Seeing that numerous bats are circling the isolated peak, Li Xi’er instinctively knows that something is wrong. She asks Goldie to take her there and have a look, but Goldie refuses to get anywhere near the peak.
“What if Sister Lin is in danger? You still don’t want to go?” Li Xi’er gets angry. She leaves Goldie and heads to the peak on her own. Later, she sees a shadow on the ground and looks up. After all, Goldie is following her.
“That’s right!” Li Xi’er pats Goldie on the head and gets on its back. She directs Goldie to fly to the isolated peak. They search for a while and find a cave at the foot of the mountain. Li Xi’er wants to go in, but she is dragged back by Goldie.
“What’s in there?” The more Goldie acts this way, the more Li Xi’er is worried about Lin Luoran. However, no matter how smart the golden hawk is, it can’t speak human language. Goldie is so anxious, but it can’t find a way to tell Li Xi’er what is in the cave.
There are a few bats at the entrance of the cave. Goldie can frighten the bats for now so that they don’t dare to attack.
While Goldie and the bats are in a stalemate, Lin Luoran staggers out of the cave. Seeing that Lin is confounded, Li Xi’er wants to ask about what has happened. Lin Luoran shouts weakly, “Go!”
Goldie lowers its back and lets Lin Luoran get on it. Li Xi’er follows Lin on to Goldie’s back and grabs Goldie by its feature.
Crystal and Dana who have followed Lin Luoran out now have no time to be surprised at Lin’s ride. They flap their wings and soar up into the sky almost at the same time as Goldie does. Yet, Crystal and Dana fly in a different direction!
Bats are flying at the entrance of the cave. A howl comes from the inside and shakes the entire mountain. It appears that the mountain is about to be overturned from the inside by someone.
A black skull flies out of the cave and goes after Goldie. With a blink of an eye, it gets much closer. Li Xi’er looks back and is scared by this thing. She casts a “Golden Blade Spell” at it but fails to hurt the skull at all.
“Sister, what is it?!”
Lying face down on Goldie’s back, Lin Luoran’s shoulders are swollen. The Reiki inside of her is drained and she has no energy to answer Li’s question.
Lin looks at the bead on her wrist. It must be the bead that the black shadow Venerable is after.
“Promise to do three things for me and I will save you!” White Fairy’s voice comes in Lin Luoran’s head for the second time today. Her voice gives Lin hope.
“What things?” G.o.d knows what White Fairy wants. Though this is an emergency, Lin Luoran doesn’t want to fall into a trap.
White Fairy smiles, “I’m not sure yet… I promise I won’t ask you to do things beyond your ability. How about that? If you’re in, swear on the Devil Inside!”
This is exactly like the bank loan nowadays. On the surface, you buy a house without saving money for years. In fact, you have to pay the debt for the rest of your life. You get through the temporal crisis but your mind will never be at ease — but Lin Luoran now has no other option. People will not die if they don’t buy a house, however, if she doesn’t agree to do three things for White Fairy, she, Goldie and Li Xi’er will die soon since the skull is so close to them!
“I agree!” Lin Luoran grits her teeth and makes the “Devil Inside” Swear under White Fairy’s instruction.
White Fairy laughs and gets out of the Soul Stone. Lin Luoran pats Goldie and tells it to go faster.
In a palace dress, White Fairy looks charming. The black skull says, “Junior, get out of my way. Don’t you really want me to destroy your essence!”
White Fairy smiles affectedly, “Your Venerable, we are all the same. Why are you joking at me?”
The black skull sneers, “You were just a Qi-trainer when you were alive. How dare you mention yourself and me in the same breath? You are playing with fire!”
White Fairy grins coldly and holds out her hand. The surrounding starts to change. Time goes backward and mountains rise straight from the ground. The river used to be a desert and the sand used to be glaciers.
The black skull is stunned. He is very familiar with the view. Is this his territory thousands of years ago?
As soon as he thinks about this, a flock of bats fly to him. One of the bats has a piece of white feature on its head. The one-meter-tall bat transforms into a cute girl the moment it lands on the ground. The girl says with a smile, “Your Venerable, why do you come back so late?”
The Venerable… The skull looks down and finds himself in the form of bat. He transforms into the form of human. He is a tall and strong man with a beard.
“Yan’er, why are you out here?” The black shadow Venerable says. He calls the bat girl by her name, but he feels strange about it like he has not been calling this name for a long time.
Looking at the pretty girl beside him, the black shadow Venerable now feels that he is thinking too much.
Both two return to their place under the guard of the bats. This place is surrounded by grand mountains and clear rivers, and the blossom of flowers never fades.
On the hillside where mist lingers, there is an open square. A throne made of white marble looms in the cloud. The sound of drums comes. Yan’er is running around like an elf in the woods, and her eyes and smiles fascinate the Venerable.
“Your Venerable, the song and dance are ready.”
The black shadow Venerable shakes his head and says that he has no mood to enjoy the song and dance and he only wants to talk to her. He feels like he has not been talking to Yan’er for a long time. However, Yan’er slips out of his hand like a gust of breeze.
Yan’er always plays hard to get. The Venerable laughs and lets her go. He sits on the throne and starts to watch the dance.
The dancers all look beautiful in the white dresses. Their hair is down but it can not hide their beauty. The Venerable remembers that none of the dancers are from his clan. He always protects his people so well that he will never ask the girls under his watch to learn such cheap dances.
He takes a closer look at the leading dancer. As expected, she is a single-horned deer. A little deer horn grows on her forehead and her wet eyes are so innocent and charming.
Every girl here is prettier than Yan’er, yet the black shadow Venerable is not in the mood of enjoying the dance.
Where is Yan’er?
As soon as he thinks about this, the scene in front of him changes. The bat with a piece of white feather flies down, but one of its wings seems to be wounded.
“Yan’er!” The guards all transform into bats and fly up to protect the wounded bat. The bat transforms into Yan’er. Now the Venerable sees clearly that one of her arms is injured. The fresh blood makes him angry!
“Who hurt you?”
Yan’er is not the most good-looking girl, but she is so delicate. Yan’er is pouting, and no man can stop loving her dearly.
“That Qi-trainer is so abhorrent. I only caught two ordinary people to eat, and he cut me with his sword without a word. I was lucky to escape, or else I won’t have the chance to see you again, Your Venerable.” Yan’er says sadly with her pale little face.
The Venerable frowns and asks his men to patch Yan’er’s wounds first. He flies to the top of the mountain by himself. He looks at the kitchen smoke rising in the village of humans and his eyes are filled with the desire of killing.
It’s the Qi-trainers again!
Back when he was unintelligent, he was the special one in his clan. He was born to be the king, and his clan offered him everything they had. No matter they were weak humans or other monsters, nothing could escape from the attack of the vampire bats.
He gained more and more intelligence as time pa.s.sed. He learned to cultivate himself with the essence of the sun and the moon, then his talents were wakened. Later, no one could fight the vampire bats.
The flesh and blood of monsters are nutritious, but human meat is tastier. Besides, humans were weak and easy to catch. Therefore, all the monsters in the world love to eat them.
In the view of the black shadow Venerable, eating humans is perfectly natural and justified. Until one day, a man appeared…
As time pa.s.sed, Qi-trainers began to rise from the human race.
The Qi-trainers refined Reiki in the world and absorbed it for their own use. Humans seem to be more talented for cultivation than monsters. With thousands of years, they were able to use weapons, fly into the sky, burrow into the ground, and they could even control the weather… Humans became strong enough to threat some of the monsters.
The Venerable sneered at the Qi-trainers. He didn’t think highly of them and he believed that the monsters were just too weak!
They lived in peace. However, Yan’er was only going to eat two ordinary humans, and the Qi-trainer had the nerve to hurt his Yan’er. The Qi-trainers didn’t take him seriously.
All the Qi-trainers nearby live on the mountain called “Qingluan”. Whatever. He shall just catch all of them and let Yan’er vent her anger.
It is a starry night. The Venerable leads all the superiors in his clan and rushes to the Qingluan Mountain. The Qi-trainer who hurt Yan’er to save the villagers is the best of his generation. He tells his master about what happened in the daytime and the old Qi-trainer with silver hair praises,
“You did the right thing.”
Before the sound of his voice dies away, the old Qi-trainer hears that screams are coming from the mountain where his followers are resting on. Black smoke is surrounding the Qingluan Mountain, and it is so thick that stars are shaded.
The black shadow Venerable walks down from the sky. The old Qi-trainer is killed immediately, and all the other 351 people, including the young Qi-trainer who hurt the bat with a piece of white feature, are taken to the vampire bats’ territory.
The stars are s.h.i.+ny. Before the young Qi-trainer comes to himself from the death of his master, the Venerable throws one of his brothers on the ground in front of him.
“You say, is it right or wrong that we eat humans?” The Venerable lowers his head and asks the young Qi-trainer.
The Qi-trainer answers instantly with a cold voice, “It is wrong!”
The Venerable waves his sharp hand and cuts the Qi-trainer’s brother into pieces!
All the other Qi-trainers are furious. The young Qi-trainer bites his lips.
Every day, the Venerable kills one of the brothers of the young Qi-trainer with his own hands. Then he will ask the young Qi-trainer whether it is right or wrong for the vampire bats to eat humans.
There are a total of 351 Qi-trainers. A year pa.s.ses by so quickly. Yan’er has long since forgotten about the wounds and she lives a happy life by running to the villages to eat some humans now and then.
The last person who is thrown on the ground in front of the young Qi-trainer is his seven-year-old youngest sister. The little girl only was taken into the Qingluan School three days before things happened. She is just an ordinary little girl from the mortal world.
On Qingluan Mountain, even the chefs and the cleaners are Qi-trainers. The little girl is the only mortal person… She was six when she was brought to the school. Her voice was sweet and everybody loved her.
“Mo’er…” Seeing that his youngest sister is brought here, for the first time, the eyes of the young Qi-trainer are shaking!
“Brother, eating humans is wrong!” The little girl called Momo clenches her small fists.
The young Qi-trainer murmurs to himself, “If monsters don’t eat humans, humans will never have to kill monsters. The Tao of nature is so mysterious. What on earth is right and what is wrong?”
The black shadow Venerable laughs, “It is the Tao of nature that the weak are the prey of the strong. I am stronger than you so it is right that I eat you. If you are stronger than me, you can certainly have me for food!”
Momo has been starving. Still, she raises her head and says, “Eating humans is wrong!”
The black shadow Venerable spreads his fingers and asks coldly, “I will ask you again. Is eating humans right or wrong!”
Pain fills the eyes of the young Qi-trainer. The scenes of 350 brothers being slaughtered in front of him always come into his dreams and haunt him. No one can understand what he has been through!
Yet, Momo is so young. She hasn’t even learned any spells. Why does she have to be punished as a member of the Qingluan School?
However, if he answers “eating humans is right” now, the 350 Qi-trainers who died before won’t be able to close their eyes in death!
The young Qi-trainer closes his eyes in pain.
The Venerable sneers and reaches out his sharp hand to Momo — Momo will be cut into pieces like all the other Qi-trainers in the Qingluan School when the black hand touches her!
“The weak are the prey of the strong? Is the Tao of nature as simple as this?”
A calm and ethereal voice comes from nowhere.
“Playing spooky!” The Venerable disdains to look for where the voice came and waves his hand!
“Momo!” The young Qi-trainer bursts into tears. He cries and cries and his eyes are going to burst out…