Inner Demons Volume 1 Chapter 17

Qiao SiFu looked back to see if there was any one running after them, and the result was what he wanted.

A ray of moonlight leaked through the gaps between the leaves, and fell on the thin sword of the swordsman.

The cold light flashed.

“Run!” Qiao SiFu shouted out subconsciously, grabbed Qiao JiaXin’s hand and started to run.

However, the swordsman’s sword was faster than Qiao SiFu’s reaction. His snort and the sound of his sword breaking through the air came at the same time. In the blink of an eye, the swordsman pa.s.sed through the distance of 6 steps, and pounced towards them like a hawk, while tip of his sword was pointing right at the throat of Qiao SiFu.

He was still a bit late after all. Qiao SiFu dodged by turning his body. The blade missed his neck, and hit his left shoulder which he turned towards the blade. Blood spurted - His strike looked soft and graceful, but it was actually really powerful. One of Qiao SiFu’s arms was disabled at once.

The swordsman was no more than 3 steps from the 2 people. His thin sword kept moving along the trend of his strike like a snake, still pointing at his throat.

Qiao SiFu had just completed his move and couldn’t dodge again.

Qiao JiaXin knew it was a moment of life and death, so she made every effort to crash into the swordsman, in order to disturb his strike.

The swordsman never expected the girl to have such bravery, so he really was disturbed and his sword lost its accuracy.

Qiao SiFu evaded this sword strike, and fell backwards...

...right on an old root reached out from the ground. The thumb-thick dead wood jabbed into his back and came out of his chest. It didn’t go through his clothes though, just set up a tent on his chest, which was soon soaked by fresh blood.

“d.a.m.n.” The swordsman snorted, seeming really unhappy about missing. However, it wouldn’t matter - He had already grabbed Qiao JiaXin’s hand with his other hand.

The girl tried to fight back in the darkness, but her skills were nothing compared to the swordsman’s. The swordsman shook his sleeve, and turned his sword to point at Qiao JiaXin’s throat.

Right at this moment, he heard a voice saying: “Don’t do it.”

The voice was serious and short. It sounded distorted in the rustle of the leaves, but that didn’t stop him from hearing the voice clearly.

The swordsman peered from the corner of his eye, and was surprised to find that 2 steps away from him, behind a short tree, a man was standing there.

“Big brother?” He frowned, feeling surprised.

The swordsman with narrowed eyes was standing not far from him. Under the moonlight, it looked as if he was glowing, and was giving off a feeling of immortality because of that. His voice sounded kind of strange, but the swordsman didn’t think too much - After all, he was the most familiar person to him since more than 10 years.

Not to mention that he also looked very familiar.

The swordsman with narrowed eyes said something, but he didn’t hear him clearly.

Therefore, he took a step towards there, while restraining Qiao JiaXin with one hand. His big brother was standing under the tree, not moving at all. It looked like he may be injured and was having trouble moving.

After this one step, he saw him clearly.

He found the problem - His big brother looked a little transparent. It was like...

...the ghost which appeared before.

An alarm went off in his mind. He stepped back subconsciously and swung his sword to defend. His caution saved him - he saw the man hiding in the bush which was right beside him.

A young man in white clothing was holding a branch which was as thick as the arm of a child, and was about to stab with it. The position he chose was really devious and he was close enough to the swordsman. The swordsman would have stepped into his trap if he had taken another step forwards.

However, he was too slow - almost stopped in the swordsman’s eyes.

The swordsman sneered: “Light of fireflies[1], you overestimated your own strength.”

Then he stepped back, and stabbed.

Right at this moment, he suddenly realized that the young man looked weird, too.

Why was he also blurred, like an illusion?

At the moment when the bottom of his shoe touched the ground, a heart-tearing and lungs-breaking[2] pain came from his a.n.u.s.

Something - a twig, maybe - pierced in.

Perhaps if he was. .h.i.t by a blade on his leg or back, he could overcome the pain and try to fight back. But getting hurt in such a place so seriously, a ma.s.sive mental impact came after the pain.

The complex emotions and extreme pain smashed his willpower in an instant. He threw Qiao JiaXin away, while stepping forward in an attempt to get rid of that thing, and waved his sword behind himself disorderly, like a commoner in panic - He didn’t even dare to turn around to find the attacker.

...because it hurt too much.

However, Li YunXin already stood up behind him, tightly gripping a thick branch between his arms. He stabbed forward with it hard, and rushed 2 steps forward.

The swordsman lost his balance because of his action, and then fell on the ground. His scream was cut off halfway - 2 chi[3] of the 5-chi-long branch went into his body, the swordsman was completely dead.

Li YunXin dropped the branch and clapped. As the 2 illusions nearby disappeared in the wind, 2 pieces of Xuan paper fell from the air, and soon became ashes.

“Go, quickly. Maybe someone else is coming.” Li YunXin extended his hand to Qiao JiaXin, who was sitting frozen on the ground.

Miss Qiao looked at the dead body on the ground with her eyes widely opened, and then she looked at Li YunXin, feeling like there were 2 flames on her face.

“You, you, how did you... you...”

She had so many question to ask. For example, why are you here, how did you created those 2 figures, how did you kill him - Why did you stab that place...

...but the waves of surprises the young man gave her were too many, to the point that it made her unsure about where to start.

She was not weak or hesitant, so she turned her head and looked at Qiao SiFu, whose body was lying on the ground, clenched her teeth, and then stood up by grabbing Li YunXin’s hand.

“Okay, follow me. No matter how scared you are, don’t scream. We can make it out of here.”

Compressing her lips, Qiao JiaXin followed him.

The young man’s voice was not loud, but relaxing.

Even more relaxing to her, who had just experienced such a situation of life and death.

Li YunXin knew that there was someone else chasing after them, and that he could be the one that would be hard to deal with.

He knew the feeling of being “painted” long before. It was a really strange kind of feeling, which he had never experienced in his previous life.

It was similar to the “sixth sense”, an extremely strong “sixth sense”. It was like suddenly hearing a faint voice call you while you were in a quiet room, and then your heart feels as if it was being summoned - something is happening somewhere, so you must go and figure it out.

If they were further away from each other, this feeling may have disappeared before he could find them. However, on this night, at this distance, Li YunXin knew that the “big brother” would soon rush to the place where his brother’s a.s.s got penetrated, and start searching for them furiously.

The 2 people ran in the darkness with the night wind, and the leaves rustling by their ears. It looked as if there was infinite darkness ahead, it seemed that if you entered it then you would have nowhere to hide, and would never be able to come out.

It felt like...

“Something’s wrong.” Li YunXin stopped running and said.

Qiao JiaXin didn’t stop in time, so she ran into Li YunXin’s back. The young man reached out to steady her, and he felt that the girl’s body was soft and wet. She had sweat a lot, and was s.h.i.+vering - he didn’t know whether it was because of tiredness, stress or fear. She was breathing really hard. Hot air was breathed onto his chest.

“...what’s wrong?” Qiao JiaXin asked with a trembling voice.

Li YunXin was stunned for a while, and then realized one thing:

He was not a real young man, but this girl was a real girl. He could think about things and talk to people using his adult mind which had went through many winds and frost[4], but this girl...

She was just a teenager.

She would still be in school, and probably would be a fan of some celebrity, if she lived in his world.

She really was scared, but she still followed him to find a way out, without saying a word, instead of being a chuuni or saint[5]. After he said “something’s wrong”, she asked him “what’s wrong” calmly like an adult, not causing troubles for him or acting spoilt.

It was rarely seen in young people.

He lightly sighed, and then held her arm tightly, not until she got her balance back did he release his hand. “Are you scared?” He asked quietly.

“...Huh?” Holding the trunk near her, the girl tried to catch her breath - It felt like holding something would calm her down.

“I know you are.” Li YunXin took the leather flask from his waist and then pa.s.sed it to her: “take a sip. You may not know much about it - fear comes from unknowns. It’s okay for you to be scared. There is no hatred between us and those who tried to kill us tonight, they are just doing their job for the other person. There is also no hatred between us and the other person, he just wanted to kill people, and found us by chance. In a word, this situation tonight, is because of our bad luck.”

The girl took the flask from him and took a sip from it. Holding the flask, her breaths became stable, and she tried to listen to Li YunXin carefully.

Actually, simply listening to him would make her calm down. She also didn’t know why.

She used to dream of adventuring in jianghu, facing the winds and rains, to be a heroine, but after experiencing these things tonight, she suddenly realized that doing or thinking about nothing, just following others and being protected, was actually really a.s.suaging.

“I know it’s hard, but I need you to do one thing. You need to know that we are unable to save the others right now. Maybe your father, emm...and my master, are also hiding somewhere. Thinking of them makes us anxious, but there is nothing we can do.

We can’t be anxious, only by being calm can we deal with those who are chasing after us. Those who are chasing us, they are 6 people in total, I got one just now. Maybe someone else also killed one of them, so they can’t be more than 5 people. One of them is coming for us, which means that only 4 of them are chasing the others.

“So, us trying to survive, and holding him here, is actually gaining time for them, for your father, and decreasing their pressure - You are escaping but you are also saving others. Am I right?”

Qiao JiaXin tried her best to open her eyes wide, and nodded.

“Good girl. Let’s go.”

Qiao JiaXin took a deep breath, and went into the dense forest again. After 2 or 3 steps, she looked back to Li YunXin.

...and found that the young man disappeared.

Her heart which was just calmed down went chaotic again. She turned around and walked back a step at once, to see if she went too fast so the young man failed to follow.

After another 2 steps, she suddenly saw a small light coming towards her face.

The slender and clear light only stayed in her sight for one second, like a flash of lightning. Then she felt the whole world turn dark. She had no time to think, because she didn’t even know what had happened.

As the swordsman pulled back his sword, Qiao JiaXin collapsed to the ground. A tiny red mark was left between her eyebrows, looking like a red bean.

“You asked for it.” He whispered, and turned to look at Li YunXin, “You have some skills. Tell me, where are you from, expert?”

Translator’s notes:
[1]Light of fireflies萤火之光: Something weak and useless.
Full version= How can the light of fireflies which grew from the rotten plants compete with the moon which is in the middle of the sky?
[2]Heart-tearing and lungs-breaking撕心裂肺: Extremely painful
[3]Chi尺: Chinese length unit, 1 chi≈23.1cm
[4]Went through winds and frost饱经风霜: Experienced
[5]Chuuni or saint中二/圣母:

Chuuni=A j.a.panese word which means "2nd year of middle school", a kind of syndrome which often happened on middle school students. Similar to adolescent egocentrism.
Chuuni people usually:
Regard themselves as the protagonist of the world, while others were just audience who would admire everything they do;
Try hard to be cool and unique by doing many things that they think are cool.
Pretend to be well-experienced and knowledgeable, or simply believe that they really are.

Saint= A Chinese slang term, means people who are so kind that they:
Show love and kindness to various targets;
Force people to do the same as themselves;
Criticize those who denied to do that;
Most of the time, “saints”are unreasonable, self-contradictory and subjective. They only yell at people to make them show their love, but not taking any actions themselves.
Examples:①People enjoying meat.
Saint: “Animals also have families. If you are so cold-blooded to eat someone’s child, then why don’t you eat your own children.”
②Terrorists shooting people.
Police shot down the terrorists.
Saint: “If your purpose is to stop people from dying, then why are you murdering people yourselves? How ridiculous.”
③A man stole food from a store, and got arrested for that.
Saint: “n.o.body would commit crimes if there is no need to. The food he stole must be necessary for him. How could you punish someone for trying to survive?”

Please leave your comments and suggestions!

Translator: Rienne
Editor:Dropped