Blue Phoenix

As Hui Yue returned to the others, Deng Wu noticed how his brows were furrowed and his blue eyes were looking far ahead, as though they saw a world unlike their own.

At first, all of them wished to ask about Wang Ju Long, yet no one dared speak as soon as they saw the trance-like state Hui Yue was in. A weird tranquillity was embracing the small child who slowly seemed to return to reality.

The dreamy look within his blue eyes turned sharp and the tranquillity slowly entered his body, leaving behind no trace of it ever being there.

Seeing how his friends all observed him with confusion evident within their eyes, Hui Yue smiled sheepishly.

“Sorry,” he said with a mildly embarrassed voice, “I was thinking about a few things. Did you say something?” Saying this with an embarrassed and sheepish smile caused Deng Wu to snort at Hui Yue. He knew him all too well, and whenever the naïve and innocent boy act appeared, it was obvious that Hui Yue had no wish to be questioned.

With a slight laugh, Deng Wu shook his head and once again paid attention to the stage where Li Shing and Qin Tsang were standing. These two were no longer alone. All the elders within the academy had gathered on the stage and were conversing quietly with each other.

Finally, the Academy Chief straightened his back and moved forward.

“The winner of the semi-final is student Li Shing.” He said, his voice was not raised even slightly, yet the sound boomed throughout the arena echoing after each word. “In five days, student Li Shing will fight against student Hui Yue in the final match.”

As soon as the words were spoken, a strange silence prevailed within the filled arena with no one wishing to break it.

Eventually though, a few people cleared their throats and started applauding Li Shing for winning. The applause, however, started out with only a few adults before it slowly spread throughout the entire audience.

Although Li Shing had shown an intent to kill Wang Ju Long, it was obvious to the audience that Li Shing was indeed strong, and strong men deserved respect.

Although the audience showed a friendly attitude towards this youth, no student within the area was applauding him. Everyone was shocked that he, twice in a row, considered killing his fellow school mates.

Hui Yue turned around, without saying a word, and slowly walked away heading towards his own courtyard. Behind him were the five other youngsters, all of them quietly wondering what had happened with Hui Yue when he went to the infirmary with Wang Ju Long.

Deng Wu especially looked at the younger boy before a thought arrived in his head, and he started giggling.

The giggle managed to bring back Hui Yue from his deep thoughts, and he looked annoyed at the person laughing.

Ever since Hui Yue had run into the elders of the Wang family he had felt as though something was wrong. The elders were swift at removing the injured Wang Ju Long from his embrace, and it was obvious that the elders knew that the young master was actually a young lady.

This showed that it was a decision which had been made by the family. What made Hui Yue so unfocused was that just as the elder appeared, and was about to take the young lady from Hui Yue’s embrace, Hui Yue had felt how Wang Ju Long had grasped his clothes unconsciously trying to stay with Hui Yue for longer.

The proud rival, Wang Ju Long, had held on to Hui Yue as if she did not want to go with the elders. Something was off Hui Yue thought with a sigh. For now though, he could do nothing, but a weird bond had been created between the two as they saw the other as a rival.

These feelings were all new to Hui Yue, and he kept sighing on the way back to his courtyard, not noticing that the five behind him had become only one.

Rong Xing dragged her brother, Gao Yan, and Ma Kong toward her own courtyard, where the four of them would cultivate together. The original plan had been to follow Hui Yue, but this intention quickly changed as they noticed the thoughtful expression that kept appearing on his face.

The reason that Rong Xing did not bring Deng Wu was because he kept smiling as if he had understood something which none of the others knew.

“So did you figure out Wang Ju Long’s secret?” Deng Wu laughed as the two of them were within courtyard 1009, and Hui Yue had paused. Hearing Deng Wu’s question Hui Yue finally turned around and lifted an eyebrow.

“You knew?”

“Little Dragon told me,” Deng Wu said while feeling smug looking at the younger boy’s expression, but unlike what Deng Wu had expected no confusion was shown in his eyes.

‘You knew she was a girl?’ Hui Yue asked Lan Feng, and the blue phoenix laughed from within, ‘I did tell you that you didn’t need to worry about such a minor rival,’ Lan Feng said.

Hui Yue snorted at the annoying birdlike creature within his Qi Cave as he looked at Deng Wu. “I know she’s a girl,” he sighed as he sat down below his favourite tree and gestured for his older friend to sit next to him.

“What do you know about the Wang family?” Hui Yue suddenly asked out of curiosity, as he craned his neck and looked at the autumn sky above.

“The Wang family used to be the City Lords,” Deng Wu started, yet this was something Hui Yue already knew. “Eventually their economy started to slow down, and the city fell behind in paying taxes. At that point the royal family sent Rong Liang here and ordered him to take over as a City Lord. The Wang family was granted space within the city to build their own family compound, and they were gifted a large sum of money to make up for them losing their job.”

This was news to Hui Yue, and he listened intently. Hui Yue started to understand why Wang Ju Long was forced to live like a man.

“The Wang family still wishes to regain their former position, but it is not possible to go against a royal decree. If they were dumb enough to do so they wouldn’t be able to hold onto the position of City Lord for more than a few days, before the royal army would come and exterminate the whole family.”

Hui Yue nodded, then it did indeed make sense. “So the reason that they made her live as a boy is for the sake of proving that they have a more suited youngster than the City Lord himself,” as Hui Yue said this he nodded his head, this actually made sense.

“In the end everything is just theory,” Deng Wu sighed as he leaned against the cold tree trunk and closed his eyes as he enjoyed the chilled air.

After few moments, Hui Yue started practicing Transforming Weapons, sword style, and he was completely absorbed by training within a few minutes, not noticing that the smiling Deng Wu no longer smiled, but instead watched Hui Yue with a complex look on his face.

A deep sigh escaped Deng Wu’s lips as he rose to his feet and walked towards the courtyard gate. Right before leaving he turned around and pain was evident in his eyes as he stepped out.

There are certain things that you do not need to know, Deng Wu thought as he slipped away from the young boy’s courtyard; a profound sadness was evident within his eyes, yet no one was there to see it.

The next morning arrived and before sunrise, Hui Yue was once again seated below his favourite tree and refining strand after strand of essence into Qi. As soon as he heard knocking on his front door, Hui Yue made a beckoning gesture and the gate slowly opened allowing passage for Deng Wu and the rest.

The Rong twins along with Deng Wu and Ma Kong sat down in front of Hui Yue waiting for him to wake up. They all had serious expressions on their faces as they patiently sat there, not once looking at something else.

The intense atmosphere caused mixed emotions to well up within Hui Yue. At first he was happy to see that his friends had no intention of disturbing him while he was cultivating, yet the intense staring caused Hui Yue to become curious as to what was so important that the five of them would sit and watch him in this way.

Their well-meant intentions quickly caused Hui Yue’s curiosity to win out, and after a few minutes he had refined the essence which he had previously gathered.

“What’s wrong?” He asked as soon as the Qi thread had joined the rest of the swirl.

“We have been thinking,” Rong Ming started, “the cultivation technique that you gave Gao Yan, may we have something similar?” Hope was evident on their faces even Deng Wu seemed to be quite interested as well, but Hui Yue had no option other than to shake his head. Lan Feng had explained this to Hui Yue previously as he too had asked this same question.

“You current Qi cannot handle a change in your cultivation method. Your only option is to empty your lower dantian and start cultivating all over. If you want the finest Qi you need to accept that it will most likely take you ten years to regain the rank you currently have. It might take even longer.”

Hearing this, the excited expressions slowly turned dim as they were slightly disappointed in the answer.

“I do have another way though,” Hui Yue said slowly. “I have quite a lot of spirit coins which were given to me by my teacher after he sold the high ranked martial art skills,” Hui Yue continued. “I am going to purchase pills with them. Some of these pills will be the ones that further purify your already refined Qi. If you take enough of these and work hard, then you should be able to break through the upper dantian without too much trouble when that time comes.”

Rong Xing and the others wished to decline the offer, yet getting free medicinal pills was simply too tempting for the lot of them. Excitement once again returned to their eyes as they listened to the younger boy’s words.

Although Hui Yue was five years younger everyone viewed him as someone who had an immense knowledge about various things, and the expert which resided within Hui Yue was able to lead the youngest to be the one they went to every time they had problems.

For this young boy to also offer free medicinal pills, all the friends present swore to themselves that they would never let Hui Yue down. Even if he asked for them to join him in a suicide attack, none of them would say no after seeing how magnanimous he was.

As soon as Hui Yue had returned from the Medicinal Pill Outlet and distributed medicinal pills to everyone present, Hui Yue sat below his favourite tree. He once again fell into deep thought and his eyes stared into the distance.

Hui Yue was not thinking about Wang Ju Long, nor was he thinking about the tournament or why he got stronger.

‘Why do I feel such an overwhelming urge to kill every time I am in a fight?’ He contemplated as he asked Lan Feng. ‘Is it your doing?’ he questioned.

‘No,’ Lan Feng answered slowly before continuing, ‘I’m not sure why you feel like this. I have to admit even I find this killing intent within you to be incredibly strong.’ The phoenix sounded stupefied and confused about the whole thing.

‘I think this killing intent which is locked inside of you might have something to do with why I felt such a strong connection with you back in your old world.’

This did make sense, yet Hui Yue had never killed a person before! Where could such an immense killing intent originate from?

‘It could be from a previous lifetime,’ Lan Feng mused. ‘Considering that you have been forcefully reincarnated by yours truly it is a possibility that some of your old personalities could resurface.’