Rising Phoenix

Translator: Aristophaneso

The mist seemed to shiver as a blurry shadow moved through the room; the Jiang Hu man widened his eyes, but he could see nothing clearly. Something was wrong, so he rolled away from the shadow.

But as he rolled, pain struck his waist and his body grew lighter as he rolled his way into a corner.

In front of him, Ning Yi calmly gathered his sleeves as he distracted the man; in the corner where the man had rolled, Feng Zhiwei stood with sword in hand.

As she gestured with her sword, Ning Yi’s ears twitched and he pointed behind her; without looking, Feng Zhiwei slashed the sword backwards, under her arm.

A man clutched his throat and fell to the ground; even in his moment of death, confusion filled him — how had that sword gone from Feng Zhiwei’s armpit to his throat?

With the sound that accompanied the four deaths, everyone woke.

But when they woke, they all wondered whether they were still dreaming — why was it so dark? It was as if they hovered in clouds of mist where only general outlines could be seen.

As they were dazed, Feng Zhiwei struck, piercing through the throat of a man who had sat up next to her.

Feng Zhiwei flicked with her sword, pulling the corpse with her and tossing him towards a man pouncing towards her.

With everything a blur, the man only saw a human shape rushing towards him, so he roared and struck out with his palm, smashing the poor corpse’s head.

Then a pain pierced his palm as a black sword cut forward and into his glabella.

In a blink, two more had died.

The corpses had been those closest to her, their moves slow and their Kung Fu clearly the worst of the group.

Feng Zhiwei had chosen the soft persimmons to crush first.

Obviously the leader’s Kung Fu would be the strongest, but he slept on the inner altar far away; if Feng Zhiwei had rushed over to kill him first, she’d have been noticed long before she made it. She could only settle for killing as many people as possible before the others reacted.

Blood spilled as a person clutched their throat, falling to the ground; another person rushed through dying sparks, wind rushing around him as he moved precisely despite blurred vision.

Feng Zhiwei’s heart skipped a beat; she had known that the other experts would be tougher, and now it was clear that the higher their mastery of Kung Fu, the less the poison had affected them.

The wind rushed so fiercely that Feng Zhiwei could barely breath; she lifted her sword, but before she could move it half way a pain filled her chest and her hand uncontrollably fell.

Just as she thought her life was over, she was pushed out of the way; as she rolled to the side, Ning Yi slid forward like lightning, taking her place and moving towards the Jianghu person’s lower body. Suddenly, he leaned back in an iron plate bridge maneuver and slid on his knees; his elbow turned as he moved past the Jianghu attacker and a brilliant white light flashed.

The attacker’s body ripped open from chest to belly, spilling organs and blood in a flood; they roared in pain, grabbing at their guts as they tilted backwards in a desperate attempt to save their organs, but Ning Yi rose to his feet beside them, his cold smile covered in blood as he slashed forward with his blade.

The Jianghu expert crashed to the ground, spraying blood all around him.

Angry roars filled the temple, and a short breathed Feng Zhiwei rushed forward to grab Ning Yi before running to a side room; as soon as they ducked into the room, Feng Zhiwei kicked the door shut.

As soon as the door slammed close, all manners of hidden weapons punctured its wood, nailing into the half rotten shield, throwing chunks of wood all around them.

Feng Zhiwei breathed out in relief as the weapons thudded against the door, and she relaxed for a breath against the door.

But Ning Yi immediately reached forward and pulled her aside.

“Peng!”

A triple edged thorn stabbed into the spot Feng Zhiwei had just leaned against, gleaming a terrifying blue.

If Ning Yi had not moved in time, that triple edge would have punctured Feng Zhiwei’s spine.

Feng Zhiwei let out another breath, murmuring: “You saved my life again…”

“This one doesn’t count.” Ning Yi replied lightly, his face pale. “You’ve saved me many times.”

Feng Zhiwei listened carefully to the noise coming from the other room and sighed: “The poison is not strong enough. They’ve only lost their sight, and their Kung Fu has not been greatly affected. We’re in trouble…”

But as she spoke, she remembered the way the first man had twisted and moaned. The poison in him had been taken from Ning Yi’s tear and then thinned through a bucket of water and shared by so many people, and that poison was still strong enough to force groans of pain from a strong, fit Jianghu fighter. How strong must the original poison be?

And how much pain had Ning Yi been suffering?

Yet since the night of his poisoning until now, she had never heard him moan or complain.

Feng Zhiwei looked up at Ning Yi’s pale face, lost for words.

Ning Yi held himself up by the walls, carefully listening. They had been unable to flee through the temple’s main doors and were forced to hide in this side room, but there were no windows and the only door was guarded. The poison had not paralyzed their enemies, and they had only killed the seven weaker warriors, leaving the five strongest fighters alive. Their situation could not be worse.

Soon, the bustle beyond the door calmed; their enemies knew they could not escape and were focusing on the poison first, meditating to force it out of their system.

The pregnant, tense silence pressed down on Ning Yi and Feng Zhiwei.

After a moment, Ning Yi sat and waved Feng Zhiwei over: “Come, sit.”

Feng Zhiwei smiled and walked over, rustling up some of the tattered cotton curtains and making a pile. Igniting it, she turned and sat next to Ning Yi.

They were both outstanding characters who could remain calm in the most desperate of times, and as they sat next to the flame and listened to the rain, their heated faces were calm.

After a while, Feng Zhiwei spoke: “Ning Yi.”

“En.”

“Our luck is not so good this time.” Feng Zhiwei began, coughing and hiding the blood before turning back to smile at Ning Yi. “We might die here.”

She smiled at Ning Yi, but she felt that her smile was stiffening; her heart beat unevenly and her fingers trembled; her vision blurred, and her bones ached. She felt as if she were falling apart. The two days and nights of exhausting fleeing had given her no time to recover from her internal injuries; she was a dying arrow at the end of its flight. Worst of all, the burning stream within her was stirring again, like a dormant volcano restless before its next eruption…