The Silly Alchemist

Chapter 593 – Guzheng Song (3)

He’s so good at acting!

Li Yue thought so too. She felt like Ye Lang was just dragging time.

“Alright! I shall show you what regret is!” said Ye Lang calmly. He tapped several spots on Li Yue, once again blocking a few of her meridian points.

“??” Li Yue did not understand but she noticed her hearing was gone again. She looked at him in question.

He then took out a guzheng. She didn’t understand what he was doing. Are you really in the mood for music now?

“??” Moji and the rest were confused. What was he doing? Was he really playing music now to entertain himself?

AT this moment, there were a hundred thousand pairs of eyes on him. They saw Ye Lang sit down, put the guzheng on the stand and then plucked a few strings as if tuning it.

“Hahaha, kid, have you gone mad?!” Moji and his men laughed. Ye Lang looked hilarious.

“I hope you’re not thinking I’d be touched by your music and put down my weapons! You must have read too many children’s stories, how could that happen?!”

“Hahaha… This is hilarious… Is he an idiot…”

Laughter spread and soon it was as if there was a blanket of laughter directed at Ye Lang. He ignored them, just tuning his guzheng. He hadn’t played it in a while.

“Ye Lang, what are you doing?” Li Yue could not hear the laughter but she could see everyone. She also forgot that she wouldn’t be able to hear his answer.

“I’m here to play some guzheng, kill some people!” said Ye Lang, also forgetting she couldn’t hear.

“Kill? Your guzheng can kill people?” Li Yue had read his lips.

“Just watch. I’ll play ‘High Mountain and Flowing Water’ first…”

Ye Lang started to play the part in the song where water flowed from the mountains. The sound of freshwater flowing delicately touched their hearts and at that moment, it felt like their souls were clean.

At this moment, they realised Ye Lang was very talented in music. But it was not enough to stop them!

However, they didn’t know that it was just the beginning. What happened next was what they never would have imagined.

‘High Mountain and Flowing Water’ was one of the music pieces chosen by NASA for the discography of Voyager’s deep space exploration. Voyager was launched on the 22nd of August, 1977, in search of other life forms.

However, the ‘Flowing Waters’ part of the song was vastly different, depending on who played it.

Many musician sects of China had this song but each sounded different. The Zhe sect’s version was most well-known.

The earliest record of this song stated that there used to only be one section during the Tang Dynasty but during the Song Dynasty, there were four sections in the ‘High Mountain’ part and eight sections in the ‘Flowing Waters’ part.

There was a famous Chinese legend denoting that Boya, a famous musician, had written this song to describe the sombre, tall mountains and the tumultuous seas. This song came with a famous story too.

[TL’s note: a summary of the legend from what I read on Wikipedia- Boya was playing this song when Zhong Ziqi, a woodcutter, passed by and admired his song. Ziqi was actually able to tell Boya that the song was describing the sombre mountains and the waters. Boya was so touched that there was a person who finally understood his music. When Ziqi died later, Boya gave up playing music for good because no one else would understand him as Ziqi did.]

This song was mainly played with the guzheng alone. The front part required smooth, sonorous notes that described the magnificence of the mountains. The second part required repeated moving of the fingers up and down the strings to demonstrate the delicate flow of water. The trickle of water slowly increased in intensity until it was a strong river.

‘High Mountain and Flowing Waters’ was an artistic piece with a relaxing melody, meant to be a calm and refreshing song. It had a classic style.

This was what regular people knew of the song. There was a secret— on the surface, the music score was written by an aristocrat Zhu Quan in a regular music book. In reality, it was a secret technique he accidentally received from the Wulin martial artists.

He did not know it was a secret martial arts technique. He only thought it was some music because he didn’t receive instructions on how to use this as a weapon.

Ye Lang had learned everything about it in the martial arts treasury- or how would he know how to play so well?

Ye Lang would quickly show everyone how he was a terrifying force!

“Kill him!”

The Flowing Waters still did not wash the sins from Moji and everyone’s souls. After some hesitation, they still wanted to kill Ye Lang. They were not charging at him at full speed.

At this moment, the guzheng song changed from the delicate Flowing Waters to deep, sonorous notes in High Mountain. Every strong note shook their hearts.

They could feel the blood rushing in their veins. This was odd, was the kid encouraging them?

However, there was something wrong. The blood was rushing too quickly. If this went on, their bodies would not be able to take it.

Yep, he was utilising sound waves as a weapon. It was the most powerful technique for killing masses of people. Thousands of soldiers and horses could be killed this way.

The victims would suffer horribly- either dying as blood leaked from every orifice in their faces, or they would go insane or become deaf forever.

That was just the minimum. If a person had high enough cultivation, their enemies would only die!

They wouldn’t die just from the sound waves, there were also airwaves that caused impact on the body.

Stronger warriors might be able to block the waves but no average person would be able to protect themselves.

This time, Ye Lang only utilised sound because he didn’t want to overdo it. There weren’t going to be many who could survive this anyway.

“Be careful everyone, cover your ears! Don’t listen to that instrument!” Moji panicked and yelled.

“It’s a guzheng!” Ye Lang grinned and then all ten of his fingers flew faster. The song was now even more perfect, every note sounded thicker.

This meant the sound waves were more powerful now!