Chapter 271.2: Grandmasters

Beiming Youyu lifted her eyes and gazed sternly at the two, and her purple eyes erupted with faint light.

“And unfortunately, the both of you are already inside my domain.”

The voice sounded like a bell in a valley.

The voice still hasn’t dissipated, when Beiming Youyu suddenly disappeared. Not only her figure, but also her aura disappeared.

Cang Lin looked around with vigilance. Jia Lan —

“Parlor tricks!”

— smiled disdainfully and rushed towards Xue Qilin.

She intends to catch me and tie Little Fish’s hands! Xue Qilin realized Jia Lan’s intentions in an instant. But before she could put up resistance, arrows appeared.

As if they appeared out of nowhere, light arrows blotted out the sky, dropped down from the sky like a torrential rain, and bombarded Jia Lan’s movement path, blowing away the night.

Jia Lan radiated golden light and forcibly resisted the rain of arrows. Her defense is indeed as strong as rumored. The arrows, each of which has the power to kill an Earth Realm, turned into ashes when they touched the golden light.

However, there’s no way Beiming Youyu hasn’t considered this.

“Asura’er, is the defense of your eyes just as strong?”

“You –!”

Beiming Youyu appeared in front of Jia Lan out of thin air like a ghost, fired an arrow containing majestic true qi at the other party’s face from point-blank range, and then disappeared again. Cang Lin, who unleashed a horizontal slash, was momentarily at a loss, almost hitting Jia Lan.

Due to the short distance, Jia Lan was inevitably hit by the light arrow.

A violent explosion of true qi sent several large trees flying. Xue Qilin and Bei Xiaolu raised a sleeve each to block the pebbles shooting at them.

“Repulsive fox, look at what you’ve done!”

Jia Lan waved her sleeve angrily to disperse the cloud of dust.

She looks unharmed. However, since her headdress was destroyed during the attack just now, her hair is a mess.

The anger on her face lasted for only a short time, and then was replaced by an intoxicated smile.

“How fun! Ah… it’s so –”

Thereupon, before she could finish talking, she was hit by several other light arrows.

Cang Lin identified Beiming Youyu’s position and rushed in a certain direction. Following her trajectory with her eyes, Xue Qilin saw Beiming Youyu, who has her bow drawn.

Beiming Youyu pulled and released the bowstring repeatedly, and qi arrows composed of true qi formed at the bow string and ejected one after another- She fired ten arrows in an instant.

Unlike Jia Lan, Cang Lin’s body isn’t strong as steel. She can only choose to evade the attacks or face them head on. Her scimitar urgently danced in the air and weaved a net of blade rays in front of her, smashing all the light arrows.

When she finally passed through the rain of arrows, Beiming Youyu was already nowhere to be seen.

While looking at Beiming Youyu’s previous location, Cang Lin hurriedly retreated. Almost at the same time, a wave of dozens of light arrows streaked past in front of her. If she had reacted a beat slower, those arrows would have hit her.

However, Beiming Youyu’s offensive isn’t over yet.

As a mist appeared and then disappeared, Beiming Youyu appeared behind Cang Lin and fired an arrow lightning fast. The latter, however, detected the abnormality with her keen intuition.

She dodged the arrow with an incredibly nimble movement style. At the same time, her scimitar slashed down on Beiming Youyu’s head. In the face of the strike, Beiming Youyu changed positions once more. She instantly moved to behind Cang Lin and tried to fire another arrow.

However, Jia Lan didn’t give her a chance to do that.

“How rude, you forgot about me.”

A golden palm print closed in on her. Beiming Youyu immediately turned and shot two arrows in a row. The first light arrow passed by the palm print and hit Jia Lan, while the thicker second light arrow turned into a white tiger after leaving the bowstring, knocked into the palm print, and then exploded together with it.

Cang Lin, who had already readjusted her posture, took advantage of the gap that appeared when Beiming Youyu shot the two arrows and unleashed numerous blade rays at the other party. In spite of how powerful the blade rays are, the lass enveloped by the blade rays just violently spun her body and whipped out with her thick tail.

A deep whistling sound broke out.

The numerous blade rays combined into one to block the tail, which gained the initiative despite striking second. The two sides deadlocked. Seeing that Beiming Youyu raised her bow, Cang Lin immediately opened the distance and organized the next round of attacks. Beiming Youyu, on the other hand, became free to deal with Jia Lan, who is lunging at her.

“Eh, that’s strange…”

While watching the three Grandmasters fight fiercely, Xue Qilin suddenly discovered an issue.

“What?”

The stunned Bei Xiaolu, who just witnessed Beiming Youyu send Jia Lan flying with a reverse kick, asked blankly.

“Bei Xiaolu, didn’t you notice it? They haven’t gone all out.”

“Hmm?” Bei Xiaolu finally turned to Xue Qilin and said, “What nonsense! They are Grandmasters! If they fight seriously, the forest would have been razed to the ground long ago! You and this old one would have kicked the bucket as well!”

“That so? If, let’s say, Jia Lan is concerned about me and Beiming Youyu is concerned about the both of us and thus they dare not go all out, then what about Cang Lin? She wants to claim the lives of the both of us! Why hasn’t she gone all out?”

“I think I’ll start calling you fool instead of little one!”

“Hey! Your big head is foolish, you’re a fool!”

“You’re saying you’re not a fool? They have the chance to become Immortals! What if they fight for real and accidentally lose this chance, then what? If you can comfortably succeed after several rounds, will you stake it all on one bout? While the green hills last, there will be firewood to burn [4], do you understand this principle?”

So that’s how it is!

Although Bei Xiaolu’s analogies leave a lot to be desired, but they’re nonetheless easy to understand. Xue Qilin understood what she means at once.

“Didn’t you notice? They deliberately suppressed their strength at the Heaven Realm. If Grandmasters had only this much strength, you and this old one would have already beaten those two scoundrels up.”

Seeing Xue Qilin suddenly nod, Bei Xiaolu went a step further, saying, “Of course, if one of them finds a fatal flaw of the other party, they will attack the other party lightning fast with all their might. But before such a flaw appears, they must have some restraint. This old one reckons that they will soon stop, and then declare the outcome. Do you believe me?”

“Er… is that a joke?”

Xue Qilin assumed a skeptical expression, and then focused on the fight once more.

If you meet an opponent that cannot be underestimated, unless one side retreats or collapses, you will have to fight until you’re exhausted — this is what Xue Qilin believed all this time. She can’t accept a casual exchange of several moves, a conflict where there is no real winner to be called a fight. According to her, it can only be regarded as a spar at most.

Isn’t this a kids’ fight? She doesn’t seem to have fully accepted the values prevailing in the Hua Dynasty yet.

Bei Xiaolu’s words soon came true.

After Beiming Youyu resolved their joint attack without extra trouble, Cang Lin and Jia Lan pulled open the distance at the same time. Beiming Youyu didn’t retaliate and instead retreated to not far away from Xue Qilin.

“How boring. Fox, can’t you do anything but run?”

In the face of Jia Lan’s taunt, Beiming Youyu answered indifferently, “In that case, why don’t you catch me?”

“You have a sharp tongue.” Jia Lan snorted, “I’m not in the mood.”

Then she looked at Xue Qilin.

“Little Qilin, see you next time.” She sighed, “I hope a certain fox won’t get in the way at that time.”

After leaving a few words of regret behind, the Vajrayana’s Grandmaster turned around and left.

Her departure represents the end of the conflict than can hardly be regarded as a “fight”.

Although both sides have suppressed their realm. However, they mostly kept it at the Heaven Realm. Under such circumstances, Cang Lin and Jia Lan should have an absolute advantage. But they couldn’t deliver the expected outcome. On the contrary, they were played by Beiming Youyu due to her fantastic position changing skill.

Now that Jia Lan has left, although Cang Lin may have the capital to contend against Beiming Youyu, but that would entail a bitter battle.

Probably aware of this, Cang Lin also chose to leave after a long silence.

“Why does it feel like Grandmasters have their hands tied…”

Xue Qilin mumbled in a daze.

For the first time, she realized that Grandmasters are not as unrestrained as she imagined them to be. They cannot do as they please.

[4] – “while the green hills last, there will be firewood to burn” can be interpreted as “where there is life, there is hope”.