“No! I’ve said it — the Seven-Colored Dusk is the divine object Goddess Xiyao bestowed on my City of Heaven’s Sun, and it can absolutely never fall into another man’s hands! Absolutely not!!” The City Lord of Heaven’s Sun shook his head, immovable.
“Oh. Goodbye then.” Ye Tianxie turned to go.
“I’ll put up my ‘Red Lotus God-Felling Staff’ as security. That’s a weapon that never leaves my person!!”
“…See you next time.”
“I’ll give you the Blazing Radiance Pearl I’ve never brought myself to use! Listen carefully — a gift, not a loan!! Eat that thing and you get at least 10% fire-element resistance!”
“Bye-bye!”
“…I’ll introduce you to my daughter!! My daughter is eighteen this year, unwed and still at home, and she’s lovely enough to sink fish and drop birds out of the sky, to shame the moon and put the flowers to blush, the finest in the land… and she’s a level-80 Grand Magus…”
“Sayonara!”
“Stop right there… Done!”
Ye Tianxie stopped, turned around, and said with a smile all over his face, “The City Lord really is a great City Lord. For the safety of the City of Heaven’s Sun you’re willing to put even a divine object into somebody else’s keeping — temporarily. My admiration for you runs on and on like the waters of the Yellow River, and floods over like the Yangtze bursting its banks, and nothing can stop it. Mm — this Grey Goat hide belongs to you now.”
The City Lord of Heaven’s Sun brought out the broken Seven-Colored Dusk with something very close to gritted teeth… He honestly wanted to dig a hole and bury himself in it right then… This lad was plainly craftier than a fox, and he must have been sick in the head to set a trap for the boy on purpose, only to be caught by the throat with it himself… He had brought it on himself. Picked up a stone and dropped it on his own foot.
Skin in one hand, goods in the other. With hot tears in his eyes, the City Lord traded the Seven-Colored Dusk into Ye Tianxie’s hand, and took the Grey Goat hide that could turn a man into a goat.
In his hand the Seven-Colored Dusk carried a faint chill, exactly the temperature and feel of the most ordinary crystal.
The Damaged “Seven-Colored Dusk”: Originally a crystal necklace, the “Sun-Moon Star-Wishing Chain,” given by an Elf-race girl named “Dawn” to a Fairy-race man named “Dusk.” Later, held in the Fairy race’s dark confinement, “Dusk” received word from the far north that “Dawn” had been put to death by the Elf race. He let out a cry like weeping blood, and it went on for seven days and seven nights. When it finally stopped, the people of the Fairy race found Dusk gripping the Sun-Moon Star-Wishing Chain, stained red with blood, already dead.
As the Fairy race was burying Dusk, the Sun-Moon Star-Wishing Chain suddenly gave off light in seven colors — blue, red, green, purple, yellow, light and dark. In that moment the Fairy race discovered, to their horror, that Dusk had in fact possessed the seven-element magic constitution that exists only in their legends and had never once appeared. In those legends, once a person of that constitution appears, he is certain to become the race’s highest and strongest king, and to lead it to its greatest peak. But this genius, bestowed on them by heaven, was in the end wiped out by their own hand… and for that the Fairy race was cursed, and at last…
The “Sun-Moon Star-Wishing Chain,” having taken in Dusk’s heart-thought and his heart’s blood, came to hold the power of the seven elements, and grew at last into a powerful Divine Mystery item, the “Seven-Colored Dusk.” Currently damaged for unknown reasons; attributes cannot be displayed.
Reading the Seven-Colored Dusk’s description set the sea of Ye Tianxie’s heart heaving. It barely touched on what sort of tangle of feeling there had been between Dawn and Dusk — but he could imagine well enough how hard and how painful the struggle must have been for two lovers belonging to different races, held back by the world, and how it had ended in tragedy after all. One of them had left behind the “Seven-Colored Dusk”… so the “Lost Dawn” the City Lord had spoken of — could that have been what the Elf-race girl “Dawn” left?
The Seven-Colored Dusk had taken in not only Dusk’s power but his heart-thought as well… so what about the Lost Dawn? If the two were brought together, might something unbelievable happen?
“Don’t you worry, City Lord, I’ll keep this Seven-Colored Dusk safe and sound for you. It is the guardian artifact of your City of Heaven’s Sun, after all, and since you trust me this much, I guarantee it on my character — I’ll never hand it to anyone. I won’t even let anyone look at it.” Ye Tianxie put it away in his pack and said all this with every appearance of sincerity. Inside, he was so pleased he barely kept from laughing out loud.
The City Lord whipped Grey Goat’s hide away too, and said with a cold face, “Just so long as you know it!! The day I catch Red Goat and find the Seven-Star Gourd, I’ll trade back with you at once, and you can’t put me off with any excuse. Understood! Or wherever you go afterward, I’ll have every man in the City of Heaven’s Sun hunting you there… I don’t believe you can run faster than Red Goat!!”
Ye Tianxie drew himself in and said, pretending to be frightened, “City Lord, I wasn’t raised on threats… Set your mind at rest. The Seven-Colored Dusk hasn’t got a single attribute right now — to put it unkindly, it’s no different from a piece of junk, and it’s no use to me. And if I lost it by accident that would be a crime the size of heaven; I couldn’t pay for it with my own little life. So of course I’d like nothing better than for you to get the Seven-Star Gourd out of Red Goat’s hands as fast as possible and trade back with me.”
The Seven-Star Gourd is in my hands. What the hell are you going to get? You dare set me up… see if I don’t bury you. Ye Tianxie said it darkly, to himself. For one thing he was not a good man; for another he held a grudge, and always paid one back… even against an NPC he was not supposed to offend.
“Hmph.” The City Lord said nothing more, plainly finding what Ye Tianxie had said very reasonable… and it could not possibly have crossed his mind that Red Goat had dropped the Seven-Star Gourd, that the Dark Nether Ghost King had picked it up first and taken it for a “Golden-Ass Circle-Jerk Boy” embryo and left it lying, and that Ye Tianxie had then come along and taken it.
“Then I won’t trouble you any further, City Lord. Just give me a shout when you’ve found the Seven-Star Gourd. Let me promise the honorable City Lord one last time… the moment you find it, I’ll give the Seven-Colored Dusk straight back to you, no delay at all… Mm. Goodbye, then.”
With that, and without waiting for the City Lord to answer, Ye Tianxie waved a hand and walked back out.
The City Lord stood there turning it over for a good long while, and kept feeling that something somewhere was not quite right… He had gone so far as to bring out the Heaven-Severing-grade “Red Lotus God-Felling Staff,” and the lad had not been tempted — he had insisted instead on a Seven-Colored Dusk that was of no use at all until the Seven-Star Lotus repaired it. The “Red Lotus God-Felling Staff” would not truly have belonged to him, but at least during the stretch before the trade back he could have gone about swaggering with a Heaven-Severing item most people never even see, or used it to pick up any number of gains… Why insist on a Divine Mystery item that had an enormous history behind it and was already broken?
Could it really be to put the two of them at ease?
There did seem to be something fishy about it…
But the City Lord thought about it a long while and could not make anything of it, so he could not be bothered to think any more. He picked up Grey Goat’s hide and let out a roar. “All of you, get in here!! From today, search for Red Goat’s whereabouts with everything you’ve got!!”
“Ding… You have successfully completed the letter-delivery quest entrusted to you by the City Lord of the City of Stars within the time limit. You may now return to the City of Stars at once and collect your reward from the City Lord.”
As he walked out of the City Lord’s residence, the expected quest-completion prompt sounded at his ear. He had not gone far before he took out the damaged Seven-Colored Dusk and laughed up at the sky.
One Grey Goat hide, traded for a Divine Mystery item honored as the guardian treasure of one of the five main cities!
Was there a better bargain than that anywhere under heaven?
Catch or beat Grey Goat or Red Goat and you get luck the size of heaven… If this isn’t luck the size of heaven, what is?
And this was only what one item off her had brought him — so what about the rest? What if he happened to catch Red Goat as well…
The Seven-Colored Dusk gave off its dreamlike colored light in the sunshine. Strangely, that light was not disturbed by the sun’s own seven colors at all; it went on showing the seven magical colors that belonged to it.
He still did not know what astonishing attributes it would turn out to have… Divine Mystery grade, guardian artifact of the City of Heaven’s Sun — every one of those titles proclaimed its power outright.
He made a circuit of the central district of the City of Heaven’s Sun, got clear on where the main buildings stood, then went straight south and out of the city. The monsters at the edges of any city are never high-level, and are generally mild. The City of Heaven’s Sun was no different: the monsters roaming here were only around level twenty, and because of the surroundings, most of them were fire-property. Plainly this was a paradise for water-element mages, since attacking fire with water has always been the most effective means there is.
Ye Tianxie did not stay long. He could not wait to get back to the City of Stars. Having the Seven-Star Gourd on him in no way meant he could get the Seven-Star Lotus, because not even the Dark Nether Ghost King had managed to open that gourd. And even getting the Seven-Star Lotus in no way meant he had already got the Seven-Colored Dusk… how to use one to repair a damaged item, he had no idea either. He needed to go home and look into it right away… The pull of a Divine Mystery item was simply far, far too strong — so strong he did not want to wait one more second.
The quest to wipe out the Fire Spirits? Don’t make me laugh… Knowing perfectly well it was a quest to go and die, and going to die anyway — that would be hopelessly stupid.
He rummaged through his pack, and the expression on his face went stiff at once… Over these days of racing toward the City of Heaven’s Sun he had returned to the City of Stars a lot of times, and without noticing it he had used up every one of his Town Portal Scrolls for it.
He thought about it a moment, then took out a different scroll — a Town Portal Scroll for Windfall Town, the closest place to the City of Stars. A flash of white light, and he was there.
The stifling heat drained away, and a cool breeze brushed past him carrying the fresh smell of earth. Ye Tianxie took out his communicator and got through to Zuo Pojun. “Third Brother, come out to Windfall Town and bring me a City of Stars Town Portal Scroll.”
“Uh… Second Brother, you’re in Windfall Town right now?” Unexpectedly, Zuo Pojun did not agree at once, but came back with a question in an odd tone of voice.
“Mm… is something wrong?” Ye Tianxie started, and asked.
“I’ll be right there.” Zuo Pojun hung up.
Setting the communicator down, Ye Tianxie felt at once that the atmosphere here was out of the ordinary.
(End of Chapter 260)