Chapter 50 - The Nine Spaces
When Ye Xiao had completely recovered, the first thing he did was to get back into his mind and check out the Space in order to find out what had happened!
The day when he had been forcibly ejected from the Space, he had truly felt that the Space was about to be destroyed. The worst possible outcome now would be if the Space really collapsed. That would’ve been an absolutely fatal strike for Ye Xiao!
At this moment, he truly didn't care about his whereabouts: He was simply glad to be alive!
He entered the Space and was instantly stunned with what he saw!
“Is this… Is this the Space which I had known?”
It was not destruction which had taken place; it was reconstruction!
Well, it might be a bit too much to describe it as reconstruction. There weren’t many changes in the minor details. However, the entire place had been separated into nine parts!
The egg was placed at the core of the space!
The front, the back, the left, the right, the top… The nine parts were located in nine different locations and each of them could be identified with nine different colors: Nine different spaces!
The first space was on top with the Cosmic Hades inside, continually emitting the blue gelid qi. This space was obviously not filled - not even one percent of it had been occupied.
There was an ivory space below which contained the Pure Heavenly Crystal. Likewise, it was barely filled.
There was a space on the left containing precious plants. The plants were producing a cyan coloured-qi. Naturally, it was also far from being completely filled…
There was another space containing the Sky Crystal Sand. It was quite empty at the moment, but it was certainly not as empty as the remaining five spaces, because the other five spaces were completely barren.
‘The world of nine elements’!
These words unexpectedly popped up in Ye Xiao’s mind as he looked around the nine spaces.
Within each space, distinct words could be found hovering in the air.
‘Sky Space’
‘Earth Space’
‘Gold Space’
‘Wood Space’
‘Flame Space’
‘Water Space’
’Soul Space’
‘Yang Space’
‘Yin Space’
The nine Spaces!
The Cosmic Hades was in the Sky Space; the Pure Heavenly Crystal was in the Soul Space; the Tree of Cultivating Tea and the other plants were in the Wood Space; the Sky Crystal Sand was in the Gold Space!
The rest were all empty. Apparently, Ye Xiao was yet to collect anything that had attributes corresponding to those Spaces.
The next moment, sixteen words appeared from the void and spun extremely fast, flying past Ye Xiao’s eyes. They turned into purple clouds and then into purple qi before finally entering into the Space.
To assemble the nine elements; to reverse the world. The nine return to their origin; the Ruler of the Firmament!
He didn’t need any explanation. Ye Xiao knew exactly what it meant.
To fully utilise the Space, Ye Xiao needed to collect all the nine kinds of qi. Only then could he open and enter the gate which led to ultimate strength.
If he completely filled the nine spaces with the nine different types of elemental qi, he would become the Ruler of the Firmament!
Looking at the items in the Space, he felt like they were just a drop in the ocean. Ye Xiao felt like weeping, but had no tears, “This is Space is going to play me till death. Where the hell can I acquire this amount of treasures? I am afraid that even filling the Space with the entire Qing-Yun Realm may not be enough to make ‘the nine return to their origin’…”
Meanwhile, he heard faint voices from his surroundings.
Ye Xiao felt like crying and drew back his mind from the Space… “That is quite a strike. So many Spaces and every one of them is massive… What am I going to do with them. How long will it take for me to fill it?”
And then he heard a voice of a girl sounding outside, “He must have made it through the pain successfully… This guy is really tough. For a whole day… he hasn’t been broken down… He actually got through it…”
“Such power of will is truly worth admiring…”
“I wonder who on earth did this…”
“Yes. Such a method is really unscrupulous and cruel…”
“Hmm. Bring some water and feed him. We can’t let him die. If he really dies of dehydration, that is going to be a big joke.”
“Yes.”
And then he heard a girl stand up and leave to fetch some water.
Ye Xiao understood a lot from this short conversation.
“First of all, I am not in my own house; second, the two women think that I was attacked… Third, my true status hasn’t been revealed yet; fourth, this girl may have saved me, but she may not have good intentions as my Jing and Mai are blocked… Therefore, I can only conclude that I am a captive here?”
He felt relieved at the same time. The mutation before was really scary and he was totally defenseless at that time. Let alone martial cultivators, even an ordinary person could have easily killed him. No matter what the girl’s intention was, she had saved his life after all. He would have to repay this debt anyway.
He had disguised himself and turned into Feng Zhi-Ling. Now, if he wanted to take off the disguise, he needed to perform his martial arts again.
In fact, if no one had paid attention to him or done anything to him while he was in coma, his body would have automatically performed the arts in order to regain his true appearance.
If so, his secret and status would have been exposed.
However, someone had shown up and blocked his Jing and Mai and this caused his secret disguise to be maintained.
Unfortunately, this resulted in the pain that Ye Xiao suffered to become several times stronger. However, compared to his body exploding, his status and secret…
It didn’t matter at all.
Ye Xiao groaned and woke up ‘slowly’. He opened his eyes with ‘difficulty’ and looked around.
He saw a girl in cyan walkover and ask him in a soothing tone, “Are you awake?”
Ye Xiao looked at her and found that his savior was actually the girl who had bid against him for the Regeneration Ink Lotus, so he felt relaxed. He spoke ‘faintly’, “Lady… It is you… Where… Where am I? Did you save me?”
The girl in cyan smiled softly and said, “A simple gesture. Nothing to speak of. Brother Feng, you don’t need to take it to heart.”
Ye Xiao acted like he was extremely thrilled, he blushed and reached out his hands to hold the hands of the girl in cyan. He said gratefully, “Lady… You saved my life. What you have done is equivalent to giving me a rebirth. I will always remember your kindness…”
Things happened so quickly that the girl didn’t have time to react. She didn’t expect a dying patient could reach out his hands so fast. She only felt that her hands had fallen into his warm palms.
The pretty hands of hers that had never been touched by any man, were actually held firmly by this guy!
A blush immediately appeared on her face and feelings of anger surged in her heart. She wanted to draw her hands back. She spoke with a constrained smile, “Brother Feng, you are too kind. It really means nothing…”
Ye Xiao kept holding her soft hands and didn’t let go. He spoke with a sigh, “Lady, you are kind-hearted and have saved me from danger. And yet you don’t claim the credit. You really have a strong sense of integrity. But I am not the kind of person to treat such kindness with ingratitude, am I?”
He held her hands even more strongly and said, “You are such a kind person. You are ladylike and soft, brave and gentle. You are noble and you spread joy to the whole world…”
The girl tried to withdraw her hands again, but failed. She was hearing every complimentary word from his mouth. She couldn’t be mad, and she didn’t dare to act too recklessly. She was afraid that she would hurt him again as he had just recovered from a serious condition. If so, her efforts to save him would be in vain…
She found it both funny and annoying as she said, “Brother Feng, could you please let go of my hands first? I… I am not used to…”
“Oh Oh Oh…” Ye Xiao instantly let go of her hands , “Oh. I am being rude… Sorry. Sorry…”
He rubbed his fingers and he could still feel the lingering presence of her soft hands in his palms. What a wonderful feeling…
However, there was something wrong - seriously wrong.
Ye Xiao had obviously felt that this girl was a cultivator, and her strength was powerful. He felt that she was making a showy display of her ability.
She had been disguising herself in order to show people that she was weak.
In fact, in the Land of Han-Yang, there were not many people that could see through her disguise. However, Ye Xiao could. How could a simple trick like this escape his attention. He had once been the Xiao Monarch who had ruled the Qing-Yun Realm!
The sense of her strength was faint, but it was real. Even if she had covered it very well, Ye Xiao could still feel it.
Such strength wouldn’t exist if she wasn’t a cultivator who focused on swords.
However, Ye Xiao had pretended to be a lecher so as to hold and touch her hands, but he didn’t find any trace of sword play!
There wasn’t even any trace of martial arts!
That was weird. It was totally against common sense.
No matter how much she took care of her skin, or how many times her body was abluted, it wouldn’t change the fact that whoever cultivated with swords, or any martial arts for that matter, would have traces of this martial art on his or her hands. These traces were not noticeable to ordinary people, but they were quite obvious to cultivators, especially to expert cultivators.
But this girl didn’t have any trace of cultivation at all!
At that moment, although he hadn’t touched her hands for long, the girl had asked him to let go, so he had to let go.
When Ye Xiao withdrew his hands, he felt embarrassed.
He was the Xiao Monarch, not some lecherous guy. After being admonished by a girl, even if he had a thick hide, he couldn’t stop the blush creeping up his neck. He felt really awkward.
After all, the hands of a young lady… were not something a man should casually hold, so he apologized in a low voice, “Well, uh… Sorry… that I touched your… um… your hands… for that long…”