators he was carrying must be his disciple, Chu Qiang. If both of them are this injured, then a conflict will definitely happen."

"Oh…" they understood more. "But what of it?"

The smart guard wished he could throw them off the edge of the mountain and be done with their idiocy. He slapped his face and cursed under his breath.

"So…imagine if the other masters heard this information from us? Wouldn't we be rewarded appropriately?"

It took them a while until they finally linked the dots and formed greedy expressions on their faces. Their grins almost reached their ears.

"Good idea!"

"Naturally, I'm the smartest among you…"

"Sure, if you say so."

The guards left their posts and headed each in the direction of a different peak.

───────────────────

It was nearing night when the sun had barely sunk behind the peaks surrounding TianJin city.

In this part of town, people rarely got out at night and preferred to remain indoors after the sun was no longer shielding them from muggings or other possible crimes that could occur in the dead of night.

Two individuals, covered in cloaks, walked alongside the walls of the nearest houses to avoid attention.

If one traced their trajectory, they could notice that they headed to a place that became popular nowadays, an area in which an artefact was on display for the tourists. This district was relabelled as the Chi Xue Qiang district, named after the bloody spear that was lodged in the ground there.

"This is the place, right?"

"I think so" Bai Ling looked carefully at where the meeting place was. "I can't tell where aunt Qiao's old house was now that new structures have been built."

"Isn't it near the spear that destroyed it when you were still in there?"

Both Qi Tian and Bai Ling got closer to the pedestal on which the spear now laid. After its discovery, all the rubble around it was cleaned out and a small pedestal was built to keep the arrogant few who would try to pull it out and lose their lives away from it.

They waited for about the time it took an incense stick to burn until someone emerged from the shadows, completely cloaked as well.

"I'm sorry to have made you wait. But the streets are no longer safe for me to travel nonchalantly."

"We understand, master Gudu" they both replied, unconcerned.

"This way."

The parents followed him across a pavement that led directly in front of the infamous spear.

It was feigned and subtle, but the two of them noticed the master glaring at it with killing intent as if it was a sentient being.

After they entered a dark alley and rounded in a few random roads after Xing Chen, they reached a door in the back of an alchemy store. It was a sceptical place, but as soon as you entered, the scents of medicinal herbs rushed over your senses and dulled minor pains.

"These aromas" Qi Tian took a giant whiff and absorbed the effects. "I think these are herbs from our plantations!"

As more of the hidden basement was revealed, some questions were raised about it.

"I didn't know that there was a healing ward in this district other than the local ones."

"It isn't one" Gudu's pace was quick and he treaded through the corridors as fast as he could. "This is the basement of a trusted friend of mine. I can't risk Chu Qiang's safety by going to other places. Not when trouble will be coming after both of us soon."

A rusty old door drew itself at the end of the winding corridor when they walked for a minute of time.

Inside it, there were two beds on which lay two patients. A study desk was accompanying the wall at the end of the room and everywhere you looked, barrels upon barrels of herbs and materials and many shelves of either pickled jars or preserved components covered the empty spaces. A single look could tell you that you were in an alchemist's storage room.

"Lei Ba!" Bai Ling was first to notice. "Oh thank goodness!"

She knelt beside me even though I was yet to show signs that I had regained my senses and kissed the back of my hand.

"My prayers have been heard. You are still alive."

"Your son is lucky!" someone entered the room suddenly after them and without announcing himself. "His state is better than poor Chu Qiang's. Unfortunately, even after recuperating in a few months, he will no longer be able to cultivate."

Qi Tian raised his eyebrows and looked towards Xing Chen.

"How unfortunate" he tried to reconcile him.

"I'm grateful for your words, friend Qi Tian. His path will definitely become harder from here on."

There was a moment of silence in which none of them spoke, as if relaying respect to the young man who had just evidently lost his whole future in the span of a single day. After deeming the moment awkward, the old master coughed harshly to dispel it.

"En, by the way, I want to introduce you to one of my old friends, Fang Zhi Yu" they shook hands with him. He looked fairly like a sibling to Gudu Xing Chen. "What about Ke Lei Ba?" he made sure to ask.

Zhi Yu walked over to his desk and looked again at the report he had written after assessing the investigation.

"You see, even though the boy did not suffer any external or internal injuries, his vital force was greatly reduced. I was able to stabilise his artefact and stop the turbulence for now."

"Wait. What artefact? Why is my son's vital force depleted?" he asked concernedly.

"We'll get to that shortly" he interrupted him and allowed the doctor to continue speaking. "What's wrong with him then?"

He coughed so as to sound more dramatic in case the problem's name was misleading.

"In short, this boy's soul avatar is lost in his sea of knowledge!"

───────────────────

*Check the very first chapters at the very beginning for the Index*