Chapter 240: The Myriad Fires Origin Art

Ding Songyan turned his gaze to Twelfth Madam Luo.

"Let’s go take a look. Meeting is fate." Luo Mingyin stood, left the back courtyard by the side door, and circled to the alley behind the main building.

Ding Songyan followed behind her and noticed a person lying in the shadows of the outer wall and the trees, not yet spotted by the watchtower.

The person was a young man, his face smeared with dust, a spark of fire seemingly embedded in his forehead. He tried to lift his left arm but failed, and said with great difficulty, "Don’t report to the authorities..."

He fainted before he could finish.

With a physical anomaly like that, he isn’t the Ghost Yu Way renegade, and it wouldn’t be such a coincidence anyway... Ding Songyan turned and asked Twelfth Madam Luo, "We really aren’t reporting this?"

Twelfth Madam Luo considered for a moment and said, "Save him first and ask what happened. If he’s a heretic or a wrongdoer, we hand him to the Martial Prohibition Bureau. If not, we’ll see."

Ding Songyan did not object.

For anything happening around Prince Kang’s estate, he wanted to handle it himself first before deciding what to do.

Though he had come to the Flame Capital to thwart the schemes of heretics, he had not presupposed that the Jianwu Emperor and Prince Kang were absolutely in the right. So he hoped to work out what the Emperor really wanted to achieve with the consort selection, which was also why he had tried earlier to peek into Commander Han Shun’s dreams.

Only by grasping the rough shape of the matter could he better foil the heretics, or find a way to flip the table, so that this dog-eat-dog skirmish would not harm the peace, unity, and stability of Great Zhao.

Twelfth Madam Luo extended her right hand, lifted the unconscious man, and gripped his shoulder.

At the same moment, dark clouds seemed to drift across the high sky, covering the bright moon and the numerous stars as the nearby streets and alleys suddenly went pitch black.

"You deal with the remnant traces.

"If we hand him to the Martial Prohibition Bureau later, say you picked him up." After leaving those two sentences, Twelfth Madam Luo vanished into the darkness, unnoticed by the watchtower guards.

Ding Songyan was stunned for a moment.

"Say I picked him up?

"She’s making me shoulder the blame?

"What an upside-down world!"

Laughing in dismay, Ding Songyan used the Chaos Realm and Presence-Absence Myriad Forms Qi to erase every trace thoroughly.

The dim bright moon and the glittering stars had pierced the dark clouds at some point.

Back in the back courtyard of the cheap wine shop, Ding Songyan saw that the east wing’s room had been tidied, with wooden crates and boxes piled high in a corner, and the injured man lying on the bed, still unconscious.

"Internal injuries, and his spirit and soul are damaged too." Twelfth Madam Luo, sitting on the edge of the bed, had already probed his condition with true qi.

The shopkeeper looked up.

"Do you have any healing pills?"

"You don’t?" Ding Songyan was quite surprised.

Twelfth Madam, you’re a hidden master!

That trick of dark clouds covering the moon just now could only be done by me with the Celestial Heart state.

Twelfth Madam Luo froze, then felt a little awkward.

"Good healing pills cost a lot of silver, and I have no use for them myself."

"If you have no silver, go find people named on wanted notices." Ding Songyan didn’t quite understand.

Twelfth Madam Luo scoffed.

"Do you think I don’t know?

"But I’ve been in the Flame Capital too long, and this place has been combed over and over by all kinds of heroes. Finding someone on a wanted notice is very difficult."

"You don’t rob the wicked to help the poor? Somewhere like the Silver Hook Gambling House would be perfect," Ding Songyan chatted in amusement while taking a celadon porcelain bottle from inside his robe.

Twelfth Madam Luo gave him a sidelong glance.

"No!"

She added at once, "When I kill someone like Hu Chaohui, I don’t mind taking the silver off him.

"But before I kill him, I won’t steal from a gambling house for silver."

Ding Songyan said nothing more, since there was still an injured man before them.

"Luckily I have the Life-Sustaining Pill the estate rewarded me." He shook the celadon porcelain bottle in his hand.

Twelfth Madam Luo looked at Ding Songyan with some surprise, as if she had not expected him to produce such a miraculous healing medicine.

By sound she could identify what was inside: only one pill in the bottle, no spares.

"No other healing pills?" Twelfth Madam Luo asked.

"Aside from the Life-Sustaining Pill, only ordinary healing medicines." Ding Songyan looked at the unconscious injured man. "I need to confirm first whether he’s good or bad and what exactly he went through. I can’t waste the Life-Sustaining Pill on a heretic."

Twelfth Madam Luo nodded slightly.

"That’s only right."

She curled her finger and flicked it lightly, and a strange sword qi shot out and bored into the unconscious man’s apertures.

Stimulated, the man’s eyeballs moved slightly, showing signs of waking.

"Twelfth Madam, can you tell the truth from lies through the Way of Name and Reality?" Ding Songyan turned his head and asked.

"That has nothing to do with name and reality." Twelfth Madam Luo shook her head.

Ding Songyan smiled.

"Then please step out for now. I’m going to use a secret art that can tell the truth from lies, and I can’t let you see the mismatch of name and reality."

"Then I’ll go out first." Twelfth Madam Luo did not ask what secret art it was, and rose and walked toward the main building.

She suddenly turned sideways and added with a smile at the corner of her mouth, "Don’t worry, I won’t deliberately sense this place either."

How perceptive... After watching Twelfth Madam Luo leave the east wing, Ding Songyan suddenly sprouted white patterns on his cheekbones. His eyes grew deep and dark, and the shape of his face changed.

The anomaly then vanished in an instant.

He pulled over a wooden stool and sat, watching the injured man on the bed slowly open his eyes, and heard thoughts like "Where is this?" and "Have I been captured?" surface in the man’s mind.

"What happened to you?" Ding Songyan asked gently.

Only then did the man notice someone in the room. He turned his head with difficulty and asked in a low voice, "Was it you who saved me?"

"Not yet," Ding Songyan said in a soothing tone. "If you’re a heretic, I won’t save you. I’ll kill you."

The man asked with great difficulty,

"Which sect, or which clan, are you from?"

"The Brightnight Sect." Ding Songyan was quite open.

Unfortunately, he was manifesting Mirror Lake Divine Reflection and could not show the man his double pupils, so he could only raise an arm and use his fingers as a sword to perform a few Brightnight Sect sword moves.

The young man hardly looked, panting for breath as he said, "A group coveted my family’s martial art and killed my parents. I escaped with the manual in the chaos, hoping to shake them off and seek shelter with a top sect like the Five Saints Sect. But I was grievously injured, and failed to hold on just after leaving the south of the city."

The more he spoke, the more he stuttered. After a few seconds, he said, "Your art doesn’t look like the fire element. My family’s martial art would be of no use to you."

The fire element? Ding Songyan narrowed his eyes slightly.

"Whom does your family’s art come from, and what is it called?" he asked, his voice unchanged.

The young man hesitated for a moment but still said, "It originates from the Divine Lord of Fire Virtue, Wu Hui.

"What I cultivate is the Myriad Fires Origin Art."

Wu Hui, strange on the left, lacking a right arm? The Divine Lord of Fire Virtue, Zhurong’s younger brother, who fathomed heavenly secrets, penetrated the star signs, governed fire affairs, and gained wisdom and courage... Truly of "fire"... Ding Songyan thought of the late head of the Fire-Wielding School.

That head could "steal kindled flames and command a hundred fires," and had died in a secret mission for Prince Kang’s estate.

And from Wu Hui’s traits, Ding Songyan believed one of His legacies held the Way of Heavenly Secrets, derived from the star signs, possibly mergeable into the Celestial Stars Scripture.

That was the divination-type martial art he craved, but the Myriad Fires Origin Art did not sound like it excelled at that.

"If your parents were killed and your manual seized, why didn’t you want us to report to the authorities?" Ding Songyan asked, changing the subject.

The young man fell silent for a while, then said, "There’s someone with a Zhurong legacy in that group."

A Zhurong legacy? Only two factions in the world have that: the Hong clan and the Kitchen King Order... Ding Songyan understood why he did not want to report.

That risked walking right into a trap.

Is this similar to the Fire-Wielding School head’s secret mission? Both involve "fire"... The Jianwu Emperor’s true aim? Ding Songyan asked as he pondered, "What’s your name?"

"Wu Zheng," the injured man answered, his face showing grief and sorrow.

"Doesn’t your family have a cultivation-teaching Elder?" Ding Songyan asked, jumping from one question to another so that they would not be too closely connected.

"My grandfather came upon the legacy by chance. My father was our family’s first Grandmaster. This time, we came to the Flame Capital to seek out opportunities..." Wu Zheng gradually could not go on.

Not yet an established martial family... Ding Songyan nodded lightly.

"You’re badly hurt. Heal first."

He poured the Life-Sustaining Pill from the celadon bottle and handed it to Wu Zheng.

Wu Zheng knew from the medicinal fragrance alone that this was no ordinary item. He lifted his head with difficulty and said in shock and bewilderment, "Young hero, it’s not worth it."

"In our Brightnight Sect, we only ask whether someone should be saved, not whether it’s worth it." Ding Songyan smiled slightly.

The Brightnight Sect... Wu Zheng repeated the name in his mind.

He came from an ordinary background and had never been to Ning Province. He knew of the Brightnight Sect but did not understand it well, and now suddenly found that this sect seemed as righteous and benevolent as the Five Saints Sect.

After sensing his wounds, Wu Zheng no longer refused. He accepted the Life-Sustaining Pill and said in a low voice,

"I’ll remember your kindness, young hero. If I survive this calamity, I’ll repay you richly."

The young man quickly swallowed the pill and circulated his true qi with difficulty to help the medicine take effect faster.

Ding Songyan, double pupils appearing, left the east wing and told Twelfth Madam Luo, who was curled up in a chair in the main room reading, what he had just learned.

Wu Zheng was probably telling the truth since it matched his inner voice.

Twelfth Madam Luo nodded slightly.

"Sage Zuo of old cultivated Wu Hui’s legacy. The art was called the Stellar Phenomena and Heavenly Secrets Scripture."

Sage Zuo? Ding Songyan’s brows twitched.

Just then, Twelfth Madam Luo stood, gently rubbed her palms together, and said to Ding Songyan with a smile,

"In that case, move into the east wing these next few days and look after the injured man. We’ll see how to handle things once he’s recovered."

"Huh?" Ding Songyan was taken aback.

Twelfth Madam Luo chucked softly.

"Though people of the jianghu don’t fuss over small matters, if it were only me who ran into him, tending to the injured would be nothing. But there’s you too, isn’t there? You owe me so many favors, and they all have to be repaid."

Ding Songyan glanced toward the door:

"Twelfth Madam, it’s not that I mind. I’m afraid my living in the east wing would damage your reputation."

Twelfth Madam Luo was at once annoyed and amused.

"You care about my reputation now?

"When you use me as a shield and hide your whereabouts at my place, why don’t you care then?"

Before Ding Songyan could argue, the shopkeeper spread her hands.

"Things are already like this. I don’t care whether my reputation gets worse."

"It still matters. Before, it was only rumors that we were carrying on. Wouldn’t this confirm it, Twelfth Madam? When you travel the jianghu in the future, everyone will look at you strangely." Ding Songyan tried his best to persuade her.

Twelfth Madam Luo suddenly burst out laughing. She looked into Ding Songyan’s eyes and pointed at herself with a smile.

"How could that be?

"The name Luo Mingyin is fake, and this face of mine is fake too. Once I leave the Flame Capital, who will know who I am? I’ll disguise myself anew, change my name, and start afresh.

"But you, Young Hero Ding, with your real person, real name, and real identity, your reputation as a romantic who seduces respectable women will probably follow you for life and make your confidantes misunderstand."

The woman laughed quite smugly.

Finally, I’ve gotten to punish this shameless fellow!

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