Chapter 9

Editor: Byff

Proofreader: T

Although the demon sect is called the demon sect, it still has its own name, which is also a very shabby name at that. It wasn’t rich during its early days earning the name “HanYiJiao”¹Poor Sect.

When HanYiJiao was first established, the sect’s original intentions were unknown. Still, during my time there, it became clear to me that it was indeed a typical demon sect with a wolf’s ambition of doing all kinds of evil to other people.

I used to think that the demon sect was no different from the righteous sects, but in fact, there are still differences.

It was too naïve of me to actually want to wholeheartedly return to the demon sect in order to help them recover from the entire situation with the righteous sects. I was just a cheap sect master who had only been in reign for a year. I didn’t have enough prestige, no extraordinary wisdom, and my accomplishments in cultivation were average. Even my looks were ordinary… the average type that manifests no evil charm and madness that a demon sect master should possess.

So I wonder, how would an individual like me even be able to convince the sect members?

I had fallen off the cliff with my life and death uncertain; I should’ve just continued on being a ‘dead man.’ Why did I stubbornly insist on coming back? Now, this only made the new sect master notice my movements and assume that I wanted to usurp his seat, so how could he possibly leave me alone.

That’s right. HanYiJiao had elected a new sect master in the more than three months since I fell off the cliff. The man was not a disciple of the old sect master, but one of the teachers who was also a well-respected and prestigious elder in the sect. Strictly speaking, I should call him shishu²martial/sect uncle.

“You shouldn’t have come back.” My shishu, Lin Yue, is a gentle-looking man in his forties. He was a young teacher of the old sect master and had been serving as a teacher since he reached adulthood. After the old sect master died, he became an elder teacher. In the eyes of others, he is a person who is dedicated to teaching and indifferent to fame and fortune.

I used to think so too, but now, I just want to laugh three times!

“You conspired to take my place as the sect master and now you still want to kill me?” I looked at him coldly. “I am really stupid. I thought that you were a good person, but how can there be a decent person in the demon sect? A good person can’t live as long as you.”

Like an idiot, I wanted to come back to serve as the backbone of the demon sect and lead the sect disciples to kill the next day. Goddamnit! If it were not for my heavy sense of responsibility, I’m afraid I would already be having the time of my life by now.

Tsk, I really don’t fit in the demon sect, this place of deception.

He looked askance at me before indifferently saying, “You are indeed stupid. You are the most stupid among so many children, so I chose you. Your fellow brothers and sisters are too excellent to be the kind of sect master that I want.”

I was stunned. Then it all suddenly dawned on me.

In my days of being a sect master in the past, I often listened to this shishu’s teachings through small and large matters of the sect. He would do whatever he said he would, and I sincerely treated him as an elder. But I did not expect him to think of me as a puppet while I treated him as an elder.

I became extremely furious, to the extent that I didn’t care about whether my internal injuries were completely healed or not. I started attacking him. I knew that he would not let me leave so easily today.

This teacher and I were in the same sect, but he was older and his internal force was much higher than mine. After only fifty or so moves, his palm struck me on my left chest, which instantly made me spit out a mouthful of blood.

I painstakingly returned to HanYiJiao after almost three months, only to be beaten by his strike and get caught in a difficult position once again, fleeing that very night.

It was really as the saying goes, to be so unlucky that even drinking saliva will stuff the gap between your teeth. I was almost recovered, but I was beaten back to my previous injured state, coughing up blood while fleeing from Lin Yue’s pursuit. Yet just as I was about to escape from HanYiJiao’s sphere of influence, it just so happened that I ran into two righteous path disciples who came to HanYiJiao and were scouting the situation.

I noticed that the sabers on them were familiar, but I wasn’t sure whether it’s because I saw it on one of the cultivators that had surrounded and attacked me on the cliff or not. 

I was already an arrow at the end of its flight, and darkness was beginning to cloud my vision. When I saw them, it got even darker and I felt like I was dying. Then I suddenly fainted, falling flat on the ground.

When I came to, I had already been tied up and thrown on a cart.

I pretended I was still unconscious as I eavesdropped on their conversation all the way.

They are disciples of a sect called “Hidden Sword Gate,” and are currently on their journey to attend the Wulin³literally the circle of martial arts cultivators Assembly with their masters. When passing through the demon sect, they wanted to scout the situation in the periphery of the sect and ask the Alliance Leader for credit when, unexpectedly, they encountered me—a demon sect practitioner who delivered himself to someone’s front door for no purpose at all. 

But they only thought that I was a demon sect disciple, and didn’t know my real identity. They don’t know what I did and that the reason I was seriously injured is because I wanted to escape the demon sect.

After a long time, I saw that it would be unlikely for me to continue pretending, and so, I quietly ‘woke up’.

“Master, he’s awake!” shouted one of the disciples in charge of me.

Soon an old man surrounded by a crowd came. He twirled his beard as he asked me, “What’s your name? What’s your relationship with the demon sect?”

“Spare me, gentlemen!” I told them that I was a demon sect disciple. One day, I suddenly woke up wanting to turn my head back to the shore⁴A Buddhist term. Repent and be saved; if only one turns his head, there is the shore. If a person is lost in the bitter sea, as long as he turns his head, he will reach the shore. As long as one repents, there will always be a way back to righteousness., and so planned to apostate. I was then beaten before I escaped far away from the demon sect. I wasn’t expecting to be found but, they all knew what happened afterwards.

Maybe it’s due to the righteous disciples’ their lowly status that even though I spoke deeply, affectionately and with the ability to move people, they were still quite uncertain and skeptical about my words. In the end, they still said that they need to ask the alliance leader to judge me.

…Daye⁵term of respect for older men, isn’t it all over when I meet the alliance leader?

The sect master of the Hidden Sword Gate had poor vision due to old age and did not recognize me, but I had confronted the Wulin Alliance Leader head-to-head only three months ago. Unless he suddenly went mad or became demented, how could he not recognize me?!

I made up my mind to slip away and find a chance to escape in the middle of the journey.

Although this Hidden Sword Gate is a small sect, the quality of their disciples’ participation is unlike the level of their sect, especially the two sons of bitches who are specifically targeting me. As long as these two people guard me, I won’t even have any good fruit to eat.

What’s even more annoying is that although they are a small sect, they have plenty of people they can spare for binding my hands and feet and watching over me all day. The place where the Wulin Assembly would be held was now in sight, but I still hadn’t found a chance to escape.

The Wulin Assembly is a big event, and so gradually, we met more and more people from different sects along the way.

The Hidden Sword Gate members are probably afraid of being robbed by others, so they never revealed my identity, only saying that I was a thief that they met on the road. I am a former demon sect master but they described me as a thief who steals things… this makes my mood turn rather complicated.

While the party was approaching the town where the Wulin Assembly would be held, I saw some very familiar guys. Fortunately, I wasn’t taking care of my body these past days. I was so filthy that them being unable to recognize me was just a matter of course.

“Brother look, what a beautiful horse!” A disciple of Hidden Sword Gate suddenly exclaimed.

I followed the other party’s line of sight and saw a group of people on horses looking vastly different from the others as they appeared in the town in a very striking gesture.

Each of them was riding lofty black horses, with their smooth manes silkily woven into beautiful braids. With one glance, you can see their difference from the old, rough men around Jianghu. What was even more eye-catching was that when one of the men whistled towards the sky, two mighty goshawks⁶Northern Goshawk are large hawks and the largest and bulkiest of the accipiters. They have broad, rounded wings and long tails. –allaboutbirds.org immediately flew down. One steadily stopped on the man’s armguard, and the other one landed on the shoulder of the man riding in front of him.

“Such beautiful horses and hawks, is it the ‘Black Hawk Castle’?”

“They haven’t appeared in years, how come they’re here this time?”

“Is that Xiao Zhongnan at the front? Didn’t they say he was missing?”

“I know the second one at the lead. It’s Xiao Mobei, the second master of Black Hawk Castle! Then is Xiao Zhongnan really back?”

Amidst the buzzing noises of the surrounding discussion, my eyes had always stayed on the “Xiao Zhongnan” whose silhouette was gradually drifting away. I had this feeling that… his back seemed very familiar. This familiarity was explained later when Hidden Sword Gate and Black Hawk Castle stayed in the same inn.

The town where the Wulin Assembly would be held this time was very remote. It took more than a month to go all the way from Partridge Mountain, where HanYiJiao is located, to here. So many martial arts cultivators swarmed into the town at the same time that the town’s few inns were simply crowded, causing more than a dozen people to have to squeeze in at a chalet. There were a dozen people from Hidden Sword Gate, but they still gave some room. I heard Hidden Sword Gate’s disciple whisper to the Black Hawk Castle’s disciples on the side, saying that they have a separate courtyard, but the words “it’s great to be rich” was written on their faces and the way they spoke about it seemed bitter.

After the disciples of Black Hawk Castle cleaned the inn courtyard, the two Castle masters calmly and slowly entered the small inn that didn’t match their identity, while the Hidden Sword Gate was still waiting for the innkeeper to have a vacant room for them.

“Ge, the rooms have been taken care of. Your body has just recovered so you should rest early!”

“Hmn.”

I was squatting dazedly on the side, bored to death, but after hearing this “Hmn,” my whole being froze in place as if struck by thunder.

I turned my head in disbelief to look at the man who was said to be the master of Black Hawk Castle. The other is very tall, as tall as Psycho. The only difference is that he is dressed neatly and stylishly, without a thick beard covering his face. A heroic figure who can be regarded as a man among men. However, his eyes that were as deep, quiet, and dark as the night sky, I recognized with just a glance.

—That’s Psycho!

This is indeed a small world full of coincidences.

• 1
  Poor Sect
• 2
  martial/sect uncle
• 3
  literally the circle of martial arts cultivators
• 4
  A Buddhist term. Repent and be saved; if only one turns his head, there is the shore. If a person is lost in the bitter sea, as long as he turns his head, he will reach the shore. As long as one repents, there will always be a way back to righteousness.
• 5
  term of respect for older men
• 6
  Northern Goshawk are large hawks and the largest and bulkiest of the accipiters. They have broad, rounded wings and long tails. –allaboutbirds.org