Brother Lin’s companion was shocked, grabbing his hand and saying, “The Life Spring Art? Brother Lin, you can’t!”
The young man surnamed Lin was vexed that his spell art had been interrupted by someone from his own party. “Why can’t I? As a cultivator, don’t I seek exactly what my heart desires? Moreover, it’s autumn, when all things go into hibernation. My using the Life Spring Art to make the flowers bloom will not only make our journey worth it, but also bring beauty to the gloomy autumn of Fangshan City, giving them an extra place to go for their leisure. It’s a gracious deed, so there’s no need for Brother Chen to stop me.”
“Right, right, Brother Lin is right on,” several other young men agreed. It appeared that they were rather fearful of this person.
“Absurd!” A bowl slammed on the table, splashing wine into the air.
The speaker was none other than the curly-bearded man.
“Oh?” The young men by the railing turned their heads.
That Lin youth grew angry. “Are you talking to me?”
The muscular man grunted, “Exactly! Pulling on sprouts to help them grow might give you a moment of glory, but how can those flowers continue to survive? After today, it won’t be three months until the apricot forest becomes nothing but dead wood!”
The Lin youth grunted, “If they die, they die. Just plant some more. Why is that any of your business? I’ll just pay some compensation if I need to.”
This Lin youth came from a powerful clan and was a rather stubborn and proud person.
In his view, the apricot trees were just plants without any intelligence, so why did they need to be cherished? And didn’t he usually do whatever he wanted back at home?
He didn’t consider himself a tyrant. He just wanted to see the blooming sea of flowers and flaunt his power, yet he was being reprimanded over something so minor? He naturally felt unhappy, and his expression turned dark.
But alas, what he considered minor, others considered major.
The man shouted, “Bastard thing, is the apricot forest your home? To be destroyed at your word? Don’t think that just because your family has some status, you can do whatever you want.”
The Lin youth grew furious. “Bastard, you’re trying to humiliate me.”
He placed a hand on his sword and was just about to strike when Tang Jie suddenly commented, “Apricot Pavilion receives tens of thousands of tourists every year.”
“Eh?” Everyone looked at him.
Tang Jie casually continued, “The apricot forest has stood for a hundred years now.”
That Lin youth stared at Tang Jie. “What are you trying to say?”
He could tell from Tang Jie’s uniform that he belonged to Basking Moon Academy, so he wasn’t so arrogant as to try and start a fight with him.
Tang Jie muttered, “The apricots bloom for only a short twenty days, so most tourists won’t be able to see the sea of flowers, right? Over a hundred years, I am sure that many people of prodigious ability have been through this place, so were they idiots? Or were they incompetent? Not one of them thought to use Immortal arts to make the apricots bloom.”
The Lin youth was taken aback. He somewhat understood what Tang Jie was getting at.
Tang Jie softly placed his hand on the stele and moved his fingers over the grooves. “Titans can be found in the marketplace. Apricot Pavilion has stood for one hundred years, untroubled by rain or storm. Was this out of luck? Gentlemen, if you don’t want to be chased out of Apricot Pavilion and be made into laughingstocks, you should know some restraint.”
The lines he stroked were the very last lines on the stele, a warning written by the master of Apricot Pavilion:
“Guests, please sit quietly and do not move about. Violators will be chased (逐) out!”
“Do not move about” had many meanings here.
This was a warning to not write on the stele if one did not have the ability, and it was also a warning to not start fights.
The muscular man looked at Tang Jie and chuckled. “As expected of a Basking Moon student! Excellent words!”
He glanced at the Lin youth and jeered, “I have to wonder which clan this guy is from, for him to be so lacking in tact. Even Basking Moon students are humble when they come to Apricot Pavilion, yet he’s so arrogant and bossy! How laughable!”
This man was a very crude person, and his tongue was very harsh. Tang Jie couldn’t help but frown.
He had just been planning to give a gentle reminder and let the matter go. What was the point in being so relentless?
Sure enough, that Lin youth became incensed, shouting, “Bastard! For humiliating my Lin Clan, die!”
He slapped his waist, and his sword flew into the air and thrust at the muscular man. It was a flying sword spell.
At the moment he attacked, Tang Jie suddenly stepped back. The inscription stele suddenly glowed golden, and a large “逐” (chase) character flew out of it and struck the youth, knocking him out the window.
There were countless pedestrians down below, and they immediately began to shout.
“Another one has fallen!”
“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen someone flying out of Apricot Pavilion. It’s just as wonderful as I remember it to be.”
“It seems like a cultivator, to be fine after falling from so high up.”
“Of course. Who would dare to cause trouble in Apricot Pavilion if they didn’t have the ability?”
It seemed like people falling out of Apricot Pavilion were a common sight in Fangshan City.
But at this moment, Tang Jie wasn’t in the mood to worry about that Lin youth.
When that word had leapt out of the stone stele, he had felt a sudden shift in the pavilion.
A surge of spiritual energy had silently flowed through the building, with every corner and every formation line moving in tune with the laws of the world.
In the middle of it all, Tang Jie felt like the world around him had changed.
It was a bizarre sensation that was impossible to describe.
Everything seemed perfectly fine on the surface, but Tang Jie’s mind was a raging tempest.
Almost entirely out of instinct, he stepped forward.
He placed himself exactly in the middle of the golden character’s return route.
After striking that Lin youth, the golden character flew back, but as Tang Jie was in the way, it had to fly around him to get back to the stele.
Tang Jie stepped out again, stepping onto a flowery pattern on the floorboards.
This was one of Apricot Pavilion’s formations. As Tang Jie stepped on it and released spiritual energy into it, the pattern erupted with light, and the golden character froze in the air.
Tang Jie stepped back again, his feet landing on the center of a floorboard. The golden “逐” immediately began to fly around the air in search of another target.
Everyone finally noticed that something was off.
Wei Tianchong shouted in alarm, “Tang Jie, what did you do?”
The curly-bearded man gaped at Tang Jie, still trying to understand what was happening. “What’s going on here?”
The bewitching man merely glanced at Tang Jie, an appreciative smile in his eyes.
Tang Jie suddenly took three rapid steps back and slammed a palm on a railing. Apricot Pavilion boomed and shuddered, and then the dancing golden character let out a ding and dropped to the floor.
Tang Jie immediately rushed out and grabbed the golden character.
The moment Tang Jie touched it, the character tried to fly back to the empty spot on the stele.
Tang Jie shouted, “I think you should stay right here!”
He slightly opened his left hand, seizing the golden character with his energy and preventing it from going back. Meanwhile, he pointed at the inscription stele with his right hand and fired off spiritual energy from his finger.
This was exactly when the Apricot Pavilion formation was circulating energy through the central node, and with this thrust of his finger, Tang Jie hastily wrote a “逐” character and imprinted it on the stele. But he had written in such haste that it was very messily written.
Clang! The golden “逐” character struck the “逐” that Tang Jie had written and failed to merge back into the stele.
The magpie makes the nest and the turtledove dwells in it! The character that Tang Jie had written had replaced the original “逐” character!
The golden “逐” didn’t know where to go, at which point Tang Jie grabbed it and began to draw out lines of spiritual energy. As his arm moved, a spiritual net enclosed the character.
Finally, under this net of spiritual energy, the golden character began to settle down, quietly lying in Tang Jie’s hand. It flashed for a moment, and then it disappeared.
Wei Tianchong and Shi Meng were gobsmacked. Shi Meng pointed at Tang Jie and asked, “This… What’s going on here?”
Tang Jie simply pensively stared at his palm.
After a while, he suddenly bowed to the stele. “This lowly one was inspired by your work and was itching to try his hand. Senior, please forgive me!”
A few moments later, a golden eye appeared on the stele.
It looked around, briefly pausing on that bewitching man, before looking at Tang Jie. A voice said, “At such a young age, you were able to see through the secrets of my Formless Celestial Heart Formation, and you were then able to replace the truth with the false and break my secret art, seizing the moment to capture a Wuwang Character… Good, excellent! Your strength is clearly average, yet you are able to get so far with clever tricks. It is truly not easy, and Basking Moon Academy truly has many talents. That being the case, I will gift you this Wuwang Character.”
“My utmost gratitude, Revered One!” Tang Jie kowtowed.
“A Wuwang Character? The Formless Celestial Heart Formation?” The muscular man, the young masters, Wei Tianchong, and Shi Meng instantly shuddered upon hearing these names. They instantly prostrated before the stele and shouted, “Our respects to Reverend Wuwang!”
Reverend Wuwang was a famous cultivator of the Sageheart Kingdom. He was a True Lord, one of the few in Sageheart who had achieved this level while remaining unaffiliated.
No one had imagined that it was he who had built Apricot Pavilion. It was no wonder no one dared to cause trouble here.
It was said that this man idolized the Evil-Executing Sovereign, Zhang Shuhan, and he was also skilled in calligraphy, using a brush in place of a sword.
But his calligraphy lacked the vast and righteous aura of Zhang Shuhan’s, and it had yet to grasp a Dao Will, nor was it able to make the formed formless. But this was precisely why every one of his characters had a solid form.
The Wuwang Characters!
Reverend Wuwang was a formidable formation master, and the Formless Celestial Heart Formation was the formation he was most well known for. In his hands, it had endless variations and could be used in all sorts of incredible ways.
Of course, the reverend clearly wasn’t here and was probably traveling somewhere. This stele was the node for the formation, and he was linked with it. The warning written upon this stele had been written by his own hand, and these were the Wuwang Characters. The characters operated along with the formation, and whenever anyone violated the rules, the Wuwang Characters would automatically attack the violator and chase them out.
Of course, they only chased violators out and had no killing intent.
Even so, that Tang Jie would steal a Wuwang Character from True Lord Wuwang was truly amazing.
This had nothing to do with ability, only with experience and daring.
Fortunately, True Lord Wuwang was a tolerant sort. Rather than being angry, he admired Tang Jie’s conduct and had gifted him this Wuwang Character.