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[T/N: In accordance to the , from this chapter onward, we will use the Chinese pinyin instead of the English translation for their order of seniority.

大師兄 Dshixiong: Eldest Shixiong
二師兄 Er-shixiong: Second Shixiong
三師兄 San-shixiong: Third Shixiong
四師兄 Si-shixiong: Fourth Shixiong]

Cheng Qian couldn"t help firing at him, “My cultivation is weak. When I manage to break through Senior"s three clones, Shixiong and the others" corpses would have already frozen over, if I hadn"t starved to death before that — Senior Wen, please be more reasonable.”

Wen Ya wasn"t moved in the slightest. He swept his eyes over Cheng Qian. When young men are angry, or feeling dissent, or had their ambitions roused, or are feeling depressed, it is easy for their heart to harden, albeit unsteadily. They are also quite likely to show hostility due to being anxious and fearful. In this regard, Cheng Qian behaved quite like the common folk.

Wen Ya mercilessly fired back, “Then, you can"t even break through my clones, but you want to fight Zhou Hanzheng? With what? Are you dreaming?”

Cheng Qian was about to argue, but Wen Ya pressed on mercilessly, “Revitalizing your sect? If you really want to revitalize your sect, the most logical thing to do right now is finding a place to hide and training yourself for some three or four centuries. From what I can see, you"re just scared of carrying the burden yourself, so you charge forward blindly without a care!”

The corner of Cheng Qian"s eye twitched violently, but his voice was mild when he spoke while raising Shuangren, “Senior, your words make perfect sense, but spurring me into action through negative remarks would never work.”

Wen Ya thought to himself, Cheng Qian was like a rock in the latrine, stubborn and misbehaved. He had to teach him a lesson.

So those three clones of his made their moves, leaping into the sky and surrounding Cheng Qian.

Striking out first against a junior, it was clear that Shopkeeper Wen had no sense of morals or integrity.

Shuangren swept toward the three clones like rolling waves, its sword aura stirring up the originally calm sea water at the edges of the reef. The water seemed to contain an explosive power as it crashed against the rocks, violently shaking the ground under them. Wen Ya"s three clones worked together flawlessly and created a large screen of light in the air, which came down on Cheng Qian like a fishnet.

The sword aura and the gigantic net collided in midair. With a loud booming sound, the reef quaked so hard that pieces of rock flew all over the place, almost splitting the reef in half.

Wen Ya himself was still sitting in his original spot. He hurriedly made a seal with his hands, protecting the rock under him so he wouldn"t have to join the fish in the sea.

The three clones effectively suppressed Cheng Qian"s sword aura with brute force. The net formed with the screen of light slowly began to shrink, firmly locking Cheng Qian within it.

Cheng Qian couldn"t withstand the force or press on with his attack, so he had to retreat temporarily. He jumped on his sword and moved out of the way, trying to catch his breath.

“Tide Swordplay,” Wen Ya said slowly, a cold smile on his face, “With that level of ambition, you dare to claim that you"ve practiced the Tide Swordplay?”

He suddenly whistled, the sound long and loud. The clones overhead promptly turned into a circle of faint figures. And then the clones began splitting, one into two, two into four, slowly increasing in numbers. Each of them held a sword produced out of thin air, the tips of the blades pointed at Cheng Qian.

All of the clones used completely different techniques from each other. They were like a group of flies filling the air, causing any onlookers to be dazzled just by watching.

Looking at these unruly flashes of sword aura, Cheng Qian"s head spun so much that he felt like vomiting. For a moment, he was mercilessly forced into a tight corner.

Wen Ya suddenly exclaimed, “Look at the tides under your feet!”

Cheng Qian was startled.

At the moment, the deep blue sea was calm as the autumn moon. Only on this small reef island could they feel the tides crashing against the sh.o.r.e.

The force of the undercurrents was no gentler than a sword"s edge, because their source was vast and inexhaustible. The sea brings together hundreds of rivers, cutting off the clouds, and can slip into the tiniest crevices, gently stirring the fine sands, never staking everything in a single throw…

Dangers and desperation lay everywhere, but there, too, lay opportunities and hope.

But Wen Ya Zhenren didn"t give him any room to think. The light from the clones" swords converged to form an inescapable net, coming down on Cheng Qian as if intending to engulf him. Cheng Qian seemed to have had an epiphany earlier and reflexively raised his sword to parry, but he couldn"t shake off the feeling that something was amiss, so his grip on the sword wasn"t steady. Before the strike could connect, his sword aura had gone off course.

He was forced to avoid Wen Ya"s attack again and stumbled back onto the reef, not daring to stop for even a moment. The tips of his feet tapped the ground lightly as he moved. At the same time, numerous sword glares chased him ceaselessly, charring the rocks where he had pa.s.sed.

All this fleeing had caused the small inkling of epiphany in Cheng Qian"s heart to disappear completely. His breath was stuck in his chest, so he could neither inhale nor exhale, causing him quite a lot of pain.

Right then, he heard Wen Ya"s exclamation again, “Now look at yourself!”

There was a ringing sound in Cheng Qian"s ears. His fingers loosened around his sword, almost causing him to drop Shuangren, which he had firmly held onto despite almost drowning to death.

All these years on Azure Dragon Island, he had only paid attention to forming his core and training his swordplay, always dreaming of throwing people like Zhou Hanzheng under his feet. He had only ever thought of revitalizing his sect, but he seldom sat down to think about the future, and even more rarely thought to contemplate himself.

The overwhelming pride and haughtiness in his heart were encased around his own weakness as a shield. There was only one thing that he feared: If he was too slow, his martial brothers would be looked down on by others.

Cheng Qian loathed words like ‘to have one"s soul scattered". He had always felt that his master wasn"t dead, that his soul was just floating around the lands and watching him from somewhere. Those imaginary eyes always gave him so much fear and anxiety that he couldn"t rest easy.

Wen Ya, “Take this!”

Cheng Qian immediately halted his steps. Shuangren moved like the rolling clouds and flowing waters as it received the attack. At least in that moment, he felt that the sword in his hand wasn"t only connected to him, but also to the heavens and the earth.

In the path of cultivation, there were thousands of major principles to follow. But if one were to conclude it all in one sentence, wouldn"t it be ‘Look at the heavens and the earth, then look at yourself"?

The impetuousness in Cheng Qian"s sword aura immediately disappeared, but it was also not completely calm and steadfast. At the moment, his sword aura was dull, but there was an impression of continuity contained within it. This time, there was no trace of the previous anger that made it seem like he wanted to overturn the island. Shuangren"s chilling sword aura accurately pierced the screen of light.

The sword aura and the screen of light cancelled each other bit by bit, and somehow managed to ‘dissolve" Wen Ya"s circle of clones within them.

Without warning, Cheng Qian pressed Shuangren down, retreating in order to advance, and immediately pushed forward again, just like a new wave rising before the preceding one had subsided. A series of exploding sounds rang out from all around them — Wen Ya"s remaining clones were disappearing one by one. In the blink of an eye, the screen of light had been engulfed by the frost-like sword aura. Silence fell over the reef island, leaving only Cheng Qian, who looked as if he had gained an epiphany, and Wen Ya Zhenren, who remained sitting with his legs crossed on the ground, to look at each other.

Only then did Cheng Qian feel that he was touching upon the true essence of ‘Tide Swordplay" for the first time.

After all these years, he once again fell into meditation induced by his enlightenment. The clear Qi in the air around him carried the cool sea breeze and poured into his body without hesitation. His meridians, which had been molded through many years of hard work, accepted it all without a problem, his core circulating the Qi inside him. After just a brief moment, his internal wounds seemed to have healed significantly.

When Cheng Qian came back to himself from this meditation, the marble white color of the dawn sky was beginning to show on the east. Despite the considerable delay, Cheng Qian still made his obeisance to Wen Ya with a complicated face, “Many thanks to Senior.”

Wen Ya"s eyes drooped slightly, but the words he spoke were, “I have no idea what"s wrong with your Fuyao Sect. One has a weak will and is extremely soft-hearted, but entered the Dao through the sword. One is extremely stubborn and doesn"t care about the rules, but entered the Dao through the heart. Brat, your foundation is right here, but you"ve been wasting your time on an insignificant problem all these years, aren"t you afraid of falling into the wrong path?”

Cheng Qian silently lowered his head. For a moment, he couldn"t find the words to say.

The Lecture Hall only ever taught methods of cultivation, and their sect leader could never restrain him. There had been no one to show the way for him as a senior — even if anyone had the intention to, Cheng Qian"s haughty heart might not care to listen.

“You only charge around blindly, baring your fangs and brandishing your claws, are you a crab or something?” Wen Ya snapped, “What use does that flat-sh.e.l.led creature have, other than being cooked as a side-dish for drinking?”

Cheng Qian couldn"t help lowering his head further, but when Wen Ya spoke to this point, he swallowed audibly — this senior, who should have reached the stage of inedia, had somehow given himself a craving with his own words!

Cheng Qian, “…”

Wen Ya met Cheng Qian"s odd gaze and immediately blew up in embarra.s.sment, “What are you looking at, isn"t it all because of you guys. I can"t even go home, b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, useless good-for-nothings!”

Cheng Qian immediately lowered his head and said obediently, “Yes.”

After a moment, he couldn"t help looking up again, “Senior, I can leave now, right?”

Wen Ya was stunned. In that moment, he finally understood Cheng Qian"s stubbornness. Be it reaching a new level or having an epiphany, those were all trivial matters for this little whelp. In his eyes, none of those things could compare to a single hair on his martial brothers.

Wen Ya said with a straight face, “Those who tread the path of cultivation will experience thousands of trials and hundreds of tribulations. Only through the lightning strikes from the heavens could one find a shred of opportunity. From the beginning, familial relations were insignificant, while friendships formed along the way were long-lasting. Only after experiencing hardships could one find peace. Your heart is filled with so much distracting thoughts, how could you ever find the Great Dao this way?”

Cheng Qian answered without hesitation, “If life was so miserable, why pursue longevity? So you could suffer for longer? Senior, my master"s Dao isn"t like that.”

“You"re talking Dao with me?” Wen Ya looked at him in disbelief, “A little thing like you dares to talk… Alright, what is your master"s Dao?”

In truth, Muchun Zhenren rarely talked about the Dao on purpose. Cheng Qian had regretted his words the moment they left his mouth, feeling as if he"d talked too big, but when Wen Ya prodded at him, his mind raced and suddenly formed a good thought, which he blurted out, “My master"s way of cultivation is ‘follow one"s heart", ‘be unrestrained" — Senior, pardon this junior"s insolence, but I"ve been wondering for a long time: Does suffering in solitude for the sake of longevity count as following one"s heart?”

Wen Ya was stunned by his question.

Cheng Qian was still worried for Yan Zhengming and the others, so he wasn"t in the mood to continue talking nonsense. He cupped his fist with his other hand in obeisance and turned to leave on his sword.

But Wen Ya abruptly called out to him again, “Wait!”

Wen Ya stared at Cheng Qian with a complicated look and spoke slowly, “Even if you"ve been training with your sword for one night, your improvement is still very slight. Are you hoping to reach the sky in a single step? You can"t defeat Zhou Hanzheng. Come, I"ll give you something.”

Stunned, Cheng Qian watched as Wen Ya pointed his finger in between his own brows. He seemed to be in great pain, but he was chanting something. A ball of azure light gradually began to appear from the s.p.a.ce between his brows.

As the azure light spilled out bit by bit, Wen Ya"s complexion began to visibly deteriorate, showing the hint of a spiritless air about him.

Cheng Qian"s personality was quite aloof. He didn"t usually a.s.sociate with others and rarely went to discuss things with people. He had never hoped for anyone to reach out and provide him with a.s.sistance, much less this kind of help that evidently caused the other person to suffer.

He had no idea what the ball of azure light was supposed to be, but he could see that Wen Ya Zhenren didn"t seem well and immediately tried to stop him, “Senior Wen, you don"t need…”

Before he could finish his words, Wen Ya gave a low shout and caught the ball of azure light in his hand. The light burned brightly for a moment, but immediately dimmed again. In Wen Ya"s hand was a piece of jade, which looked like a goose"s egg. It was clear and transparent, its surface fine and smooth.

Wen Ya looked at the jade in his hand with a complicated gaze and smiled, “When I was cultivating back then, I had no connections to rely on and had no natural apt.i.tude. Even the Azure Dragon Island had refused to accept me. Fortunately, a friend gifted me this item, it"s called the ‘Spirit-Condensing Jade" [1]. When put inside a common person"s body, it can allow them to skip over the stage of Qi absorption and start cultivating immediately. But relying on an outside object to cultivate isn"t any different from cultivating by taking drugs. The resulting cultivation will always remain shallow — training like that isn"t fun, but this thing can be useful for fighting Zhou Hanzheng, so I"ll give it to you.”

After he finished speaking, he raised his hand without warning. Cheng Qian couldn"t duck out of the way in time and felt a surge of Qi colliding with his chest, which permeated into his body in the blink of an eye.

Cheng Qian instantly felt as if he had been drenched with cold water, the chill spreading from the top of his head to the tips of his feet. His core was thrown into a state of confusion. For a moment, he couldn"t even speak.

Wen Ya Zhenren watched as his face twisted and couldn"t help laughing out loud, “Don"t worry, this thing won"t cause you any harm, but it might not serve much use in the near future — I"ve been cultivating this Spirit-Condensing Jade for years, so if you wield it correctly, you can temporarily suppress Zhou Hanzheng"s abilities. Didn"t you say earlier that you"ll plot some other schemes if you can"t defeat him? Since you can"t raise your own abilities, suppressing his abilities would produce the same effect.”

Afterward, he produced a string of golden scriptures in his hand. This time, the scriptures were sent in between Cheng Qian"s brows. “This is the method of activation, remember well.”

For a while, Cheng Qian couldn"t even speak. Seeing the azure aura between his brows fade away, Wen Ya knew that the Spirit-Condensing Jade had completely integrated into his body and nodded, “Alright, scram, don"t die.”

Cheng Qian had reached the stage of Concretion and could fly on his sword, so the Spirit-Condensing Jade was just a common artifact when put in his body. But Wen Ya Zhenren was different. No matter how oblivious Cheng Qian might be, he couldn"t possibly not notice it then — this was the item that allowed Wen Ya Zhenren to enter the Dao, it was the entire basis of his cultivation.

Looking at him again, after extracting the Spirit-Condensing Jade, half of Wen Ya Zenren"s beard and hair had turned white.

Cultivators don"t age. This was a clear indication that his cultivation had deteriorated greatly.

“I…” Cheng Qian couldn"t find the right words to say, “I can"t take this, Senior… This…”

“Shut your mouth. Entering the Dao with the help of an outside object, do you think I feel proud admitting it?” Wen Ya exclaimed in anger, “If my cultivation hadn"t been damaged by those rascals hunting me down, I would"ve shot that pretty boy to death with my own hands — I"ve given it to you, so take it, scram!”

Afterward, he flicked his sleeve violently, kicking up the sand on the reef island, which flew all over Cheng Qian"s face. Then Wen Ya leapt up and dove into the water. When Cheng Qian rushed there, he could only catch the glimpse of a back, which seemed as if it belonged to a large fish, disappearing in the blink of an eye.

Cheng Qian hurriedly jumped onto his sword and rose into the sky. Either because his swordplay had improved greatly the previous night, or because he now had a Soul-Condensing Jade in his body, when he flew on his sword, his control was much better than before.

But he couldn"t find Wen Ya Zhenren"s figure anymore.

After sweeping his eyes over the surroundings and finding nothing, Cheng Qian sighed silently to himself. He kept this chance meeting and his senior"s prestige close to his heart and turned to look for Yan Zhengming"s group.

Yan Zhengming and the others" journey was purely an endless stream of misfortunes.

After being struck by the great waters, Yan Zhengming had almost jumped down after Cheng Qian, but was fortunately held back by Li Yun and Han Yuan. As the misfortune-plagued group advanced further, the strip of cloth under their feet seemed to have exhausted its energy after a short while, just like its owner Tang Wanqiu had said. Halfway through, they were forced to land on an uninhabited island.

Dshixiong"s soulless look was frankly quite frightening. He seemed close to being driven mad, so Li Yun had to comfort him, “If Xiao-Qian could already fly on his sword, would he be drowned by the water so easily? Let"s make a fire here to wait for a while. When he sees the fire, he"ll find his way to us.”

Yan Zhengming paid no mind to his words. Ever since they lost Cheng Qian, he had remained constantly restless and anxious.

He looked into the distance and suddenly jumped to his feet, “The sea has calmed. All of you, stay here, I"m going to find him.”

Li Yun was instantly thrown into complete distress and hurried to stop him. But before he could sort out his objections, someone else had stopped Yan Zhengming for him — when they landed, Li Yun had immediately put a circle of toads that he"d transfigured in place. After many improvements, the effects of his Golden Toad Liquid could last much longer now, and they could even be used to share information — he had originally set these things up to wait for Cheng Qian, but had accidentally found Zhou Hanzheng instead.

Unlike them, who were escaping miserably, Zhou Hanzheng was fully satisfied and contented with his escape. Seeing his high spirits, one couldn"t possibly tell how he felt about losing most of his underlings on the Azure Dragon Island.

And yet, even if that Zhou person only had two or three masked men left with him, Zhou Hanzheng by himself wasn"t someone that these miserable children could handle.

Even worse was, Zhou Hanzheng was extremely cautious. The moment he stepped foot on the island, he immediately noticed the things that Li Yun had placed around the sh.o.r.e.

“This is bad,” Han Yuan watched him carefully through the toads" eyes and said in a low voice, “He might"ve noticed that there are people on the island.”

“It"s fine,” Facing this danger, Yan Zhengming could only suppress his intention of immediately going to look for Cheng Qian, “Vile people are all scared of death. This time, he"s out in the open while we"re all hidden. He must be even more afraid than we are, we have to prevent him from figuring us out — Li Yun, don"t stop the arrays, keep them up!”

Li Yun clenched his teeth and immediately immersed himself in the duty at hand. This was something that he"d learned from a book of miscellaneous subjects and shady things. With rocks and trees as the main media and charms as support, he could create a field of illusion. He didn"t know how long they could hold Zhou Hanzheng off, but every second counted.

The island was quite small, Zhou Hanzheng could have just spread his consciousness over the island to figure out his opponents. But just as Yan Zhengming said, he was much too careful and didn"t dare to take reckless actions, so Li Yun"s bluff of an illusion could serve its purpose. And just like that, both parties began their exchange of probing each other, which lasted an entire night.

[1] ‘Spirit-Condensing Jade" The phrase used here is 「聚靈玉」. It literally means ‘spirit-gathering jade", but in this context, it"s closer in meaning to "directing the spirits" essence into the jade" than "gathering the spirits into the jade".

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