Radiant Blade of the Wilderness

Chapter 260: The Origin of the Immortal Melody

I’ve already burned lifespan on two arts in the past month alone. I have to rein it in... Luckily I didn’t try any for over a year before that... Ding Songyan felt a chill of lingering fear and bowed very formally.

"Thank you for the warning, Twelfth Madam."

He was actually a little curious what immortal melody was worth her mother exhausting herself to complete, but it involved someone’s mother’s death, and asking to her face would be rude, so he held back the urge and kept the thought from becoming action.

Twelfth Madam Luo glanced at him and fiddled with the cups on the tea table.

"Ask if you want to."

She can tell even that? Ding Songyan said after some thought, "I’m just curious what immortal melody was worth your mother doing that."

Twelfth Madam Luo lifted her cup, took a sip, and said in a somewhat low voice, "It’s an immortal melody left behind by Laotong. My mother was a disciple of the Guishan School."

Having read the Secret Classic of Mountains and Seas thoroughly, Ding Songyan naturally knew the deity Laotong. He was also called Qitong, a son of Emperor Zhuanxu and a symbol of music and rhythm. Part of his legacy formed the Guishan School, which had more Dharma Realm masters than the Brightnight Sect but no Heaven-Man.

Laotong’s most famous descendants were three. One was Zhurong, ancestor of the Hong clan and the god worshipped by the Kitchen King Order. The other two were Chong and Li, who accepted Emperor Zhuanxu’s command and carried out heaven-earth severance.

I never expected Laotong’s legacy to be so fragmented that the Guishan School isn’t top-tier and even the immortal melody needs later generations to complete it... Ding Songyan nodded lightly and did not ask more.

For the Great Wilderness, Laotong’s father and children were both more famous than he was, and the heaven-earth severance they brought about still deeply affected every aspect of life north and south of the Great River.

This made Ding Songyan rather eager to see what kind of immortal melody this link between past and future deity had left.

Twelfth Madam Luo did not bring it up again and said with sudden feeling, "You actually told me about the mystery of Kunlun’s loss and the Celestial Thearch’s palace..."

This was one of the most important secrets between heaven and earth.

"I was afraid that if I didn’t explain clearly, you’d clean house for the Brightnight Sect and kill me in the name of the orthodox way," Ding Songyan joked self-deprecatingly.

Though she knew Second Bull Ding was joking, Twelfth Madam Luo couldn’t help glaring at him.

Am I really so unable to tell right from wrong?

Ding Songyan quickly composed his expression and said gravely, "Though we’ve known each other only a month, I trust your character, Twelfth Madam."

"The character of a shrew who curses people in the street every day?" Twelfth Madam Luo said with a self-mocking smile.

She paused.

"I won’t mention these secrets to anyone.

"If I meet someone who already knows and we need to discuss it, I’ll say I heard it elsewhere."

Before Ding Songyan could respond, she smiled lightly.

"So you do know how to praise people.

"Why were you always so over the top before?"

"If I said what I was most grateful for, I was afraid you’d slap me silly. But if I were too restrained, it wouldn’t express my thanks and would seem too dismissive. After a lot of thought, all I could do was be over the top. That’s also a kind of holding steadfastly to the middle way," Ding Songyan explained earnestly.

"What kind of grateful words would make me slap you silly?" Twelfth Madam Luo was both amused and puzzled.

Seeing Ding Songyan about to open his mouth, she suddenly became alert.

"Shut up!"

I mustn’t hear it. I absolutely must not hear it!

This fellow loves scheming, but he almost never lies in lines like these. If even his thick skin thinks I’d slap him for it, I very likely would, in a rage.

Ding Songyan closed his mouth with a faint regret.

After a moment’s thought, he said, "Twelfth Madam, if one hasn’t mastered the Sutra of Celestial Heart Wisdom and often uses the Celestial Heart imprint to split their mind in two, will they really get Soul Displaced Sickness?"

"I’ve never read the Sutra of Celestial Heart Wisdom. How would I know?" Twelfth Madam Luo thought and said, "But you do need to be careful with it. Best to study the principle deeply and create something similar yourself.

"Just to subdue Ge Heng, was it necessary to use it one extra time?"

Ding Songyan sighed with a smile.

"I don’t have any method for controlling others, and don’t plan to use one, but Ge Heng comes from the heretics after all, so I have to be on guard. I’ll certainly have him do things for me in the future, so I need to thoroughly subdue him and keep him from daring any second thoughts.

"That was the most outlandish and most shocking way I could think of."

Just as it had been when he read that passage in the book back then.

Ding Songyan concluded, "Having him pass messages and items through you, Twelfth Madam, was also partly for this reason. If he can sense how unfathomable you are, he’ll think even more of Ling Donglai, and if he can’t, the earlier intimidation is enough.

"Win the heart, and the doubts disappear."

Twelfth Madam Luo nodded slightly, and after a moment laughed in dismay.

"No wonder Yan Yong said you resembled him in his youth.

"Back then, many thought it was the Celestial Heart imprint planted in him that led to his great mistake, when in fact he’d never been affected at all."

Master Yan was that formidable in his youth? Ding Songyan suddenly found it hard to believe that such a Master Yan had died at his hand.

After a while discussing the Zhen household affair, Twelfth Madam Luo nodded.

"The Su clan has a long history and an unbroken legacy. If they say the most famous person surnamed Jiang in several hundred years is Jiang Weichen, that should be right.

"When I travel the mortal world in the future, or after I return to my sect, I’ll keep an eye out for news of Jiang Weichen."

Ding Songyan took a sip of the tea Twelfth Madam had brewed and suddenly felt vexed.

"I finished another Chapter of the storybook and meant to bring it for your critique, but I left in such a hurry today that I forgot."

Twelfth Madam Luo laughed lightly.

"Aren’t you a storyteller? Just narrate it."

"All right." Ding Songyan had already returned to his old trade once and didn’t mind doing so again.

He was about to begin when Twelfth Madam turned sideways, reached toward the desk, and drew over a paperweight and a paper fan.

"There. Can’t do without the props." Twelfth Madam Luo smiled and handed them to Ding Songyan.

Ding Songyan took the fan and snapped it open. It bore a freehand landscape painting, ink in alternating shades, the mood exquisite.

"Whose work is this?" Ding Songyan asked curiously.

It was clearly no ordinary piece.

"I painted it myself." Twelfth Madam Luo lifted her cup and took a leisurely sip.

"Versatile indeed," Ding Songyan praised sincerely.

He then added silently, Bought with a sacrificed childhood. People like me only know mischievous tricks...

"Are you badmouthing me in your head?" Twelfth Madam Luo suddenly asked, her phoenix eyes snapping open.

"You can read minds?" Ding Songyan was startled.

Twelfth Madam Luo scoffed.

"Can’t I tell what kind of person you are?

"Go ahead."

In the winter chill, Ding Songyan flicked the paper fan and began telling the new Chapter of Journey to the West from memory, embellishing a good deal more than the original manuscript.

When he finished, Twelfth Madam Luo frowned slightly.

"The rest is fine, unexpected yet reasonable.

"But why make Cao E and the Bull Demon King, Princess Iron Fan’s fiancé, swear brotherhood without knowing the background?"

Ding Songyan explained carefully, "It’s more dramatic and the emotional entanglement is stronger."

He didn’t dare say the last bit, "loyalty and love can’t both be kept," for fear of pricking Twelfth Madam’s heart.

It was really just planting a hook, so that whether Cao E and Princess Iron Fan ended up together, there would be an explanation either way.

It was only when Twelfth Madam asked that Ding Songyan suddenly realized something was off: it was something of an allusion.

Twelfth Madam Luo said with a half smile, "The final landing point of this romance is "loyalty and love can’t both be kept," isn’t it?"

Ding Songyan broke into a cold sweat, thoughts racing through his sea of consciousness.

"Love must come before loyalty."

Twelfth Madam Luo glanced at the sky, already darkening, and picked up her cup.

"It’s late. Go home."

Ding Songyan stood up hesitantly, wondering whether to argue his case a little more.

"Do you want to stay for dinner or what?" Twelfth Madam Luo scolded with a laugh.

She sighed and added, "I know you didn’t mean it. If you had, you wouldn’t have told that part in front of me."

Ding Songyan tersely acknowledged and dared not say more.

At times like this, the more you say, the more you get wrong.

He had just turned and stepped out of the main building when Twelfth Madam Luo suddenly called him back, then said after some thought, "Come the day after tomorrow and answer the question I gave you earlier."

Ding Songyan deliberately asked, puzzled, "Why not tomorrow?"

"Can’t I want a day of peace and quiet?" Twelfth Madam Luo glared at him.

Seeing her mood had recovered somewhat, Ding Songyan smiled.

"Fine, fine, fine."

After he left the back courtyard, Twelfth Madam Luo got up, went to the shed, hauled out a pile of wood, picked up her hatchet, and plainly and simply split them into small pieces, one after another.

As she split, she naturally thought of the Zhen household affair Ding Songyan had told.

His experiences are more exciting than his storybook...

To dodge and weave in such a situation with a mortal body, struggling to survive and finally living through it, is no small feat. I doubt I could have done it...

After a while, Twelfth Madam Luo suddenly froze, the hatchet stopping on the wood.

She had warned herself again and again not to learn about Second Ding and Demoness Ji’s past, so as not to be dragged into other people’s romantic debts, yet somehow...

"The words still ring in my ears, and how did it come to this..." Twelfth Madam sighed helplessly.

It was just like the "only this once" line.

Twelfth Madam Luo then began coaxing herself, "All I can say is that worldly affairs are impermanent.

"Once I knew he carried a Celestial Heart imprint, not getting to the bottom of it would have been contrary to righteousness...

"Besides, he and Demoness Ji aren’t really in a romantic debt either. It’s not the tangle of love and hate I imagined...

"Come to think of it, in the Dingjiang Prefecture affair, there’s Zheng Zhuxi of the Brightnight Sect, Su Qingli of the Su clan, and Demoness Ji. Exactly three...

"Journey to the West has three important female leads too. Is that unintentional, or intentional?

"Will he end up choosing the scarlet grass of Jade Pool with the three-lifetime entanglement?"

Twelfth Madam Luo’s eyes gradually brightened, and her wood-splitting slowly grew lighter.

......

Ding Songyan had barely stepped into the estate’s side courtyard when Li Baima came up, his eyes burning.

"Brother Ding, can you guide me on the next seven moves now?"

"Sure." Ding Songyan did not refuse.

Before long it was after dinner. Ding Songyan was about to continue writing his storybook when he suddenly sensed something and looked out the window.

He saw Liu Cheng, the Sea-Treading Gang’s Young Boss, whom he hadn’t seen in a while, calling at the courtyard gate.

After leading Liu Cheng, in a moon-white long robe, into the room, Ding Songyan said with a half smile, "Young Boss, you aren’t one to come visiting without a reason."

Liu Cheng said, a little sheepishly, "I do need your help with something, Brother Ding."

"What is it?" Ding Songyan asked.

Liu Cheng glanced at the window, worried about eavesdroppers.

"No problem." Ding Songyan had already quietly sealed the room with Establishing the Six Directions.

Liu Cheng’s expression shifted several times before he said through gritted teeth, "I want to kill my godfather."