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Mild implied child endangerment
With a rustle, Ji Xi had flown one zhang away from Wu Ruo, glaring at Wu Ruo angrily: “How dare you steal my spiritual energy from me!”
Wu Ruo lowered his head and looked at his own body disbelievingly: “I stole your spiritual energy?”
He did indeed feel a thread of spiritual energy worming its way into his body, just like it had at Wu Chenzi’s birthday banquet; his body inexplicably had another thread of spiritual energy.
Ji Xi descended to the ground from midair: “If it wasn’t you, who else could it be?”
If it wasn’t because Ji Xi was quick to dodge, otherwise, all the spiritual energy inside his body might have been completely sucked away.
“I do suddenly have another thread of spiritual energy in my body, but…” Wu Ruo lifted his head and looked at him with an expression of bewilderment: “How did I steal your spiritual energy?”
“How would I know?” When Ji Xi saw that Wu Ruo really seemed to be confused, his anger subsided by a fair bit: “Are you carrying any magical equipment that can absorb other people’s spiritual energy?”
Wu Ruo shook his head no: “If I was carrying that sort of equipment, then I wouldn’t be absorbing just your spiritual energy but I would’ve absorbed Dandan’s spiritual energy as well.”
Unless he had aimed the magical equipment directly at Ji Xi; only then would Wu Ruo have been able to absorb only Ji Xi’s spiritual energy.
Ji Xi thought about it and agreed but then, his expression changed drastically. He hurriedly instructed ‘don’t say you know me’ before disappearing in front of Wu Ruo and Dandan’s eyes.
Closely after, a person’s black silhouette appeared in the spot where Ji Xi had been standing in.
The newcomer was a gorgeously handsome man. His long hair cascaded behind him, his sharp eyebrows were long and thick, his pair of crow black eyes had no whites in them. He wore red magnificent robes with the embroidery of Mo clan talismans, and in his slender white fingers, he held onto a red-coloured jade di1笛 (di): a kind of Chinese wind instrument that resembles a flute. It’s held horizontally, whereas a 箫 (xiao) that looks similar is held and played vertically. I haven’t translated it as a ‘flute’ because Western flutes and the Chinese di and xiao differ in terms of material and overall shape, as well as other cultural features. Generally, a di or xiao will have a tassel, as well as poetry or its name inscribed on its body.. He appeared as though he was a carefree young master but a sinister aura emanated from his entire body.
When Wu Ruo saw that the other party was a Mo clansperson, he hurriedly shielded Dandan in his arms.
The man from the Mo clan took a glance at the ground full of stones and said coldly: “Where’s Ji Xi?”
Wu Ruo thought of the words Ji Xi had instructed before he had left, so he feigned an expression of wary confusion as he looked at the man from the Mo clan. Internally, he guessed that the reason why Ji Xi hadn’t left the manor since they arrived in Huangdu City was very likely because of this man. So when Ji Xi used mo energy just now, it had attracted this man here.
Dandan lifted up his adorable little face, blinking his pretty eyes: “Grandpa2爷爷 (ye ye): I mentioned before that this term is specifically used for your paternal grandfather and is more friendly/intimate than calling him 祖父 (zu fu). It can also be used as a polite form of address for elderly men who seem your grandfather’s age. Or in Dandan’s case, if you want to indirectly insult someone and insinuate that they’re old LOL, what did you say?”
Grandpa? The man from the Mo clan looked coldly at the child in Wu Ruo’s arms.
Wu Ruo’s mouth twitched. This child must have definitely called him that on purpose.
The man from the Mo clan abruptly narrowed his icy cold gaze and flew over to Wu Ruo, pinning a deadly stare at the beautiful child in his arms without looking away.
Wu Ruo firmly shielded the child in his arms.
It was at this moment that a black light shot over, aiming at the man from the Mo clan.
The man from the Mo clan’s expression turned apprehensive and he rapidly jumped away from Wu Ruo.
Following that, a person’s blue silhouette descended in front of Wu Ruo, blocking in front of Wu Ruo with a protective stance.
Dandan’s eyes lit up: “Father!”
Hei Xuanyi turned back slightly and glanced at them: “Alright?””
He had rushed over because he had sensed the arrays being broken through by someone, and that a Mo clansperson had intruded.
Wu Ruo let out a sigh of relief: “We’re alright.”
The man from the Mo clan looked behind Hei Xuanyi, then looked at Hei Xuanyi’s face, then he asked nonchalantly: “Your child?”
Hei Xuanyi responded: “Yes. May I ask what business you have intruding into my manor3Hei Xuanyi uses the polite generic titles 阁下 (ge xia) and 在下 (zai xia) to refer to the Mo man and himself. We’ve seen these titles before when Wu Ruo saved Ling Mohan but had to pretend that he didn’t know Ling Mohan was the Crown Prince.?”
The man from the Mo clan could sense that this man before him was not someone to be trifled with: “I4本座 (ben zuo): he uses the same arrogant first person pronoun as Ji Xi. am looking for my companion. He came by your place just a while ago. I just don’t know if any of you know him?”
Hei Xuanyi denied: “I don’t know anyone from the Mo clan.”
“Is that so?” It was obvious that the Mo man didn’t quite believe this. He looked behind Hei Xuanyi again but didn’t seem to intend to pester them. He bade them a farewell and left.
Hei Xuanyi turned around and hugged both the adult and the little one into his arms, then walked to the courtyard they lived in and waited until they had returned to their rooms before he asked: “He came looking for Ji Xi?”
“Hn,” Wu Ruo thought about it and decided to speak about the matter of absorbing the spiritual energy from Ji Xi’s body just now: “I might be able to absorb spiritual energy from others to enhance my own spiritual level. As for the specifics of how to do it, I still don’t know.”
Hei Xuanyi said: “You can try absorbing the spiritual energy from my body?”
Wu Ruo shook his head in disagreement: “I haven’t completely gotten a knack for it right now, what if I lose control and absorb all of your spiritual energy away5It’s possible to live without having spiritual energy, as evidenced by Wu Qianqing from the previous lifetime not dying from having a damaged spiritual field and being unable to harness spiritual energy. As well as Ba Se, who has had his spiritual field destroyed by Hei Xuanyi and can no longer cultivate. But typically, having it abruptly drained from your body can and will kill a person. Both Guan Tong and Wu Ruo pre-longevity plaque don’t count as examples, because their bodies still contain spiritual energy, but their energies had been sealed away in their spiritual fields and could not be utilized.?”
“Since Ji Xi can dodge, then I can dodge too.” Hei Xuanyi said with certainty.
Wu Ruo hesitated for a moment, then nodded in agreement. He let their child down and walked out of the building with Hei Xuanyi.
Hei Xuanyi turned to look at Wu Ruo: “Try and absorb some of my spiritual energy first.”
Wu Ruo frowned; he didn’t know where to start or what kind of technique was best to absorb spiritual energy. He walked forth and touched Hei Xuanyi’s body, but there was no response.
A hint of thoughtfulness flashed across Hei Xuanyi’s emotionless gaze: “Tell me again in detail what the situation was like before you absorbed Ji Xi’s spiritual energy.”
Wu Ruo started from when he had finished meditating until he had absorbed Ji Xi’s spiritual energy.
After Hei Xuanyi finished listening, and put it together with what Wu Ruo had encountered at Wu Chenzi’s birthday celebration, he could figure out the gist of it: “I’ll try using my clan’s secret technique first, watch carefully.”
Whether it was the previous lifetime or this lifetime, Wu Ruo hadn’t had many opportunities to see Hei Xuanyi using the secret techniques of his own clan. So when he heard that Hei Xuanyi wanted to use his clan’s secret techniques, Wu Ruo couldn’t help but feel a little excited. He didn’t dare to miss out on any bit of it.
Hei Xuanyi bent the thumb of his right arm upward, keeping his four other fingers folded together, and placed it against his chest. When he stretched it out again, his little finger was also raised, with the other three still folded; he drew a rather complex circular talisman in midair. His right arm lowered, inclined at a slanting angle toward the ground; his movements were extremely graceful, as if he were offering sacrifices to the gods.
This time around, Wu Ruo saw everything extremely clearly. He could see a massive thread of black light inside of Hei Xuanyi’s body emerging from the spiritual field in his abdomen. It spun three rounds inside his spiritual field, erupting from the zhongwan acupoint6中脘 (zhong wan): it is somewhere right smack in the middle of your last ribs. You can check it out here. JYB wrote 中院 but a Baidu search shows that they probably misread 脘 (wan) as 院 (yuan), as there is no such thing as a zhong yuan acupoint. of the ren vessel7任脉 (ren mai): also known as the ‘conception vessel’, it refers to a series of acupoints running front right below your chin down to your groin. Reference here.. After arriving at the yutang acupoint8玉堂 (yu tang): this acupoint is somewhere in the center of your chest, reference here., it spun another round, then the black light turned dim .
Wu Ruo could sense that Hei Xuanyi was restraining his spiritual energy. Following after, the black light flowed to the huagai acupoint9华盖 (hua gai): this is about an inch or so above the yutang acupoint, reference here. of his ren vessel, coming to the yunmen acupoint10云门 (yun men): this acupoint is roughly right below the end of the clavicle, towards your shoulder. Reference here. on his right arm, then lastly, it rushed towards the shaoshang acupoint11少商 (shao shang): this acupoint is right next to the inner bottom corner of your thumbnail. Reference here.12Quick overall footnote on the TCM terminology used here: I am not a professional TCM practitioner, so everything stated here is just what I’ve understood from Baidu and Google searches and may contain errors. JYB uses the term 经穴 (jing xue) after the yunmen and shaoshang acupoints. In TCM, the jingxue is a general term referring to the 14 channels in a person’s body, but it also refers to the jing river channel, which is part of the five shu points/channels. On top of that, it can also refer to any one particular acupoint in the body as well. It’s a very context based term, so over here, I’m interpreting it as referring to those single particular acupoints that JYB named, rather than referencing either the jing river channel or being the general term of reference. If you are a TCM practitioner who practices in Mandarin Chinese and is clearer about these acupoints, please leave a comment if I’ve made a mistake.. In an instance, the black light at his fingertip materialized, and following that, the ground quaked; it was as if something wanted to penetrate out from underground. The water in the lake turned cloudy.
Suddenly, five skeletal arms stretched forth from the lake’s waters and grabbed onto the land next to the lake. With a crashing noise, the lake’s waters exploded upward. Five white silhouettes jumped out from within the waters and landed lithely in front of Wu Ruo.
When he fixed his eyes upon them, it was actually five skeletons.
Dandan excitedly ran over to them, he rubbed his soft and short fingers against one of the skeletons.
The human skeleton grabbed him fiercely then threw him up into the air.
Wu Ruo cried out in alarm.
Dandan, who was flying in the air, giggled happily, not worried in the slightest bit about crashing to the ground.
In the moment that he descended downwards, the human skeleton accurately caught him without a mistake.
“It’s fun, it’s fun!” Dandan clambered down from the human skeleton, running toward Hei Xuanyi and hugging his thigh: “Father, teach me! I want to learn, I want to learn!”
Hei Xuanyi looked downward and narrowed his eyes slightly at Dandan: “Next time, when I have time.”
Dandan pouted his little mouth, then, he ran off to play with the skeletons again13Translator’s commentary: TFW your father is madly in love with your dad and doesn’t have time for you. Big L for Dandan LMAO.
Hei Xuanyi walked over to Wu Ruo but didn’t sense his spiritual energy being absorbed.
His gaze held a hint of doubt, and he circled around Wu Ruo once. Just as his shadow made contact with Wu Ruo’s shadow, suddenly, the spiritual energy within his body flowed outwards.
When Wu Ruo sensed spiritual energy entering his own body, he hurriedly distanced himself one zhang away from Hei Xuanyi. He looked at Hei Xuanyi, astonished, and said: “I absorbed your spiritual energy.”
Hei Xuanyi nodded slightly: “I realized that you’re absorbing other people’s spiritual energy through their shadows.”
Shadows? It had something to do with shadows again? Wu Ruo raised an eyebrow; all the secret techniques in his mind all had something to do with shadows.
Hei Xuanyi continued speaking: “It was because you didn’t know what was going on, that’s why you would unwittingly absorb other people’s spiritual energy. Now that you already know your own situation, next time, you won’t accidentally absorb other people’s spiritual energy.”
“What kind of magic technique of yours is this? Why is it so strange?” A red silhouette appeared in front of Wu Ruo.
When Wu Ruo saw that it was Ji Xi, he immediately frowned: “Who was that Mo clansperson just now?”
Ji Xi snorted lightly: “A naughty person14Ji Xi uses the same slightly childish term that Wu Xi used before: 坏蛋 (huai dan) A.K.A a bad egg. who wants to steal something of mine.”
Previously, he had gotten distracted by his arrogance and had forgotten that he was supposed to be hiding from someone, so he used Mo magic and exposed his own whereabouts to the other party.
Wu Ruo narrowed his eyes: “Just now, you just abandoned us like that. Did you even worry that he would kill us?”
“His goal is the item in my possession, so he won’t kill people indiscriminately. Besides, with your man around, he’ll be even more cautious.” Ji Xi looked at Hei Xuanyi: “The arrays that you set up previously aren’t up to snuff, at most, they’ll only be able to block level seven practitioners. You should hurry and do an array that can block level nine practitioners now, only then will he be unable to enter.”
Hei Xuanyi glared at him with cold, narrowed eyes.
Ji Xi saw that he didn’t take action and could only bring up Wu Ruo and Dandan: “You don’t want your furen and child to run into trouble, do you? If you set up a massive array, it’ll only benefit everyone, isn’t that true?”
Hei Xuanyi’s gaze paused on Wu Ruo and Dandan, then he turned around and went to set up the array.
“You’re too good at delegating tasks.” Wu Ruo quickly walked beneath Ji Xi’s shadow15Ji Xi is usually floating in the air, unless mentioned otherwise, which is why Wu Ruo is walking ‘beneath’ his shadow., wanting to try whether he could still continue absorbing his spiritual energy, however, when he stepped onto Ji Xi’s shadow, there was no reaction at all.
“You want to steal my spiritual energy again?” Ji Xi noticed his actions and quickly dodged.
Wu Ruo looked at him innocently: “I just wanted to know how long I can absorb other people’s energy for.”
Thankfully there was a time limit, otherwise, before he was able to control himself, wouldn’t he have to stay away from Hei Xuanyi? However, why was it that when he wanted to absorb someone else’s spiritual energy, he had to watch them using their magic first before he could do so?
Wu Ruo really wanted to look for his mum and clarify matters, but when he thought about how his mum had sworn a blood oath, he was discouraged from doing so.
Ji Xi flew a few rounds around Wu Ruo and said curiously: “What kind of secret technique of yours is this? Why is it that after stealing my spiritual energy, it doesn’t cause any negative effect on your body?”
After all, one was a human and the other was a Mo clansperson. One’s spiritual energy was made of proper qi, while the other’s spiritual energy was pathogenic16Back in Chapter 98, it was mentioned that Hei Xuanyi’s spiritual energy was 邪气 (xie qi), which I chose to translate as ‘pathogenic. Over here, it also mentions that Ji Xi’s spiritual energy is 邪恶 (xie e), which is often translated as ‘evil’. I have chosen to translate it as pathogenic again, since Wu Ruo himself doesn’t seem to consciously prejudice against the other races. The qi of other clans is pathogenic/harmful to humans but it’s not necessarily ‘evil’.. The two people’s spiritual energies shouldn’t have been able to meld together harmoniously but Wu Ruo had managed to do so.
“I want to know what’s going on more than you do.” Wu Ruo was also curious about his own body, but right now he could only rely on slowly fumbling around for an answer by himself.
Ji Xi rubbed his lower jaw17下颚 (xia e): translates to lower jaw. JYB typed it as 下鄂 (xia e) which doesn’t make sense as a phrase. I am assuming a typo here., spinning around Wu Ruo in circles.
Wu Ruo held his forehead: “Stop spinning around, you’re making me dizzy with your spinning.”
Ji Xi stopped in front of him: “After you stole my spiritual energy, nothing happened to you. Doesn’t that mean you can also learn the Mo clan’s Mo magic as well18Ji Xi says ‘also’ here with reference to Dandan. Previously, when Wu Ruo caught Ji Xi teaching Dandan Mo magic, he was worried because the spiritual energy type used for human magic and Mo magic is different. However, Ji Xi explained that Dandan was able to contain the different types of spiritual energy, proper human and pathogenic, inside his body without harming himself. This is starting to seem like the case with Wu Ruo as well.?”
Wu Ruo: “…”
It felt like there was the possibility.
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