Song of Adolescence

Chapter 117 Turbulent Hidden River

Lei Wujie rode his horse and continued to gallop ahead, his face as blank as his mind. He just slapped the horse furiously again and again.

"Hey, you beat my horse like this, did you consider my feelings as his owner?" A lazy voice sounded, and Xiao Se was running at an extremely fast speed, alongside and matching pace with Lei Wujie.

Lei Wujie turned a stupefied look at Xiao Se, but still he did not stop.

"Do you feel like there’s something pressing on your chest, but you don\'t know how to vent it? Like you just want to shout, run wild, and use up all the strength in your body?" Xiao Se asked as he continued running.

Lei Wujie finally couldn\'t hold back anymore. He shouted explosively, and the Murderous Dread sword on his back and the Heart sword on his waist suddenly unsheathed. Lei Wujie leaped up, holding the Heart sword in his right hand and the Murderous Dread sword in his left hand, and slashed savagely in front of him. The sword aura raged and instantly flattened the ground for ten zhang in front of him.

Luo Mingxuan and Sikong Qianluo also caught up at this moment. Seeing this scene, they were frightened by the power of Lei Wujie\'s swords, and after exchanging a glance with each other, they stopped a distance away. Then, Lei Wujie also turned around, a distorted and terrifying expression on his face that was completely unlike him. Both of them instinctively reached for the weapons in their hands. Lei Wujie was emitting a heavily vicious aura, and they felt as if he would attack them anytime.

Only Xiao Se walked over slowly and patted Lei Wujie\'s shoulder. "Come on, shout it out! Shout out all the anger in your heart!"

Lei Wujie plunged his two swords into the soil, looked up at the sky, and suddenly yelled long and hard. His red clothes were flying, and his qi flared. Standing beside him, Xiao Se’s blue robes were also fluttering.

After that long yell, Lei Wujie\'s expression calmed down slightly. He looked at Xiao Se, his voice a little wet with tears. "I killed someone."

"He was an assassin of Hidden River. If you didn\'t kill him, then you’ll be the one who’s dead," Xiao Se replied slowly.

"But…" Lei Wujie lowered his head and looked at his hand.

"But you still can’t convince yourself, right? Because you didn’t know each other, and you didn’t even know what enmity you had with each other, but with a wave of your sword, one person lost his life. His family and his friends will all be sad because of this. They may even hate you for life. But in that moment between life and death, when you lifted your sword, how many options do we really have?" Xiao Se sighed and looked up at the sky.

Lei Wujie hesitated for a while and said, "Is my thinking wrong?"

"No, you’re not wrong. It’s the world that’s wrong," Xiao Se said softly.

"Xiao Se… Have you killed before?" Lei Wujie asked suddenly.

Xiao Se nodded calmly. "I killed before." Without waiting for Lei Wujie to ask further, he continued, "When I was eight years old."

Lei Wujie was stunned, and even Luo Mingxuan and Sikong Qianluo who were standing not far away were also startled.

"A total of five assassins sneaked into my mansion that night, but this one assassin got close enough and he was right in front of me. At that time, I already noticed that he’d entered my room, so I pretended to be asleep. Then, when he was ready to strike, at that moment, I pulled out the knife under my pillow and cut open his throat with a single slice. Then, his blood poured out and spilled onto my face, and it burned like fire."

"What happened after that?"

"After that, I threw up. For more than a month afterwards, I only had that dream every day, a frightened face, an opened throat, and the scalding hot blood. I asked my shifu how to get rid of this dream, but shifu told me, this dream will accompany me forever, and even if one day I think I’ve forgotten it, this dream will find me again."

Lei Wujie was silent for a long time. Then, he stepped forward, and returned his two swords into their sheaths.

"Your grandfather said that you don’t want to kill in your heart, but that’s a praiseworthy trait you have. It’s just that in the martial world, there will always be such matters of life and death and we can’t avoid it. You can only stay true to your heart, and hold tightly to the sword in your heart. That’s the only way you can protect the things you cherish." Xiao Se stood behind Lei Wujie and spoke softly.

Lei Wujie raised his head and looked at the sky. Xiao Se didn’t say anymore but simply stood behind him.

A clear breeze blew past, and the two of them continued to stand silently together.

An unknown amount of time passed. Lei Wujie finally flipped onto his horse and said loudly, "We go on to Lei Clan Fort. We’ve been delayed for far too long."

As soon as he finished talking, a figure rushed up, and jumped onto the same horse. The man carried seven swords of varying lengths, pressing on the horse so hard that it cried out in dismay.

Luo Mingxuan smiled and said, "I won\'t be joining you all the way to Lei Clan Fort. Just ahead is Yuanzhi City, so Lei-shidi can drop me off there. I\'m going to head home and return to Snow Moon City."

Hidden River.

Star Falling Moon Shadow Chamber.

A young man with a white cloth tied around his eyes stepped out of the carriage with the help of a young boy.

There were two people standing outside the pavilion. One was sitting on the steps smoking a pipe and slowly exhaling smoke, while the other stood straight as a pole in front of the pavilion’s door, a gleaming long sword in his hand that looked extremely sharp.

"We’ve been having a lot of visitors recently," the middle-aged man smoking a pipe murmured.

The man with the long sword didn\'t answer, but he looked at the blind young man and lightly touched the hilt of his sword.

The young man seemed to have noticed his movement, turned aside and smiled slightly at the man with the sword.

"Is he really blind?" The middle-aged man smoking a pipe put down the pipe and looked at the young man with interest. "Interesting."

The man with the sword took a step back, opened the door to the Star Falling Moon Shadow Chamber, and said in a deep voice, "Please enter."

The young man nodded slightly, and walked forward with the help of the boy, a calm and polite smile constantly on his face. The middle-aged man smoking a pipe raised his head and suddenly blew his smoke at the young man.

"Mu Hui!" The man with the sword frowned slightly and called out in a low voice.

The young man opened his mouth slightly, inhaled the smoke into his mouth, then blew it out gently. He praised, "Good smoke."

Mu Hui laughed in a low voice. "Good focus."

The young man smiled and continued to move forward, stepping into the pavilion.

The boy was surprised. "Why is it so dark."

He’d just spoken and the pavilion door behind him closed itself. The boy turned around and pushed on it, but found that it seemed to be locked and didn’t budge no matter how hard he pushed. He pulled the young man\'s sleeve anxiously, "Young master…"

The young man shook his head and whispered, "Don’t worry."

At the other end of the chamber, a voice suddenly spoke, "Who is our distinguished guest?"

"Second prince of Beili, White Prince Xiao Chong," the young man said solemnly.

The man in the chamber smiled slightly, and gently flipped his sleeves. All the candles in the chamber ignited in an instant. The boy looked up, and saw a figure sitting in the midst of heavy curtains.

Hidden River’s Patriarch.

The figure suddenly stood up, took one step out of the curtains, and with another step, he was already in front of Xiao Chong.

"White Prince Xiao Chong, I have been waiting to meet you for a long time."