Chapter 13

Chapter 13

I might never see my junior senior brother again.

By the time that realization struck me, I had already followed Senior Brother back to the thatched hut.

He lit the lamp beneath the window again. His tall, slender shadow trembled faintly in the lamplight, no different from a few hours ago.

Only now, there was a sword before him, and a Qingque.

A faint trace of Blessed Power still lingered on Qingque.

Senior Brother tried several times to activate his Blessed Power and retrieve its memories, but failed again and again.

Their Blessed Power conflicted. Perhaps only its original master had that authority.

But no one knew where my junior senior brother had gone, and no one knew what exactly Mojian had been through.

The sword spirit had spent so long recuperating before it managed to let out that final sword cry, allowing Shanting to find it.

Yet before it could say anything, it vanished in haste.

“Junior Brother has always been careful. He isn’t the sort to misplace things. Something must have truly happened to him.”

The shadow on the wall finally shifted. Leaning against the rotting wooden post, it seemed touched with loneliness.

Senior Brother lightly tapped Qingque on the head with one finger, and the latter narrowed its eyes in satisfaction, wearing an expression of cruel innocence.

“I came too late.”

He murmured the words, then suddenly began speaking of old memories, all of them about my junior senior brother.

For example, when my junior senior brother first entered Xiangwu Mountain, he had only been five. Senior Brother got so excited that he took him flying all over the mountain, forgetting that the boy had only just begun cultivating not long before, and made him throw up.

Fortunately, my junior senior brother was honest and kindhearted, and did not hold it against him.

Or another time, that winter, when their master bestowed swords upon them. For some reason, Shanting chased after Senior Brother and tried to hack him down, while my junior senior brother’s Mojian obediently entered its sheath and waited for orders, so quiet and refined that it made Senior Brother lose face.

In Senior Brother’s eyes, from childhood to adulthood, this junior brother’s temperament had always been like that: so silent he seemed a little dull, and so sincere he was like a stubborn rock.

Take, for instance, what happened several years ago, when a mudslide suddenly broke out along the border between the Central Realm and West Ridge, killing and injuring countless Blessed Cultivators and ordinary people.

At that time, Xiangwu Mountain had only just gained a firm foothold, and their master ordered them to assist West Ridge.

To protect an old man’s body, my junior senior brother held back the mudslide and braced himself against it for an entire night.

When he returned, he was filthy and battered, while the old man rested peacefully on his back, shrouded in Blessed Power, his clothes arranged without so much as a speck of dust.

He handed the old man’s body to the weeping children and grandchildren, and before they could even finish thanking him, he walked away without a word.

“On Xiangwu Mountain, he not only obeyed every word from Master and me, he never even disobeyed Junior Sister’s casual instructions.

“On the day of the riot, I ordered the two of them to guard the outer gate. Afterward, both of them vanished without a trace…”

As he drifted through his memories, the sorrow in Senior Brother’s eyes sharpened into something fierce.

I did not know what else I could do besides listen. At a loss, I could only follow him as he rose and walked out of the thatched hut.

In my blurred vision, Senior Brother sat cross-legged beneath the moon with Shanting and Mojian, waiting there in silence through the night.