Nightfall

Being a firm believer in karma, Ning Que strongly believed that he would not die at this age. However, he was too badly injured today, and the invisible lance piercing through his chest was beyond his scope of understanding. As a result, on this sixteenth year of his arrival to this world, Ning Que had no choice but to consider death as a possibility.

When he woke up, he struggled to open his eyes in the first place, and used his last strength to look around him, wondering whether he had come to hell and whether hell really existed in this world.

Then he saw a big fat face really close to his own, with tiny eyes looking like dots, showing sparks of curiosity and skepticism in them as they stared at him firmly.

As this face looked nicely plump and fair, it reminded Ning Que of the full moon in his hometown, which he had not seen for a long time. So instead of scaring him, it felt strangely familiar, despite not being clear-minded due to his bad injury.

Leaning against the wall, he looked at the big fat face with his head slightly tilted to one side, let out a weak laugh, and said, “The yaksha from hell should look pretty dark, so I guess I’m not dead yet. Well then, who are you?”

Instead of being scared by the fat face, Ning Que startled Chen Pipi by suddenly opening his eyes. Chen Pipi widened his eyes in shock, then he stared back at his pale face and said, “I am more interested in who you are.”

Ning Que, trembling, raised his right hand to cover his chest, which seemed normal but was suffering great pain. He looked toward the side with his brows furrowed and made sure that he was still on the second floor of the old library. It was already late at night. Ning Que noticed that the professor had left and he felt puzzled and disappointed as she turned a blind eye to him.

Considering that, besides himself, basically no Academy students would stay on the second floor, not to mention it was late at night, and thinking of those handwritings which were obviously written at night, Ning Que looked with amazement at the youth who wore the summer Academy robe and asked in a hoarse voice, “Chen Pipi?”

Chen Pipi’s eyes opened even wider. Well, of course, with such “big” eyes, his eyes changed from the size of mung beans to the size of peas and then to soybeans. He stared at Ning Que and asked in disbelief, “You are Ning Que?”

“Yes, it’s me, the smartest young man in the world,” Ning Que tightly glared at Chen Pipi’s round face and answered. Suddenly in his eyes appeared a strong flame of determination, and Ning Que said in a hoarse voice, “If you don’t want to see me die, then try everything to save me!”

Chen Pipi did not ask meaningless questions such as ‘why should I save you’. Because after communicating through letters with each other for some time, they already knew each other’s character and become good friends, even though they had not spoken face to face yet. Furthermore, they were close enough to scold each other as an idiot, make fun of each other, and of course, help each other, so how could Chen Pipi let Ning Que die without reaching out to help him?

Chen Pipi put two fingers on Ning’s wrist to feel his pulse. He remained silent for a while and then he suddenly furrowed his brows, stared at Ning’s eyes, and asked, “How have you not died after such a severe injury?”

“Not dead yet doesn’t mean I will not die. I am almost dying, how much nonsense are you going to say, idiot?”

“You are an idiot. You have been seriously injured, why don’t you go to the capital, Chang’an, for treatment? It is meaningless to come to the Academy, please don’t tell me that you made a special trip to let me cure you.”

“Why not? Don’t you say that you are a genius?”

“So what? Is there a connection between genius and medicine skill?”

“The first question you gave me was a prescription.”

“A prescription cannot save you, even the most ingenious one. Your injury is so severe that you should have died already.”

Ning Que’s consciousness became extremely weak and his eyes could not focus. Looking at the guy in front of him, Ning Que said, “I have been lying here for a whole day and nobody in the Academy helped me, even the female professor, who seems very gentle and pleasant, turned a blind eye to me, but you cannot ignore me.”

Chen Pipi looked down at the bowl of water as well as the two steamed buns and said, “Senior Sister’s temperament is quiet and peaceful. She lives in a thatched cottage on a hill by herself and always keeps reticent. I don’t think she ignored you…”

“You don’t need to defend her. I know the Academy is a place that must refuse indifference, where we help each other.”

Tiredly raising up his head and looking at Chen Pipi through the dim starlight, Ning Que was silent for a while, and then said with an ironic smile, “Anyway, my life… is in your hands.”

Finishing this sentence, he closed his eyes, loosened his shoulders and immediately fell into a coma again.

…

…

Opening his mouth wide, Chen Pipi looked in the corner at the guy in the coma and his fat face was full of an expression of disbelief.

“What the hell is this? How can you fall into a coma without saying any last words? You are forcing me to save you! So shameless! Nobody would do this except you!”

He angrily muttered while struggling to squat his body, and at last, simply sat on the floor. Slowly stretching out his right hand, he quickly pointed onto Ning Que’s chest several times with his five fleshy fingers.

Having already checked Ning Que’s pulse condition earlier, he knew that Ning Que had a serious injury. It was the Ocean of Qi and Mountain of Snow in his chest that had gotten destroyed, which for ordinary beings or even average cultivators, this level of injury could kill them. However, as Ning Que hoped, Chen Pipi was indeed a rare genius who was cultivated by both the West Hill and the Academy, and a genius who could save his life, even though he did not look like a genius.

As a genius, the most important quality is self-confidence. Well, as for the pride born by the self-confidence, that would be another different matter.

Chen Pipi was confident in everything. He strongly believed that since Ning Que had not died yet, then as long as he helped Ning Que, he certainly would not die. “Was the fatal injury in the Ocean of Qi and Mountain of Snow horrible? Of course not. As long as I use Natural Stream Magical Finger with the pure Primordial Qi, which can be easily obtained by a no-boundary spirit, you will be cured in a few seconds.

“What?” Chen Pipi suddenly made a strange voice and quickly withdrew his fingers as if he had touched hot coals. Looking at Ning Que’s chest where no wound could be found, Chen Pipi tightly contracted his brows and his face grew grave.

“This is so, so, so weird. How is this possible…?”

Chen Pipi stared at Ning Que’s chest with his thick lips quivering and could not stop muttering. No one knew what he had found. Chen Pipi’s voice trembled more and more and he became less and less confident.

“A sharp sword power intruded into your body via a wooden weapon, destroying your internal organs. It is supposed to be a cultivator who hurt you. Yet this cultivator was in a Seethrough State at most. How could the sword power resist my magical finger? Why is the gentleman’s no-boundary spirit that the professor taught me so useless?

“The cultivator risked his life to launch a swift and fierce attack before he died, no wonder that the power of the sword is extremely strong. As a poor guy who cannot be involved in cultivation, you should have driven a sword master into a blind alley. No wonder you are so arrogant. Now the problem is… if I can’t cure you, then what can I show off in front of you in the future?

“Wait a minute! Where is the chilly cold breath filling in your chest and abdomen coming from? How could the chilly breath touch my Taoist heart? Wait! There is still a burning breath! Where do these destructive breaths come from?!”

Chen Pipi was so shocked that he sat heavily down on the floor. Looking down at Ning Que who was still in a coma, Chen Pipi wondered, “What on earth has happened to you and why are there so many horrible breaths in your body?”

Chen Pipi gradually calmed down. He put his hands on his lap, slowly closed his eyes and started to ponder over the problems he had explored. He occasionally lifted his fleshy hands and drew a few emblematic gestures in the air, and then continued prudently probing the situation in Ning Que’s body.

When he reopened his eyes after a while, there was endless puzzlement and frustration. The calmness in his eyes was all gone.

According to his judgment, there should be a vigorous and invincible burning power that directly intruded Ning Que’s body through his wound caused by the cultivator, and the burning power destroyed the unsensible stupid Snow Mountain instantly. Generally speaking, Ning Que should have died immediately when the Snow Mountain under the Ocean of Qi was destroyed. But somehow, the absolutely chilly breath intruded his body, so while the original Snow Mountain was being destroyed, a new one was being formed at the same time!

It should be admitted that Chen Pipi was definitely an unparalleled genius in the cultivation world. He did not see the battle at the pavilion personally, the stick-up wing at Vermilion Bird Avenue, the invisible lance from the sky, or the big black umbrella gently swung like a lotus. He did not even divine like Li Qingshan, the Master of Nation, but he could almost infer that battle situation according to Ning Que’s injury.

But the reality was… his injury could not be cured by only knowing how it was caused.

“Ning Que didn’t die when the Snow Mountain was destroyed, instead another new one was formed instantly. What an enigmatic situation it is… Compared with this, the Grand Spiritism is just a piece of cake. Maybe Haotian brilliance also takes this path of rebirth after destruction to help mortals to be sensible.”

Staring at Ning Que absent-mindedly, Chen Pipi muttered in a trembling voice, “Yet I didn’t feel any Haotian brilliance in this guy. What’s more, how could these Great Divine Priests from West Hill come to Chang’an? Even if they become idiots and come here, it will never happen that they will help him to be sensible by depleting their cultivation.

“If it is not Grand Spiritism, then who did this to you? People from Xuankong Temple? No way. Those monks only care about chanting scriptures and are incapable of this ability. Those stupid fellows from Devil’s Doctrine? No, they are even more impossible. As for the master in the Taoist Temple… No, he cannot do this either. I am wondering if the Headmaster of the Academy is capable of such… an enigmatic method. But the Headmaster is traveling to other kingdoms with Eldest Brother, there is no reason for him to come back at this time.

“What’s the hell going on here?” Chen Pipi thought for a long time but still could not get the answer. He painfully scratched his head. His fingers shuttled back and forth among his hair just like an old cow wearily plowing the black land of Yan Kingdom.

It seemed that Ning Que had good luck when the Snow Mountain in his body was reshaped after being destroyed. But Chen Pipi was quite clear that, without the protection of Haotian brilliance, this extremely brutal destruction and rebirth was equivalent to death. The Snow Mountain in Ning Que’s chest and abdomen was extremely unstable and could collapse at any time, and the breath there was too weak to feel and already had no vitality. This guy would not survive unless someone could reenergize him in an enigmatic way.

Since the Primordial Qi between heaven and earth was certain, no one could seek vitality from the nihility of darkness. Unless the precious flowers and exotic fruit nourished by the Primordial Qi for thousands of years could be found in overseas and fantastic islands—only then could this dying young man have a glimmer of hope to survive.

The matter was where to find those precious flowers and exotic fruit. The Academy did not have them. Chang’an did not have them. Even the entire Tang Empire did not have them. And of course, he, the rare genius, did not have them, either.

Chen Pipi glared at Ning Que for quite a long time. Then he unwillingly and hesitantly took out a small china bottle from his arms. This small bottle was crystal clear and was made of unknown materials. Holding the small bottle in his hand, his arms started to tremble like it was too heavy to bear it.

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Chapter 3 will be finished before half-past four. (To be continued… If you like this novel, we welcome you to go to qidian.com to give recommended votes and a monthly pass. Your support is my greatest motivation.)