Chapter 76: Truth


    Large amounts of white ashes were drifting in the air. More than a half of the Fire Leopard n’s vige was shrouded by these ashes.


    Contained within these white ashes were the bone ashes of those offerings that had been burnt by the Gold Fire Crow’s me, and ashes of soil and rock. Every single particle of these ashes contained a wisp of the remaining hot power, which hade from the Gold Fire Crow’s soul. While people were walking through these ashes, these particles shed against each other and burst outrge pieces of fire sparks along with popping noises.


    The Fire Leopard n’s people were cleaning their vige, dealing with the dead bodies of the enemies and their own perished nsmen. A Large group of nsmen were walking through these white ashes, which made the entire vige seemed as if it was shrouded by a raging fire; the glowing red fiery light even shone upon the vast jungle around.


    “Woo~woo~yo~”


    A mumbling sound came from the jungle. It were Treeman and the two friends of his. The three of them walked slowly into the jungle, which had been burnt out earlier; following behind them were arge group of small spirits of trees and flowers, who were drawn near out of themselves.


    Treeman and his two friends had tried very hard to shrink their bodies into the most miniscule size they were capable of; each of them were carrying a huge booze-vat with their branch-like arms; on one hand, they were gulping the booze contained in the vats happilly, on the other hand, they were busy at spreading seeds of all kinds of nts towards the burnt soil, which was still hot. All three of these old trees were slightly drunk, even their feet staggered while walking, and stepped everywhere with their gigantic bodies, which made those small spirits of trees and flowers near their feet scream out in fear.


    Under the cliff, inside the half copsed meeting room of the Fire Leopard n, Ji Xia was sitting near a bonfire with his legs crossed, while he was munching arge piece of grilled beast meat that was emitting a thick aroma.


    Being grilled and sizzled upon the bonfire was a horned gori-bear, the mount belonging to a Ghost n’s Senior Magus. This horned gori-bear was a senior level beast, the poor thing was found badly wounded after the fight, but those Fire Leopard n’s Maguspriest did not want to spend any of their precious medicines on this beast. Thats why they decided to clean and skin it, then grill it and treat their honoured guests with it.


    “Hao, since you have gained the approval of our ancestors’ souls, makes what you just did not wrong.” Ji Xia finished more than a half of the grilled beast, satisfyingly patted his own belly and said. “Although Abba had never bullied those poor little ns with our Fire Crow n’s power, but since they besieged us at the first ce, then there’s nothing more to say about it. They all deserved to die,” continued Ji Xia while a slight beam of cold light shed across his pupils.


    Ji Hao was holding a booze-vat, drank a few mouthful of liquor that was emitting a strong scent contained in the vat, then wiped the liquor which was dripping down along the corner of his mouth.


    “Haha, Abba, when I saw you flew over like rocket, I thought you were going to stop me from performing the offering-ceremony,” said Ji Hao while ncing at Ji Xia. After that he knocked the vat hard against the ground, and said with a muffled voice, “Abba, Amma said that sometimes you have been softhearted!”


    Ji Xia wanted to remain the stateliness of a father, so he made a serious face and sniffed, said, “Softhearted? I was concerned about the overall situation and the n’s benefit. You know, I, your Abba...”


    “Ah, Abba, you’re so wise and brave, such a real man who has never gone soft, always seeking revenge for all kinds of invasions...” Ji Hao interrupted the long speech which was about toe out from Ji Xia, and said, “Jiang Yao had driven all these ns and attacked the Fire Leopards n, and Jiang Xue was her helper; Abba, what do you think about this?”


    Ji Xia paused for a second, slowly put his vat down, seemingly lost deep in thought.


    Jiang Yao was Jiang Bo, the Master Maguspriest of the Bi Fang n, his daughter, and Jiang Xue was the daughter of Jiang Shu, an elder of the Bi Fang n. Jiang Yao was badly injured by Ji Hao and had fled away; unless she wanted to trigger a real war between the Fire Crow n and the Bi Fang n, she would never tell anybody about the fact that she had driven all these ns and attacked the Fire Leopard n.


    However, Ji Hao had killed Jiang Xue cruelly in the battle, which might be a bit troublesome.


    While Ji Xia was thinking, a caw came from the air, along with which, a gust of gale started blowing towards the ground, and a cold hoarse voice pierced into Ji Hao’s ears like steel needles.


    This voice was iparably hoarse and ice-cold, filled with a weird and evil power that would make people quiver. Ji Xia and Ji Hao frowned and stood simultaneously up from the ground. The vats ced aside their feet cracked all together and liquor seeped out in streams.


    An elderly man, who was as tall as Ji Xia but extremely scrawny, even looked like a stick, walked inside with stiff steps, and growled out with a very cold voice in the meanwhile, “Ji Xia! You have to give us, the elders of our Fire Crow n a reasonable exnation! Do you still remember your responsibility? You’re only responsible of guarding the Cold Stream Valley and protecting the mine there...Who gave you this right and nerve to do this...”


    Before the elderly man finished his speech, Ji Hao took a deep breath and rudely interrupted him.


    “Ah, the elder Ji Fang, is there any problem about my Abbaing here? My Abba just ran a ’nine suns above the sky’, the blood-offering ceremony, and our ancestors were very satisfied with that. Are you saying that my Abba was wrong? If so, did you just say that our ancestors were wrong?”


    The elderly man stopped talking and was stunned. He was choked by Ji Hao’s words and didn’t know how to respond for quite a while.


    At that moment, another resonant caw came from the sky above. Followed by a swishing sound, the ground slightly shook. Someone had leaped down from the air and had almost shaken the half-broken Fire Leopard n’s meeting room into copsing.


    Ji Zhuo darted in with big steps,ughed out loud and pressed his hand on Ji Fang’s shoulder, then said loudly, “Ji Fang, you have always been so impatient ever since you were a little kid. You just couldn’t calm down, look, you got yourself embarrassed in front of these kids again!”


    Ji Hao clearly saw that Ji Zhuo’s five fingers had violently pitted into Ji Fang’s shoulder; he even heard the creaking sounds made by Ji Fang shoulder bones while being pressed by Ji Zhuo with a great power.


    Ji Fang’s face was badly twisted, his originally pale face had now even turned blue.


    “You’re too impatient, Ji Fang...You probably haven’t heard the message from the Ancestral Temple of the Holy Land yet; our ancestors had delivered their will to all of the Maguspriests, and said that they were very satisfied with the blood-offering ceremony today. Our ancestors also said that Ji Hao is a good kid!”


    “What did you say?!” yelled Ji Fang with a twisted face.


    “Our ancestor said that we did no wrong,” Ji Hao put his mouth near Ji Fang’s face and said coldly, “Abba took our nsmen here from the Cold Stream Valley, beat a bunch of stupid people who came from a bunch of stupid ns, and had exaggerated opinions of their own abilities, then offered those stupid things to our ancestors through the ceremony. Our ancestors are very satisfied, so what Abba did was all great!”


    Ji Fang closed his mouth and never let a single word out.


    In the Southern Wastnd ns, the truth can be this simple and crude - As long as one had gained the satisfaction of their ancestors, then all that he or she had done would be right. However, normally, ordinary nsmen couldn’t evene near the Ancestral temple of the Holy n, except during the decennial and centurial worship ceremony. Only if someone used the secret, ancient ceremony like Ji Hao had did, would he or she probably wake the ancestors’ souls up, and gain their favour.


    Ji Fang was now ragingly cursing those people who had told him toe in his head. When those people urged him toe to here and question Ji Xia in anger, they didn’t mention that Ji Hao and Ji Xia had even bribed the ancestors!


    Ji Zhuo threw a deep nce at Ji Hao, thenughed delightedly and said, “Although our ancestors had delivered their will to our Maguspriests, Xia, you should still go back to the Gold ck Mountain and describe every detail of this fight to those elders and Maguspriests in the Holy Land.”


    “Oh, and the Master Maguspriest, Ji Kui has already announced on behalf of our ancestors, that all those ns that had attacked the Fire Leopard n are our enemies.”


    “Hao, you will be responsible for wiping them all out!” continued Ji Zhuo.