The Immortal Emperor Returns

Chapter 298 Intercepted

That made Chu Xun very unhappy. He had busied himself one whole night – walloping every guard he came upon during his sneak-in, and setting up Zang Fengling – all for the Soul-nourishing Lotus, and now, only for him to be intercepted by a total stranger demanding him to surrender his prize?

While he himself had his fair share of swashbuckling and marauding, he could not believe that he would end up a prey of this purple-haired woman.

“Go on then. We’d see if anyone takes your word for it,” said Chu Xun bluntly. He was hardly afraid; as far as everyone was concerned, he had been wounded during his duel against Zang Fengling at the meeting at the Yan Family residence. Surely no one would believe that a wounded man could sneak in and out unscathed from such a heavily-guarded residence?

“And surely you don’t expect your feeble and crude excuse would save you?” scoffed the woman in return. She took out her cell phone and played a video.

That rather surprised Chu Xun. A woman with such bearing and air that resembled a fairy from ancient lore, using an electronic instrument such as a cell phone... What an unusual sight...

In the video footage, Chu Xun could see himself, speeding through the streets right as he entered the city, attacking Zang Fengling with the black iron rod, before he quickly vanished out of sight. From the angle of the video, she must have been observing everything from one of the nearby rooftops.

“You cheat,” breathed Chu Xun, annoyed for both the woman and his own carelessness to allow himself to be recorded.

“Just taking a leaf out of your book,” chided the woman coolly.

“Don’t lump me in with you. I don’t have the hobby of recording others secretly,” growled Chu Xun, visibly displeased.

“But you are no stranger to pilfering, plotting, and setting others up,” muttered the woman with purplish hair, putting away her cell phone.

“...” Chu Xun could find no words to retort. After a beat of silence, he relented, “One leaf. That’s all I can offer.”

The woman said nothing as if she was ignoring him, merely maintaining a smug glare at him.

Chu Xun groaned. There was no way he could worm out of this; the video had him captured very clearly.

“Two. That really is my limit.”

“Deal.”

Wait a minute, Chu Xun could not quite believe his ears. She’s fine with two leaves?!

“Two leaves for you, the rest of the Lotus belongs to me,” she muttered gloatingly.

“You should have tried getting it yourself,” Chu Xun growled, keeping his temper in check.

“I am. That’s what I’m doing now,” breathed the woman with hardly any shame.

“...” Chu Xun seethed beyond words, and it was all he could manage to utter the few words of “Go on dreaming.”

The woman knew she did not need to say anything. Instead, she took out her phone and shook it like a carrot dangling before a mule.

“You can’t have the Lotus. I need it. And don’t you think a stupid video clip like that is enough to bend me to your will. If going public with that crap is what you intend to do, then by all means,” hissed Chu Xun beastly as he tried to circle around the woman and continue his way.

Only, the woman refused to bulge. She cut him off by standing in his way, growling, “Leave the Lotus or forget about leaving.”

The threat worked not one bit; Chu Xun stepped past her and began walking.

Swoosh!

The woman cantered up to him and barred his way again.

“How about removing that veil?” gasped Chu Xun at last, exasperated, “I might just give you the Lotus if I’m impressed.”

He really wanted to know if the woman was Jing Hong. He had once thought her Jing Hong, although the notion had long expired, for he was certain that Jing Hong would never treat him this way.

The woman snorted. Without warning, she lunged, her hands clawing for his Storage Ring.

Chu Xun easily evaded her, muttering, “Enough, or don’t blame me for what happens next.”

The warning did little to quell the woman’s fervor. Her slender, fair hand came up and it came down in a pressing motion with a burst of True Energy surging forth from inside her; she was using her powers to pin Chu Xun down.

Chu Xun evaded the invisible force bearing down on him with a kick into the ground that propelled him some distance away, but not without firing a blast of destructive energy as retaliation.

Boom!

Winds raged around, as if responding to their burgeoning auras.

Astonishment shot through the woman’s gaze. “I’ve underestimated you.”

She had not recognized Chu Xun, with the latter having disguised himself.

“Give up. I’d never surrender the Lotus to you.” He needed the Lotus to save Hua Qingwu and he’d never allow anyone else to have it.

Yet the woman remained feisty and persistent, firing a bolt of True Energy at him.

Chu Xun raised his fist and punched hard in response, sending another heavy salvo that shook the earth.

Rumble!

In just a matter of seconds, the two combatants exchange dozens of blows, with cracks spreading across the ground and dust and sand whisked up into the air like a sandstorm as testament to their furious melee.

The woman’s slender hands rapidly weaved hand seals before she tapped a lean finger into the air.

The Demon-slain Finger—scaring all the gods and ghosts by the third finger!

A strong and yet ancient aura flooded the battle site and a huge monstrous monolith came crashing down from the sky and the ground shattered and shook by its force.

Chu Xun clenched his fist. With Immortal Qi churning inside him, he bolted after the falling monolith and took into the air, his fist raised on the ready to strike.

Bang! Bang!

He smashed two successive punches into the falling monolith, destroying it into bits with a huge storm of flying stones and gravel raging in the aftermath.

“You are Chu Xun, the Devil,” the woman gasped with startlement in her voice.

No longer wishing to keep up the pretense, the muscles and his sinews on his face shifted and he returned back to his own appearance.

“It really is you,” said the woman in purple hair.

“I came here because of you,” said Chu Xun.

“For the soul you seek?” she asked.

Chu Xun nodded his head candidly. “True. She is important to me. I only wish that you return her soul to me. I don’t wish for any animosity between us.”

“And you stole the Lotus, all for her as well?”

Chu Xun nodded again.

The woman stared quietly at him, her piercing glare softening at last. Perhaps, he really was not as callous and unfaithful as he claimed. Was I mistaken about him?

“At first, you reminded me of a person I once knew,” Chu Xun said, “But I think I’ve been mistaken.”

“Like I said before, I don’t know you.”

Chu Xun was hardly interested in dwelling on that subject. Getting back Hua Qingwu’s soul mattered more greatly now.

“Can you give me back her soul?”

The woman’s eyes flashed briefly as she held him in a long stare, swirling deep with thoughts and a sparkling star in the deep of the night. Suddenly, out of nowhere, she heard herself saying, “Can I see her?”

She could not quite believe her ears. What made her speak such things?!

Chu Xun spoke with ice in his voice. “For decades she stuck sealed in ice. I guess a look wouldn’t hurt, as long as we can revive her.”

“I do know that to save a soul which has left its original body, you’d need the Soul-Curing Flower. Earth might still be recovering from the anomalies that have ravaged it, but the Flower remains elusive. What would you do?”

Chu Xun thought for seconds before he looked up. “Anything. If there really is no Soul-Curing Flower on Earth, then I’ll gain an audience with the Immortal Emperor. I’d do anything I can, even if it means going back to the World of Cultivation.”

She shuddered at that notion. Going back to the World of Cultivation would mean that Chu Xun would lose all his powers, and his journey of magical cultivation would need to begin anew.

“Give me a leaf,” she said at last, “Her soul needs the Lotus for nourishment. Only then it could be strong enough for a safe transmission back into her body.”

“That’s why you want the Lotus? To nourish the soul?” uttered Chu Xun in shock.

The woman dipped her head gently. For reasons unknown, she did not want the soul to be endangered in any way.

“It’s too conspicuous here. Come with me,” said Chu Xun.

The woman tottered hesitatingly, but she nevertheless followed Chu Xun back to his lodgings.

Knowing now that it was for Hua Qingwu, Chu Xun extracted a seed from the Lotus instead of a leaf.

The Lotus has reached full bloom and he found four little seeds inside. Heaven forfend anyone could see them; any single one of them being seen by anyone outside was enough to cause an uproar.

The seeds, barely the size of a man’s thumb, blushed dark-red like little rubies that exuded a soft but aromatic scent of herbs.

Fortunately, Chu Xun had already sealed the room with an enchantment to prevent anyone nearby from picking up the scent.

The woman took a seed from him and cast another defensive enchantment of her own that encased herself inside.

Chu Xun rubbed his nose uneasily. The woman was still being wary of him.

The woman removed a crystal earring off her own ear and undid a magical seal she had placed on it and a bright radiance poured out furiously.

It was all Chu Xun could do from hurling curses. This woman had transfigured Hua Qingwu’s soul into an earring?! No wonder he could always feel the presence of her spirit about this woman whenever he clapped eyes on her! If only he knew it, he seethed, and he would have long tried to take it himself!

Her hands weaved quickly to perform several hand seals. The Lovesickness Tear and the Lotus seed rose into the air, hovering and bobbing lazily in midair as if being caught in an invisible wave. With her True Energy as catalyst, the energies of the Seed was funneled into the Tear.

The Tear looked more lucid and limpid by the second, as tongues of aura in gaseous form, pure and hallowed, swirled lazily around, interweaving with tendrils of mists curling around in its midst and the Seed was shrinking at a noticeable rate.

The process took quite some time until the Tear had utterly taken in all of the Seed’s magic.

But that did not compel the woman to cast away her defensive enchantment. She turned around and gazed at Chu Xun. A hand came up and tapped gently on the Tear and a ray of light shot from the tip of her finger into the Tear.

Images slowly appeared, scrolling and changing like a kaleidoscope.

A scene from inside the Tear which the woman had seen before.

Chu Xun stared blankly at the blurry whirl of images; these were all his recollections with Jing Hong.

“NO!”

Chu Xun shouted, his eyes turning red.

Then the shifting images froze, stopping on a scene depicting Jing Hong breaking through space and stumbling into a Time-Space wormhole.

“Is she the Jing Hong you mentioned?” asked the woman with purple hair. She could not quite explain the throb in her chest that only made her want to console Chu Xun for the sadness in his eyes.

Silent and dewy-eyed, it was not until now he realized that Jing Hong did really come after him.

But where was she now?

Jing Hong did not have the coordinates of Earth at all. What would have happened to her? Would she just drift aimlessly in the wormhole?

What was more, that Lovesickness Tear belongs to Hua Qingwu, yet how was it possible that it has scenes of his recollections with Jing Hong?

“This was odd,” he wondered. He was sure that Hua Qingwu came from Earth, while Jing Hong did not.

What in blazes was going on?!

Chu Xun felt his brain about to blow up.

“How did this Jing Hong get injured?” asked the woman, still staring at Chu Xun.

Startled, Chu Xun jerked his head sideways at her as he gasped, “Have you seen her?! You’ve seen Jing Hong?!”

“This soul doesn’t belong to Jing Hong? Did you not say that she has been kept in ice?” asked the woman.

With his voice breaking and sad, Chu Xun said, “This Tear belongs to Little Wu,” citing Hua Qingwu’s pet name.

“Little Wu?!” muttered the woman in puzzlement, “This Little Wu’s not Jing Hong?”

Chu Xun shook his head.

“Then if that is Xiao Wu’s Tear, why are there scenes of you with Jing Hong in there?”

Chu Xun could only shake his head. It was all he could do with no idea of what was happening at all.

“That really is odd,” murmured the woman.

“Are you Jing Hong?” Chu Xun voiced out his doubts.

But she shook her head.

Chu Xun sighed. He must have made a mistake.

Silence hung between them for seconds.

Finally, the woman spoke. “I saw you trying again and again to break into the Time-Space wormhole. Was it all because you wanted to come back here?”

Chu Xun nodded. “In fact, it was for this reason I became Immortal Emperor.”

“But why?” She looked genuinely curious.

“Imagine yourself being tossed into prison for nothing and you died a miserable death inside. Wouldn’t you want to know why? Wouldn’t you want revenge?”

The woman bobbed her head, as if trying to understand something, then she asked “What is a prison?”

“...” Chu Xun groaned. Then why were you nodding your head as if you understand everything I said?!

“How did you come here?” asked Chu Xun this time. He was deeply curious about her. She could use the Demon-slain Finger, yet she was not Jing Hong. So who could she be?

“I don’t know,” responded the woman, shaking her head.

“Did you lose your memory?’

“No. I remember everything. Except why I came here. I just can’t seem to remember why I am here.”

Chu Xun’s jaw dropped open. And how does that not constitute a memory lost?!

“You might be Jing Hong.”

“Impossible,” she muttered with absolute certainty.

“What makes you so sure?”

“Because I will never fall in love with a person like you.”

“What do you mean by ‘a person like you’?”

“You’re a cheating philanderer.”

“...” Chu Xun was speechless. What cheating philanderer?!