First Immortal of the Sword

Chapter 33 - Qing Wan

Amidst the tranquility of the night, the cluster of willow branches swung like a whip, leaving a trail of faint, bloody light in the air. 

Crack!

An indistinct, airborne figure staggered back, shrieking in agony. They were ethereal and illusory, and they were enveloped in dense yin energy. A ghost!

“One hit and you’re already screaming in pain? How anticlimactic.” Su Yi had already risen to his feet, and when he saw this, he couldn’t help but shake his head. The anticipation in his eyes faded.

Whoosh! Whoosh!

The locust tree shook violently, its countless branches dancing in the wind, the gales howling like banshees and stirring up the fallen leaves. Then, both the wind and the ghost charged at Su Yi once more. 

Su Yi clutched his cluster of willow branches as if it were a divine whip. Rather than retreating, he advanced.

Crack! 

The sound resounded like thunder with a burst of bloody light. The clustered branches split, striking like countless laser whips.

The ghost couldn’t dodge in time. It rattled, then billowed with black smoke, staggering back and shrieking in agony. 

Despite himself, Su Yi’s eyes filled with disappointment.

The willow branches he carried had merely been dipped in a bit of rooster blood. Although they countered ghosts and other forces of darkness, they weren’t exactly “powerful”. 

Who would have thought that this ghost would be so weak….? 

Crack!

As he pondered, Su Yi struck once more.

This time, the ghost seemed unable to hold out any longer. The yin qi surrounding it burst, leaving the ghost within behind. A petite figure fell from the sky.

She was a woman!

The ghost wore a red dress, and she looked young. Her skin was white as snow, and she was in the fetal position, her petite frame trembling violently and her big eyes wracked with agony.

“Mystic Master, please, spare me! I’ve never hurt anyone before!” The girl in the red dress lay there, begging for mercy and panting for breath.

She was an extraordinary, picturesque beauty, with faint dimples. There was still a bit of baby fat on her face, but she looked certain to blossom into a first-class beauty.

However, her figure was indistinct, and she wasn’t solid, which made her seem ethereal.

Su Yi clenched his willow branches and stared down at her. He sighed. “So, the ghost haunting this place was just a bottom-class yin soul…”

Ghosts were divided into four simple categories: yin souls, haunts, specters, and phantasms.

Of them, yin souls were the lowest class. They were the weakest, as well as the most common. Of the countless ghost stories spread amongst the common folk, the majority were of yin souls.

In Su Yi’s eyes, all the world’s remnant spirits, vengeful souls, and vicious ghosts all fell into the “yin soul” category. 

After all, how capable could a ghost that only dared haunt the mortal world be?

Truly powerful apparitions dared contend with cultivators for territory and declare themselves kings!

“Have you been possessing that old locust tree all this time?” asked Su Yi. He could see at a glance that the red-dressed yin soul wasn’t vicious or bloodthirsty. On the contrary, she looked pristine and pure. 

This meant she’d never hurt anyone before.

“That’s indeed the case, Mystic Master,” replied the ghost timidly. Her beautiful face was pallid, and she looked meek and obedient as she huddled and shook in abject terror. It was hard not to pity her. 

“That can’t be right. You’re lying.” Su Yi frowned.

If not her, just who had killed that physician and those two apprentices nine years ago?

Before the ghost in the red dress could respond, something changed.

Swoosh!

A streak of black glinting with cold light, like a laser, shot towards Su Yi, emanating a malevolent, murderous air. 

“There really is something going on here.” A hint of a cold smile tugged at Su Yi’s lips, and his hands shifted casually. 

He jabbed straight ahead with the willow branches, as if they were a sword.

Bang!

One attack, and he struck that streak of black with perfect accuracy. The black light trembled violently, then fell to the ground. After a brief struggle, it ceased moving.

When Su Yi took a closer look, he saw that it was a black insect about the size of an infant’s fist. It had six legs, and its mouthparts were like densely concentrated sharp blades. It was hideous and malevolent looking, and it reeked of rotting flesh.

“Ghoul Worms! So it was them.” When Su Yi saw this, he realized something. He glanced at the ghost in the red dress. “Who refined them, and who’s controlling them now?”

Ghoul Worms were a poisonous insect made from refined ghosts and corpses. Their bodies brimmed with corpse poison and malevolent energy. 

If an ordinary person was bitten, their bodies would burst and they’d die on the spot. Even a Blood Circulation martial artist could only hold out an hour at most.

Although Ghoul Worms weren’t enough to scare Su Yi, whoever refined and controlled them was worth taking seriously! That’s what really concerned him.

“That….” The lady ghost hesitated, her face filled with terror and dread. It seemed she didn’t dare tell him.

But it was then that…

The rusted chains sealing off the well beside the tree shook violently, and the lid shifted, opening just a crack.

Immediately afterward, a cluster of black lights streamed out like a dark cloud, blotting out the skies as they surged towards Su Yi. 

A swarm of Ghoul Worms!

There were over a hundred of them, and they emitted piercing shrieks from their hideous, sharp mouths, like a chorus of wailing ghosts. Their dark, malevolent yin energy swept across the entire courtyard.

When she saw this, the girl in the red dress seemed to despair. She buried her head, not daring to look.

After all, that was over a hundred Ghoul Worms taking action at once. Any Blood Circulation Realm cultivator would have been scared out of their wits and fallen into despair. 

But Su Yi merely furrowed his brow, looking as calm and composed as ever.

Suddenly, he took a deep breath and circulated his energy. The cluster of willow branches went as straight as a sword.

With a sweep of his sleeves, he strode forward, wielding the branches like a blade. The branches turned in the air.

Suddenly, they swept through the air like a river of stars, as if overturning and cleansing everything in their path.

One sword to pull galaxies, overturn heaven and earth, and sweep across the mortal world. 

Boom!

The shadowy worms filling the air all burst upon impact.

The sound of explosions rang out, so concentrated, it was as if they’d all burst in unison. It really did sound like a sudden crack of thunder, leaving nothing but ash behind!

Since his reincarnation, this was the first time Su Yi had truly unleashed his sword.

Although his cultivation was only in the Blood Circulation Realm, when his sword swept by, he was like an immortal cast down to earth, dancing with his shadow. With each swing of his sword, silence descended in all directions.

Over a hundred Ghoul Worms, obliterated. Nothing but powder remained!

Su Yi, meanwhile, stood within the courtyard, his lean figure like an unsheathed sword, penetrating right through the curtain of the night. This was in stark contrast with his usual aloof, transcendent calm.

Outside of battle, he hid his edge like a sword in its scabbard, but when he attacked, he fully revealed his sharpness. 

Bang!

Cracks spread along the willow branches. They shattered, scattering into fragments.

After all, they were nothing but ordinary wicker. They couldn’t withstand the force with which Su Yi swung his sword. 

The huddled yin soul finally dared raise her head, but when she saw this, it only made her even more terrified.

Obliterating a hundred Ghoul Worms in a single blow? That was just too scary!

Suddenly, the locust tree at the center of the courtyard stilled. Its leaves no longer rustled in the wind, and there were no further movements from the well beside it. 

The night sky was placid as water. Tranquility descended upon the courtyard, and everything seemed just as it had been before. Su Yi bent and sat back in his bamboo chair, his peach wood sword horizontally in front of him. His presence silently returned to normal.

He glanced at the huddling girl in the red dress. “I’ll give you one chance. Tell me where you came from, and everything you know. If your answer satisfies me, I’ll leave you a chance at survival.”

His tone was casual, but the girl quivered in fright. It was undeniable that Su Yi terrified her.

She calmed herself, then said softly and timidly, “Mystic Master, I….. I only remember that my name is Qing Wan. By the time I gained awareness, I’d already been captured by a Daoist Priest named Wu Ruoqiu. He used a secret art to imprison me within the courtyard’s locust tree and said that so long as I obeyed him, he’d release me.

“Wu Ruoqiu? What did he bind a weak, practically useless yin soul like you for?”

Qing Wan lowered her head, then grimaced. “He wanted me to scare people away. He said that whenever a living person entered the courtyard, I was to scare them off. Then, the Ghoul Worms he raised would emerge from the depths of the well and devour their terrified victim’s blood essence.”

Su Yi finally understood.

This courtyard was nothing but a “worm farm” the wandering Daoist Priest Wu Ruoqiu had set up!

He was using living humans’ blood essence to nourish his Ghoul Worms and make them transform. The lady ghost, Qing Wan, was just responsible for scaring their victims…

From this, it seemed that Wu Ruoqiu was well aware that a low-class ghost like Qing Wan wasn’t good for much.

“It’s been nine years, and this place has been abandoned. No one has lived here for a long time. Isn’t Wu Ruoqiu worried that his Ghoul Worms will starve to death?” asked Su Yi.

Qing Wan shook her head. “That won’t happen. He comes back every three days, and he always brings a couple of living people with him to toss into the well and feed the Ghoul Worms.”

“When was he last here?” asked Su Yi. It seemed something had just occurred to him.

“Two days ago.” As soon as Qing Wan said this, she realized the implications, and she seemed terrified. She stuttered, “Mystic Master, Daoist Wu will be here a few hours after midnight!”

“It’s already just past midnight. Judging by the time, he’ll be here before long.” Su Yi gently caressed the peach wood sword lying in front of him, then muttered, “Do you know his cultivation?”

“I recall him once saying that he was in the Qi Accumulation Stage’s ‘Unblocking Acupoints’ stage, and that he could try advancing to ‘Opening Meridians’ within the year,” said Qing Wan.

The Four Realms of the Martial Dao were Blood Circulation, Qi Accumulation, Inner Furnace, and Anāsrava.

Qi Accumulation was the second realm of the Martial Dao, and it was subdivided into three stages: Unblocking Acupoints, Opening Meridians, and Astral Manifestation. They corresponded, respectively, to the early, middle, and late stages of the Qi Accumulation Realm. 

The likes of City Lord Fu Shan, the heads of Guangling City’s Three Great Clans, and the commander of the Old Guard, Nie Beihu, in addition to several of the city’s famed experts of the older generation, were all within this realm.

“A paltry figure at the Qi Accumulation Realm’s Unblocking Acupoints stage? That’ll be easier than I thought.” Su Yi was increasingly calm. He thought it over, then said to the ghost, “Return to your locust tree and pretend you don’t know anything. I’ll decide what to do with you once I’ve dealt with that Wu Ruoqiu.”

“Mystic Master, thank you for not killing me!” Qing Wan was so worked up, she kowtowed. Only then did she manage enough courage to stand back up. Her blood red dress fluttered as she flew back to the locust tree, blinked, and disappeared.

Su Yi sank into thought.

With his peak Blood Circulation Realm, Refining Sinew stage cultivation, he’d have to go all out to kill a Qi Accumulation Realm expert.

But that was under normal circumstances. This was different; his opponent was a heretical cultivator, someone proficient in dark and sinister arts. 

Just in case, he’d best be scrupulously cautious. 

As Su Yi leaned back into his bamboo chair and waited, he thought to himself, It seems that this time, I’ll have to reveal some of my hidden trump cards…. 

Seth's Thoughts

Yin souls, haunts, specters, and phantasms.

While translating this, I put the four Chinese words I'm translating this into my dictionary/translation software to see what came up, and all four just came back as "ghost", so I had to get creative. 

There are differences, but if I'm being completely honest, I just came up with as many ghostly-sounding terms as I could, then picked based on a) ascending order based on my subjective perception of toughness and b) how well they matched the "vibe" of the Chinese term. The term I translated as "haunt" has a bit more of a "skulking thing that lurks in the night" vibe to it, for instance, while the character for "specter" has the character for "strange/freak/monster" in it. 

The notable exception is "yin soul" which is a literal translation.