The Card Apprentice

Chapter 128: The Night of the Cross

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

Ning Jia looked at Bo Wen in surprise as her eyes misted over, never having imagined that her brother would talk to her in that tone of voice.

Bo Wen forced himself to calm his tone, “Be nice and go quickly Jia Jia,” Then his voice became more urgent, “In the innermost shelves of the library pavilion, there is a grey and brown notebook on the bottom right. Quickly!”

Hearing the urgency in her brother’s voice, Ning Jia bit her lip and held back her tears, then grunted her response, as she ran out of the bedroom. She understood the importance of the situation, and that if it weren’t something very important her bother would never have forced her like that. He had never compelled her once ever since she was little.

“Jia Jia, it’s so late. Why aren’t you asleep?” Ning Jia’s mother had been awakened when she heard the door open and she called out.

“Brother wants me to find something for him.” Ning Jia kept running out of the house after saying that, even as her mother kept complaining from behind her. “So it’s Bo Wen. I’ll have to have a talk with him about calling Jia Jia so late to find something.”

The way to the library was through a long corridor, which was completely unoccupied at that hour as one of the most closely protected places of the Eastern Ning’s. Tightly restricted but relaxed inside where no-one was to be seen. The sound of rapid footsteps filled it as Ning Jia lifted her nightgown to run without the slightest concern for how she looked.

She had a worried frown on her face. Her earlier resentment had disappeared completely, and she was now only worried about her brother. She knew very clearly what kind of person her brother was – in her eyes the most excellent of men, ordinarily not even moved by a landslide. She had never seen him so out of sorts, wondering what it could have been to worry her brother so much. She couldn’t help feeling anxious, wondering if her brother had gotten into some trouble. Even though she was so frail, she wanted to be at her brother’s side.

The dark library was deadly silent and filled with a kind of musty scent as she pushed open its heavy doors. It had been a while since Ning Jia had been there, though she had often played in there with her brother when she was little. To be alone then in the dark and silent library frightened her.

With her body trembling she screwed up her courage and went into the stacks where she finally turned on a light. The snow-bright light drove out the darkness and lit up the books.

That calmed her as she went right into the stacks to the last shelf.

That was where it would be!

On the bottom shelf, there was the grey and brown notebook. She stooped down to get it.

Then she hurriedly activated her communications card, and Bo Wen’s face appeared on the screen which popped out, as he asked with evident distress, “Did you find it Jia Jia?”

“I found it – is this the one?” Ning Jia rushed to hold up the grey and brown notebook. She felt a little perplexed about what her bother was doing to call her so late to look for such an old and worn notebook.

Bo Wen’s eyes brightened as he hastened to say, “Go to the last few pages, Jia Jia, and find the notes related to the night of the cross.”

“Mmmm.” Ning Jia responded, having started to flip through the pages of the old notebook. She then quickly exclaimed, “I’ve found it. The night of the cross, right brother?”

“Right.” Bo Wen’s voice had become very stern, “Read it through, Jia Jia, and don’t omit anything.”

“Mmmm.” Ning Jia nodded, and started to read a moment later, “He seemed like a ghost in the night, not making a sound. I had the strong feeling when I saw him that he was just out for a stroll. I watched with my own eyes as he passed within five meters of Ning Hong, though Ning Hong himself didn’t notice anything. I panicked and wanted to call out, but just then he turned and saw me!”

Ning Jing read with some fear and nervousness in her voice, as though influenced by what she was reading.

“His bare unmasked face was pallid, and I still remember it to this day. His eyes were the scariest, good lord what a pair of eyes! Terrifyingly, they showed no signs of life or humanity. His pupils were clouded by a dark look, as though a demon had walked out from the void. If I believed in god I would have thought that those demonic eyes came straight from hell.”

Hearing that, Bo Wen’s pupils became like needles, and his eyes took on a chill glint, as narrow and sharp as a knife.

“Hunh!” He grunted, as his face tuned steel-grey while he murmured, “And so . . . ”

“What is this, brother?” Ning Jia’s voice was trembling, and she could no longer restrain herself.

“Bo Wen said mildly, “keep on reading, Jia Jia.”

“I seemed to have suddenly fallen into an icehouse which froze my body to where it wouldn’t respond. I wanted to call out, but no matter how much I tried, it appeared that I had lost control of my body and I couldn’t make a sound. Every time I remember this affair, I am filled with guilt and remorse. If only . . .If only I had been a little braver, Father might not have died! I sometimes wonder if that man was even human. His movements were so precise, without any slightest change in his expression, and with his eyes devoid of life. He left a cross shaped wound on father’s back, which I later realized had penetrated through to father’s heart . . .”

Ning Jia couldn’t read any further than that as she held her mouth in horror.

The cross wound was something that nearly every member of the Ning family was familiar with.

The most powerful and talented lord of the Ning’s, Ning Xuan, had died from a lethal cross wound. The Ning family was at it zenith at that time, having just established their position in the Eastern Reaches. It was that mysterious lethal cross scar that had ended Ning Xuan’s life in its prime. The five years thereafter were the most turbulent and dangerous times for the Ning family. That was when the branches such as the Amay Ning’s were spawned. If it weren’t for Ning Yi, the son of Ning Xuan, the root of the Ning family might very well have been lost to history.

As Ning Yi grew up he also started to manifest his genius, and it was his diligence which finally rescued the Ning family roots from the turbulence.

In the eyes of all the succeeding generations of the core Ning family, Ning Yi had become a god-like figure, whom they idolized as a hero. Upon their investiture, each successive generation of lords of the Ning family was urged to become as outstanding as Ning Yi was.

And there was only one descendant of lord Ning Xuan, who was lord Ning Yi.

“This . . . this is the record from Lord Ning Yi?” Ning Jia looked alarmed, as she asked incoherently.

“Right.” Bo Wen’s voice had deepened, as a hint of sadness was mixed into it, “When this all happened, Lord Ning Yi was only nine. This was recorded as he was near death. I discovered it by accident when I was looking through the records from the ancestral lords a while ago.” Bo Wen’s tone then went cold, “Ning Yi spent his whole life looking into the night of the cross, and every lord thereafter would do his utmost to scour for any legacy from the night of the cross sect. If I’m remembering correctly, if you go to the number thirteen book shelf, the entire shelf is all sorts of material about the night of the cross.”

“Ha ha, now that I bring it up, I’m really lucky.” Bo Wen said mildly, though his eyes didn’t look at all happy. He suddenly raised his head to show Ning Jia a smile, then said with concern, “Go to sleep little sister. I’ll make up for having awakened you so late when I come back.”

“Be careful brother!” Ning Jia’s eyes made it obvious that she was very worried. For her brother to have awakened her so late to read something could have meant that he had found himself implicated in the night of the cross. Or that he had discovered something. If the night of the cross had been able to kill even Lord Ning Xuan, her brother was certainly in danger. But once she saw her brother’s look of resolve, what she had been about to say to urge him to come back changed to an exhortation to be careful.

“Don’t worry Jia Jia.”

Watching the screen disappear in front of her, Ning Jia was disappointed. Then she suddenly thought of something and picked up her nightgown to run to shelf number thirteen.

Looking them over quickly there weren’t any books on the shelves, which were exclusively full of all kinds and colors of notebooks. Ning Jia pulled out the first one, and opened it to read, only to find it called ‘about the night of the cross.’

She sat on the floor, leaning against the shelf, to read the notebook more closely.

The night of the cross was a sect of card artisans which was an unknown sect during the period of sects and schools. They were card artisans who specialized in moving in the dark. The lord of each generation did their utmost to investigate them, though the night of the cross had remained mysterious and hidden in the dark.

All the notebooks invariably brought up the two skills of the night of the cross, the cross and breath control. But they only knew the names and didn’t have any more detail than that.

Looking at it literally, the cross was probably the cross-shaped penetrating wound on Lord Ning Xuan’s body, though nobody was clear about what kind that had been in the end. And if one were to guess about that breath control method, it was probably some kind of stealth maneuvering technique. As with the cross, no one knew. But what was different from the cross was that there were very detailed records about breath control. It was said that those who practiced breath control had to remain in completely dark places for a long time, and that those gifted generations needed over five years. The lords for many generations thereafter had made a lot of conjectures about that message. What most of them endorsed was that the word ‘night’ in ‘the night of the cross’ must have represented breath control, or the dark required by breath control.

Given the surprising riches of the Ning family, and the great power of their people as well as their rich communications channels, it was very difficult to imagine why they had finally gotten so little information. That just demonstrated how covert the sect was.

And the most recent notebook was already from eighty years before. What was written there when the lord of that generation was in power hadn’t gotten any further information relating to the night of the cross. At the very end of the notebook, that lord made his own conjecture, considering the night of the cross sect to be have probably been lost in the river of time. When the time of the academies arrived, quite a few of the brilliant and glorious sects went up in smoke, and the dissipation of the night of the cross wouldn’t have been anything out of the ordinary.

Could it be that the night of the cross hadn’t dissipated, but had persisted? She couldn’t help worrying again about her brother Bo wen.

* * *

Chen Mu took another look at his apartment, having already spent a lot of time that day in preparation. It was late by then, the time of the weakest defense, and the dark would be a help to him.

He had quite a few cards in his wallet, having taken the ‘big mud fish’ for the sake of safety, in case a jet-stream card broke along the way. Apart from that, he had also purchased several four-star power cards, and a high-speed jet stream card, since the “big mud fish” whose strength was in turning, wasn’t so great at high speeds. He also had an illumination card, a heating card and those sorts of commonly-used cards which could be useful in the outer reaches. He had spent many of his contribution points on those cards, but if he didn’t spend them all they would be wasted. Apart from that, he had exchanged contribution points for a large quantity of cash cards, since no matter where he was, not having money would never be good. He kept the “weak water” pen set right against his body.

He purchased an extremely high-grade apparatus with those points which remained. It was a combat apparatus which had six card slots, which was to say that apart from the power card, it could have five cards inserted and ready to use at the same time. Not only that, but it had a rich set of functions, such as direction-finding and mapping and more.

He had spent five-thousand contribution points on that apparatus alone, and it was the highest-grade apparatus which could be purchased on the base.

He was well equipped with his elastic shoes, the wall climbing lotus, and the ghost-faced flower as well as the belt which had three hidden poisonous smoke bombs which he had never once used. He had kept those things with him all along, as the things given him by the demonic woman had always been useful.

The time had come to set off.

The base at night wasn’t completely devoid of people, with many of the card artisans and those researching card appliances used to working until late at night and then resting during the day. It was completely opposite for card artisans, very few of whom would be likely to be active at night. At that time, groups of two or three card masters might commonly be seen on the base together discussing something or other or rushing to the consignment office or to the self-serve materials supermarket.

Chen Mu was calmly walking about on the base with no one paying any attention to him.

Every five stories on the building there was an exit level, where several exits were distributed about the level. But they were all closed and required access privileges if you needed to leave. If you had the right privileges, the exit would automatically open once you swiped your room card. Many armed probe cards were arrayed around all the exits, not omitting a single nook or cranny, to be certain that those exiting matched their room cards.

Chen Mu’s room card didn’t have access privileges.

Arriving at the fifteenth floor, he hid in a dark nook, from where he could scan all the exits on the floor. Apart from the exits on the ground floor, only the card artisans would use those since they were the only ones who could use a jet stream card to fly.

During that time there were few card artisans leaving, but Chen Mu was watching in the dark, to see starting then how many would generally leave in the course of an hour. In general, there would be six or seven card artisans leaving, and he was only paying attention to those.

What he wanted to do just then was just to wait, and to wait patiently.

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