Beichen Sword Sect's Headmaster's Secret Records

Chapter 376
"harddisk?"

The proprietress looked completely bewildered, unable to see what made it resemble a plate.

Huangfu Yi also picked up the hard drive, studied and fiddled with it for a while, and was certain that it was something he had seen in the Outer Heaven.

These square metal blocks are impermeable to any light, and are probably the outer shell of a Faraday cage that is explosion-proof, anti-magnetic, and radiation-proof. They are made in a square shape to facilitate stacking and transportation. The slot interface matches the neural lines of the war wreck armor, so it should be able to directly connect to and read the data inside.

Although Huangfu Yi didn't know how the things from the Outer Heavens had arrived in the Taiji Heaven, nor why the hard drive interface of the Taiji Heaven seemed to be interconnected with that of the Outer Heavens, it was obvious that the "things" in "somethings" didn't refer to the hard drive itself, but rather to the data stored within it.

"However, this is a special magical artifact, just a part. It needs to be used with other tools to function. You have no use for it. How much is it?"

"Parts of a magical artifact?"

The proprietress looked suspicious, guessing that this young man was taking advantage of her ignorance and deliberately spouting nonsense to trick her precious item. However, seeing his open and honest demeanor, he didn't seem to be lying or faking it. After pondering for a moment, she smiled.

“Alright, judging from this, it is a treasure destined for Daozi. It can’t be sold. Since I don’t need it, I’ll give it to you.”

Huangfu Yi was taken aback.
"Give it to me? Really?"

"Really, Linglongxuan doesn't need these few coins. Why not form a good relationship with Daozi..."

As the proprietress spoke, she looked the young man up and down. She saw that he had thick eyebrows and big eyes, regular features, a broad chest and a straight back, and a pine-like spine. He exuded a warm, masculine aura. She couldn't help but like him. She crossed her legs and let her gilded long skirt cascade down from her knees like a waterfall, showing him her slender, jade-like legs.

But to everyone's surprise, the person opposite didn't even look at him. He frowned, shook his head, and politely declined.

"No need. Repaying favors is the most expensive thing. We're complete strangers, so I can't accept your kindness for nothing."

Besides, who knows what the karmic consequences of this evil thing are? Let's just take the money.

It's safer to exchange money for goods immediately, so neither party owes the other anything.

The proprietress was a little confused by what she said.

The boy in front of her looked naive, but he could see through the magic array. He barged into her boudoir and immediately tried to take something from her treasure trove that she didn't even recognize. He was clearly a wolf in sheep's clothing, a disciple of a prestigious sect who had been sent out to undergo training and tribulation, and a second-generation heir protected by a powerful figure.

She didn't want to offend such a ruthless person; her intention was simply to hand over the goods and make a good connection. But who knew they wouldn't want to make a connection with her? What, they looked down on her? They wouldn't even take advantage of her for free??

Before she could react, Huangfu Yi suddenly stood up, clasped his hands in greeting, and said...

"Madam, I apologize for disturbing you. If this deal falls through, then so be it."

However, I have something to tell you: this thing is probably of great importance, with countless consequences and endless troubles.

It's best to act as soon as possible, otherwise there might be bloodshed.

After all, some things, though precious, are probably less useful to Huangfu Yi than those pieces of junk at the moment. Even if he got his hands on them, he wouldn't be able to read the data inside, so he naturally wouldn't insist on them at all.

"What! You won't accept this, you won't accept that, and you're even threatening me? What do you want then! Do you want me to sell you for a penny?"

The proprietress was furious upon hearing this. Her eyebrows furrowed, and she slammed her hand on the table, but she still did some calculations with her hands.

It's impossible to predict anything, but the thought of bloodshed is certainly a good thing; otherwise, how could such a filthy thing have fallen into her hands...?

Huangfu Yi thought for a moment,

“One coin is indeed too little. How about this, I promise to do three things for you to settle this matter, how about that?”

The proprietress sneered.
"With your level of cultivation, you think you can work for me? What can you possibly do?"

Huangfu Yi said calmly,

"Skills are earned through one's own efforts. Although I am currently penniless and have no special skills, since some people can become leaders and respected figures in just a few years after ten years of hard work, I am not necessarily unable to achieve something as well."

"Your Excellency is also a practitioner of the complete Dao; ten years of practice—can't you wait?"

"Good, that's ambitious, but we don't need to wait ten years, let's do it now!"

The proprietress rolled her eyes, then suddenly chuckled and tossed something over.

Huangfu Yi took it in his hand and looked at it closely. He saw a blank stone tablet, flat and cool to the touch. He couldn't tell what kind of stone it was for a moment.

"In the jujube grove on the western outskirts of the city, there is a pair of lovebirds. Only children who have not lost their virginity and have never been married can see them."

Daozi, then use this token to retrieve it. Once this is done, the karmic debt will be settled. The item is yours, how about it?"

"Uh... okay, I'll give it a try."

The mandarin ducks are birds that fly wing to wing, resembling ducks but born with one wing and one eye. They cannot fly without each other, only in pairs. Trading one for a hard drive is really hard to say who loses and who gains.

However, although Huangfu Yi is indeed a virgin who has not lost his primordial yang and is currently without a marriage prospect, such spiritual birds and divine beasts are not so easy to encounter. He can only say that he will give it a try.

Anyway, he still had to wait for news from the escort agency and couldn't leave for the time being, so he decided to try his luck. What's lost is fate, what's gained is fortune; he'd just let things take their course.

So Huangfu Yi went out of the city to the western suburbs. Before he had gone more than a few miles, he saw a patch of crimson clouds in the distance. Ten miles of red clouds covered the fields, with thousands of gnarled trees intertwined and tens of thousands of red fruits weighing down the branches.

It's early autumn now, and the jujubes in the forest are ripening one by one. Along the way, you can see many villagers holding long poles, knocking down the sweet jujubes from the trees. Birds fly through the branches like shuttles weaving brocade. Flocks of birds and swallows hop on the branches, feasting on the red jujubes, black and white, leaving bird droppings all over the ground.

Huangfu Yi felt a chill run down his spine upon seeing this scene. He thought to himself, "How many children in the world are destined for unmarried life? No wonder this task fell to me... Damn, with so many birds in the forest, which one is the perfect match?!"
"Chirp!"

After wandering around the jujube grove for a while, I was suddenly doused with bird droppings!
Huangfu Yi quickly dodged aside, and when he looked up, he saw the golden sparrow that had defeated him not long ago hopping around on the branch, squabbling and mocking him.

"Why is it you again..."

Huangfu Yi was also helpless. This sparrow had a somewhat ill-fated connection with him, but it probably wasn't a mandarin duck, since it didn't have one wing and one eye, and its tail feathers didn't look like those of a wild duck. He was too lazy to bother with it now and turned back to continue searching for birds.

The sparrow was unhappy that Huangfu Yi ignored him, but it didn't have much droppings right away, so it kept swooping down and pecking at his hair in provocation!
Huangfu Yi was thoroughly annoyed and had no patience to argue with the bird. Its noise was making it impossible for him to concentrate, and the surrounding flocks of birds were also startled and scattered. He had no choice but to take out a handful of fried rice he had bought from the market and toss it to the bird.
"I'm looking for my lover, I don't have time to play with you, eat and get lost!"

The sparrow took a peck, indicating it was trash and tasteless.

"Tsk, you've actually picked one..."

Huangfu Yi looked around and simply threw a handful of the medicine he had just bought to help it recover from its illness and injuries to it, figuring it would be fine if it ate it and died anyway.

After the sparrow had finished pecking at the food for a while, Huangfu Yi was still wandering around in the jujube grove when this fellow actually flew over and said, "Come with me."

"What? You know where Jianjian is?"

After wandering around for a long time without finding a clue, Huangfu Yi simply followed the sparrow into the woods. The sparrow flew lightly and quickly, as fast as a star, and could easily be lost from sight if one was distracted for even a moment.

Fortunately, the bird was probably really bored, because it would stay on the branch and wait for Huangfu Yi after he landed, occasionally bombarding him with bird droppings to prevent him from getting lost.

One flew, the other chased, until midnight when the sparrow finally grew too tired to fly any further. It perched on a branch, giving a signal that it had arrived, and then Huangfu Yi parted the bushes to look. There, in this desolate wilderness, stood a solitary grave. The stone tablet in front of the grave seemed to have been smashed to pieces by a single blow, leaving only half a stump, weathered by wind and rain, its inscription blurred and illegible. The grave mound was also overgrown with weeds, having been neglected for a long time.

Huangfu Yi walked forward and circled the grave, but didn't see any eerie or ghostly aura. There were no spiritual plants or ley lines nearby, and the feng shui seemed rather poor; he couldn't discern anything extraordinary. If this sparrow hadn't specifically led the way, he probably would have just passed it by as an ordinary mound. However…

Huangfu Yi turned his head to look at the sparrow.

"Is it really here?"

The sparrow said, "Stop dawdling, dig quickly!"

"..."

Although I've never heard of any bird living in a grave mound, who knows what kind of monster it might be? Maybe it's already transformed into a spirit. Let's dig it up.

So Huangfuyi pulled out Zhang San's iron bar and started prying, lifting up the mound and digging. He dug down for half an hour and finally lifted up a stone slab. It seemed that there was a secret chamber hidden under the mound.

Once the secret chamber was ventilated, Huangfu Yi threw in a fire talisman. Following the light of the fire, he could see that it was a tomb with a stone coffin in the center. Judging from the incense, candles, and decaying fruit on the altar, someone had once come to worship there, but later, for some unknown reason, the tomb was sealed off.

"Chirp!"

The sparrow hopped onto Huangfu Yi's head, gesturing for him to come in.

Huangfu Yi looked at the thickness of the stone slab and estimated that even if it was a trap, he could punch it out. He shrugged, jumped into the tomb, and slapped his palms together to create a gust of wind on the ground to prevent any snakes, insects, rats, or other poisonous creatures from attacking him.

"Whoosh—!" In an instant, sand and stones flew, and dust filled the air. When Huangfu Yi regained his footing, he looked up with his face covered and could vaguely see that there were many murals on the four walls of the tomb, with many poems inscribed on them. Although they had quickly oxidized and faded, the theme could still be vaguely discerned, which described a love story between a man and a woman.

The plot is roughly about a couple who were originally from a military family. They were childhood sweethearts and well-matched in social standing. However, the woman's family, in order to advance their careers and make money, used their daughter as a tool for marriage alliances, sending her to a dissolute young man from a powerful family as a concubine.

So the couple agreed to elope, but that night the man didn't wait for the woman. Instead, he was captured by a powerful family, falsely accused, and his family was destroyed and executed. He was also subjected to all kinds of humiliation, beaten into a cripple, and thrown into a mass grave to die.

As it turned out, the man was picked up by a mountain dweller who happened to be passing by. The man was taught all sorts of martial arts skills and became highly skilled. Later, he joined the Xuan Nu's army, returned to kill his enemy's entire family, and so far, his routine has been quite common.

But time flies, and the man achieved great skill and avenged his great grudge hundreds of years later. By then, the woman had long since passed away, and it is said that she later married into a prominent family, had a son and a daughter, and died peacefully.

The man already harbored resentment towards the woman for betraying him in the past, and he couldn't swallow his anger. He exhausted all the cultivation techniques of the noble families in Qianyang City and finally figured out a Great Art of Soul Chasing Across a Thousand Miles. He actually found the woman's reincarnation and used a secret method to bind her soul.

The plot then gets a bit melodramatic and morbid. The gist is that the man is determined to get revenge, so he plans to make the woman fall in love with him first, and then dump her, an eye for an eye.

So each time, the two of them would become partners and take on disciples. First, they would win her over, then dump her, kill her, and then dissolve their bodies. They would die and come back to life, live and die, their love and hate intertwined, their entanglements endless. It seems that there were even a few times when the woman was reincarnated as a man, but she still wouldn't give up...

This happened nine times in total. Finally, the woman could no longer bear it, her mind collapsed, and her soul was scattered. Only then did this tragic love story come to an end.

But in reality, there was no end to it. This karmic entanglement lasted for nine lifetimes. No matter how great the enmity, it should have been settled by now. But the man was still trapped in the endless cycle of love and death, unable to live, unable to extricate himself, and unable to find a way out.

So the man simply dug a grave, sealed it, and buried himself and the woman together...

Huh? That's it? Just bury them together and that's it?

After looking at the murals on the wall, Huangfu Yi suddenly felt that things were not so simple. He frowned and slowly turned his head to look at the stone coffin in the center of the tomb.

"Pulling"

The sparrow flapped its wings, hopped onto the coffin lid, and gave it a wink.

Huangfu Yi understood.

on.

Up...up my ass!! No, could it be that the man...is still alive?

The sparrow nodded.

Huangfu Yi was speechless.

Holy crap... that madman in the mural is from the Xuan Nu era! That's five or six thousand years old! How could he still be alive today? That's ridiculous!

Que'er said, "So what? The monsters you killed in the Arctic before were all sent by the Immortal Venerable. Aren't they all ancient beasts from the primordial era?"

That's different... Wait, how do you know he killed a lot of monsters before? And why are you using your eyes to convey so much nonsense?

Before Huangfu Yi could recover from his chaotic thoughts, the sparrow suddenly spread its wings, raised its head, and pursed its beak...

"Tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap!!!"

"Hey, stop knocking!"

However, it was too late. The sharp beak struck the stone coffin, echoing in the underground tomb with an incredibly clear and crisp sound.

The sparrows chattered wildly for a while, then suddenly stopped.

Huangfu Yi stood frozen in place, not daring to even breathe for a long time, and then...

"Oh!"

The coffin lid flew up!
"Chirp!"

The sparrow darted away and darted out of the cave entrance!
"boom!"

The heavy stone coffin was blasted away with a single blow, directly blocking the entrance to the cave!

"..."

Huangfu Yi now really wants to catch that sparrow and give it nine times like in the mural...

But now he could only grip the iron rod tightly in his hand, suppress his wildly beating heart, hold his breath, and not make a sound.

Then a hand reached out from the stone coffin.

Lush and verdant, like bones carved from jade, devoid of blood and flesh, without even a single blood vessel or hair. Its entire body resembles a skeleton carved from a single piece of jade... no, that's not right, not a whole piece, but half a piece.

The skeleton standing upright in the coffin had two heads. From the shoulders and neck down, one side was a jade-green color, while the other side was long-decayed and calcified bone. It was clearly two corpses that had been split lengthwise, their bones intertwined and forcibly bound together.

Unfortunately, time flies, and immortals and mortals are on different paths. So when Fu Yi got up, the mortal's half of his body scattered into a pile of ashes, leaving only his head hanging on his collarbone, as if it were being held affectionately in the arms of the jade skull, held in the palm of its hand, and carried with him through life and death.

We wish to be birds that fly wing to wing in the sky, each with one wing and one eye. We cannot fly without each other, but only when we are together can we soar.

It really happened, wild mandarin ducks...

(End of this chapter)