Chapter 330: Lake Mountain Affairs

Seeing Pei Ye looked at the youth's figure and was quiet for a moment, then reached out his finger.

The moment he touched it, his mind fell into this figure in an instant.

The first sunny day since autumn in Lake Mountain, the high sky was cloudless, so bright that one could see an eagle at eight hundred meters.

In the ring cliff mountain, the flowers had withered early, leaving only dry, bald stems, but the grass color was still there, and the high forest was deep and green. Even in such a high and cold place, winter that fades everything was still far away.

Yang Yan was wearing only a thin shirt. At this age, he had no feeling for "cold." The high-hanging sun even made him feel a bit sunburnt. After coming out of the knife field, his sweat hadn't faded, his skin was still glowing red, and he ran toward the mountain with his knife in the wind.

Stepping on grass and leaping over stones, like a nimble black leopard, the youth didn't look at any proper path at all, stepped on a straight line and flew onto a courtyard with a good position in the cliff. The old pine covering the cliff wall shaded the quiet courtyard wall. Yang Yan panted slightly and walked quickly into the shadow, pushing open the courtyard gate.

"Zhang Shixiong!"

The youth crossed the courtyard in three or five steps, pushed open the door with a "clatter," turned two steps, and a young, upright back appeared before him. Sitting at the table, he had just closed a blue-covered book without words and pushed it aside, while the other hand put the brush on the rack.

"It's it again, what are you writing every day?" Yang Yan smiled and reached out to grab the book.

"Hey!" He was immediately blocked by a small arm. The young man turned his face, "Serious business, don't move it around."

Seeing Pei Ye saw this face for the second time, at such a close distance, in such clear light, and the expression hadn't yet been tightened into cold iron.

Seeing Pei Ye carefully remembered it—thin lips and a straight nose, the face was more soft than angular, and the eyebrows and corners of the eyes slanted upward. It was a clean, soaring face, spirited and sharp between the brows.

Yang Yan didn't care at all, forgot it in the blink of an eye, and when he withdrew his hand, he had already grasped Meng Li's wrist, excitedly saying: "Come out and practice the knife with me!"

"... You are a bit annoying." The young man smiled helplessly.

"Come out!!"

Yang Yan pulled Meng Li into the courtyard, retreated five steps with his knife horizontally: "You strike at me."

Meng Li raised his hand, and the long sword in the rack "clattered" out of the scabbard and flew into his palm. He casually pulled a light sword flower, and the sword momentum rose from the empty space—the surprise of the temperament made Seeing Pei Ye caught off guard.

"Wait wait wait!" Yang Yan stopped him quickly, "Let me prepare first."

Meng Li pressed down the sword hilt and nodded.

The afternoon sun tilted down quietly. The youth stood quietly, his breathing gradually merging with the rhythm of his body's muscles and bones, and then slowly calmed down together.

Hair falling, lapels drooping, the youth was as quiet as an old pine. Only then did he gently grip the knife hilt and raise his eyebrows at the young man before him.

A sword that was neither strong nor weak swept out. The air in the courtyard rolled, Yang Yan twisted his waist with a light horizontal step, a mysterious arc was hooked out with the knife, and the whole person was hit by a sword and flew out of the courtyard gate. The long knife fell on the stone slab, ringing for a long time.

"..." Meng Li threw the sword back into the scabbard and looked at the outside of the courtyard speechlessly.

After a few breaths, Yang Yan walked in again holding his arm: "... You used too much force."

Meng Li couldn't be bothered to pay attention to him: "I thought you really learned it."

Yang Yan was somewhat dejected and unconvinced: "I used it in the knife field."

Meng Li picked up the knife, but didn't rush to return it to the youth. He lowered his head and wiped the blade edge lightly with his fingers.

Yang Yan walked over: "Give it back."

"You work harder and learn the

"Understood."

Meng Li nodded, raised his head with his usual expression, handed him the sword, and turned to walk toward the room: "Then I'll go get busy—"

His body tilted forward violently. His left foot was like being pulled by an invisible thread, and he fell forward. His right foot hurriedly adjusted, but tripped on another thread, and again pulled his left foot forward. The next moment, true Qi was injected, and several messy threads snapped suddenly. Meng Li stumbled several steps before avoiding the fate of falling face-first into the mud.

Behind him, Yang Yan could no longer control himself, hugging his sword and laughing like a live shrimp.

Meng Li turned back, staring: "What is this?!"

The youth's face was filled with pride: "I found this one myself."

"... Getting bolder, did you secretly go over there yourself?"

"Hmph," Yang Yan laughed, "you always use new things to tease me."

"... What is this?" Meng Li walked up with interest.

"It's called 'Pulling Sword Silk'," Yang Yan retracted the messy threads and proudly showed them to his senior brother, "after being applied to one's own weapon for a period of time, when it clashes with another weapon, it will climb onto it by itself, and then quickly spread onto the body."

Meng Li took the small, cold ball and looked at it curiously.

"I've tried it, it turns into a light mist-like Qi when true Qi is injected, and it condenses back into messy threads once the true Qi supply is cut off," Yang Yan said, "so it's still triggered by true Qi, invisible and intangible... it's just that it breaks with a struggle."

"... That's another little thing to tease people," Meng Li pinched it with his fingers and held it in the air to look at it.

Yang Yan poked him lightly from the side.

"What?"

"That..." Yang Yan whispered in his ear, "do you want to try this on Master?"

"..." Meng Li leaned back to look at him. On the youth's shy face hung two bright, eager eyes.

"Why do you always want to do this kind of thing?"

Yang Yan stared: "I want to? Setting up cold water, dismantling steps, drawing turtles, shaving beards, thorns in the mat, and laxatives—is that what I want?"

"..." Meng Li was speechless, "Times are different now... it's meaningless to keep teasing Master, I'm already in the same realm as him..."

That was what he said, but there was obvious hesitation on the young man's face.

"So what." Yang Yan shouted, then he was silent for a moment, his voice lower, only somewhat clear in the cliff wind, "I see, you guys have been arguing a lot these days, it seems quite fierce."

Meng Li also quieted down for a moment, taking a light breath: "We aren't arguing because of..."

Yang Yan looked at him.

"... Fine," Meng Li didn't know what he thought of, and smiled, "I'll go tease him."

So Yang Yan also laughed: "That's right, it's so stiff... in a few days you'll be twenty, if you really make him anxious, he won't even give you a courtesy name then."

Meng Li laughed.

"But once this is exposed, our other treasures will have to be careful, they will definitely be checked," Yang Yan said seriously, "must hide them."

"... Right," Meng Li came back to his senses, "Right, hide where?"

"That peach tree we planted, didn't it die last year? Wrap it in cloth and bury it under there."

Meng Li rolled his eyes: "The old man knows those few places of yours with his eyes closed, and it makes a smell of earth."

"Then put it in the eaves of your back room."

Meng Li smiled: "Your brain is so rigid."

Yang Yan didn't disagree, habitually looking at him: "Then you say it."

"... If I want to hide something, I must have my own style."

"For example?"

"For example..." Meng Li thought for a while, "Master's quiet hall for worshiping Buddha, lift the Buddha statue, dig a hole, and stuff it in."

"..."

"..."

"What are you looking at? Just tell me if it works or not?"

"It works, but..." Yang Yan swallowed his saliva, remembering his ideas like thorns in the mat and laxatives, and hesitated, "it's just, Zhang Shixiong, why do you always think of those dirty, strange places."

"..."

Meng Li looked at him with a quiet frown: "Coincidence, what else?"

————

Yang Yan's life was really simple. Every day it was from the mountain to the foot of the mountain. Besides practicing the sword and reading, it was going out to the lake or into the forest.

The Hushanjian Sect seemed quite different from ordinary sects. There was a fairly clear boundary between the three master-disciple members representing the direct lineage and the outer lineage. This boundary could also be seen with the naked eye—on the central main mountain, besides the three of them, there were no other disciples.

Yang Yan also really didn't have much friendship with others between the top and bottom. These days, his senior brother was often nowhere to be seen, and he could usually see his master once or twice a day, but now he hadn't come down for three consecutive days.

Yang Yan knew his master's health was getting worse day by day, but it was fine not to meet for now. He also had his own plan—his master had told them last year that when he was young, he had a white eagle he cherished very much, but unfortunately lost it during a hunt, and had never seen it since.

Earlier this year, Yang Yan and his senior brother bought a snow-white young eagle from a falconer at the foot of the mountain. It was now flying high with strong wings. Yang Yan's task these days was it, waiting to finish training it soon to give it to his master on his birthday.

However, although the youth was not too worried in his heart, he was still troubled by the events of the past few days, knitting his brows from time to time to look at the residence of his master and senior brother, his worry about their relationship written on his face.

Especially after chatting with his senior brother that day, he never got a reply. After releasing the snow eagle that day, Yang Yan couldn't help but stare blankly at the towering mountain peak.

It was only after leaving the valley that Yang Yan felt even more proudly that his own sect's terrain was strange. The mountain back outside the valley was naturally a ten-thousand-fathom high cliff that no one could climb, but the front actually couldn't reach the top either.

The highest point actually only reached the upper-middle part, and further up were high cliffs as steep as standing stones, covered in year-round severe ice.

There was no place to climb, and no one wanted to climb up. Moreover, the main hall of the Hushanjian Sect was cast under this high cliff, blocking the only road up, and the sect leader lived here all year round.

This was also the reason why the master and disciples didn't meet often. The two young men liked the foot of the mountain more and more as they grew up, while the master often didn't leave the main hall for a single step.

Yang Yan was daydreaming when suddenly a shout came to his ears: "Yang Yan! What are you doing sitting here?"

He turned his head; it was Ji Ji Shijie Huayu under Uncle Zhao's sect, carrying a rabbit back. This could be considered the branch closest to their direct lineage. Yang Yan smiled and pointed to the sky: "Releasing the eagle, Ji Ji Shijie."

"... What's the use of this eagle? You're already at the Fifth Life, climb to the top of the tree, you can catch whichever one you see."

Yang Yan kept the gift a secret, struggling to find a reason: "Uh... the eagle... flies high, it sees everything that people can't see, it can warn us."

Huayu rolled her eyes slightly: "Let me warn you first, just now I was sending wild game to the mountain, and saw your senior brother coming out of the main hall with a dark face, cutting that two-person-high ice pillar to pieces with one sword. It was terrifying, I didn't even dare to go up to talk."

Yang Yan was stunned for a moment, his attention inexplicably shifting to a strange place first: "Is it the one we stacked arhats on when we were kids?"

"That's the one!"

Yang Yan carried his sword and climbed this quiet high mountain again.

Yang Yan still went to his senior brother's courtyard first. When he arrived at the door, it was rarely locked. Looking inside through the window lattice, the brush and blue book were on the table, but there was no sign of the man.

There weren't many places on the mountain. Yang Yan knew where he liked to go, so he went out and headed toward the library.

Arriving at a road junction with a wide view, he looked up. The distant main hall stood in the white mist, and the large ice pillar at the door that would block half the eaves was indeed gone.

Arriving in front of the library, he pushed open the tall, thick door. Sunlight poured in through various gaps, the sound of the wind was shut outside, and the library was as quiet as usual with a faint smell of paper.

Yang Yan turned past two bookshelves and was stunned by the scene before him. He knew his senior brother often secretly flipped through some things, but he would always restore everything to its perfect original state. Now, however, books were scattered and scrolls were messy, some thrown on the ground just like that, stacked front and back, unable to tell what they originally looked like at all.

Meng Li was leaning on the bookshelf, not flipping through anything, his hands on his knees, staring motionless out the window.

"... Zhang Shixiong," Yang Yan called out softly.

Meng Li shook and came back to his senses: "Ah, Xiaoyan, what's wrong?"

"Did you argue with Master again?"

"... Ah, nothing." Meng Li stretched and stood up, looked out the window, and picked up his sword: "Nothing, you go practice your sword and saber well."

"What are you arguing about?"

"..." Meng Li didn't keep silent this time. He looked at the youth: "The position of sect leader."

"..." Yang Yan stared wide-eyed: "I... I don't want to be sect leader... Zhang Shixiong, you..."

Meng Li smiled and said in a low voice: "That's what I think too."

"..."

Without waiting for Yang Yan to react and say anything else, he picked up his sword and strode out of the library, leaving only his back to the youth.

Yang Yan stood stunned for a long time, then turned around and began to tidy up the scattered books on the ground.

The youth's attention was indeed not on his hands at this time, but Seeing Pei Ye noticed a few names.

"Six Explanations of the Ancient Array of Yangyi Tower," "Zhou Array Rituals"... mostly books on the way of arrays.

The question before "Why did Meng Li flip through these books?" was, "Why does the Hushanjian Sect have so many books on the way of arrays?"

Yang Yan walked down the mountain in a daze. It was already dark. The youth looked up at the main hall on the top of the mountain, hesitated for a moment, but didn't go up, and turned back to his own courtyard.

Just as he lit the candle, with a "flutter," a shadow of an owl hit the window. Yang Yan was stunned, only then remembering the white eagle he had forgotten. He didn't expect it to find its way back by itself. He hurriedly opened the window, and the cold, powerful wings and hard claws pounced on him, chirping at him anxiously.

"Alright, stop making a fuss." The youth pressed down on the quite spiritual white bird with a distracted mind. He was in no mood to play with it tonight, fed it meat and water, and locked it back in the cage.

Under the night sky, the autumn sky was clear, and the youth leaned on the head of the bed, looking out the window with some sorrow.

"... Tomorrow is Zhang Shixiong's capping and naming day. This day is so important, and the two of them are still having conflicts..."

(End of chapter)