Daily life of a cultivation judge-Chapter 913: May you find the dragon’s gate

"With a new layer of shame acting as protection and motivation, I hurriedly fled the place, laid low for a while, and when three weeks were up, I went to the agreed-upon location.

I found Yao Chang was already there, it was early dawn at the time. It went without saying Fu Yong wasn’t there.

We were a bundle of nerves but we decided to wait. Seconds turned to minutes, and minutes to hours, and before we knew it, it was already midnight and Fu Yong still wasn’t there.

Unwilling to admit that maybe something had happened to him, or ..."

"That the cauldron had been taken.." Xiao Gun added after a slight pause with some strain in his tone.

"We decided to wait for a few more days. Only when it reached the sixth day and he still wasn’t there were we ready to admit that something had happened to him.

Failures in reaching him via the communication talisman and other means were had laid in place more than confirmed it.

With no other option, we decided to look for him at his hideouts that we knew about. Four more days passed as we did so, and we still couldn’t find even a single trace of him. We eventually shifted the search over to our hideouts we thought he might know about, and when that didn’t turn anything up, we expanded the search to all of our hideouts that were within ten thousand kilometers of the Red Maple Empire.

We still couldn’t find him.." Xiao Gun said in a heavy tone.

"With few options to work with, we either had to assume Fu Yong had likely died and the cauldron was taken and move on, or we confirm it, and the only way we could was to go back to Red Maple Empire.

Neither of us had the heart to go back there and were well on our way to cutting our losses until we both decided to give it one last try and look for him at any other location that wasn’t the Red Maple Empire.

We had already scoured through all of our hideouts within that region, both the ones that we thought Fu Yong knew about, and the ones he didn’t.

The only unturned stone we thought was left was his hideouts, more specifically the ones we didn’t know about. In the process of deciphering where those unknowns could potentially be, something clicked for both of us.

There was one place we had overlooked in the whole commotion. The one place that all three of us would surely know. It was the place where we first met. The cave where we were once held captive.

The more we thought about it, the more we felt if Fu Yong were alive, having missed him in all the other places, there was a high likelihood he would be there. It was a ways away from Red Maple Empire, but not by much.

With a target in sight, we left for the cave. Our guess was right ... half right.. he was there, only when we found him he was already dead..."

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Both Xiao Gun and Yao Chang turned melancholic.

"I don’t know whether it had been his doing, but though the cave looked the same outside, the inside was vastly different from how we had left it. What had once been an interior filled with shackles, blood stains and the heavy stink of herbs mixed in with death had been transformed into a living abode full of life.

We could hardly believe it was the same place we had been tortured for months on end, unsure we would live to see the next day let alone the next second.

On instinct, we went to the alcove we were once held, and there he was, seated calmly, with the same carefree smile he always had on his face, his eyes closed, which coupled with his smile gave one the illusion that he was cooking up mischief.

But though he looked like that, the gushing wound on his chest that revealed his chest, the robe filled with blood, and his lifeless body said otherwise. On his lap was a recording talisman soaked in his blood.

Filled with disbelief we called his name, in the deluded hope that maybe our voice could miraculously bring his soul back from the yellow river. It was only when our means proved useless did we move on to what happened to him.

The wound though serious wasn’t fatal enough to kill him in just a month. What happened to him? Who attacked him? What happened to the cauldron? All of it was stored away in the bloodied talisman on his lap.

I’ll let Fu Yong explain it himself. Judge Yang Qing, would you please?"

Yang Qing nodding took out a talisman that was nestled within one of the compartments in his podium.

"We have authenticated the recording and found no tampering with it and that it was indeed made by one, Fu Yong..." Yang Qing announced before playing the recording.

A silver rune from the ceiling of the courtroom fell on the talisman which triggered a reaction as the recording within it got projected.

..

The recording showed a young man who looked to be in his late thirties seated at the center of a simplistic room that had no windows, just smoothened-out walls, a large cultivation mat, a few futons, a small round table, and blue star lianas growing on the walls.

The young man had red hair that was stuck to his face, and had this sense of weakness to him, as he breathed with labored breaths. His skin was pale, his mouth dried and cracked, and the grievous wound on his chest that exposed his organs was constantly pouring out blood.

But even with all the pain that he looked to be under, or the failing state of his body, his eyes were full of life, and he had this sense of calm and unfettered nature to him that would make one think that wasn’t even injured that bad.

The young man reached out for the wine jar that was next to him and took a few large gulps that a second later resulted in him having coughing bouts.

Even coughing, he still didn’t stop his drinking. A few seconds later with a satisfied smile, he put away the jar and used his sleeves to wipe the blood and the wine that was dripping from his mouth before finally looking up.

From the way he was positioned, and the placement of the projection, it looked like he was staring straight at everyone within the courtroom.

"Xiao Gun, Yao Chang, if you’re seeing this, then that means I am dead. Dying, I wonder what it feels like. We have spent all our lives fearing it, doing all we could to avoid it, but now that it’s here, I don’t know, I feel oddly anticipatory of it. Is that weird?" asked the red-haired young man as he laughed which resulted in a few coughing hacks.

A second later, he stopped laughing as his gaze turned solemn.

"It’s my sincere hope that your fates don’t end up as mine. I know we have adventured to countless places together, but this is the one journey I hope to go on alone. Please don’t join me.." the figure implored as he lowered his head slightly before he finally looked up.

"As you have guessed, the cauldron has been taken," he said with a sigh.

"I am sorry brothers, I tried ... It just wasn’t enough.." he added with a bitter smile. He took another swig of his wine, his gaze and demeanor turning tranquil again as he did.

"The cauldron was taken by the branch manager of the Golden Bamboo Pavilion, Yao De. When I went there, he tried to downplay the cauldron’s worth using all manner of tricks including exaggerating the extent of its damage.

With the way he appraised it, the cauldron was no worth than a scrap of metal whose only worth lay in the materials used to create it and the rustic charm it had to it, yet he still offered 1,000 high-grade spirit stones, for metal.." the red-haired man said with a sardonic smile.

"If it wasn’t for Han Xu’s words at the manor, I would have been easily hoodwinked by that old merchant. He must have thought me to be just another rogue cultivator he could take advantage of.

I was even of the mind that maybe it wasn’t that he was trying to trick me but rather he didn’t know the true value of the cauldron hence his misjudgment of it.

But that old man clearly knew about the cauldron, much more than he let on, because immediately after I rejected his offer, and attempted to leave, that’s when he tried to stop me.

Only he didn’t expect that the ’me’ he was dealing with was the soul puppet we found. In trying to apprehend me and snatch away the cauldron, I detonated the puppet and tried to use the cover to escape with the cauldron.

I underestimated the abilities of a palace realm expert. He reacted to the detonation with ease, and despite my real body using cloaking talismans and being several floors down from him, he still managed to track me down, left with no choice I quickly left the cauldron, and made my way out.

That was when I called you guys.

I tried to use the commotion I had created with the explosion to make as much ground as I could, but I didn’t expect the old man to be in cahoots with some commander I heard being called Duan Mu by his subordinates.

They descended upon me, as they labeled me a thief. It wasn’t long before I was surrounded by them with the branch manager not too far away.." On reaching here the red-haired young man paused as his eyes flashed with guilt.

"I didn’t mean to hide it from you, but when we were escaping Tan Song’s lair back then, I took something from him, some grey-black star amulet. I had the amulet secretly appraised at the manor for a price, and it turns out the amulet was made of void stone which could let someone teleport to a certain marked location, that location was his lair.

I didn’t mean to hide it from you. It’s just that I was told using void stones had a price if one wasn’t a domain expert. The energy it demanded for activation can only be met by a domain expert, if someone with a lower cultivation realm were to use it, it would swallow their cultivation realm and lifespan, and in worst cases, the user would just disintegrate to ash, especially those in the lower realms.

Judging by my state, the appraisal wasn’t wrong.." the red-haired man said with a rueful smile.

"Sorry for keeping this from you, but seeing the cost, I am glad I did. But its not all too bad, it was well worth it, especially seeing the look on that old merchant’s face as I disappeared with him too helpless to stop it.." Fu Yong said as he chuckled slightly before his look turned solemn.

"Before I disappeared that fossil said something, where’s the rest, were his words. He must know about the cauldron. Be careful. Avoid all areas with Golden Bamboo pavilion branches, and never bring out the scroll, if worst comes to worst it’s better to hand it over to the Medical Saint Garden or even the Order, in exchange for a guarantee of your lives.." Fu Yong said with a sigh, as he took one last sip from his wine jar.

His skin had grown paler, and his breath and voice fainter.

"I wish you both well. For some reason, even though I am the one dying, I can’t help but feel that I am the one with a kinder fate than you both.

Take care of one another. I am proud to call you my brothers and in the next life, I hope we remain the same too. May you find the dragon’s gate. Farewell.."