Chapter 101: Born of Hatred, Part Twenty-One — 4

Jin Ling sat bolt upright and cried, 'Jiujiu!'

Jiang Cheng's gaze swept across, and he said coldly, 'Call out, then! Now you know to call for me — what were you running from before!'

That said, he turned his gaze and cast it, whether by design or not, toward Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji. Before the two lines of sight could meet, Su She, bracing himself on his sword Nanping, struggled to his feet and lunged at Jiang Cheng. Before Jiang Cheng could even move, a few barks sounded, and Fairy came flying in from outside the temple like a leaping fish, hurling himself straight at Su She. The instant Wei Wuxian heard the dog, his hair stood on end and he shrank into Lan Wangji's arms, crying out, frightened out of his wits, 'Lan Zhan!'

Lan Wangji had already gathered him in of his own accord, and answered, 'I'm here!'

Wei Wuxian said, 'Hold me!'

Lan Wangji said, 'I've got you!'

Wei Wuxian said again, 'Hold me tight!'

Lan Wangji said in turn, 'Holding tight!'

Without watching the scene, going by the sound alone, the muscles of Jiang Cheng's face and the corner of his mouth gave a twitch; he had seemed half-minded to glance that way, but now he kept his neck firmly under control. Just then several monks and cultivators came charging out from behind the hall, swords in hand, and Jiang Cheng, with a cold snort, swept up his right hand and danced out a dazzling purple rainbow within the Guanyin Temple, so that everyone the arc so much as touched was flung away, while the oil-paper umbrella stayed braced, steady as ever, in his left hand. Only when the hall lay strewn with bodies sprawled this way and that, still twitching and shuddering as though electricity ran through them, did Jiang Cheng at last fold the umbrella away. Su She, meanwhile, was so harried by the black-maned spirit-hound that he roared without cease, while Jin Ling shouted from the side, 'Fairy! Watch out! Fairy, bite him! Bite his hand!'

Lan Xichen, for his part, called out, 'Sect Leader Jiang, beware the qin!'

Before the words had died, one or two clear notes of a qin came drifting from the rear of the Guanyin Temple. Yet Jiang Cheng had already suffered once from this wicked tune upon the Burial Mounds, and so was sharply on his guard; the very moment the strings sounded, he kicked at the ground, flicked up with his toe a long sword some cultivator had let fall, cast aside the umbrella and caught the blade in his left hand, drew Sandu from his waist with his right, and with a sword in either hand crossed them in a sudden, grinding stroke.

The two swords rasped against each other, giving off a noise so shrill and piercing that it drowned out Jin Guangyao's qin.

A most effective way to break the spell! Yet there was a single drawback — the sound was truly, unbearably awful!

So awful that one's ears seemed about to be pierced through on the spot by the dreadful racket — and for those born of the Gusu Lan Clan, like Lan Xichen and Lan Wangji, it was all the more intolerable, so that both knit their brows ever so slightly. But Lan Wangji was dutifully holding Wei Wuxian and could not cover his own ears, and so Wei Wuxian, trembling all the while at the barking of the dog, reached up to cover them for him.

Jiang Cheng, his face set hard, a sword in either hand, pressed toward the rear of the hall even as he wrung out this mood-killing, eardrum-splitting fiend's din. But before he could carve his way over, Jin Guangyao came out of his own accord, covering his ears as he walked, and said, 'Sect Leader Jiang, the killing power of that move of yours — I bow to it in defeat.'

Jiang Cheng lashed out with Zidian; Jin Guangyao slipped aside and said, 'Sect Leader Jiang! How did you come to be here?'

Jiang Cheng wasted no more words on him. Jin Guangyao, his Spiritual Power no match for Jiang Cheng's, dared not meet him head-on and could only dodge nimbly without cease, setting his subordinates to swarm Jiang Cheng while he himself said, unhurried and composed, 'Could it be that A-Ling went running off everywhere, and you chased after him all the way here? Fairy must have led you the road, too. Ah — he was a spirit-hound of my own giving, and yet he shows me not the least bit of face.'

Held tight in Lan Wangji's arms, Wei Wuxian found the barking less frightening now, with mind enough to spare for thought, and watching Jin Guangyao fight on the one hand while his eyes rolled this way and that and the smile never once left his lips, he was put in mind of someone, and murmured low, 'Cut from the very same cloth as Xue Yang.'

But Lan Wangji gave no reply, and when Wei Wuxian, hearing none, lifted his head to look, he found that he was still covering Lan Wangji's ears — Lan Wangji had not heard a word of it, no wonder there had been no answer — and he hastily let go. Just then Jin Guangyao's tack abruptly shifted, and he said with a smile, 'Sect Leader Jiang, what is the matter with you? This whole while your eyes have been shifting and darting, never daring to look that way — is there something over there?'

Jiang Cheng said, 'You're the Chief Cultivator, for all that — if you mean to fight, then fight; where do you find all this rubbish to talk?'

Jin Guangyao said again, 'Still avoiding it? There's nothing over there — over there is your shixiong. Did you truly chase A-Ling all the way here?'

Jiang Cheng said, 'What else?! Who else could I be looking for?!'

Lan Xichen said, 'Don't answer him!'

Jin Guangyao was ever the master of honeyed words: the moment Jiang Cheng began to converse with him, his attention would be turned aside and his feelings stirred against his will. Jin Guangyao said, 'Very well, Master Wei, do you see? Your shidi did not come looking for you — he does not so much as wish to spare you a single glance.'

Wei Wuxian said with a laugh, 'Now that's a strange thing to say. It's hardly the first day Sect Leader Jiang has treated me so — do you really need to stand here reminding me of it?'

At these words the corner of Jiang Cheng's mouth gave a faint twist, and the veins stood out on the back of the hand that gripped Zidian. Jin Guangyao turned to him again and said with a long, heaving sigh, 'Sect Leader Jiang, you see — being your shixiong is no easy thing at all.'

Hearing Jin Guangyao steer the talk ever back toward him, Wei Wuxian grew wary. Jiang Cheng shot back, 'Sect Leader Jin, then being your sworn elder brother must be harder still!'

Jin Guangyao paid no heed at all to whether Jiang Cheng was listening, and said, 'Sect Leader Jiang, I hear that yesterday you raised a great commotion in Lotus Pier for no reason at all, running about with the sword the Yiling Patriarch once carried and bidding everyone you met to draw it.'

In that instant Jiang Cheng's expression turned utterly terrible.

Wei Wuxian, for his part, suddenly sat up out of Lan Wangji's arms, his heartbeat lurching to a halt, a voice sounding in his mind: 'My sword? He means Suibian? Didn't I leave Suibian with Wen Ning? No — from yesterday to today I truly haven't seen him carrying it... how did it fall into Jiang Cheng's hands?! Why would Jiang Cheng have others draw the sword?! Has he drawn it himself, or not?'

His nerves drawn taut, Wei Wuxian was only a little eased when Lan Wangji reached out and stroked his back twice. Seeing Jiang Cheng fall suddenly silent, Jin Guangyao's eyes gleamed, and he said, 'And I also hear that no one could draw that sword — yet you yourself drew it out. Now that is a curious thing indeed. As far back as thirteen years ago, when I took the sword into my keeping, it had already undergone Sword Sealing; apart from the Yiling Patriarch himself, no one else could possibly draw it...'

Jiang Cheng summoned Zidian and Sandu both at once and snarled, 'Shut your mouth, you!'

But Jin Guangyao, smiling to himself, went blithely on, 'And so I find myself recalling, too, that in those years Young Master Wei was truly wild and unbridled — he carried no sword wherever he went, and always had some fresh excuse each time. I have always found it most strange. What do you think?'

Jiang Cheng bellowed, 'What exactly are you trying to say?!'

Jin Guangyao raised his voice, 'Sect Leader Jiang, you are truly remarkable — the youngest clan head ever, who rebuilt the Yunmeng Jiang Clan by his own strength alone. I admire you greatly. And yet, as I recall, in the old days you could never best Master Wei at anything; might I ask how it was you turned the tables so soon after the Sunshot Campaign? Did you perhaps swallow some miraculous Golden Core elixir!'

The two words 'Golden Core' he spoke with a clarity sharp beyond all measure. Jiang Cheng's features all but came apart, and Zidian, too, flared out a dangerous white light; in the wild disorder of his heart, a flaw opened in his movements.

This was the very flaw Jin Guangyao had been waiting for, and he flung out a qin string long held in concealment. Jiang Cheng came to himself at once and met it, Zidian and the string tangling together; Jin Guangyao felt a numbing jolt in his palm and drew his hand back at once. Yet a moment later he gave a soft laugh, and with his left hand swept out another string, striking toward where Wei Wuxian sat!

Jiang Cheng's pupils contracted abruptly to a point, and with a wrench of his hand he turned Zidian's course to cut off that string. But Jin Ling cried out, unable to stop himself, 'Jiujiu, look out!'

Seizing the moment, Jin Guangyao drew the sword that had all this while been coiled at his waist and thrust it at Jiang Cheng's heart!

Jiang Cheng, his face an ashen iron grey, clutched at his chest. Blood welled up between his fingers and swiftly soaked the cloth over his breast to a deep purple-black. Zidian, having cut off the qin string, reverted in an instant to that silver ring and slid back onto his hand — for when its master has lost too much blood or taken grievous hurt, a spirit-tool will of its own accord return to the form that costs it least. Taking this chance, Jin Guangyao rushed forward, sealed his Spiritual Meridians with two strokes, drew a handkerchief from his sleeve to wipe his soft-blade clean, and coiled it back at his waist.

Jin Ling had already rushed over to hold Jiang Cheng up, and Lan Xichen sighed, 'He mustn't move recklessly — help him sit down slowly.'