The words were spoken with utmost solemnity, and caused a bit of humiliation to enter into the madness that raged in Bai Xiaochun’s heart. After all, considering what had happened recently in the Starry Sky Dao Polarity Sect, he hadn’t planned to do any pill concocting….
“And now the third point…. Hmph! The spiritual power of heaven and earth in the north belongs to us northern cultivators. How could we possible just give it to a foreigner to use in cultivation? As long as Bai Xiaochun is in the Nine Heavens Cloud Lightning Sect, if he absorbs the slightest sliver of spiritual power, he will be locked up in Lightning Penitentiary!”
This three-point covenant was cruel and harsh, to say the least. All of the surrounding northern cultivators were convinced that it would have Bai Xiaochun completely locked down and bereft of hope. Even the twin Master Cloud Lightnings were shocked, and looked over at Feng Chen with complete approval.
Everything Feng Chen had said made sense, and seemed to be designed for the benefit of the north. Even the somewhat unreasonable third demand met with the approval of all of the surrounding cultivators.
After all, the spiritual energy in the north did belong to the northerners, so for a person from the east to take it was basically theft!
Bai Xiaochun felt like he was going insane, and was even trembling. However, he was still incapable of doing anything other than scream in his heart.
“Bullies! Complete and utter bullies!!”
Unfortunately, there was nothing he could do about the situation. And although he wasn’t sure what exactly Du Lingfei was tasked with doing up here, he was fairly convinced that the Celestial was doing this in revenge for being slapped in the trial by fire.
Du Lingfei was currently looking coldly at Feng Chen, and doing nothing to conceal her anger and murderous aura.
“This is absurd,” she said coolly. “To enforce a three-point covenant like this on a Heavenspan special guard is a complete joke!”
Feng Chen hesitated, but didn’t respond. A moment passed, and the demigod chuckled.
“I think it's a wonderful idea,” he said. “Let’s do it.”
“Fourth Elder Brother,” Du Lingfei said, “you--”
“I'm not sure about the details of your relationship with Bai Xiaochun, Little Junior Sister. But you can rest at ease. As a special guard, he will not lose his life here so long as he doesn’t kill any northern cultivators. By the way, I need to remind you… that this is the north.” Chuckling again, he turned and vanished.
As he left, the bonds holding Bai Xiaochun in place faded away. He had seen how Du Lingfei leapt to his defense, and had also seen the cold attitude of the demigod patriarch, and it filled him with a sense of hopelessness.
“Ah, whatever,” he thought, sighing. “I’ll just do my best to behave. I hope boo’s inspection tour will end soon….”
Du Lingfei looked very anxious. Considering that her father was still injured, and given how badly the trial by fire had gone, it wasn’t just the demigod from the north who was feeling displeased with the Celestial….
And thus, with no way to change the outcome of events, Bai Xiaochun scowled on the verge of tears as he was ‘escorted’ to the white cloud above the statue of the refined and scholarly man. There, he was given the same residence that a first heaven disciple of the Nine Heavens Cloud Lightning Sect would get.
It was simple and crude, and in a remote location on the cloud. When Bai Xiaochun saw that, he sighed and tromped inside, scowling the entire way.
Days passed, and soon Bai Xiaochun felt like he was going crazy. Wherever he went in the Cloud Order, people glared at him, even ones with very low cultivation bases. These were people he could kill without any effort, and yet they looked at him with the same scorn they would show a prisoner with a lower cultivation base than their own.
If he ever got close to the border of the Cloud Order, a stream of deva divine sense would lock onto him.
Obviously, if he stepped off of the cloud, he would be imprisoned.
He also couldn’t practice cultivation. He could sense that he was constantly being monitored, and therefore, if he absorbed some of the spiritual power of heaven and earth, he would be violating the three-point covenant, and would be punished.
He had never been restricted in this way before, and it was reaching the point where he couldn’t take it. For the first time in his life, he actually wished he could do some pill concocting. In this place, he wouldn’t feel a scrap of guilt if anything strange happened. In fact, he would hope for it to….
“And yet… these bastards actually said I can’t concoct pills!!”
--
Trivia note: The “three-point covenant” is a common Chinese idiom that literally refers to some laws made by Emperor Gaozu of the Han Dynasty. Later, the idiom came to refer to general rules and agreements. Here, it's being literally used to mean a rule with three stipulations
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Chapter
957: The Celestial’s Apprentice!
Chapter 957: The Celestials Apprentice!
“How is a person supposed to live like this?!?!” To Bai Xiaochun, it felt like being trapped in a pit of despair. By this point, he was absolutely furious at the Nine Heavens Cloud Lightning Sect.
Unfortunately, there was nothing he could do about the situation. He couldn’t beat six devas in a fight, and that wasn’t even mentioning the demigod patriarch. Therefore, he simply had to endure.
“Grin and bear it!” he growled, tugging furiously at his hair. He had never been in such torment in his entire life, a situation in which all he could do was sit there and stare off into the sky.
He couldn’t cultivate his Sun-Moon Vast-Sky Incantation. And when it came to his Undying Blood… he didn’t have enough life force to work with.
Other than sitting around bored, the only thing he could do was… sit around bored. Eventually, Du Lingfei came over to see him, and could tell from his disheveled state how dispirited he was, and that he was having a difficult time enduring.
“Xiaochun, just wait a little bit longer,” she said comfortingly. “And absolutely, positively do not do anything rash. I have an important mission to accomplish here for father. I’ll try to get it done as quickly as possible, and then we can leave this place.”
Bai Xiaochun nodded dully, not even glancing at her as he continued to stare out into nothing.
Du Lingfei sighed, looked at him for a long moment, and then flew out of the sect.
Several more days passed, during which Bai Xiaochun simply sat around with nothing to do. Eventually, the northern devas realized that he was going to behave himself. However, they simply snorted coldly and proceeded to keep a very close eye on him.
There was nothing else Bai Xiaochun could do other than stare off into the distance. The truth was that he really had no idea of what else to possibly do. He tried reaching out to the little turtle, but didn’t get even a single response.
As for the baby girl in the coffin, he didn’t dare to bring her out, not with so many eyes monitoring him day and night.
Eventually, he had been sitting around bored for about half a month. One evening, he was sitting there as listless as usual, watching the deep red sunset, and the moon climbing up into the sky.
It was in that very moment that, without any warning, he heard a faint sigh.
Along with the sigh, he sensed certain fluctuations in his bag of holding….
“The aura of home….”
Bai Xiaochun very nearly gasped, but managed to keep himself under control. Despite the tsunamis of shock battering at his heart, he kept the expression of boredom on his face.
Without the slightest hesitation, he spoke into his mind, “Are you speaking to me, true spirit?!”
A long moment passed in which he got no response. Anxious, he was just contemplating taking the coffin out to look at, when the same faint voice was again transmitted into his mind.