The Six Immortals Chapter 9

The Fierce Duel Under The Mountain   The next night, Bi Fan stayed back in the orchard, even though he was in the orchard, he continued to practice and waited for the Long Diao. Finally in the middle of the night, the Long Diao appeared, as he saw Bi Fan standing there, he didn’t scoop out the Panacea without his permission. “Creek…” the Long Diao gave Bi Fan a pitiful look, his eyes looked very cute. Bi Fan had always been lonely as a child; his peers had always been ignorant towards him and often bullied him. Therefore, he really liked the Long Diao and wanted to keep such a cute creature as a pet. “Little man, how about you follow me? And every day you can eat the Panacea.” Bi Fan tried to tempt the Long Diao. Long Diao’s eyes looked at Bi Fan, as he jumped up and down, almost as if he was trying to say ‘I want to eat the herbs, give me some Panacea.’ Bi Fan shook his head with a smile, pulled out a ginseng and threw it towards the Long Diao. The Long Diao caught the ginseng; it was like eating a large gourmet meal to him. As soon as he finished the ginseng, the Long Diao moved a little closer to Bi Fan, his paws kept gesturing for more. “Here you go.” Bi Fan laughed and threw another ginseng towards him. The Long Diao didn’t leave immediately, but he waited till he had finished his meal. Since then, every night the Long Diao would come, he would eat only two ginseng, not more, but always waited for Bi Fan to toss him the ginseng. Ten days down the road, Bi Fan had gotten to know the Long Diao a bit, its meal times, and he could even touch it now. Bi Fan found calling him Long Diao to be a boring, so he named it ‘Greedy’. After finis.h.i.+ng his meal, Long Diao would play around with Bi Fan for a while and then leave. Bi Fan was very happy that he had come to close to the Long Diao. In time, Bi Fan realized that the Long Diao was exceptionally clever and even though he couldn’t speak, he was very good at expressing himself. One day, Bi Fan was looking after the Panacea in the orchard, when Xiaofeng came to see him. “Bi Fan, will you go down the mountain tomorrow to the town and help us buy some makeup supplies?” “No problem Xiaofeng, but who will take care of the orchards if I’m not here?” Bi Fan reasoned. Bi Fan had wanted to go down the mountain for a while now, but he couldn’t; now he finally had that chance. Xiaofeng stated to Bi Fan: “I will arrange for someone to look after the orchard in the morning for the duration of your absence. I’ll allow you to take the Red-Crowned Crane with you; it will allow you to travel down much faster. Naturally, the Crane will bring you up upon your return.” “Well, I’ll be grateful to you” Bi Fan said, unable to control his excitement. Xiaofeng left, she gave Bi Fan some silver (currency) before she left. After she was gone, Bi Fan started dancing with excitement. It took him along time to calm down, and then the thought of Greedy came into his mind. If Bi Fan was gone, there would be no one to take care of him, he felt sorry for the Long Diao. Later that night, Greedy came again. After Bi Fan fed him, he said: “Greedy, I’m going down the mountain tomorrow, do you want to accompany me?” Greedy stared at Bi Fan, trying to distinguish if what he was saying was true or not. “Greedy, I really have to go down for a few days, will you come with me? You will need some food to eat, so I will bring some for the road.” Bi Fan really hoped that the amusing Long Diao would come along; he really wanted to pet him. “During my absence, someone else will be looking after the orchard, so it’s going to be hard for you to eat the herbs, and you will have to be very careful if you don’t want to get caught.” Bi Fan was practically trying to bribe the Long Diao into accompanying him, he was trying to use all sort of measures to spoil him. Bi Fan had whined a lot over the last few days, and the Long Diao had been a great audience. If he had said those things in front of other people, the atmosphere would have been very strange. Finally, the Long Diao stood up and nodded his head. “Great!” Bi Fan was extremely excited, he hugged the greedy Diao, and tossed him up in the air, just the way a kid does with his favorite toy. Then Bi Fan started to prepare an inventory of food for the Long Diao. The medicine orchard had so much Panacea that it wouldn’t matter. Bi Fan was very selectively picking his food, there were a lot of different types of herbs, he didn’t want to attract attention by plucking too many of the same kind. He had the Tianyuan ring with him, so he wasn’t worried about storing the Panacea. Greedy Diao realized that Bi Fan was preparing his food, so he gladly jumped onto Bi Fan’s shoulder and kept pointing at his choices with his paws. The next morning, Xioafeng sent the Crane to Bi Fan’s residence, so it could carry him down. The crane stood over two meters tall and its wide-open wings spanned almost three meters in width. The Red-Crowned Crane could rip apart a tiger in terms of strength; in fact it was as strong as the fourth division of the fetus Jie, “inner breath’. Furthermore, the crane could be used to systematically increase a pract.i.tioner’s strength. It was the first time Bi Fan had seen a crane up close, he had seen other ride crane in the past, and he had been very envious of them. He had never expected to be able to ride a crane so fast, he thanked his wonderful luck. After he had been thrown into the Wan Snake Cave and survived. He had witnessed a major twist in fate; his luck had been constantly doing him favors. Bi Fan would have thanked Zhu San if he didn’t hate him so much. If Zhu San hadn’t knocked him a coma and thrown him into the Wan Snake Cave then Bi Fan would still be stuck at the Quinyang orchard, fearing the other boys and would have had no hope for a future. Bi Fan was very nervous when the Crane took off. His hands were tightly clutching the body of the Crane. The Long Diao had adorably hid himself in the Bi Fan’s arms, only his head protruded out; he had a curious look on his face.  Flying at high alt.i.tudes, Bi Fan felt as if he was travelling the world like an eagle. The Crane was pretty fast, and in no time it brought Bi Fan to the foot of the hill. It landed down for Bi fan to get off and then flew up again. It quickly disappeared from Bi Fan’s line of sight.  On the outer side, the Quinyang Mountain is very s.p.a.cious. It was wide enough for two carriages to walk side by side, the material were transported from the outside world to Quinyang via this route. The Quinyang town was still ten miles away, so Bi Fan got up on his feet and started walking. Bi Fan didn’t have the slightest idea of the outside world, this was the first time he had ever been able to see it, the plants and flowers on the outside seemed so beautiful. Bi Fan hadn’t gone very far when he heard the sound of fighting coming from the woods nearby. Bi Fan always curious to see trouble, decided to go and see for himself. He softly and quickly moved towards the sounds. There was a clearing out in the woods; two individuals were engaged in a duel. They fight was very intense. One person was a long double-edges sword while the other was making use of a double-edged machete (broadsword). Their swords brilliantly reflected the light from above; it was obvious from their fighting that the two individuals were very strong, far stronger than Bi Fan. Bi Fan held his breath, for he was afraid of being discovered. Both the fighters were extremely strong, their swords s.h.i.+mmered, strong winds were sweeping trees aside and dust was blowing in all directions. Their weapons were quite extraordinary, they were cutting through trees like a knife cuts through melons. “When will I have such enormous strength?” Bi Fan refres.h.i.+ngly sighed. Both fighters were in the middle of a decisive duel, they were going all out. Their strengths were almost at par with each other and soon they were both injured. But they continued to fight with no regard for their own safety. “They will both die. They are going to kill each other….” Bi Fan kept repeating softy. The Long Diao was very smart and kept watching silently, he didn’t make a single sound.