A scene of utter chaos.
The wooden puppet’s true body, sliced cleanly in two: one half lay dead on the road, the other half hung on a tree, fluttering in the wind.
The situation on the scene couldn’t be more obvious.
“I recognized it at a glance.”
Rechen rubbed his smooth little head, excited. “These are the sword scars left by the Zongyue Sword Immortal!”
Qin Jinghan, looking displeased, uttered an “Oh?”
Ignoring his expression, Rechen pointed excitedly at the section of the wooden puppet’s real body on the ground, riddled with holes like a sieve. “Look at these fierce wounds!”
Then, pointing at the marks on the ground, he exclaimed, “Look at this graceful Sword Qi!”
Finally, arriving beside the other half of the puppet hanging from the tree, he declared, “Look at this terrifying sword scar!”
Li Weiyi summarized: “So that Duan… whatever guy was already in Xuzhou City, encountered the Puppet Demon, and conveniently killed it?”
I didn’t even see the enemy, and the quest is done?
Qin Jinghan, holding his saber, looked at Fu Mingxia.
Fu Mingxia confirmed: “It’s his Sword Intent.”
Only then did Qin Jinghan explode. “What’s the meaning of this? He does the job, so what did I come here for? And he didn’t even tell us, making me take a trip for nothing?”
Rechen asked suspiciously: “Are you guys even close? Don’t tell me you’re just clout-chasing my God Duan.”
These days, there were plenty of charlatans pretending to know famous figures. This irritable saber-wielding guy seemed very much like one.
By now, not a sliver of moonlight remained; it was all tightly concealed by sudden rain clouds. The wind was strong and the night cold in the outskirts; it smelled like rain.
Fu Mingxia thought for a moment. “If the Puppet Demon was indeed killed by him, Su Yun’s soul must also be in his hands. Perhaps we took different paths and missed each other. Since he took the Soul Spirit, he will definitely return to the city.”
Li Weiyi nodded furiously. “Senior Sister Fu is right!”
“Cut it out. You haven’t even entered Fuxi Mountain yet, who are you trying to suck up to!”
Qin Jinghan cut him off and turned to leave. “Tonight, we’ll stay at the City Lord Mansion. It’s quiet there.”
With so many people having just died, aside from the night watch bailiffs, even the night watchmen didn’t dare pass by the City Lord Mansion’s gate. It truly was quiet.
The group had come hurriedly, and their return wasn’t slow either—
Because the sudden rain seemed to be growing heavier. If they delayed any longer, even with umbrellas, they’d end up drenched like drowned rats.
During the journey back, Li Weiyi asked out of curiosity: “The City Lord… my father sent letters to the Three Great Sects. How come no one came from Kunlun?”
Fuxi Mountain, Ten Thousand Buddhas Temple… just lacked the Kunlun Mountains, and the three righteous powerhouses would be complete.
Rechen answered: “Kunlun is the farthest from Xuzhou. Besides… hmph, those from the Kunlun Mountains, you’d best stay away from them. A bunch of sanctimonious hypocrites.”
Qin Jinghan looked at the brightly lit Xuzhou City growing closer ahead. “I remember… on those days of Enduring Slashes, this kind of rain often falls.”
The Outer Sect of Fuxi Mountain was just as bustling and lively at night, with illuminating pearls shining brightly, and candles burning all night long in the halls within and without.
Li Weiyi asked: “What are Enduring Slashes?”
He’d heard that antagonist mention that Duan Nanyun had once endured ten thousand sword slashes. Could Fuxi’s tradition be… chopping up disciples?
Every year at that?!
Are the game developers this hardcore?
Fu Mingxia explained: “This is a unique cultivation method of Fuxi Mountain. After unsealing one’s Spiritual Light, one must enter the Ancestor Realm to prove their Dao Heart. Only the Saber, Sword, and Body Refining paths have this step. The Ancestor Realm opens at a fixed time each year, but each person can only enter it once in their lifetime.”
Rechen nodded: “I’ve also heard about it. The stronger one’s mental state and the firmer their will, the longer they can endure and the more strikes they can withstand. Consequently, their future cultivation speed will be faster.”
Qin Jinghan: “In the Ancestor Illusionary Realm, Saber Cultivators endure saber slashes, Sword Cultivators endure sword slashes, and Body Refiners endure Bombarding Fists. It’s literal. You look dumb, but you should be able to understand.”
Li Weiyi: “Personal attack! I’m going to expose you on Weibo tomorrow.”
Qin Jinghan glanced at him but didn’t speak. However, the saber qi around him suddenly began to coalesce.
Li Weiyi immediately groveled. “Bro! Brother Qin! God Qin! I was wrong, it was just a slip of the tongue.”
What’s going on? Can he actually understand me or not?
Li Weiyi wiped the cold sweat from his brow.
For ordinary people, they first unseal their Spiritual Light, and after entering the Dao, they then enter the Ancestor Realm to prove their Dao Heart, thus laying the foundation of their lifelong Dao.
But Duan Nanyun was clearly no ordinary person. He wasn’t even normal.
Entering the realm as a mortal meant risking madness, or in severe cases, sudden death.
But if he succeeded, his Dao Foundation would be so stable it would inspire envy, and his cultivation path would take off directly.
Before he entered the realm, the Fuxi Sect Leader met with him alone to personally persuade him.
Sect Leader: “If the pressure of repayment is too great, I can go speak with Sect Leader Song, get him to give you a thousand years’ extension to repay. Of course, the interest would be higher. You needn’t worry about not living that long; he has a Thousand-Year Pill…”
Duan Nanyun shook his head. “It’s not for that, this disciple.”
Sect Leader: “Then why?”
“To be able to take revenge sooner.”
“Revenge?”
Duan Nanyun spouted a story on the spot. “I am originally from Zhengzhou, Guangling Prefecture. My entire family was killed by enemies, who then pursued me relentlessly for years. They broke my bones and devoured my flesh. Seven hundred… days ago, my midnight dreams are still filled with the faces of my enemies. Upon waking, I resolved to avenge my family.”
Hearing this, the Sect Leader couldn’t help but shed tears. “Such a tragic affair… no wonder…”
After her emotions settled, the Sect Leader asked: “Who are the enemies?”
“There are three enemies, all supreme powerhouses of this world, and they are cultivators. If I want revenge, I must become stronger than them.”
When the Sect Leader asked for more details, he refused to say more. In the end, the Sect Leader could only acquiesce. “Before you enter the realm, do you have any last words to leave behind?”
The youth was silent for a long moment before finally speaking. “These next few days should be when my old ailment acts up. This disciple only wishes to enter the realm two days later.”
The Ancestor Realm had never altered its opening time for any disciple. The Sect Leader making an exception to let him enter two days later had shocked the entirety of Fuxi, inside and out.
The rumor that Duan Nanyun was the Sect Leader’s illegitimate son once again topped the headlines of the Fuxi Eight Trigrams News, with a reported credibility of nine out of ten.
What he publicly called an “old ailment acting up,” was actually the days when his killing intent and Malevolent Will erupted, rebounding and injuring his body. Only by entering the Dao could he use his Dao Heart to suppress the killing intent.
On these few days each month, Fu Mingxia would always show up whenever he attempted to kill, nearly exposing his identity on several occasions.
But if he entered the Ancestor Realm, he would no longer need to vent his hatred through murder.
Therefore, this might be his last “forced kill.”
Before he made his move, he should first check if she was nearby, to avoid being discovered again.
That was Duan Nanyun’s thought at the time.
It rained often those days. Wearing a raincoat, he squatted on Fu Mingxia’s roof for two days and two nights without seeing a trace of her. Two days later, Duan Nanyun, expressionless, went alone to the entrance of the Ancestor Realm.
Overhearing passing cultivators talk, he learned she had left the mountain a few days prior to travel and gain experience.
The chatty cultivator noticed the companion he’d been talking to suddenly fell silent and thought something was wrong. Looking up, he realized why. “It’s… it’s Junior Brother Duan.”
He shuffled away to the side.
Everyone knew Duan Nanyun was deeply in debt and plagued by illness. Who dared get close to him? If they were pursued by Sect Leader Song for his debts, it would be disastrous. Or worse, they might catch his illness and hinder their own Dao path.
The matters of cultivation were already profoundly mysterious; furthermore, there were rumors that Duan Nanyun’s enemies were masters above the Nascent Soul stage. If he encountered them while training outside the mountain and got dragged in, it would be catastrophic.
In short, while he was lauded as a paragon of righteous light and a living saint on the bulletin board and in the Cultivation Daily, to those around him, he was seen as a plague god.
Only heavenly prodigies like Senior Sister Fu, or cultivation maniacs like Qin Jinghan, were unfazed by such things.
On the path of cultivation, human hearts were far crueler and more realistic than the Mortal World.
Duan Nanyun asked: “Who did Mingxia go down the mountain with for training?”
The cultivator coughed. “It’s… it’s… naturally her childhood friend, inseparable… Qin… Qin…”
The coughing was to disguise the awkwardness and disdain.
—Who do you think you are? Just a mortal. If not for the Sect Leader’s kindness in taking you in, and you catching a few small Demons and thieves for the sect, you’d have been driven off the mountain long ago. And you dare to refer to Senior Sister Fu by her given name so directly?
Creak. Clatter.
The cultivator was alarmed. “What was that sound?”
Duan Nanyun released the sword in his hand, now broken into two pieces. “Nothing.”
The cultivator didn’t want to talk to him any further and quickly found an excuse to leave. Duan Nanyun slowly crouched down under the drizzling rain, alone picking up the two pieces of his broken sword from the ground.
The sword was mere mortal iron, yet it could still slice through the flesh and skin of his frail body.
The cultivator had left in such a hurry he hadn’t noticed that Duan Nanyun was only holding the sword’s handle, yet the blade itself had snapped into two pieces. This was not something a mortal could do.
One half of the sword still had the hilt, which he could hold in his hand. The other half, without a hilt, he still picked up and held in his hand.
Only, the youth’s blood mixed with the rain, flowing slowly down the icy sword body.
He walked alone into the Ancestor Realm, with only a broken sword in hand.
When Duan Nanyun stepped back out of the Ancestor Realm, he had transformed from the plague god the entire sect avoided like the plague into a young prodigy courted by everyone, vying for his favor, whose cultivation speed astounded the world.
~
The sound of rain intensified, drumming against the stone-paved road. The group had already entered the city, hearing the commoners at the roadside night stalls all discussing the tragedy at the City Lord Mansion.