BXBX NOVEL Volume 8, 6: Framing
Volume 8, Chapter 6: Framing
This chapter was brought to you by AnmesicCat, Masadeer, and StellarAshes.
Kaiser slowly opened his eyes, and the first thing he saw was the wooden ceiling, and immediately felt his muscles aching. Strangely enough, it was normal to have a headache from overexerting his spiritual force, so why were his muscles aching instead?
Kaiser sat up lazily and examine his surroundings, and finally found the reason.
Kaiser stretched his body as he complained, “Such an unkind bastard, he threw me on the ground to sleep overnight. At least I didn’t catch a cold.”
“Unkind bastard? Hmmph!”
Gle sat down on the fauteuil, and said with raised brows, “In the past, I threw a severely injured Li into the wild and made him crawl back. I’m already treating you well since you’re here lying on the ground. If you weren’t my descendant, you wouldn’t have received such treatment.”
“It must be a miracle for Liola to still be alive.” Kaiser finally understood.
“Hahaha, I feel the same way.” Gle smiled maliciously.
“Hey! I heard you’re familiar with the Dragon Emperor’s wife Susanna?” Kaiser suddenly asked with interest, “Then how did you not recognize Liola? I heard he looks exactly like his mother?”
As soon as Gle heard Kaiser’s question, his malicious smile disappeared completely, and glared coldly at Kaiser.
Kaiser didn’t seem to have sensed the danger he was facing, and kept talking, “Oh, oh, oh. Maybe you already recognized Liola a long time ago, but because of your deceased friend… Wait, you couldn’t have possibly known Susanna was dead. So because of your old friend, you raised him and trained him well.”
Gle extended his arm and grabbed Kaiser tightly by his neck.
Kaiser finally realized his life was in danger. He first closed his mouth, but then opened them and said with a pitiful voice, “My grandmother was so lonely because you left her there, and because she was your daughter, everybody tried to kill her. She had to change her identity. If she knew her own grandchild was strangled by her own father, she would never rest in peace.”
Although Gle knew Kaiser was talking nonsense, he remembered his eldest daughter, and he gradually released his hand.
He grunted and threatened Kaiser, “Stop with your nonsense. How could I have possibly recognized Susanna’s son? Even if he was Susanna’s son, he would also be that bastard Dragon Emperor’s son. I would have still killed him in an instant.”
“Yes, yes. You would have killed him in an instant.” Kaiser smiled flatteringly.
Gle grunted again, then he remembered why he was here.
He said to Kaiser, “Right. What’s-his-face’s training is almost done, and I’ve restored Xin-something’s memory, too. Whatever happens next isn’t my responsibility. They can have their death-match for all I care.”
Although Gle seem to be somewhat ambiguous, Kaiser had a rough understanding of what he was thinking. “Lin Jiyun is already done with his training? So soon? This can’t be, unless he’s also a prodigy?”
Gle laughed coldly, terrifying Kaiser in the process.
Kaiser thought there was no good in him staying in this place, so he said “I’ll go look.” and then ran off.
* * *
“Lin Jiyun!”
Kaiser saw Lin Jiyun and Void from afar, training with sweat running from their back, such as sparring, squats, long distance running. Although their training looked difficult, it was no different than no other ordinary training. Kaiser found it strange. From what he knew, Liola’s training wasn’t anything like this.
Gle always complained about the time when he threw the ten year-old Liola into the a wolf’s den, with a few dozen wolves.
“In the end, he only managed to kill all the wolves except the Alpha Wolf. Liola was so exhausted, that when he was fought the Alpha Wolf, both of them fell to the ground. What an idiot!”
Kaiser exclaimed, “He could already stir up a wolf’s den at the age of ten? He must have slashed them so much that his knife must have gotten dull.”
“Oh, it didn’t get dull, because I didn’t give him one.”
“…”
In addition, when Liola was twelve years old, he was teleported to one thousand kilometers away to perform some task, but he took a whole month before he was able to get back to the organization. “Is he directionally challenged?”
Kaiser asked, “Did you give him a map?”
“My ass! I don’t use maps, so where would I get one to give to him?”
Kaiser asked again, “Did he ask for directions?”
Gle replied, “Who would he ask? No one knew where Shalong Hall’s training spot is, except people from the organization.”
Both of them quieted. So how did Liola get back to the organization?
In another scenario, Gle thought Liola didn’t exercise his Ki enough, so he personally monitored him, forcing him to continuously use his Ki.
Kaiser asked, “So how many times did he exercise his Ki?”
Gle responded, “I don’t know, I fell asleep. When I woke up, that guy was always spitting blood, and his life was in always danger. He had already forgotten how many times he had exercised his Ki.”
For the past two months, hearing Gle’s many complaints, Kaiser had finally realized Liola was as resilient as a cockroach, and anyone whom Gle called an idiot was actually a real prodigy.
For everyone else less than a prodigy, Gle would often not even remember their name. For example, Lin Jiyun and Void had been around Gle for the past two months, but his names for them were still ‘what’s-his-face’ and ‘Vo-something’. Judging from this, Void’s talent was above Lin Jiyun’s. At least Gle remembered a part of his name.
Seeing Kaiser walking towards them, Lin Jiyun and Void stopped training and met him halfway. However, Kaiser didn’t seem to acknowledge them, he was deep in thought. Sometimes, a bitter smile would appear on his face, but sometimes he would just shake his head. Lin Jiyun and Void looked at each other, not knowing what they should do.
Finally, Kaiser sighed, “That guy Liola staying alive must be the biggest miracle in history.”
“What?” Void and Lin Jiyun were both stupefied.
“Nothing, right, the Leader told me he had already restored Xin Jietian’s memory and returned everything to normal. Lin Jiyun, you better think of a plan to destroy Xin Jietian within a month. You must make him suffer so much that he would rather die, otherwise it would happen to you instead.” Kaiser warned.
“One month? Why are we in such a hurry?” Lin Jiyun was very surprised. He only had one month to push an Martial Arts Alliance Leader off his throne?
“Because in one month, Gle wants to watch the duel between me, Daylight, and Liola. My training is almost complete, so the rest is up to me. Also, the Leader will not have me as entertainment, so if you bore in the next month, you might die a horrible death.”
Kaiser’s explained in strange terms, and he believed he knew Gle quite well. In fact, Gle was practically watching the whole issue between Lin Jiyun and Xin Jietian as if it was some sort of entertainment program.
Lin Jiyun’s face was terrified. No matter how many ridiculous things come out of Kaiser’s mouth, for some reason, Lin Jiyun believed every word of it, as if that was exactly what the Leader thought.
“Then what should I do?” Lin Jiyun panicked.
“Don’t worry, I’ve already come up a script for you!” Kaiser said as if he were an expert, “But Void must cooperate with me, okay?”
Seeing Lin Jiyun’s pleading eyes, Void nodded, “No problem, I will cooperate.”
“Hmmph! Take this.” Kaiser’s hand reached behind him, then took out a fairly large bamboo basket filled to the brink with eggs of sorts.
These eggs weren’t ordinary eggs, and Lin Jiyun was fully aware of this fact, since he had bought one from Gle. There were all sorts of strange circles drawn on it, and as soon as a drop of blood is dripped on them, they could summon all sorts of bizarre monsters.
“At a glance, Xin Jietian’s power seems to far surpass you two…” Kaiser smiled ambiguously.
“What about in reality?” Void asked with interest.
“In reality, his power really is much higher!”
Void slipped, but then asked hurriedly, “Then what should we do?”
“Hmmph! So what if he’s strong? Who could possibly be stronger than Gle 1-on-1? But he was still forced to an alien world by Dragon Emperor.”
Kaiser put his hands on waist, and yelled loudly, “Being despicable is what really matters in the world!”
“Despicable?” Lin Jiyun and Void looked at Kaiser, who was speaking as if he was telling the one and only truth.
“That’s right! Since he already framed someone, why do you have to beat him righteously? In terms of being despicable and framing, who’s better than me, Kaiser? Let me tell you, no matter how many hundreds or even thousands of powerful subordinates he has, when he mess with me, Kaiser, they are all useless!”
Lin Jiyun was emotional, and yelled loudly, “Senior, please guide me!”
Kaiser laughed sinisterly, then gestured at Lin Jiyun and Void with his hand to make them come up for a whisper.
“Isn’t… this a bit too despicable?” Lin Jiyun suddenly took a few steps back, and yelled in shock.
Void’s face was also hard to look at, “That’s practically shameless…”
“If you don’t want the Leader to tear you into pieces, keep listening.” Kaiser glared at them both, and dragged their ears back while he kept murmuring things into their ears.
* * *
In the following month, the whole Martial Arts World was in turmoil. At first, Xin Jietian hosted the Symposium, but when the winner, Void from the Skyward Overlook, was going up to get the sword as a reward, Xin Jietian suddenly went back on his word, and did not give the sword to Void
(Kaiser: “Duh! I secretly put Xin Jietian’s most treasured sword as the reward, of course he wouldn’t be willing to hand it away.”)
Void left in anger, and spread the words to gather Taoists around the world so he could right this injustice. He also declared to the world, despite Xin Jietian not being true to his world, hunting demons was a Taoist’s responsibility, and because of it, Void would give all he had to fulfill his responsibility, even if it took his life.
The Martial Arts world had all accused Xin Jietian of his wrongdoings, and at the same time praised Void for his thoughtfulness for the world.
During this chaos, rumors had it that Shalong Hall’s Assassins had been seen entering and exiting where Xin Jietian lived, and a servant had been killed by Xin Jietian (the servant killed was a special paper human donated by Master Lee), because this servant found something, and another servant hiding outside the window had saw it: it was a Pentacle Token, and everyone knew it was the token from Shalong Hall.
(Kaiser: “I risked my life and stole one from the Leader!” Void murmured, “Really? How come I saw you pick one up from a corner?”)
The alliance of Taoists led by Void went every which way to catch the demons, and to find the source of them. They finally found eggs with strange painting on them, and they found out they could be used to summon demons when they touch blood.
At this time, the few servants who ran out of Xin Jietian’s home revealed they had seen those eggs in his house, a full basket of them!
“We ran away as far as we could. No matter how much the pay is, we still have to be alive to spend it, right?” A green-haired adolescent said to Void while in shock. Of course, he said so in front of many Taoists and many Martial Artists who joined voluntarily.
When Void requests to search Xin Jietian’s home, Xin Jietian was infuriated. He desperately denied any servants of his running away and the possibility he had those strange eggs in his house. But finally, due to the pressure from the entire Martial Arts World, he had no choice but allow Void and others enter to search.
The search yielded no results initially, but when Void and others were leaving with disappointment, Xin Jietian’s house roof was suddenly breached by a ton of monsters. It was obvious the demons came out of the house. After a brief chaos, Void led them to finally eliminate them.
(Void sacrificed a dozen drops of his blood, and secretly left them in the house.)
Now, even Xin Jietian was completely speechless.
To add insult to injury, the exiled, wanted criminal Lin Jiyun came back. His body was stricken with wounds, and he wore a white cloth on his forehead, with “Xin Jietian, return my family’s lives to me!” written on it in blood.
He knelt in front of Xin Jietian’s door everyday, and always with a white cloth on his body, which also had Xin Jietian’s entire plan to kill the previous Alliance Leader and to frame his entire family written on it in blood.
At first, some people rushed out, tore up Lin Jiyun’s blood notes, and beat him senselessly. Lin Jiyun would yell into the sky and shout the heavens were being blind. It was then when snow flurries suddenly began to fall from the otherwise clear sky. (A new wide-area attack spell Kaiser had recently learnt; Blizzard, a weaker version of it).
Everyone were already skeptical of what Xin Jietian had said before, and now seeing this, eight out of ten believed what Lin Jiyun said. Furthermore, many of them believed the source of the demons were actually Xin Jietian.
[T/N: In Chinese believes, snow in the month of June or July, or in clear skies, often indicated some great wrongdoing had been committed, so the fact that he cursed the heavens and it began to snow would often convey some truth to his story to the populace.]
Finally, the Martial Arts World could no longer accept this ridiculous Alliance Leader. Many of them allied together, preparing to overthrow him. Xin Jietian felt like he was in a dead end, so he hid inside his own home.
“Why? Why would it turn to this?” Xin Jietian said with bloodshot eyes. Both the ground and the table was covered in alcohol bottles.
A figure slowly materialized in front of him, and he said lazily, “When you frame others, you should have thought of the possibility of being framed.”
Xin Jietian suddenly jumped up, unsheathed his sword, and screamed crazily,
“Who? Who are you? Why are you framing me?”
When Xin Jietian ran towards the figure, it suddenly disappeared. Without seeing anyone, Xin Jietian heard a pitiful cry, “Brother Xin, the Alliance Leader treated you well, so why would you kill him?”
“Who? Who are you? Is it Lin Jiyun? You bastard, come out, stop with your nonsense!” Xin Jietian swung his sword around, cutting his own furnitures into pieces.
“Brother Xin, we were like brothers, but you actually cut me into pieces. My family didn’t even have a whole body for a burial.”
Remembering killing Lin Jizhi, Xin Jietian suddenly felt guilty, and his voice trembled, “Who? Stop it, and come out!”
A person surely appeared. A figure covered in blood appeared in front of Xin Jietian, but it looked somewhat blurred. Xin Jietian, with the last of his courage and his doubt of ghosts, swung the sword towards it.
The sword cut straight through the figure, as if it was swung through nothing but air. Obviously there was nothing there…
“AHHH… ghost!”
Xin Jietian screamed loudly as he saw the ghost charge towards to him. Finally, he fell onto the ground. His eyes were blank, and his mouth was drooling. It looked like he had gone crazy.
The ghost figure disappeared, and three people walked into the room.
“I can’t believe this guy would end like this.” Void sighed.
“Father… Jiyun finally avenged you!” Tears rolled down Lin Jiyun’s face, and he was wearing the same bloodied clothes like the ghost.
“Ghost… was just a simple mirage.”
A few large mirrors were floating behind Kaiser. Since Xin Jietian had gone insane, the mirrors were no longer required. Kaiser let those mirrors fall to the ground, as if he was trying to use the sound of broken mirrors to celebrate the beginning of a new era.