Chapter 100: Debuting at the Summit

After the body of the Wine Immortal was found on the Wuyi Ice Mountain, everyone believed that Flute Immortal would be the first to step forward and pursue his former close friend’s killer. Yet to everyone’s astonishment, the Flute Immortal vanished into secrecy thereafter and disappeared from all records, with no trace for three hundred years.

The Flute Immortal had been a legend three centuries before; at that time, most of the people in Prince Xiang’s manor had not even been born. They knew only from the annals of cultivation history that a figure called Flute Immortal existed, and none had ever heard his music, except Zhou Junhao. Zhou Junhao had already been a brilliant youth three hundred years ago, and after the Wine Immortal’s death he, like many other passionate young cultivators, swore to find the true culprit and avenge the dead. Yet now, as everyone had already seen, hardly anyone remains sincerely searching for the truth of that death. Even history itself has stamped the matter with only two words: “Unsolved.”

After more than three hundred years, when Zhou Junhao suddenly heard a melody that seemed to be Flute Immortal’s, his spirit leapt with excitement. He lifted his head at once and called toward the black-armored turtle, “Your Honor, is it you, Flute Immortal?”

Flute Immortal?

At those words, everyone in the manor flashed with disbelief. Could they truly see, this day, a figure said to have vanished three centuries before?

Recording Scribe Wu Yuan was so overcome she nearly collapsed to the ground, eyes wide and mouth open. Could she, on her very first assignment in the world below, be about to record the bearing of a legend like Flute Immortal? Had she so much as imagined such a thing before? This, then, was what people call a meteoric debut.

Of course, amid the excitement, she did not forget her duty. She already held a Memory-Plate in one hand and clenched the Sealing-Carving Formula in the other, ready to etch his image the instant he appeared. Only then did she realize her hand holding the plate was trembling. She knew exactly what this moment meant. If she truly captured Flute Immortal’s form here, she would become the first Recording Scribe in three hundred years to accomplish such a feat, and she would be famous at once. So she told herself repeatedly, “Wu Yuan, hold still. Stay steady. You must stay steady.” In all her life, such an opportunity might come only once.

By then the flute had stopped, and the figure on the turtle had not answered Zhou Junhao’s cry. But suddenly the black-armored turtle burst forth with blazing gold light, nearly covering the whole Prince Xiang Manor and sweeping away the gloom that had hung over it. A white figure slowly leapt from its back, stood in the golden radiance, and at last took his place in midair above the manor.

He wore a white robe, was slender, and had a jade flute at his waist.

He seemed no more than thirty, with a slightly pale complexion but a face clean and untouched by even a trace of stubble.

This was Flute Immortal.

Flute Immortal ignored Zhou Junhao, who had shouted at him first. In his eyes, what people called the Qingyan Immortal Venerable was no more than an insignificant minor figure. From above, he called out over the manor:

“Su Qingyu. Long ago I promised your mother that on your wedding day I would play the Long Night Song with you. I have come to keep that promise.”

His voice seemed soft, yet somehow it carried like thunder; even servants deep in the manor could hear him as if he whispered beside their ears. The Flute Immortal, hidden for over three hundred years, dared to appear so boldly only because he had prepared for it. While cloaked in the golden radiance of the black-armored turtle, no one outside that glow could perceive anything within it. Thus all who had been chasing his whereabouts could not discover he was standing here now, unless they had already been inside this manor from the beginning. That was unlikely, though not impossible. Even careful Flute Immortal, taking the risk of being discovered, had come because he cared for music with a fervor bordering on obsession. If this night passed and Su Qingyu lost her untouched purity, she would never again play the Long Night Song in her finest state. He had waited all these years for nothing else than to render that perfect Long Night Song together with Su Yunhe’s daughter.

And there was another reason as well: he had been lonely for too long, a master of exquisite flutecraft with no ears to hear him and no true admirer to answer his music. He wanted this moment to let the world witness a sound without peer. Today’s wedding in this manor was his finest stage.

Trusting in the protection of the golden shroud, he relaxed his vigilance just a little and did not send a phantom duplicate to scout ahead. Besides, appearing in broad daylight before the world was too significant; at such a moment he wanted to feel it himself, not hide behind a substitute.

But now a doubt pierced him: why had Su Qingyu still not appeared? A faint crease formed on his brow, and he sensed a bad omen.

Could this grand wedding itself be a trap?

When he finally realized something was amiss, it was too late.

The clear sky, moments before untouched, darkened in an instant. Layer upon layer of black cloud rolled over it, and wherever one looked there was only black pressing down like a lid. Then dozens of colossal black pillars shot up from those clouds, their bases driven deep beneath the earth. Twisted with raging demonic qi, these thick pillars ringed the manor in a complete circle, like a vast prison.

In every heart, one saying rose: trapping a turtle in a sealed pit. But who was this “turtle”?

A bead-sized coin of sweat rolled down Zhou Junhao’s face. Among all present from the Immortal Sects, aside from Flute Immortal himself, he had by far the highest cultivation. Precisely because of that, he understood the peril of their predicament. The figure hidden behind the clouds could emit a demonic pressure that even he found frightening—that could only be an Emperor-Demon Lord.

Zhou Junhao immediately warned those around him. “Do not get close to the black pillars. Whoever raised them is very likely an Emperor-Demon Lord.”

What? An Emperor-Demon Lord?!

At that, several disciples of the Immortal Sects at once fell to their knees, too afraid even to lift their heads. At that same moment, another burst out in panic, “If this Emperor-Demon Lord is enclosing us with so many pillars… does he mean to kill us all?”

As soon as he spoke, more disciples dropped to the floor in fear. The so-called Emperor-Demon Lord had not even shown himself, and already he had struck terror into the group.

Wu Yuan, too, had long since knelt, though not from fear—from exhilaration. “If I could somehow engrave, in one frame, the image of the Imperial Flute Immortal and an Emperor-Demon Lord together…” she thought. Even just that idea made her body shake with excitement.

At this moment, Song Ye, who had remained silent until now, had already guessed that the Emperor-Demon Lord hidden among the clouds, not yet revealed, must be Qin Xuanxi—the very man she was to marry that day. Song Ye thought: had she planned all of this for this hour? Was her target, in the end, that Flute Immortal who came riding atop a giant turtle?