The Path Toward Heaven

Chapter 354: Hard to Walk

Chapter 354: Hard to Walk

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

“I’ve seen a lot of people die, so I know what I’m talking about.”

Guo Dong said this while looking at Jing Jiu.

“You are really going to die.”

“I know,” Jing Jiu said.

His injury was fatal. His inner organs were all broken, with no more blood in his body. Even the most precious magic pills couldn’t save him, unless he could obtain a Fairy Book.

Guo Dong pleaded, “Could you tell me who you are before you die?”

“You’ve seen me before,” Jing Jiu said.

Guo Dong said, “Even if you are the personal disciple of Jing Yang, it’s still not possible for you to be so powerful.”

He helped her escape from the sword of the Godly Swordsman of West Ocean, a feat impossible for the so-called young geniuses.

If this incident was leaked out, it would shock all of Chaotian...or maybe nobody would believe it.

Guo Dong didn’t believe he was merely a Green Mountain disciple named Jing Jiu.

Jing Jiu didn’t respond to her.

It was because he had lost too much blood; so there was not a trace of blood on his face. But his eyes and brows were still so perfect, so he didn’t look like a real person, but instead like a jade statue.

When the Godly Swordsman of West Ocean lay in the water, he gave onlookers the same feeling.

“I suggest that you turn into the Sword Ghost. Though it will dissolve eventually, you can at least live for a while.”

Guo Dong’s suggestion seemed to be quite simple, but it demonstrated her profound knowledge and unimaginable Cultivation state.

Yet, Jing Jiu had no way to change himself to the Sword Ghost. To survive the fatal wound, he had to find another way. “Lend me your thread,” he said to Guo Dong.

Upon hearing this, the expression in Guo Dong’s eyes suddenly grew cold, asking, “Who the heck are you?”

Jing Jiu still didn’t respond to her question, but raised his right hand slowly and extended his forefinger.

Guo Dong fell silent for a moment while looking at Jing Jiu, and then she extended one of her fingers.

The two fingers met each other amid the ocean wind.

They separated immediately after touching each other.

However, the two fingers couldn’t separate completely.

A thin and sticky silk thread appeared connecting the separating fingers.

The silk thread was transparent. It solidified when meeting the wind and wavered with the wind, looking extremely strong.

Under the sunlight, the silk thread emitted a golden and jade-like color, but the color was very light.

The thin thread came out from Guo Dong’s fingertip.

It looked like the silkworm spitting out the silk in spring.

The black iron sword appeared, hovering quietly over the beach, close to the spot where their shoulders touched each other.

Jing Jiu attached the thin silk thread to the blade of the iron sword.

The iron sword moved to Jing Jiu’s abdomen along with the thread, quivering slightly.

Guo Dong didn’t understand what he was doing.

The iron sword was actually pitching at an extremely small range. It seemed to be quivering because it moved at a very fast speed.

A moment later, the iron sword moved to the other side of Jing Jiu’s abdomen along with the thin silk thread.

“I’m going to sew the flesh on my back. Now I’m repairing the fracture on my spine.”

Jing Jiu explained.

Guo Dong couldn’t sit up to witness the scene, but she felt it absurd.

If this was true, her natural worm silk was actually sewed into this man’s body. She had an awkward feeling.

The natural worm silk was the thinnest and strongest silk thread in the world, and it was perfect for sewing the wound.

Nobody, save for Guo Dong and Bai Zao, could find so much natural worm silk.

The iron sword pitched with the natural worm silk in Jing Jiu’s abdomen at a high speed, sewing up the crack.

A few minutes later, the fracture on his spine had been repaired. The iron sword moved to another spot to sew up the inner organs.

Of course, it was not merely the organ that needed to be sewed up, and it also included repairing the membranes and blood vessels, which required even more precise sewing.

Yet, the speed of the iron sword didn’t slow down, but instead it sped up, with many residual movements left behind.

“How come I find it moving faster now?” Guo Dong asked.

Jing Jiu said, “It looks simple to repair the bones; but it is actually quite complicated. Those grey fibers in the bones are very tiny, and my bones are very hard.”

Guo Dong asked, “Have you done this sort of thing before?”

“I have studied it,” said Jing Jiu.

As they were talking, the iron sword had already sewn up two broken intestines and began to sew the other organs.

After having sewn the inner organs, it started sewing the muscles, followed by the skins

The ocean wind blew over the setting sun as time passed.

After a long time, the iron sword stopped quivering and hovered quietly before the two of them.

The golden and jade-like natural worm silk broke off in the wind and went back into Duo Dong’s fingertip.

Guo Dong looked at his abdomen and found it was as smooth as usual. She couldn’t find anything wrong with it except that a fine blood line could be seen on it.

“You are quite good at this; you should be a doctor.”

Jing Jiu said, “It was because Xilai’s sword came too fast.”

The sword light coming from few miles away was extremely sharp, so his wounds were even and smooth.

If the wounds were as messy as the patch of beach they were on, it would be harder to sew them up.

On the other hand, the objects that could cut him in half were scarce in this world.

Guo Dong noticed that he called the Godly Swordsman of West Ocean as Xilai.

She had too many questions like this.

“It’s done?” she asked.

“No,” Jing Jiu said. “I have just sewn them together. Next, they need to grow and recover themselves. This will take a long time; but I’m not going to die any time soon.”

Guo Dong said, “Then, it’s my turn to die.”

Her wound was not internal, but an internal one of fatal sort.

To make sure that she could kill the Godly Swordsman of West Ocean, she was very close to him when she struck; so she naturally received severe wounds as a result.

The sword wielded by the Godly Swordsman of West Ocean broke three of her Dao meridians.

Though she looked fine, she actually couldn’t move any parts of her body below the neck. She was like a paralyzed patient, and her life energy was gradually leaving her.

Even if Jing Jiu’s iron sword could sew up her wounds, it still had no way to cure her internal wounds.

“You are not going to die.”

After Jing Jiu said this, he felt that the scene and the conversation seemed to have occurred somewhere and sometime before.

Was it a few years ago, or a few hundred years ago?

Guo Dong glanced at him, and asked, “Are you sure?”

Having said that, she closed her eyes to take a rest.

The setting sun descended even more, and the twilight grew brighter, as if the surface of the ocean were ablaze. More dead fish drifted over from the distance, drawing more birds to the area. The birds dived into the ocean constantly and then flew up again, making noisy screams. Watching the scene from a distance, the birds looked like countless burning stars.

Jing Jiu turned around and looked at her face.

The tightly closed eyes were like two lines. Her eyelashes that were not too long or too short had more thin lines. Her mouth was a line, and her nose ridge was another line.

This was an ordinary face, and not the same as her former face.

Back then, she couldn’t be considered a beauty, though she was quite attractive. No matter whether she was in the black mountains and dark rivers, or in the crowded human world, she would be remembered easily after one glance of her.

However, regardless of the former or the current Guo Dong, Jing Jiu hadn’t been able to understand her. Likewise, she was unable to understand him either.

“Your current Cultivation state is not even as strong as mine, but you intended to kill Xilai; what were you thinking? You have stagnated in the Heavenly Arrival State for a couple of hundred years and failed to break through. Right after my ascension, you finally decided to employ the most dangerous method in an attempt to break through the cocoon and gain a new life...Then, why are you still living like you did before? You have delayed your Cultivation because of those unimportant things, wasting away your time. And you are even willing to give your life for it. Pei Baifa did it because he had few days left in his life. But why did you do it?”

Jing Jiu thought of these matters while looking at her face.

The night arrived, and the sky was filled with the stars, illuminating the beach.

Guo Dong opened her eyes, which were very bright when reflecting the starlight.

The stars in the water are the stars in the sky.

Who was this person before her?

She looked at Jing Jiu quietly, without uttering a single word.

Jing Jiu didn’t say anything either. He thought this was better than years ago when she never stopped talking about her ideals, which was annoying.

After a long time, Guo Dong’s eyelashes moved slightly, as she said, “You have said that I’m not going to die.”

“That’s right,” said Jing Jiu.

Guo Dong demanded, “But why are you looking at me like you do to a dead woman?”

In other words, he looked at her like she was a dying person.

The corners of Jing Jiu’s mouth curled up slowly, forming a good-looking curve; he responded to her with a polite smile.

“Your face is indeed good-looking; but you shouldn’t use it as a weapon to deal with me. The concept of good-looking is only suitable for choosing the better bloodline to continue the life...”

Guo Dong continued, “But I’m not interested in this sort of thing.”

Jing Jiu thought what she said was sensible, but he wasn’t interested in it.

He disliked listening to the principles, and he disliked telling others the principles either, except that he told Zhao Layue once.

He had listened to the similar principles told by Guo Dong many years ago. It was something annoying that he tried to forget.

He merely intended to take a look at her, not meet her. Unexpectedly, the situation forced him to meet her; and they were so close to each other, almost eye to eye.

What should he do? Jing Jiu closed his eyes.

Guo Dong didn’t expect that he would have such a reaction.

As she looked at Jing Jiu’s face, she suddenly came to a conclusion.

Though she was not interested in that sort of thing, the good-looking face could indeed make onlookers feel more pleasant than an ugly face.

Neither the Dao Heart nor the Zen Will could smother the feelings deep in the heart. Forgetting affection didn’t mean that one should be unaffectionate; otherwise, one would become an inhuman.

Since she understood this better than anybody else, so she could accept the fact easily. She looked at Jing Jiu’s face for a long time.

The stars were still and motionless. They only changed their brightness as time changed. As the morning light grew brighter, they faded away quietly.

Jing Jiu opened his eyes, awake.

He used the sword awareness to check himself, and found out that nothing went wrong with the sewed organs.

And then, he looked at his toes and tried to wiggle them. He found that his big toe could move on its own now.

After one night, those grey fibers inside the spine had finally connected together; this was the most important fact.

He tried to bend his right leg slowly. His movement was slow and awkward, looking very rigid, resembling a puppet imitating human moves.

He bent down his right leg and put his foot on the beach. And he then turned over to put his hands down to support his body. Finally he tried to get up inch by inch.

His movement was so sluggish that it was like a slow motion scene played ten times more slowly than usual.

Guo Dong commented, “You act like a salamander.”

Jing Jiu didn’t heed her. He still focused on what he was doing. Eventually, he ended up in a sitting position.

This simple move made him look paler on his face, with knitted brows.

It must be the excruciating pain that made him change the expression on his face.

When he was sewing the wounds the day before, he employed the Zen method of the Fruit Formation Temple to shut his six senses.

Back when he had just broken through the Inherited Will State on Shenmo Peak and encountered the thunders, he employed the same method to avoid being shocked unconscious by the thunders.

Yet, shutting the six senses would have a negative effect on the recovering of the inner organs, muscles and meridians.

If Jing Jiu wanted to recover as soon as possible, he had no choice but to give up the method of shutting the six senses and rely on his will power to bear it.

Fortunately, Jing Jiu was not lack of strong will power.

He inhaled the salty ocean air deeply, making sure that the sewed fractures on his inner organs were not reopened; the color on his face looked a lot better now. He placed his palm on Guo Dong’s hair and rubbed a few times.

“What are you going to do?” demanded Guo Dong, wide-eyed.

Jing Jiu raised his palm.

Countless thin threads stuck to his palm were pulled out when Jing Jiu lifted his palm. Those threads floated with the ocean breeze, emitting a nice-looking glow.

These silk threads were also the natural worm silk. Yet, it was unclear how Jing Jiu managed to pull them out from the inside of Guo Dong’s body.

“Since you like running around hither and thither, I have to tie you up first.”

Jing Jiu used the natural worm silk in his hand like a packaging cloth to wrap around Guo Dong’s body.

Guo Dong knew that he didn’t mean to tie her up, saying, “I heard that you used this method to save Bai Zao back when you were in the snowland.”

“Yes,” Jing Jiu said, “but this method can’t save you.”

The Cultivation state of the Godly Swordsman of West Ocean was much higher than Luo Huainan who attacked Bai Zao.

Guo Dong’s wound was much worse than Bai Zao’s.

The natural silkworm cocoon and the secret Cultivation method of the Water-Moon Nunnery would merely stabilize her wound, but couldn’t cure her.

“Who the heck are you?” Guo Dong asked while staring into his eyes. “Jing Yang had left the ancient Danzhu Script with you...Are you his and Nan Wang’s child?”

Jing Jiu thought that she was still so troublesome that he shouldn’t come in the first place. He naturally refused to answer her question, and carried on what he was doing with his head lowered, binding the silk threads around her body. The silk threads binding her grew thicker and thicker, and also moved upward more and more. They covered her chest and neck, and were on the verge of wrapping her face.

“If you want to cover my mouth at the same time, you can give it a try.”

The expression in Guo Dong’s eyes was calm and dreadful.

She didn’t use the oral mantra often spoken by the Green Mountain disciples; her voice was emotionless.

She would be certainly among the top three when those who had killed most people in the history of Chaotian were considered; so her threat was more realistic and formidable.

Jing Jiu thought about it and changed his original plan. He used the natural worm silk to bind her around her face.

It didn’t take long that a large silkworm cocoon appeared on the beach.

Guo Dong’s face was not covered by the cocoon, looking like a wrapped up infant.

She looked truly cute.

Jing Jiu brought one end of the natural worm silk to her waist and tied a knot there; and then he tied the other end firmly on his own wrist. He called out the iron sword and stood up with great difficulty.

His face turned pale again, his eyebrows knitted.

He walked toward the forest behind the beach while heaving Guo Dong with him.

To put it more precisely, he didn’t walk. What he did was dragging his feet forward.

Fortunately, he tied the threads on right spots. The cocoon was perfectly balanced; so it had no effect on his moving forward.

By the dusk, he finally walked out of the forest.

He walked about one mile.

The newly changed cotton cloth was wetted by the blood that had just seeped out.

Jing Jiu had already gotten used to this magnitude of pain; he wasn’t knitting his eyebrows any longer. But he still couldn’t walk more quickly.

At the moment, he couldn’t even ride on the sword, not to mention to employ the Underworld Fairy Sword. All he could do was dragging his feet slowly.

The road was muddy and uneven outside the forest. The imprints of the wheels and caw hooves were barely visible. It looked like few people used the road.

Jing Jiu walked forward slowly while heaving Guo Dong.

Recalling the time when he and Liu Shisui left the small village and was on the road of returning to Green Mountain with Master Lü, he wondered why he thought walking was more comfortable at the time.

Then, he missed the horse-drawn carriage of the Gu Clan.