After Crossdressing and Provoking Long AoTian

Venerable Burning Gold carried Chi Yantian straight into the immortal abode. The Esoteric Sect old man was too late to stop them. His face darkened as he turned back toward the Heavenly Fire Cult's two cult leaders.

He lowered his voice, his expression hostile. “Does the Heavenly Fire Cult truly intend to make an enemy of the Esoteric Sect?”

Hongni was about to scoff, but Cangyan smiled and raised a hand to stop her.

“You can't put it that way.”

“It is your Esoteric Sect that insists on making an enemy of the Heavenly Fire Cult.”

The Esoteric Sect old man narrowed his eyes without answering.

Cangyan folded his arms across his chest and chuckled. “The cultivators of the Nine Provinces afford the Esoteric Sect a measure of respect because they know how much Bu Yetian has sacrificed—and that even now, Bu Yetian still bears the Heavenly Dao.”

“Not because they've accepted the Esoteric Sect as their leader and given you license to do whatever you please in Bu Yetian's name.”

Still smiling, he casually hefted the hammer hanging at his waist onto one shoulder.

“If you really have a problem with that, then come trade a few moves with me!”

...

Inside the immortal abode, Venerable Burning Gold stepped through with Chi Yantian in hand. He swept his gaze around the place, and a trace of nostalgia appeared on his face.

Chi Yantian struggled, trying to get down and stand on his own. “Senior, I—”

“Mm—” Venerable Burning Gold raised a hand, signaling him not to speak. “Quiet. You're ruining the mood while I'm reminiscing.”

He sighed.

Closing his eyes for a moment, he didn't linger. He shot deeper into the immortal abode, heading straight for the fissure at the very heart of the Mystic Music Sect.

One glance was enough to spot Yu Qingtang and the others battling the otherworldly evil demons inside the formation.

Venerable Burning Gold bellowed, “Don't be afraid, brats! Your Daoist grandpa is here!”

Everyone looked up at once.

He crashed into the formation like a meteor, laughing wildly.

“Hahaha!”

With a single palm strike, he suppressed more than half the otherworldly evil demons in the formation so thoroughly that they couldn't move.

Venerable Burning Gold was just about to laugh again when a fierce gust came at him from behind.

He reflexively thrust a palm backward—

Then his pupils contracted sharply when he saw who was attacking, and he abruptly withdrew the strike.

Yu Qingtang cried out in delight, “Senior!”

Looks like the plot is still doing its best to stay on track. Ji Ruxue came, and now Venerable Burning Gold is here too!

“I'm here too!” Chi Yantian finally struggled free of Venerable Burning Gold's grasp and squeezed in beside them. He looked warily from side to side. “What's going on? Wasn't this supposed to be an ancient immortal abode? Why are there still living cultivators inside?”

“They died a long time ago.” Ye Chenyan raised an eyebrow. “Otherworldly evil demons took over their bodies and are trying to use them to escape this place.”

Yu Qingtang slapped a hand over his mouth and nervously glanced at Venerable Burning Gold.

“Shh—”

Don't rub salt in the man's wounds!

“Yes. They died long ago.”

Venerable Burning Gold closed his eyes briefly, grief passing over his face.

“These are only shells from a thousand years ago that happened to remain until today.”

“They stopped being the people I knew long ago.”

He raised a hand and gave a gentle push.

A shadowy figure was nearly forced from one of the bodies. It released a shrill scream, but after a desperate struggle, managed to seize control of the body again.

“Tch. Still resisting to the bitter end.”

Venerable Burning Gold reached out.

A vortex of spiritual energy swept all the cultivators together. Then his hand closed like a claw.

The otherworldly evil demons were powerless to resist. One after another, they were forcibly dragged from their vessels, releasing their final wails.

Illusory black shadows were caught within an enormous hand of spiritual energy.

Its fingers clenched.

Venerable Burning Gold turned toward Ji Ruxue. His brows drew together as he stared at the mist in her hands.

“Why is there someone from the Esoteric Sect here too?”

“She's with us!” Yu Qingtang called. “Senior, can you deal with these otherworldly evil demons?”

“Can't kill them.” Venerable Burning Gold sighed. “I can only drive them out of this realm.”

He flicked his sleeve, gesturing for Ji Ruxue to move back.

“Little girl, step aside.”

Ji Ruxue froze. “But—”

Venerable Burning Gold didn't bother arguing. He simply grabbed her and pulled her back.

Ji Ruxue's attempt to mend the fissure was interrupted. She stumbled backward, nearly losing her footing.

“Careful!” Yu Qingtang called, giving Girl in the Bamboo and Tu Jiaojiao a push so they could support her.

Then he immediately turned to Ye Chenyan.

“I didn't catch her!”

Ye Chenyan: “...I'm not that petty.”

“Oh, really?” Yu Qingtang's eyes widened slightly. “Then I'll go help hold her up too—”

Ye Chenyan promptly hauled him back.

Chi Yantian studied their surroundings. “Senior, do you know what this place is?”

“An ancient sect. The Mystic Music Sect.” Supported by the two girls, Ji Ruxue's face was pale as gold paper, but she still forced herself to catch her breath and answer. “It was also the predecessor of today's Heavenly Music Sect.”

Yu Qingtang pointed at himself. “And five hundred years ago, our Biehe Sect and the Heavenly Music Sect were one family!”

Ji Ruxue blinked. “That...”

Yu Qingtang comforted her, “It's fine. The Biehe Sect is tiny. It's perfectly normal that the Esoteric Sect doesn't have any records about us.”

“I don't know anything about the later Heavenly Music Sect or Biehe Sect.”

Venerable Burning Gold lowered his eyes toward the female cultivator lying on the ground. In the end, he couldn't stop himself from reaching out and carefully helping her upright.

“All I know is that back then, the Mystic Music Sect was the place every music cultivator under heaven dreamed of going. Immortal Lan Yin possessed breathtaking talent. A single performance made her name known throughout the world.”

A faint smile entered his eyes, as though he had returned to many years ago.

“Before I met her, I was always telling people that anyone trapped by mundane romance must lack any real ambition. A young hero like me had his sights set on the Nine Heavens. There was no way I'd spend all day circling around one woman.”

Yu Qingtang's expression shifted slightly.

“She's Immortal Lan Yin?”

“Yes.”

Venerable Burning Gold looked at her tenderly and let out a long sigh, grief filling his eyes.

“I should have known. The fact that I survived from ancient times until now was an exception among exceptions, a miracle built from countless coincidences.”

“But as long as I hadn't seen her body with my own eyes, I couldn't stop myself from hoping.”

“Thinking that maybe... she was still alive too.”

Ji Ruxue parted her lips. “Senior, were the two of you back then...?”

“Back then, the Esoteric Sect proposed refining the Heaven-Mending Pill, but it failed.”

Venerable Burning Gold stood with his back to them.

“Heaven and earth were on the verge of collapse. Then Tianxuan Nü and the Nine Nether Demonic Sovereign summoned the heroes of the world to guard the gates of heaven.”

“Guard the gates of heaven?” Ye Chenyan instinctively looked toward the fissure.

“Every otherworldly evil demon came through fissures in the Heavenly Dao.”

Venerable Burning Gold stared at the fissure before him.

“Tianxuan Nü deduced the locations of all nine fissures in the world. The great sects received their assignments and defended them to the death, refusing to let the otherworldly evil demons invade.”

“Then the two of them used a secret art to mend the Heavenly Dao and rebuild the barrier around this realm, preventing another invasion.”

Ji Ruxue's gaze wavered slightly.

“But there's still a fissure here.”

Venerable Burning Gold drew a deep breath.

“They didn't hold it.”

“The otherworldly evil demons were smarter than we'd imagined. They didn't invade through all nine fissures. Instead, they concentrated their forces and broke through at a single point.”

His gaze swept across the ground, where blood from ancient times still remained, then settled on Immortal Lan Yin's lifeless face.

Grief filled his eyes.

“This one. The Mystic Music Sect.”

“By the time we realized what had happened, it was already too late to send reinforcements. Lan Yin dismissed all the disciples whose cultivation was still too weak, then stayed behind with every inner disciple to defend this place to the death. Even at the very end...”

His voice trembled faintly.

“To keep the otherworldly evil demons from invading the Nine Provinces through the Mystic Music Sect, they activated every killing formation in the sect.”

“Then they cast the entire Mystic Music Sect into the chaotic currents of space-time.”

His gaze softened.

“After being lost in those currents for so many years, you've finally come home, Ayin.”

Venerable Burning Gold crouched down and carefully wiped the dust from her face.

Then he removed a piece of red jade hanging at her waist.

“You still kept it.”

Guilt appeared on his face.

“Too bad I couldn't keep my promise.”

“In the end, I still didn't make it here in time.”

“Senior.” Ji Ruxue's eyes shimmered, as though tears might fall at any moment. “I-I can mend this fissure. Let me do it.”

“You?”

Venerable Burning Gold turned toward her, scoffed, and stood.

“You're not capable of it yet.”

“Tianxuan Nü and the Nine Nether Demonic Sovereign were already unrivaled beneath heaven back then. Even a true immortal and a true demon couldn't accomplish it completely. Your cultivation is still shallow. What can you possibly do?”

Ji Ruxue pressed her lips together, undiscouraged.

“My constitution is special. I can—”

“Don't pull that Esoteric Sect routine with me.”

Venerable Burning Gold's face darkened.

“If the cultivators of this world are going to die, then we'll die standing tall in battle!”

He turned his back on them.

“Go. What remains isn't something people at your cultivation can handle.”

“Senior!” Ji Ruxue tried to persuade him again.

But Venerable Burning Gold had already thrown a punch.

The enormous hand of spiritual energy holding the otherworldly evil demons crushed forward, shoving them bodily through the fissure.

No matter how they wailed, the spiritual-energy hand didn't relent.

Yet the spiritual energy that entered the fissure was rapidly corroded by black mist and evaporated away. Venerable Burning Gold's brows knotted, and his cheek twitched from the pain.

“Go.”

He raised a hand and removed the Dragon-Crane Zither from the formation eye.

Then he laughed softly.

“She sent you away back then. And now you've come back to see her off.”

The Dragon-Crane Zither released a mournful cry.

Venerable Burning Gold looked up at the others, his gaze passing over their faces one by one.

A trace of satisfaction appeared in his eyes.

“The son of Tianxuan Nü and the Nine Nether Demonic Sovereign has grown this big already.”

“And after the Ten Thousand Flames Sect, wildfire swept the plains, generation after generation, never dying out. Rongzhou really is well named. The youngsters it raises aren't bad either.”

He pushed the Dragon-Crane Zither back toward Yu Qingtang.

“The lineage is convoluted, but no matter how you look at it, you can still count as one of Lan Yin's descendants. By another stroke of fate, you even became the master of this qin.”

“Don't disgrace her name.”

Yu Qingtang obediently nodded.

Then he couldn't help muttering under his breath, “Senior... c-could you not say all that like you're giving us your last words?”

Venerable Burning Gold laughed twice.

At last, he glanced toward Ji Ruxue.

“Bu Yetian chose the wrong path. Tell Bu Yetian to think about how to live instead of constantly thinking about how many lives it takes to fill a hole!”

“As for that little life of yours, keep it for yourself!”

Ji Ruxue opened her mouth, but had no idea how to answer.

“Last words, huh... I've lived long enough.”

Venerable Burning Gold turned around and sat cross-legged in the formation eye.

With a sweep of his hand, he pushed them all out of the formation.

Then a vast surge of fire-attribute spiritual energy erupted from his body, activating the formation once more.

“Don't worry. The first time's strange, the second time you're an old hand.”

He laughed.

“Back then, that old dog from the Demonic Cult and I guarded another fissure for years.”

“This is just doing it one more time.”

He turned his head slightly toward Immortal Lan Yin, whose eyes were shut as though she were merely asleep.

A low laugh escaped him.

“With her beside me, what would it matter if I had to do it ten thousand times over?”

Yu Qingtang felt around inside his clothes.

Something seemed to have appeared there.

He pulled out a jade flute and a piece of red jade.

He froze, then raised his head.

“Senior...”

“No telling whether I'll survive this one.”

With his back to them, Venerable Burning Gold waved a hand.

“If I die here, and you brats have even a shred of conscience, build a cenotaph for the two of us.”

“And remember—make damn sure mine says, ‘Beloved Wife Lan Yin.’”

He forced a grin.

“I never got the chance to marry her.”

“But she said yes.”

Ye Chenyan stared deeply at him.

“...Live a little longer.”

“When you get out, put up her grave marker yourself.”

Venerable Burning Gold threw back his head and laughed.

“That's true. Better if I do it myself.”

“Go on, brats.”

His smile faded as he looked toward them.

“This time, you're the ones who'll have to shoulder the heavens.”

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