Daily life of a cultivation judge-Chapter 1404: The yellow flames of retribution and rest
Outwardly, Han Lei saw a different scene. Luo Suyun’s form disappeared, and so did the violet-golden light that covered her. In their place was a slender saber, sheathed—or rather, pinned—to the ground by three violet-gold chains attached to its handle.
The saber was as thin as a cicada’s wing. It could not have been wider than two fingers. Its length was modest, as was its handle. The handle looked as if it had been made from polished dark crimson wood. Its delicate and elegant grip made Han Lei feel it was made for a woman’s hand, given the length and curvature. 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚
As for the rest of the blade, it was dark crimson, just like the handle, except for a tiny part of the blade’s central ridge that was pure white. That part of the ridge could not have been more than four centimeters long and about half that wide. Within that ridge, which looked more like a blemish, there was faded silver writing on it, which, though faded, was still legible enough for a palace realm figure like Han Lei to read.
The writing was: To my dear Luo Xue, may this saber hold the light of the moon and the sun to light your path in all seasons of your life.
"She was a spirit saber?" Han Lei muttered in disbelief, his eyes widening further in trepidation as they landed on the noble-looking young man standing next to the blade.
"What do you want to do with her?" Yang Shitong asked, addressing Yang Qing as he gestured toward the saber with a sideways nod of his head.
"Leave her as is, for now," said Yang Qing, sighing as he decided the patch of grass beneath the Green Flame Tree was as good a place as any to relax. He sat down, knowing he couldn’t very well leave her in her current state; otherwise, she might really burn Luo Suyun to death.
"You said you trust her?" Yang Shitong asked, looking at Yang Qing with a puzzled expression.
Understanding the implication behind the question, Yang Qing sighed again. "Her story is a complicated one," he said.
He didn’t add more, given the present company. Luckily for him, Yang Shitong didn’t press further, instead shrugging and moving back to the table. Once there, he snapped his fingers, and the three feathers and the chain disappeared into motes of violet light, leaving the slender saber anchored to the ground by its tip.
"She’s okay. She’s just... asleep," Yang Qing softly said, smiling comfortingly at the uneasy-looking Han Lei, whose gaze hadn’t left the saber.
Han Lei tore his eyes away at the response as he forced a smile toward Yang Qing.
"I didn’t..." Just as he was about to apologize for bringing Luo Suyun here (albeit it was more that she had imposed herself once she realized he was coming to Yang Qing’s abode, even claiming that Yang Qing had promised to bring her today, which was what made Han Lei compromise, as he didn’t take her to be much of a liar despite the dense murderousness and bloodlust surrounding her), Yang Qing cut off his apology with a slight raise of his hand.
"It’s okay. I don’t blame you. I had promised to bring her here," Yang Qing said, before smiling wryly. "I just didn’t expect she’d bring herself," he added, his gaze falling on the saber.
The Green Flame Tree’s reaction was exactly why he had wanted to be the one to bring her. With him ushering her in, even though the tree would have reacted to her presence, it wouldn’t have been as intense as it had been.
He couldn’t blame either side for how things had transpired. Luo Suyun had chosen to come because of the promise he made to her, and it wasn’t as if she had any malice in doing so. She seemed to have a fondness for trees, and he had let it slip that he had plenty in his abode, which he had used to coax her into working for him as Peng Zhen’s escort.
Her forcing her way here using Han Lei was not exactly surprising either. She may be older than him, but mentally, Yang Qing knew she was no older than ten where worldly wisdom was concerned. So of course she would be impetuous, as her actions showed.
As for the green flame tree, her actions were expected too. The Green Flame Tree was gentle by nature, but as gentle as she was, she also had a wrathful side that would be triggered by those who desecrated life.
She carried the same sensitivity that Yang Qing’s physique gave him concerning the flow of life, though he felt hers was greater because she could acutely and accurately tell the blood of the innocent and their resentment imprinted on the souls responsible for their demise.
Where Yang Qing could feel someone was a blood refinement cultivator, the Green Flame Tree could tell the number of people said cultivator had consumed and the feelings of those people up until their moment of death. And she had a special sensitivity to the voices of pure souls, who were the ones capable of triggering such an intense reaction from her.
When Luo Suyun awakened and went on a revenge spree, she not only killed those who had killed her master, but she also ended entire towns and cities in the process of meting out vengeance, and those who had nothing to do with her master’s death ended up swept up as collateral damage in her pursuit of vengeance.
At least two thousand newborns died.
The reason she had not been destroyed by the Order and instead got life imprisonment was that, as a freshly awakened spirit saber, she was technically a newborn herself, whose first experience upon awakening was the death of the one for whom she was created for. More seasoned cultivators with years of experience have reacted worse than she did and for less; hence, she was spared.
But it still did not lessen the fact that she took lives—and innocent lives at that—and the Green Flame Tree could acutely sense the resentment those lives left behind on Luo Suyun’s soul, which was why she moved to purge Luo Suyun the instant she started moving toward her.
Her flames, which were normally nurturing, would turn even fiercer than Yang Qing’s flames when she was enraged.
Yang Qing could be considered the bane of cultivators tainted with resentment qi, like blood refinement cultivators, because not only could he sense them, but his physique and the abilities it gave him allowed him to both restrain and dominate them. The Green Flame Tree was much the same, except hers had a sharper edge to it, as she could inflict the same torment that their victims suffered and even add more.
To her, resentment qi served as fuel for her yellow flames of retribution, which both punished the perpetrator and consoled the souls of the aggrieved by allowing them retribution. Those flames would not stop burning until those souls were satisfied.
If Luo Suyun got caught by those flames, she would experience the most unimaginable pain as her body and soul were melted down, and she would not experience death until the last of those souls got rest.
Getting slowly poisoned by a thousand pain-inducing toxins was a more merciful fate than being subjected to the Green Flame Tree’s yellow flames of retribution and rest.
