Chapter 263: Map of the Dragon Veins
Translator: Translation Nation Editor: Translation Nation
The strangest thing about the entire scene was how the chopsticks managed to return back to him after he had flung them at the men. Pei Zi Yun then looked at the teenager, "Although I didn’t harm anyone, killing someone with chopsticks is only too easy. If I had ill intent, killing you would only be too easy?"
The teenager’s expression remained the same as he spoke, "Indeed, such brilliant skills. To kill me, all you have to do is to sit down and twirl your fingers eh?"
Even at such a tense moment, he still bore a certain dignity.
Pei Zi Yun looked around and was rather surprised, "I just used some Dao arts, and everyone was under my control, for me to do as I please. Only this teenager was unaffected. Although he is an Elementary Scholar, he should not have received so much protection against me. This came from the protection of the yellow aura. He’s a nobility."
"And yet this cannot be the result of the reward from his father. Even the leader of Wei Family is dead, and the previous dynasty ceases to exist."
"Much less a mere rebel lord of the previous dynasty. It’s already been countless of years since the new dynasty has been established. Even though the previous dynasty stood for 300 years, once it was replaced, it would’ve lost all powers."
"Looks like I was right in my conjecture, this blessing came from killing the imperial tutor."
Just as he thought about this, the young teenager looked at Pei Zi Yun and asked, "Since you’re not here to kill me, why are you here for?"
"The maps of the Dragon Veins!" Pei Zi Yun spoke gently, and the teenager paused for a moment. He didn’t appear worried or angry, and instead laughed.
"Haha" His laughter reverberated across the entire room. Everyone paused in shock, as the few people around him rushed up to him, "Young Master."
After he laughed for several moments, he then stopped before he instructed, "Bring the maps of the Dragon Veins."
Grandma Li then protested, "Young Master, that is the precious treasure of our old master. How can you just take it out like that?"
The young teenager waved his hands, "Grandma Li, bring it here. With such Dao arts and martial arts skills, how can we ever hope to resist him?"
"My family no longer has any need for this map. Please bring it here."
Seeing that the young teenager was so causal, Pei Zi Yun was rather stumped as well. He never expected to be able to acquire the map so easily and was overjoyed. However, he was rather shocked, "There are so many notable heroes and popular figures in this world. This young teenager already bears such a strong similarity to them with his demeanor. It’s such a pity that behaving the part wouldn’t do much for him."
Sometime later, Grandma Li brought a small box forward as the young teenager used a key to open the chest. Within was the map of the Dragon Veins.
There were several small words written on top of the map as the young teenager handed it over to him, "Brother Pei, please check the map."
Pei Zi Yun retrieved the map and looked at it from top to bottom, until he realized it ended prematurely.
The teenager looked somewhat pale and felt so weak that just a gust of wind would be enough to knock him over. He slowly placed down his cup of wine and spoke, "I don’t know what Young Master wishes to do. But my family only has half of the entire map. If Young Master wants it, please have it."
When Pei Zi Yun heard this, he looked at the teenager intently.
"Haha" Pei Zi Yun glared at him for a long time before he broke out in laughter. He then asked, "Your Highness is so spontaneous. What would you like?"
"Please don’t call me Your Highness. My Wei family lost the war, and we have lost all claim to the throne, despite holding it for centuries. We are no longer royals." The young teenager paused for a long time before he sighed as though his emotions had finally been swayed. He looked out of the window, and saw an entire patch of crops growing.
The young teenager stood up and took several paces. He then said, "Master Top Scorer, you must be looking for the Will of Heaven, and thus need to locate the Dragon Veins in order to do so."
"I have a request., if Young Master can promise me something, I can tell you more about the location of the second half of the map."
Hearing the young teenager’s words, Pei Zi Yun held onto the map and sighed, "Young Master Fang, what is your request? If it has something to do with reclaiming the throne your family has lost, you don’t even have to think about it."
The young teenager paused for a moment before he laughed, "When an army falls, it’s like a the toppling of a mountain, there’s no coming back from it. Which fallen dynasty has ever returned to power in this world?"
"Besides, with such a frail body, how could I ever hope to rebel against the dynasty and win back the throne?"
"All of you, leave us." The young man turned around and instructed Grandma Li."
"Yes, Young Master."
The teenager watched until everyone has left before he inched closer to Pei Zi Yun and spoke, "There’s this girl that I like, but I have two difficult problems. The first is that her family doesn't wish for her to marry me and has rejected me. But I cannot forget her. Can you help me to marry her?"
"I cannot move on from her and I cannot let her down. This wouldn’t be too difficult for Master Top Scorer right?"
"The second matter is that I’m in poor health, and thus cannot ascend along the Dao. I don’t have many requests, all I want is for you to help me gain a son. No, even a daughter is fine. I need an heir to continue my family line and to burn incense for us when we are gone. As long as you can do this, I shall tell you where the second half of the map is located."
"Cough cough, Master Top Scorer, if you do that. I shall tell you. If you don’t, my body might not be able to last much longer. Even if I get a nasty scare, I might lose my life and die on the spot." At this point, the teenager’s face turned red, as tears started to well up at the corners of his eyes.
Just that, because his health was poor, he didn’t have any ambition. And yet he has the blessings on him. How could this happen?
Pei Zi Yun paused for a moment before he said, "Let me take your pulse."
The young man stretched his hand out in front of Pei Zi Yun so he could measure his pulse. Pei Zi Yun then asked, "What’s the girl’s name?"
The teenager’s face was pale as he replied, "Surname Cao, name Dan Yu. She lives not that far away, just across my house actually."
"Son of Emperor Wei, but he couldn’t join the Dao and is forced to remain here. He can’t even marry the girl he wishes to marry. What’s the point of the aura around him then?" Pei Zi Yun thought to himself.
"That’s not right. His vital signs have already been expended. He’s supposed to be a dead man. Why is there still a pulse?" Pei Zi Yun was taken aback as he continued to measure the teen’s pulse. His expression was rather shocked. It seemed like there was an external force that kept him alive. Pei Zi Yun had never seen anything like this before.
After a long time, he then spoke frankly, "Your life forced has been used up. You should be dead, but you’re still alive. There seems to be some force keeping you alive. I’ve never seen such an ailment before. It’s a miracle."
Pei Zi Yun finished speaking then he paused for a long time and continued, "Since your pulse is still beating, we can try. I will take a look at the Cao family’s daughter. As for this sickness, I’m not confident of curing. I doubt Dao arts would work here as well."
When the young man heard this, his face was strangely filled with optimism, "Master Top Scorer, I’ve invited dozens of doctors over. All of them said I wouldn’t leave past 20. But I cannot go on like this."
"I am the only remaining living member of my Fang family. When our armies fell, thousands of soldiers held the line and continued fighting. This was their sacrifice for me, so that I might make an escape and continue living. Just because of this, I should regularly offer incense to them." The teenager smiled, as he spoke calmly, "Go and see it done. If you fail, I will take it as though you have no affinity with the Fang household."
Pei Zi Yun didn’t speak as he turned around to leave. Under the guidance of someone, he located the Cao household. It was just several houses away, and a young lady was working hard. Coughing sounds could be heard coming from indoors.
As he approached, Pei Zi Yun frowned. The entire house seemed to contained a certain aura sin. When Pei Zi Yun got near, he could feel the hairs on his body stand up and had to retreat several steps. He entered into his Yin Master form and opened his eyes. When he looked at the house again, it was covered in black energy.
The cottage was where the black energy was at its thickest. When he finished scrutinizing the house, he turned to look at the girl again. This young girl wasn’t very pretty, but was tall and had a thin frame. She features were delicate and she had several freckles on her face. At this point, she arranged firewood. Pei Zi Yun paused for several moments before he sighed.
"Such a heavy punishment to bear, and only a few people in this world have done something worthy of such condemnation across several generations. They must be Imperial Tutor Du’s descendants." Pei Zi Yun didn’t expect that even his offspring would continue to bear this much of the punishment.
The girl was of the third generation, and the dark energy around her had been reduced considerably, although it was still significant.
"If there wasn’t any other factors to this sin aura, it would continue to bring inauspicious bad luck along with misfortunes to the family. It would probably last for another few generations before it completely dissipated."
Just then, Pei Zi Yun walked over to the young girl, who paused for a second and asked, "Young Master, you look rather familiar. I wonder why you’ve come here for."
Pei Zi Yun’s eyes gleamed and laughed but didn’t speak immediately. He then whispered, "I am a High Scholar from a city, and came here to visit the Elementary Scholar. I know that he has a wish to marry you, and told me that he wouldn’t leave you. How do you feel about this?"
When she heard Pei Zi Yun being so frank with her, she blushed a deep shade of red out of embarrassment, as her eyes cast downwards, "Young Master, that is an impossibility."
Pei Zi Yun was surprised as he asked, "Don’t you like him? Or is he not rich enough?"
The young girl stopped blushing as she turned pale, "No, that’s not it. I like him, and I’ve never liked anyone else the same way I like him. But I have a certain curse of hardship on me."
As the young girl spoke, she looked at Pei Zi Yun with eyes of a deer, and caused Pei Zi Yun to jump up in shock from the intensity of her gaze. Pei Zi Yun could almost feel her sorrows, hardships, pain, and hurt as though he was reminded of all these feeling which the original owner had gone through when Ye Su’er left him.
Pei Zi Yun felt into silence as the young girl bit her lips and threw the axe on the floor. Her eyes welled up with tears as she ran back into her cottage.
At this point, the sounds of coughing rang out once again, and Pei Zi Yun walked into the cottage and saw a middle-aged man lying down on the bed. A middle-aged woman was holding back her tears, looking after him. As soon as Pei Zi Yun walked in, he could smell a foul odor.
At this point, the middle-aged man opened his eyes and saw the person who had entered his house. He burst out in rage, "Are you the person whom that bastard household invited to come and speak to me? Get out of my house!"
The man struggled in his bed and picked up the tray by his bedside and was about to fling it at Pei Zi Yun, but was stopped by his wife. His daughter screamed as well, "Father, don’t be angry, you will harm your health."
Seeing such a scene, Pei Zi Yun sighed for the injustice suffered by this family. Du Zi Nong had been an impressive scholar at Hanlin Academy and eventually rose to the rank of an imperial tutor. In order to reclaim the fortunes of the heavens for his side, he set out to kill the Latent Dragon and brought the curse down onto his entire family.
Killing the Latent Dragon didn’t cause the Imperial Qi to die, instead, it split up and reproduced into dozens of other mini dragons which caused the war and chaos to become more intense. With the fear that the Imperial Wei Family would kill the entire Du household, he managed to acquire half of the map.
"In order to prevent further disaster from befalling the Du family, they changed their name to Cao and fled to the refuge point. It was a pity that it wasn’t enough to protect them from the curse they would face. It seems like everyone had died, and the only remaining healthy bloodline was this young girl"
"The Wei Family eventually lost the war because the Imperial Qi had been harmed. The Fang family took the other half of the map and fled as well. As fate would have it, the two feuding families were now living in the same village. The strangest part of it all was that their two young offspring were in love with each other."
"What a tragedy."
At this point, Pei Zi Yun pressed his own forehead and spoke clearly, "You are aware of your own family’s situation. It seems like your entire bloodline is almost going to run out. Do you truly want that to happen to your family?"
"I have the cure to this problem, and yet you wish to be so disrespectful to me?"
The middle-aged man who was about to throw the tray at Pei Zi Yun heard this and froze in shock. He glared at Pei Zi Yun intently and seemed to have been struck by lightning, for his eyes opened up wide in astonishment before asking, "Who are you?’
Pei Zi Yun laughed before he spoke, "Ying Prefecture’s Top Scorer, Free Cloud Sect’s Leader, Dao Master ordained by the Imperial Court, Qi Ning!"