24 So sof

Plutarch, Year 198 of the Dragon

Yi Lan's eyes twitched. She pushed the woman off her, a scowl carved on her face. "Oi, you. Bring water." Lan looked at Feng Wang coldly, making the temperature in the room drop significantly.

"Y-yes." Feng Wang scurried away to bring water.

Back here, Lan kicked the woman, who was now clinging to her leg. "This brother here, why won't you indulge in a sweet affair with this Big sister? Is this Big sister not pretty enough?" The woman asked, puckering her plump and soft pink lips.

Yi Lan had enough. She had always been careful to treat girls, but this woman had gone too far.

She aggressively yanked the woman's face and slightly applying pressure, said "Just who are you calling brother? I'm a girl, a full fledged one for that matter."

The woman only laughed and twined her hands around Lan's neck. "You don't have to lie. This sister knows everything. Even if you lie, your body cannot."

Wordlessly, Yi Lan grabbed the woman's hand and put it inside her shirt. "Feel this? Does this by any chance feel like a man's chest?"

To Lan's shock and disgust, the woman started kneading her chest with her hand, muttering "So soft." She laid her head against Lan's chest.

Petrified, Lan moved back one to two meters away from the woman, after slapping off her hand. 'Holy Choco Chips! Something is wrong with this woman. My virgin body is in danger with her around.'

Yi Lan wrapped her arms around her protectively. 'Why on Earth did I even put her hand inside? I could have put it outside... No, my chest is so flat, that she couldn't even have felt it.' Lan knelt down in depression.

"Benefactor! I brought the water." Feng Wang rushed in with a vessel filled with water.

Yi Lan rushed towards him and snatched the vessel. Without waiting for anything to happen further, she threw the water all over the woman, making Feng Wang pale.

"B-benefactor?! Why?" He stuttered.

"To make her sobre. What else?" Lan rolled her eyes. The woman blinked a few times, before her previously unfocused eyes became clear.

"Who??" The woman asked, her eyes falling on Yi Lan.

"Master, this is the person who saved your disciple's life." Feng Wang said bowing down.

Yi Lan let out a sigh as she saw the woman's expression becoming normal. The woman stood up slowly, swaying slightly. She took a seat on a chair and gestured Yi Lan to sit near her.

With an expressionless face, Lan took a seat. "Mind introducing yourself?" The woman asked with a smile.

"Yi Lan, seventeen years old."

"Yi Lan? Are you from the Yi Clan?" One of her hands clasped the other.

Yi Lan nodded.

"Nice to meet you, I'm this fellow's master Chun Jie." She smiled again, making Lan shiver as she was reminded of Chun Jie's antics.

Chun Jie's eyes glowed slightly as she examined Lan's body and her eyebrows crinkled. "What in the world?! You! How come I can't sense Qi from you?" She asked, her eyes wide. "Could you possibly be even more powerful than me?"

Lan really wished that this was the case, but she knew that it wasn't so.

Feng Wang spoke up, "Master, it's the total opposite. She hasn't been able to cultivate Qi."

"But that's impossible. No matter who it is, they would have Qi. Else, they won't survive." She frowned. "On top of that, those who have less Qi suffer from poor health. You seem perfectly healthy to me." She commented looking at Lan.

"He already said that. Don't you have anything new to say?" Lan propped one of her legs over the other.

"Aren't you a bit too rude to someone older than you? I'm more than five hundred years old. Not that I look that old." Chun Jie asked, not seeming to mind a lot, mostly curious.

"I don't give respect to people easily. Especially, to those who are pedophiles." She replied, muttering the last part under her breath.

"Oh~ Is that so? Alright, can you show me your hand?" Chun Jie asked smiling.

Yi Lan hesitantly gave it to her. Chun Jie touched her inner wrist, and she sent a thread of Qi through her body. To her surprise, Lan's body absorbed the Qi, but when the thread reached the area beside her navel, it disappeared. Chun Jie's hand jerked as she felt her body's Qi being sucked in by Yi Lan.

She pulled her hand away quickly. Meanwhile, both Lan and Feng Wang looked at her questioningly. Chun Jie stayed quiet for a while. She couldn't believe what she had just seen. It was what even the heavens had once declared impossible, and had put a stop on it. Yet once again, such an anomaly had occurred. Chun Jie just wasn't able to accept that an existence, considered forbidden, considered erased, considered heaven defying, had managed to walk once again under the Ancient Beasts' watch.

Her hand trembled and so did the rest of her body. Even she, a person over five hundred years old, was shaken to the point of trembling.

"Master! What's wrong?!" Feng Wang yelled in concern.

"What's wrong old hag?" Yi Lan asked, wondering what made her so shocked.

Chun Jie didn't even notice Yi Lan's way of addressing her. "Feng Wang" She said, her voice shaky, "A war's going to start again."

"What do you mean master?" He asked confused.

"This brat here, has the legendary cursed seal body."

Feng Wang sucked in a breath. Yi Lan's brows twitched on hearing the word 'cursed'. Was she really fortuned to have bad luck no matter what life she was in?!

"Old hag, explain." Yi Lan said getting up from the chair, with a dark look on her face. Chun Jie sighed and told her to sit down once again.

"Brat, your body is what we call a cursed seal body. From the words alone, you can tell what it is right?" She asked.

".... No." Lan admitted.

"Are you serious? Almost everyone knows about it. They just don't know how to recognise if someone has that problem." Feng Wang said in disbelief.

Lan scratched her head and said "A lot of things happened and I lost my memories."

Chun Jie once again sighed.

A nerve popped on Lan's forehead. "Got a problem old hag?! Sigh more and you'll get even more grey hair."

"Who are you calling old hag?" Chun Jie gritted out, pinching Lan's cheeks, resulting in Lan attempting to bite Chun Jie's hands.

Somehow, Feng Wang separated them.

"Yi Lan, listen carefully. A long time ago, more than ten thousand years ago, there appeared an existence of a being who could absorb Qi endlessly. It's obvious that the more he could absorb, the better his cultivation would be. As expected, his power became so remarkably strong, that even the great Ancient Beasts had to acknowledge him. The Ancie- Oi! Don't fall asleep!" Chun Jie smacked Yi Lan-who had fallen asleep in between.

Yi Lan groaned, feeling annoyed.

"Now, where was I? Right, the Ancient Beasts. The Ancient Beasts are the second most powerful existences after the creator, on Plutarch. They felt that this person was too dangerous, and decided to limit his powers. Th-"

Yi Lan interrupted her. "Wait, wait, wait. Had the person ever done anything wrong?"

Chun Jie recalled the moments when she had been told this story. She shook her head, on remembering that her teacher had told her that the person had never done anything wrong.

"No, instead he had helped a lot of people, and resolved many problems."

"Then,why?" Lan's eyes grew cold.

"Why what?" Chun Jie couldn't understand this girl's sudden mood swings.

"Why kill him?" Lan's tone became cold.

Chun Jie rubbed her forehead. Finally, she mumbled, "Brat, it's a matter of fact everywhere that if a person whose existence is scarier than the creator itself, appears on the soil of any place, he is bound to be destroyed."

Yi Lan snorted. "You mean to say that, humans are pathetic creature, who just can't accept the fact that someone's powerful than them."

Chun Jie gave a small smile, slightly ironic. "That's true without a doubt. But this case, was different. The person had the power to create seals. Different type of seals. And he had the ability to create a seal that could open... The Gateway."

Yi Lan's heart gave a dull thud. "The Gateway?"

Chun Jie's expression grew grave. "The Gateway to Hell."

Feng Wang gasped. He had only been aware of the story that everyone had told and not the real version.

Even Yi Lan's face grew slightly pale.

"Any one with such power, was undoubtedly going to be eliminated. But, then came in another person. He fooled the good person and managed to make him open the Gateway to Hell." Chun Jie shivered.

"What appeared out of the Gateway wasn't something human. Tortured souls with chain hanging on their necks, rods passing through their bodies crawled out. They jumped on every human they found and sucked out their soul to become powerful." Chun Jie closed her eyes, reminded of her teacher's expression when he had narrated it.

"But that wasn't the worst of it. Aside from the human souls, the guardian beasts of Hell appeared. They didn't have intelligence, they only knew their duty. As a result, along with the souls, they destroyed many humans. If that hadn't been enough, one of the most powerful Guardian Beasts- Plague had appeared. It's size was around the same as a mountain. The only way to describe such a condition was, 'living hell'. Plutarch had become a living hell."

Yi Lan swallowed the bitterness in her mouth. She still felt that all this was too unreal.

"The good person had closed the Gateway again, but the monsters didn't dissappear. The person tried his best to suppress the monsters, but all his Qi had already been sucked while making the seal of Gateway. Usually, he would absorb Qi, but there was no time. The humans were terrified. Having no other choice, the person called upon the Ancient Beasts-who are the true guardians of Plutarch. But there is always a price to pay for huge Qi acts. Half of Plutarch was destroyed in the process. The person, sucked in Qi and managed to restore Plutarch to normal, but his heart wasn't as pure as it had been before. The betrayal of his friend, had left him bitter. Those of pure heart, will never receive harsh treatment. Those of tainted heart, will receive retribution. All the body seals that a person could possibly imagine, had been applied on the person's body as a rebound. The person could no longer use Qi as before." Chun Jie's eyes turned dull.

"The person hadn't had an offspring, so his powers wasn't carried on by the bloodline. But, there was a rumour of a boy being affected by the same problem three thousand years ago. Word was that he too, suffered from a rebound, and his body was sealed. This seal was then called, the Hundred Points seal. As the name suggests, there are hundred seals on your body, that cannot be removed by anyone but you yourself." Chun Jie said looking at Lan seriously.

Yi Lan nodded, serious for once.

" I heard that both of them died some years later. Probably because the Qi they had accumulated exploded inside their body. The same goes for your body too."

Yi Lan's eyes blazed. She was annoyed. Why was it that no matter where she was born, she was fated to die in a few years?! She may be violent and rude, but even she was a girl. More than anything, Lan wanted a family of her own. At the very least, she wanted to experience motherhood.

"Can you tell me how to cure my problem?" Yi Lan asked Chun Jie in a grave tone.

Chun Jie gave a sarcastic laugh. "If it had been so easy to cure, do you think those two would have died? I'm no god, I'm only a human."

Lan gave a stubborn stare. "I do not wish to die."

"Honey, no one wants to. It's human nature." Chun Jie said, fixing her hair.

"I don't believe that it's impossible. There must be some or the other way. I'm willing to go to whatever extent."Yi Lan was obstinate. She would never go down without a fight.

Chun Jie's eyes sparkled slightly on seeing Lan's determination. "Are you perfectly sure? Even if it requires you to bear a lot of pain?"

Yi Lan snorted. "Pain? I'll go through hell and back to gain my life." She had already forgotten what pain felt like, years ago. Her selfishness would only make her rise.

Chun Jie smiled. She was glad to see that Lan hadn't given up. She had a feeling that the girl in front of her was going to become someone great.

"Alright. At the moment, I can only break two seals on your body. That is the extent of my capability."

"Which two seals?" Lan asked.

"The seals on certain points on your hands. With this, slowly, you can break the other seals yourself. I won't be able to do so." Chun Jie said patting Lan's hands.

Yi Lan was suspicious. "You said no body other than the cursed person himself can take off the seals. How are you able to do so?"

Chun Jie's eyes grew dark. "Remember the boy I told you about? He was my one and only master. Back then, he told me that he had researched how to break two of the seals. He said that his time was already near, breaking his own seals won't have much effect. But he said that he believed there would be another such person who would rise on Plutarch again. And he wasn't wrong." Her lips' ends arched slightly in a sad smile.

Yi Lan felt grateful to the man. Because of him, she had a chance to live again.

"So? What do you want in return?" Lan asked in a business like tone.

"Pardon?"

"You heard me. There's no such thing as free. I'm sure this too comes with a price?" Lan wasn't stupid. She came from a world where money decided a person's status.

Chun Jie laughed. She didn't expect Lan to be so clever.

"You're right on that matter. My wish is for you to be my second disciple." She smirked.

Lan sat still for a while, but she quickly refused. "Anything but that."

Chun Jie looked at her with shocked eyes. "Why? I'm very famous you know. You won't get a master like me."

Yi Lan couldn't really say that she had trust issues, so she said "I don't want a pervert as my master."

Chun Jie's face grew dark red in anger. She threw a slipper on Yi Lan, who skillfully dodged it. Before she could leap on Lan, she was held back by Feng Wang who had been ignored by both of them for a long time.

"I just become loose on drinking alcohol." Chun Jie admitted.

"Loose? You should be chained to the wall. You almost stole my purity." Lan said pouting.

"You don't look pure in the first place!? You- you-you!" She yelled.

Lan ignored her and started cleaning her ear by sticking her little finger in her ear.

"Stop that dirty act! If you don't want to become my disciple, then I won't remove those seals either." Chun Jie firmly said.

Yi Lan contemplated for a while. Then reluctantly, she agreed.

She sighed as she saw the content face of Chun Jie. 'It can't be helped, she and Feng Wang are the only ones who know about my condition. As long as I'm here, they won't be able to tell anyone about it.' Lan mused as she stretched her body a bit.

"Let's see how Test Subject 1313 will do on this challenge." Yi Lan muttered to herself, smiling darkly as she was reminded of some dark memories.

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