Chapter 210 — Section 212: Magic Flute [First Update]

Updated: 2013-08-01

"It's finally done." Sai Lei looked at the new mechanism puppet before her, satisfaction written all over her face.

Magic Flute admired it a moment, then gave his verdict: "Very pretty."

"Very pretty?" Sai Lei's brows knitted at once; that was not a word she cared for at all. She muttered, "Not pretty — formidable. Uncle Magic Flute, help me test it."

"Me?" Magic Flute pointed at his own face and froze for a moment. Then he laughed a soundless, helpless laugh. "I'm sorry. I've never operated a mechanism puppet in my life."

"Then what do we do?" Sai Lei pulled a long face. "Uncle Poker isn't here..."

Uncle Poker...

A smile surfaced on Magic Flute's face, and he said gently, "Don't worry. I'll go swap him back for you. He's already returned to the garrison."

"Wonderful!" Sai Lei leapt up in her excitement, her little ponytail whipping a lovely arc through the air. "Uncle Flute is the best!"

Magic Flute smiled, rose lightly to his feet — that tall, slender figure and warm smile somehow refined beyond words. He nodded to Sai Lei and said with a smile, "I'm off. Do take care."

With that, he walked away at an unhurried pace.

That graceful, elegant figure set a thousand stars sparkling in Sai Lei's eyes. Her face went all starry-eyed, both hands clasped before her chest: "Wow, Uncle is so handsome!"

When Magic Flute returned to the recruit camp, he could not help letting out a startled "Hm?" — there was not a single soul about.

Something has happened?

The smile vanished from Magic Flute's face. He walked toward the light gate.

When Magic Flute appeared beside Tang Duo, the first thing that struck him was neither the silver light bursting up from Ghost Claw's head-on clash with Guo Yu, nor the net of fire that Tang Tang could not batter through with all his fury — but that strain of erhu, wailing, soaked through with grief.

Amid the silver radiance that filled the sky, a figure slender as bamboo stood in utter stillness.

He turned his face aside, his clear gaze seeking out a small black dot in the distance; his eyes came to rest on the blind man in the wheelchair.

What a sorrowful sound. His life must have been a very unhappy one.

Magic Flute thought dazedly, faint sorrow and a sigh rising in his eyes.

Even at that distance, Magic Flute could still see it: Ling Yan, spear thrust at the blind man, looked as though a great hammer had struck him full in the face. He spat a mouthful of blood with a retching cry and went flying backward.

Midair, blood scattered; Ling Yan's eyes were shut fast, dead to the world.

Magic Flute's gaze deepened, and a soft sigh passed like wind.

Amid the silver light that filled the heavens, he lowered his head slightly and brought the bronze flute in his hand to his lips.

***

Ling Yan, flung backward, was on the point of tumbling into the herd of stone-sand beasts when a flame-red figure came slashing in from the side — the Flamingo!

The Flamingo seized the unconscious Ling Yan in its beak and bolted at full speed.

The grief on the Blind String Elder's face deepened; his bowstring suddenly sank, and into the sorrow crept a note of lethal resolve.

The stone-sand beasts, who had stood wooden as posts, suddenly had a terrible red light kindle in their eyes all at once. They roared and bellowed without cease, and one of them swung a fist at the Flamingo.

The Flamingo sprang nimbly aside. Boom — the rock fist smashed into the spot it had just occupied, flinging earth and grit.

The stone-sand beasts seemed to wake all at once, and they flung themselves at the Flamingo in a mass.

In a blink the Flamingo was beset by peril on every side.

Then a thread of clear, high flute song came drifting unhurried to the ear. It was like a mild warm wind, blowing across the whole battlefield.

Every stone-sand beast froze mid-motion; the red glow in their eyes began to fade.

The Flamingo seized the chance and dashed a good distance clear.

In the wheelchair, the Blind String Elder let out a startled "Eh?" His bowstring halted, and his hollow eye sockets turned toward the sound of the flute.

The floating flute melody made the woman in black feel comfortable beyond describing. The killing intent and will to fight in her heart vanished into smoke; she could not muster the slightest will to battle.

She knew how formidable that was, and could not help but feel a chill of dread.

The Blind String Elder's strings were like a nightmare; this thread of flute song, by contrast, seemed to hold a magic that struck straight at the human heart.

What a formidable sound martial artist!

Her mind raced. She was thinking: what other sound martial artist could stand against the Blind String Elder?

As a Black Soul, she knew the Sky Road Ranking far more deeply than ordinary martial artists. Anyone who had studied that ranking even a little would notice that over several decades the Blind String Elder's place had scarcely changed at all: number 9900.

It was a very particular ranking.

From 9901 to 10000, those hundred places were called the Hundred-Battle Zone.

To enter the Heaven Ranking, to become one of the ten thousand strongest on the whole Sky Road, to have one's name appear before the eyes of millions — honor, money, secret treasures, martial arts: all of it became something you could have for the asking. Such was the dream of countless martial artists.

On that long waiting list, every one of them had the potential to cut their way onto the Sky Road Ranking. Red-eyed, they tried every means, endlessly challenging the experts on the ranking, hoping for a step up.

The competition in the Hundred-Battle Zone was the fiercest of any region on the Sky Road Ranking, and it was also the region where the ranking shifted fastest and most violently.

Guo Dong's position in the Hundred-Battle Zone had shifted somewhat, but he had never once fallen off the Sky Road Ranking. His strength could be imagined.

The Blind String Elder, nailed fast at 9900 for so long, was even more telling. That ranking meant Xianwu judged his strength sufficient to leave the Hundred-Battle Zone.

Judging purely by the rankings, the Blind String Elder's strength must be greater than Guo Dong's.

And the strength the Blind String Elder had displayed was fully worthy of his ranking.

Yet the woman in black had never imagined that someone would come crashing in — a sound martial artist whose strength was in no way inferior to the Blind String Elder's!

Sound martial artists were a rather obscure breed: beyond the gift for cultivation, one needed a mastery of music and genuine insight into melody.

As a result, in any era, powerful sound martial artists were exceedingly rare.

Who on earth is it...

The astonished woman in black caught sight of the Blind String Elder from the corner of her eye, and she froze.

The Blind String Elder sat withered and motionless, listening quietly.

***

Magic Flute's appearance out of thin air startled everyone.

Especially since he appeared at the very height of the clash between Guo Yu and Ghost Claw: the instant that thread of flute song rose, he robbed everyone else of their light.

But the collision between those two killing moves did not change in the slightest because of his flute.

The silver light that filled the sky dispersed.

The flush on Guo Yu's pale cheeks grew a shade more vivid. He pressed his lips tightly together, his black bright eyes fixed hard on Ghost Claw; the hand that held his sword was trembling, almost imperceptibly.

What a mighty claw technique!

His whole arm was numb and aching, his chest churning with blood and qi. His Zero-Style Slash had never once been used in battle since the day he grasped it.

Who would have thought that the first time he used it, he would meet a rival so formidable.

Then, his confidence shaken, Guo Yu's eyes suddenly lit: the Ghost Claw before him was little by little growing fainter.