The Transcendent Immortal Chapter 133 Shadows From The Past

The two female disciples grew frightened with despair, their faces watery pale as tears flowed down their faces. Sobbing hard, they struggled to stifle their sobs as they resisted any urge to beg for leniency. Xiaoyue, choking with tears, croaked, "Please... Teacher... N-no! Let me do it!" She drew the sword that hung from her waist and walked slowly towards the two other girls.

The blade of Xiaoyue's sword shone coldly as she brandished her weapon, her seniors begging with soft and weepy whimpers, "P-please... Junior Sister... P-please n-no..."

Tears rolled down Xiaoyue's cheeks. "I-I'm sorry... seniors," she gasped as she sank her blade into the chest of one of the girls.

Xiao Chen could watch no more. He shook his head grimly and sighed. But with another step, the scene before him fleeted away, replaced with the view of another memory. He saw two young men, both clad in white, standing before each other face-to-face. There was an inexplicable yet uneasy tension between them. One of the men, Xiao Chen had recognized, was Yu Yifeng, while the other was the same Leng Ningfeng that he had encountered during the Immortals League Compet.i.tion.

"Wu Nian," Yu Yifeng beseeched painfully, "Please... Come back..."

"Wu Nian? The Wu Nian that Brother Yifeng had told me so much about?" Xiao Chen mused with surprise. Leng Ningfeng was Wu Nian, once the fellow student of Yu Yifeng; his former junior who had succ.u.mbed to the call of the Devil's Practice and joined them.

"Yu Yifeng," Leng Ningfeng snorted frostily, "You were the one who had tried to save me, yet, you are the one who wished to kill me today! There is no coming back for me!" An Immortal's Sword materialized in his hand: the Unsullied!

"The Unsullied," he said, "you had given to me as a gift. I now return it to you; our friends.h.i.+p is no more, and I will not hesitate to strike you down the next time we meet!"

As he finished, Leng Ningfeng immediately morphed into a bolt of light that shot into the air. Yu Yifeng remained rooted at where he stood, quietly looking at the Unsullied that he now held with sorrow in his eyes.

Xiao Chen felt a tug in his gut, a sorrowful sadness that seemed to radiate from the Unsullied now kept in his Divine Vessel. So this was the past that Brother Yifeng had never once spoken to anybody, he wondered silently.

The scenery before him blurred once more. Before long, another scenery opened up before him. He was standing in front of a quiet hillside village. It was the same Mu Family Village that he had pa.s.sed by before. There, he saw Mu Chengxue walking on a path that coursed in the middle of a dense field of crops. The little Mu Chengxue, now a little girl at about eleven or twelve of age, was marching with her lips pursed, glowering and pouting angrily at a handsome boy walking beside her, a youth that seemed to be sixteen or seventeen.

"I have said many times, Ah Xue (Mu Chengxue's name)," he said to her, a slight hint of annoyance in his voice, "You are not to learn any arcane skills! You ought not to even think about it!" "But I want to be powerful enough to protect everyone," Mu Chengxue grumbled, "I want to be able to defend you, Big Brother!"

"Hmph!" The young boy threw his sleeves and turned to leave. "We of the Mu Clan had been living here in hiding for centuries. We would be in mortal danger if anyone knows that we are learned in the ways of the Immortals!"

"Oh..." Mu Chengxue replied reluctantly through her pursed lips, "All right then... I'll do as you say. I'll not learn any knowledge and skills of the Immortals... Don't be angry, Brother..." But she looked up, only to find her brother had vanished suddenly. Growing worried and panic, she began crying out for him, "Brother! Where are you! Where have you been?"

For some time, Mu Chengxue ran along the path in the fields, shouting for her brother. But there was no reply. She crumbled to her knees and began to cry. "Please, Big Brother! Don't be angry at me!" she wailed in a heartrending cry, "I will not touch anything that you forbid! Please come back, Brother..."

Not far away, Xiao Chen could hardly believe his eyes, blinking them profusely. He had been watching the conversation between Mu Chengxue and her brother, but even he did not notice how her brother had vanished. Rather, it was as if he had never existed at all. But he did realize that there were unexplainable gaps in Mu Chengxue's memories as if the recollections were fabricated and forcefully planted into her mind, instead of true events of her past.

The image before him faded and blurred into a collage of distorted colors. Xiao Chen felt a melancholic knot in his gut building suddenly. The illusions revealed the memories of others, save for himself. Where were the memories of his own past? Just when he was feeling mournful, the swirling ma.s.ses of colors stopped and revealed a monolithic but quiet hall. His head raised absent-mindedly and saw the plaque bearing the words "Yaoguang Temple" upon the eaves of the huge chamber.

Whorls of cool mists slithered lazily around the pillars around him, and cranes, looking lofty and majestic, fluttered in the skies outside, imposing upon a vista of stalwart mountains that stretched far out of view. Finally, Xiao Chen heaved a long breath. The illusory domain of his own memories. He was finally back at Mystic Cyan Mountain. For once, he could once again set his eyes upon his master without being in a dream.

But everything around him: the familiar feeling and the tingling of his senses to the surroundings... Everything felt so real to him, that he could not hold himself back. He began pacing towards the hall when a crisp voice yelled at him from over his shoulders, "Hold!"

It was a voice that rang as frosty as the first snow, yet he could almost feel the warmth that could only come from the person who shouted to him. His eyes grew red and moist. Xiao Chen wrestled against his welling emotions, turning slowly as the image of the woman, dressed in green robes that flittered in the mountain breeze, whose fair features he would never forget came into view...

Silence pervaded the air between them as if time had stopped momentarily. "Master," Xiao Chen fought against the spasms of empathy and uttered, "Chen'er has returned..." With every syllable that escaped his lips, tears fought to fall out of his eyes.

Sadly, this was not a reunion that was meant to be. Ling Yin could hear nothing that he said. She was a mere relic of his past while he lived in the present time. The call that she shouted was not for him, but his younger self in the memory.

A young boy, looking about ten years old, snuck a wicker basket behind his back. His clothes were covered with grime and soot was daubed on his face. A couple of live carp fishes sprang in protest in his basket, trying to escape his capture. The boy was none other than the little Xiao Chen of his own past.

"How many times I have warned you against leaving the grounds without permission," Ling Yin scolded the little Xiao Chen crossly, realizing the wicker basket hidden behind him, "What's more, why are you endangering the lives of innocent animals! What have I always taught you?"

"But I'm not going to slaughter them..." The little Xiao Chen muttered meekly, "I was going to release them into the stream here so that they can accompany me when I'm training..."

Xiao Chen's eyes only grew wetter by the moment as he relived his own memories from a third-person view. There was no one in the Yaoguang Temple at the time, save only him and his mentor, Ling Yin. As the chief of the Violet-night Peak, her responsibilities had kept her from coming regularly to the main hall of the stronghold, leaving the young Xiao Chen to train and meditate alone, hence his desire to keep some animals to accompany himself. It not until Ling Yin had presented him with the f.u.xi Zither, where he had the Zither Spirit, Evernight, as a friend to stay by his side.

"Master..." Xiao Chen gasped, moving a few more steps closer to his mentor. They were so close, yet he could no longer touch her and feel the warmth of his parent-surrogate. His heart was filled with emotions at being able to see her again, yet he felt equally empty at the same time; the distance between them so vague and undefined.

Suddenly, it dawned upon him: he could experience the illusions of his memories and that of others that would also mean that others might be able to peer into his past as well! He could not suffer anyone prying into his past, most ominously Xiaoyue of the Thousand Feathers Sect!

He began to feel distressed, his heart began racing with fear. He needed to erase the illusions of his memories, no matter how he refused to. Even if the Ling Yin was only an illusory rendition, he still wanted to keep on gazing upon her.

Slowly, the images began to dwindle once more. The kaleidoscope of colors coalesced and gave way to another scene. He found himself still atop the Violet-night Peak. A voice, as gentle as a bird yet clear as a bell, called from behind, "Heh heh heh! What's this, Senior? Has the Master sentenced you to another punishment?"

He would never forget the voice. A voice that summoned his anger as he flexed his fingers and cracked his knuckles with fury. He turned and saw a gorgeous young woman. Who else would it be, but Qianyu Nishang!

Not far away he saw himself, now almost adult, with features identical to himself now.

"Why have you come, Junior Qianyu? My Master will be back any minute now! You should not be here!"

"Heh heh heh! There's no need for fear! I'd just overheard Master Qingxuan mentioned that they still have a business! Martial Uncle Ling Yin will not be back for some time! Let's slipped off the grounds for some fun!"

"B-but... I'd be dead if my Master were to return and find me missing..."

Xiao Chen scoffed. What were your aims, Qianyu Nishang? What are your designs for trying to approach me?

"I think I'll pa.s.s, Junior Sister... I'll come to see you in a day or two. I have something for you."

Xiao Chen felt his anger began to burn to such a point that the knuckles of his clenched fists cracked under the tension. He knew what it was, the gift that his former self wanted to present to Qianyu Nishang: the sword, Autumn Water that he had gone through great trouble and risk to obtain.

With a burst of his True Energy, he cast a blow upon the phantasmal depiction of his former romance with Qianyu Nishang, reducing into nothingness. He could no longer bear to watch, while at the same time, it was a scene that he hoped that Xiaoyue would never see.

Just then, a deafening sound echoed through the empty s.p.a.ce around him, a noise so strong that the entire domain constructed by the enchantment that held them began to shake and shudder. The sound seemed to originate from the illusory domain that replayed Xiaoyue's memory.

But Xiao Chen detected a distinct familiarity that accompanied the loud and terrible noise. The horrifying noise that came from Xiaoyue's memory illusion... It suddenly reminded him of Qianyu Nishang. But why her, he asked himself.