Thirty li outside Shou’an City.
The pear blossoms were just beginning to bloom, a landscape of snowy white as far as the eye could see.
Ye Wei’ai scrambled out of the river on all fours. Before he could even find his footing, he began to stumble forward in a desperate run. Trails of water and muddy footprints spread across the parched road behind him.
Not long after, a foot stepped onto those damp, lingering prints, following him with the leisurely pace of someone strolling through a garden.
Ye Wei’ai ran as if pursued by wolves. Unwittingly, his figure was swallowed by a shroud of grey mist; it was as if he had stumbled into a boundary, vanishing from sight in an instant.
Direction was impossible to discern within the fog. Ye Wei’ai groped blindly through the haze for a long time. Feeling that he had surely run far enough to lose his pursuer, he finally took a moment to heave a deep sigh. With trembling hands, he wiped the cold sweat from his face and slumped dejectedly against a large, tilted boulder.
He had been so focused on his flight that, coupled with the dense fog, he completely failed to notice the two words carved onto the stone in bold, sweeping strokes—Biri.
Biri Cliff, also mockingly known as Body-Dumping Cliff. It earned its name because the summit was shrouded in mist year-round, making day seem like night, and its depths were bottomless—a perfect place for murder and concealing evidence.
An unnatural wind brushed up from the base of the cliff, making the knee-high withered grass rustle ominously. The grey mist thinned for a moment, only to be replaced by an even denser shroud a heartbeat later.
Ye Wei’ai panted for a while before remembering something. He crouched on the ground and pulled out a small iron rod, beginning to scratch a circle into the earth.
He drew a few strokes but felt something was wrong. He carefully rubbed a bit out and then hesitantly added another line. Just as he was debating whether to erase it again, a clear, pleasant voice suddenly drifted into his ear.
"Young man, are you drawing a teleportation array?"
Ye Wei’ai instinctively let out an "Mm," but he reacted immediately. His scalp went numb, and his body froze instantly where he sat.
The voice continued, "Though, looking at this array, you don't seem very skilled. The strokes for the Yanhe and the formation eye don't even come close to where they should be. Tsk, tsk. Shall I teach you?"
His face pale with horror, Ye Wei’ai slowly turned his head. His neck made a series of clicking sounds as bone ground against bone, sounding exceptionally eerie on this cliff where only the wind howled.
A figure slowly emerged from the thick fog. His robes fluttered with a snapping sound in the wind. The man seemed to be holding a sword, the tip of which dragged along the ground, creating a string of piercing screeches as he walked.
Ye Wei’ai had been pampered since childhood, sheltered from the world's hardships by his brother. He had never seen such a terrifying display. His legs turned to jelly, and he collapsed onto the ground, staring and trembling as the man approached step by step.
A gust of wind, heavy with the scent of damp earth, suddenly swept up from behind him. Ye Wei’ai glanced back and saw the bottomless abyss yawning like the maw of a great beast. If he took just one more step back, it would swallow him whole.
"Ah—!"
Ye Wei’ai shrieked, shivering as he scrambled a few inches away from the cliff’s edge. The sound of his heart, thumping like a drum, echoed in his ears.
The sound of the blade scraping against the gravel mingled with the whistling wind. The man spoke again. "Don't think of escaping. This is Biri Cliff. With me here, you won't leave this fog in this lifetime. Just hand over the Soul-Settling Lamp, and I won't kill you. In fact, I'll treat you like my own darling and cherish you. Well? Isn't that a fair trade?"
Ye Wei’ai didn't think it was fair at all. Judging by the man's flippant way of speaking, he was clearly not a decent person.
Trembling all over, Ye Wei’ai stammered, "What... Soul... what lamp?"
"The Soul-Settling Lamp."
Ye Wei’ai: "Soul-Settling what?"
The man: "..."
"The Soul-Settling Lamp!!" The man clicked his tongue impatiently. "Legend has it that the ancient artifact, the Soul-Settling Lamp, has the power to settle souls and restore life. Fifty years ago, Ye Weiyang, the Master of Evernight Villa, obtained it in a hidden realm. The whole martial world knows about it. Ye Weiyang dotes on you so much it makes one's teeth ache. If he didn't use the lamp he nearly died to get on you, I'll jump off this Body-Dumping Cliff myself."
Ye Wei’ai looked utterly bewildered, having no idea what the man was talking about.
As they spoke, the man stopped three paces away. The fog slowly dispersed, revealing his form.
The newcomer had likely used a Spirit Attachment Art; his figure was even more ethereal than the mist. As the wind blew, the points of light making up his body distorted, and his face remained somewhat blurred. Only his phoenix eyes were clear, looking as though they had been dipped in blood as they stared fixedly at Ye Wei’ai.
The man lazily raised his gaze, looking at Ye Wei’ai with indifference. "Kid, my patience isn't great. I'll count to three. If you don't hand over the Soul-Settling Lamp, I'm going to kick you down there to keep those skeletons at the bottom of the cliff company."
Ye Wei’ai was dazed for a moment by the man's appearance, but he was quickly jolted awake by the killing intent radiating from him. He explained feebly, "I... I don't know anything about a Soul-Settling Lamp. It's not on me. My brother never told me anything about a lamp. You must... have the wrong person."
The man clicked his tongue again, muttering a low "Noisy." Without even counting, he swung a foot toward Ye Wei’ai.
Terrified, Ye Wei’ai squeezed his eyes shut and instinctively pushed himself backward.
He was already at the very edge of the cliff. With this sudden retreat, his hand unexpectedly met empty air. Before he could react, his upper body jerked backward. The terrifying sensation of weightlessness and vertigo surged through him a moment too late.
He plunged headfirst into the abyss.
Ye Wei’ai: "Aaaaaah—!"
The man: "..."
"Hey—!" The man had only intended to scare him; he hadn't expected the boy to actually roll off. He instinctively reached out to grab Ye Wei’ai, but his hand passed right through the corner of the boy's robe, dissolving into a wisp of wind.
A cold blast swirled up from the bottom of the cliff, scattering his smoke-like body, though it quickly coalesced again.
The man looked at the activated formation in his hand with an expression that defied description. He remained silent for a long time, his eyes the only thing conveying the complex message: *To hell with you.*
The Soul-Settling Lamp had been right before his eyes. As long as the formation entered Ye Wei’ai’s body, he could have obtained the ancient artifact. No one could have predicted that the duck already in his mouth would fly away in such a soul-stirring fashion.
Fortunately, this man possessed a very strong psychological resilience. He crouched there for a moment, thinking, then stood up with an air of nonchalance, planning to return and reconsider his strategy.
Meanwhile, as he fell, Ye Wei’ai had closed his eyes in primal fear. The sensation of weightlessness nearly caused him to faint. The wind howled incessantly in his ears, and the withered grass clinging to the cliffside scratched bloody welts onto his fair face.
Ye Wei’ai didn't even realize he was screaming at the top of his lungs. The light above him grew more and more distant.
He flailed his limbs wildly in the air, desperate to catch onto something to stop his descent. But on these barren cliffs, there was nothing to save him. He grasped at nothing for a long time, only succeeding in covering his hands in blood from the jagged rocks.
*Am I going to die?* Ye Wei’ai thought dizzily. *I... I haven't even seen my brother one last time. Am I really going to die?*
Filled with despair, he slowly opened his eyes to take one last look at the grey sky.
Just as he was about to close his eyes and wait for death, his back suddenly slammed into something. The impact of the fall was so great that Ye Wei’ai nearly spat out a mouthful of blood. Once he adjusted to the agonizing pain throughout his body, he realized he was still falling.
However, something was different about this descent...
There seemed to be a warm body pressed against his back. Breath fanned against the back of his neck, making his skin crawl. The roar in his ears gradually faded, replaced by furious shouting that nearly made his head explode.
"I'm going to kill you! Dammit!" The person behind him was cursing in a rage, though it was unclear if he was cursing at Ye Wei’ai. "I must have committed some heinous sin in my past life! Did you really have to pick this moment to pick a fight with me?!"
Ye Wei’ai blinked rapidly, unable to understand why he had landed on someone after falling off a cliff.
Seeing that Ye Wei’ai was awake, the person immediately barked, "You bastard! If you don't want to die, grab my waist!"
Ye Wei’ai froze for a second, then obediently did as he was told in his confusion.
The man seemed to be holding a worn iron rod. During the fall, he suddenly exerted himself, driving the sharp end of the rod into the solid cliff face. However, because the cliff was too smooth and hard, he failed several times. The iron rod sparked as it struck the massive stones.
Ye Wei’ai vaguely understood that the man was trying to use the rod to stop their fall. According to his limited knowledge, he knew this was practically impossible. Yet the man seemed unaware of this, persistently slamming the iron rod against the cliff.
After a dozen consecutive attempts, the rod finally wedged firmly into a crack between two massive boulders. Even then, the momentum of their falling bodies dragged the rod down several dozen inches before they finally came to a slow halt.
Ye Wei’ai had been in a daze until now. Only when they stopped did he truly react. He looked down at the bottomless abyss below, and his heart began to race with a delayed terror, cold sweat pouring down his face.
The man gripped the iron rod with both hands, panting for breath. He looked down at Ye Wei’ai and said with utter sincerity, "To hell with your ancestors."
Ye Wei’ai: "..."
Scared out of his wits, Ye Wei’ai clung to the man's waist, refusing to let go. "What... what's going on?" he asked in a trembling voice.
The man replied, "I bloody well want to ask you that! Why the hell were you jumping off a cliff? And of all the places to land, you had to land on me! Do you have any idea how long I've been climbing up from the bottom with my bare hands to reach that height?!"
Ye Wei’ai asked cautiously, "How... how long?"
"Three years," the man said tragically. "I spent three whole years climbing with my bare hands just to finally see the top. And then you hit me and knocked me back half a month's worth of progress!"
Ye Wei’ai: "..."
***
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Is Everyone Else's Eldest Disciple Like This? | Chapter 73 | A Sudden Descent | Novela.app | Novela.app
