Unsheathed

Inside the courtyard, Ding Ying was sitting on a stool and enjoying the sun, while Cao Qinglang was standing in the doorway of the kitchen and shakily gripping a hatchet.

After learning that Tong Qingqing wasn’t ranked among the Upper Ten Elites just a moment ago, Ding Ying had sighed before turning to the little boy and saying with a smile, “These matters have got nothing to do with you anymore. Seriously, that woman…”

After saying this, even someone as sinister as Ding Ying didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. He didn’t know how he could accurately evaluate Tong Qingqing.

Even so, Ding Ying understood Mirror Heart Hall’s Tong Qingqing better than anyone else in the world.

First of all, the two of them were from the same generation and similar in age. Not only that, but they had been acquainted with each other since a long time ago. Ding Ying was a martial arts prodigy from the demonic force who followed in the footsteps of Lu Baixiang, breaking into the Lower Ten Elites when he was still very young. Thus, he had started to travel around the cultivation world by himself very early on.

Back then, Tong Qingqing’s position had been similar to Fan Wan’er’s current position in the Mirror Heart Hall. However, compared to Fan Wan’er who was advancing gradually and growing her power and influence with every step, wrapping many powerful and gallant cultivators around her little fingers, her master Tong Qingqing was the very definition of a coward.

Tong Qingqing had been forced to become the sect leader in waiting of the Mirror Heart Hall, yet she had shamelessly stayed inside the territory of the sect and refused to head out to conquer the world for them. On the other hand, Ding Ying had been extremely courageous, and he had secretly snuck into the Mirror Heart Hall one time.

He had made his way to the pavilion in the middle of the lake, a restricted area in the sect, and he had planned to enjoy the coolness of the night and admire the bright moon. However, what he had come across was a disconsolate Tong Qingqing curled up against a column in the pavilion and sobbing by herself.

The young girl had been murmuring some anxious thoughts to herself, so she had failed to detect Ding Ying’s presence. She had been busy complaining about her master’s ruthlessness and how her master wanted to shoo her out of the sect, and she had grumbled about how her senior sisters and junior sisters were so stupid. They clearly practiced martial arts so hard, so how were they still unable to defeat her, someone who was so lazy and always slacked off?

Afterward, she had counted on her fingers and gone through all of the elites in the cultivation world, mumbling about just how powerful and brutal they were. In the end, she had even listed off all of the second-rate elites. She had carefully gone over each and every person as if they were all one-in-one-hundred-year superior grandmasters…

Ding Ying had been astounded, feeling as if he had truly seen a ghost. There was actually such a cowardly person in the world?

Tong Qingqing had also been a first-rate elite not much weaker than the Lower Ten Elites at the time, so she had eventually detected the presence of Ding Ying. She had also been astounded, feeling as if she had seen a ghost.

Choking back tears, she had told Ding Ying that she would pretend that she hadn’t seen anything as long as he spared her life.

Tong Qingqing was naturally a stunning beauty. In fact, she was even more beautiful than her disciple, Fan Wan’er, and Empress Zhou Shuzhen from Southern Garden Nation.

After all these years, however, what Ding Ying remembered the most clearly was still Tong Qingqing’s expression—the tears in her eyes, how she had bit her lips, and how she had timidly begged him like a young deer begging a saber-wielding woodsman deep in the forest.

Ding Ying had been completely absorbed in martial arts ever since his youth, and he had never been interested in romantic relationships with women. He hadn’t felt any romantic attraction toward Tong Qingqing either. However, he genuinely couldn’t forget her personality, nor could he forget her expression in the pavilion at that time.

There hadn’t been any commotion afterward, and Ding Ying had stolen a secret text from the Mirror Heart Hall’s scripture library before silently fleeing into the distance.

After Ding Ying left, Tong Qingqing had been so terrified that she had immediately run back to her own courtyard, too afraid to even raise the alarm.

Afterward, Ding Ying had become more and more famous, especially after he had snatched the silver-colored lotus flower hat in that chaotic battle in Southern Garden Nation sixty years ago. He had become the strongest individual in the world, and he had learned many more secrets in the following years after killing a dozen or so otherworldly immortals.

During this time, Ding Ying had coincidentally come across Tong Qingqing again. Perhaps too ashamed to keep hiding in the Mirror Heart Hall, she had finally entered the cultivation world and started to travel around.

However, everything had gone against her, and her stunning beauty had resulted in her being captured by the leader of the Weapon Talisman Faction, one of the three demonic forces. If it weren’t for Ding Ying coincidentally passing by and saving Tong Qingqing, it was very likely that this beautiful celestial maiden would have become that fat pig’s exclusive property for sexual gratification.

Ding Ying hadn’t been left empty-handed after saving her, and Tong Qingqing had revealed many top-level secrets of the Mirror Heart Hall without needing to be interrogated. She had also given him the dozen or so high-grade secret techniques that she had committed to memory.

Of these secret techniques, more than half of them had been related to defense and fleeing from battle. Otherwise, they were mystical techniques about disguise and turning around fortunes. Tong Qingqing could naturally remember destructive techniques with ease, yet she hadn’t learned or practiced a single one of them…

If it weren’t for Ding Ying turning down the offer, Tong Qingqing would have been willing to return to the Mirror Heart Hall to steal several more immortal techniques for him. Moreover, she had patted her chest with tears brimming in her eyes and promised Ding Ying that he could become invincible, master divine techniques, and become the ruler of the cultivation world…

Perhaps she had forgotten that Ding Ying was already the strongest person in the world at that time.

Many years later, when Tong Qingqing had returned to the Mirror Heart Hall to inherit the position of sect leader, Ding Ying had visited the sect and gone to look for her. However, he had surprisingly failed to find her. This made him realize that the cowardly Tong Qingqing had most likely cultivated that untaught secret technique of the Mirror Heart Hall.

This was a secret technique that would allow females to regain youth. Moreover, it would allow their cultivation to advance in leaps and bounds, advancing more the younger that they became. Of course, the catch was that one would lose their beauty if they cultivated this secret technique.

To Tong Qingqing, however, this was definitely an insignificant price to pay. Sure enough, and just as Ding Ying had anticipated, Tong Qingqing had eventually entered the ranks of the Upper Ten Elites.

Because of this, Ding Ying had continued to observe all of the young children with internal spiritual energy while wandering around the capital of Southern Garden Nation.

He had come across six or seven such children, yet none of them had been Tong Qingqing.

Interestingly enough though, these children wouldn’t necessarily become first-rate elites if they practiced martial arts. However, they would definitely advance in leaps and bounds if they practiced immortal cultivation techniques.

Ding Ying naturally wasn’t interested in training these little girls and turning them into the next Yu Zhenyi or Zhou Fei.

In the end, Ding Ying had found Cao Qinglang who had been living under his nose the entire time. This was because a wild thought had suddenly occurred to him. Even though Cao Qinglang was a boy, Ding Ying felt like Tong Qingqing was someone who would resort to every conceivable means when it came to hiding herself and saving her own life.

Add to that all of the strange secret texts in the Mirror Heart Hall, especially those immortal techniques that pertained to the transfer of souls, and it was entirely possible that Tong Qingqing was hiding in the body of Cao Qinglang.

Meanwhile, she could casually hide her physical body somewhere else. The heaven was boundless and the earth was large, yet it would still be very difficult for someone to disguise themself without leaving a trace. However, what about a “dead” person? They would naturally be far more difficult to find.

However, everything was turned on its head by the updated list of Upper Ten Elites. Tong Qingqing was surprisingly not on the list!

In other words, Tong Qingqing definitely wasn’t in the body of a young child at this moment!

It was abundantly clear that the cowardly Tong Qingqing knew that Ding Ying, someone who was very familiar with her personality, would come here to look for her. After entering the ranks of the Upper Ten Elites last time, she had very likely reversed the immortal technique and increased her age, causing her cultivation base to fall and therefore removing her from the updated list of Upper Ten Elites.

In any case, Ding Ying was confident that the previous list of Upper Ten Elites had been altered by Zhou Shuzhen, the current leader of the Reverence Pagoda. This was because Zhou Shuzhen, also the empress of Southern Garden Nation, was at the same time a disciple of the Mirror Heart Hall.

However, Zhou Shuzhen couldn’t alter the rankings on the final list of Upper Ten Elites. This was because the person who acted as the heavens had the final say regarding this matter. It was because of this that Tong Qingqing had left some traces.

Ding Ying roared with laughter as he sat in the courtyard.

He was very curious about Tong Qingqing, an extremely unique type of otherworldly immortal that he had never come across or even heard about before. Just what kind of person was she in the outside world?

As for Tong Qingqing’s current identity and where she was sneakily hiding right now, Ding Ying was already no longer interested in this. After all, things were already interesting enough as they were.

Ding Ying wouldn’t mind even if he guessed wrong this time and allowed Tong Qingqing to achieve victory over him.

What Ding Ying desired was at least eighty percent of this world’s martial fortune. Using this, he would ascend with his pure physical body and achieve a feat that no one had ever achieved in history and no one would ever achieve in the future. He would go even further and higher than Zhu Lian and Sui Youbian!

He was going to achieve victory over that person, the so-called heavens of this world.

At the very least, he needed to force that person to break his own rules and personally descend to this world to kill him. That way, Ding Ying could also die without any regrets.

Ding Ying turned around and glanced at the window before smiling and saying, “Don’t worry, I’ll let you free in a moment. However, you’ll only be able to watch your master dying and losing his cultivation at that time. I hope that you manage to find his reincarnation in the future. That way, you can accompany him as he fights for the next opportunity in another sixty years. That’s all there is to it.”

Ding Ying stood up.

————

Chen Ping’an stood on the edge of the deep ditch, his sleeves fluttering even though there was no wind.

Knife Sharpener Liu Zong walked toward Chen Ping’an, paying no heed to Arm Sage Cheng Yuanshan and the unexpected incident between Tang Tieyi and Feng Qingbai.

Liu Zong was extremely single-minded, and he ranked in the top three in the world on this measure. Yu Zhenyi had reached this conclusion a long time ago. Even so, Yu Zhenyi had once left the territory of his Lake Mountain Faction and paid a visit to Liu Zong, persuading him to abandon his knife and explaining that his martial arts potential would only grow if he did this.

However, Liu Zong hadn’t agreed, saying that his knife was his wife. He naturally couldn’t abandon it, as it would be immoral to abandon his wife who had accompanied him through deadly and dangerous times.

Known for his solemn and unsmiling nature, Yu Zhenyi had laughed heartily upon hearing this, even going as far as to drink with Liu Zong in a rare display. Only then had he bade farewell.

This wasn’t some questionable rumor spreading around the cultivation world. Instead, this was something personally recounted by one of Yu Zhenyi’s direct disciples.

Knife Sharpener Liu Zong was sometimes good and sometimes evil, and this was reflected in his reputation which was neither good nor bad. He never killed innocent people for no reason, yet those who died at his hands would often suffer very miserable deaths. The more powerful his victim was, the more brutal and harrowing their death would be. In fact, the sight of their corpses would cause people to heave.

Zhong Qiu had already walked back to the street.

He, Chen Ping’an, and Liu Zong were each standing in a corner.

Zhong Qiu smiled and said, “I haven’t finished fighting with him yet. Liu Zong, you can wait until we finish before you draw your knife. As for whether you’ll fight with me or fight with him at that time… It’s still too hard to say right now.”

There was a fervent expression in Liu Zong’s eyes as he started to habitually grind his teeth in a similar manner that he would sharpen his knife. He always did this before drawing his knife to kill his opponent, and it was something that appeared incredibly uncanny and terrifying.

Liu Zong pondered for a moment before replying, “That’s fine by me, as long as the two of you don’t blame me for taking advantage of you in a weakened state and possess the confidence to survive until the end. If you don’t, however…”

He pointed at Chen Ping’an and continued, “Then Imperial Preceptor Zhong can leave right now. You can leave this person to me. I’ve still yet to disembowel an otherworldly immortal.”

Liu Zong genuinely admired the imperial preceptor of Southern Garden Nation, someone who lived in the same city as him. He had frankly expressed this sentiment to Arm Sage Cheng Yuanshan in his silk shop not long ago as well.

Zhong Qiu pointed at the tattered azure robe he was wearing and asked with a faint smile, “Do I look like I’ll be willing to retreat?”

Liu Zong sighed and said, “Alright then, I’ll wait for the two of you to finish first.”

“Zhou Fei is also an otherworldly immortal, so why don’t you kill him?” Zhong Qiu asked.

Liu Zong shook his head and replied, “I’m not a fool. This young person is the same as you, so I’ll definitely be able to strike flesh with each swing of my knife. It will definitely feel very satisfying. However, Zhou Fei has mastered all kinds of demonic techniques, so who knows whether his corpse will vanish after I kill him? After I put my life on the line and exhaust so much effort to kill him, what will I do if I wind up empty-handed? I definitely won’t take the risk.”

Zhong Qiu shook his head in exasperation.

Chen Ping’an ignored Knife Sharpener Liu Zong, instead raising an arm and gesturing with an open hand, signaling to Zhong Qiu that they could continue their battle.

Liu Zong faltered for a moment before stomping his foot, exclaiming, “Oh my, what a dashing appearance and attitude! It’s such a shame that this old man isn’t a young girl. Otherwise, my heart would also flutter for you. Oh, I can’t, I can’t. If I allow you to travel through the cultivation world, then won’t you end up ruining the lives of tens upon hundreds of beautiful girls? You deserve to die, you truly deserve to die! I was right to pick you instead of Zhou Fei!”

However, both Zhong Qiu and Chen Ping’an had seemingly calmed their minds and entered a state of meditative Dao already. They were seemingly unfazed and oblivious to Liu Zong’s words.

Liu Zong suddenly stopped speaking.

This was because he was standing the closest to Zhong Qiu and Chen Ping’an right now, and he had strangely heard the sound of dripping water for some reason.

In the next moment, a burst of violent wind surged over and caused Liu Zong’s robes and hair to flutter in a chaotic manner even though he remained rooted to the spot.

As it turned out, Zhong Qiu had exchanged a punch with that young boy, causing a wave of powerful fist aura to explode into the surroundings. Dust and debris swirled around the two people, and fractured pieces of the bluestone street also shot all over the place.

Liu Zong raised a hand and swatted away a piece of rock that was shooting toward him like a bolt from a crossbow. He widened his eyes and stared intently at the battle, not willing to miss a single detail.

This was very impressive. The battle between these two people was truly going to shatter the earth.

Zhong Qiu was dressed in azure and Chen Ping’an was dressed in white, and the two of them were moving so fast at this moment that they were like a wisp of azure smoke and a trail of white mist.

Their battle was seemingly turning the world upside down.

They were engaged in deadly close-quarter combat, never moving more than three meters away from each other. They maintained a distance of at most three arms’ length from each other, so discounting the lengths of their own arms, this signified that they would only retreat one arm’s length even if they were struck!

Others built up complicated structures in small areas, while these two madmen were attempting to annihilate cities and shake mountains while staying within the smallest possible area. Did they truly possess mortal physiques?

The two nimble and faintly discernible figures were close to destroying the entire street.

However, as if they had come to an agreement before, not a single wall or building on the two sides of the street was harmed.

Their ability to control their fist intents had truly reached a mystical and pinnacle level.

Around fifteen minutes later…

Zhou Fei suddenly slapped his forehead and exclaimed, “Why Zhong Qiu, you’re intent on causing trouble, aren’t you? Bah, I’m going to leave now. I truly can’t watch this any longer. In any case, there’s still Ding Ying and Yu Zhenyi to clean up the mess.”

Zhou Fei grabbed Zhou Shi and Ya’er’s shoulders as if he were grabbing young chicks, turning around and disappearing in a flash.

Even though the beautiful females from Spring Tide Palace were extremely puzzled, they still rose into the air and gracefully flew into the distance with Zhou Fei.

Near the end of the street, plumes of dust blotted out heaven and earth.

After nearing a crossroad, Zhong Qiu laughed and walked away in a carefree manner, leaving along another wide street. Even though the imperial preceptor was extremely disheveled, he didn’t seem dejected or dispirited in the least. Instead, it was as if he had just done something very satisfying.

Meanwhile, Chen Ping’an stayed on the original street, with his aura and fist intent completely concealed as he walked out from the clouds of dust by himself.

He was like a most ordinary young boy as he arrived in front of Knife Sharpener Liu Zong with a single stride.

Liu Zong blinked. “Can we not fight?”

“What do you think?” Chen Ping’an retorted.

“I think that’s completely acceptable,” Liu Zong replied in a serious manner. “There’s no animosity between us, and the road is wide enough to fit both. It makes absolute sense for us to each go our separate ways!”

Chen Ping’an shifted his gaze slightly sideways, looking at his temporary residence as he nodded and replied, “Okay then.”

Liu Zong chuckled and said, “Can I be nosy and ask you a question before I leave? What’s your relationship with Imperial Preceptor Zhong?”

Chen Ping’an thought for a moment before answering, “We’re like-minded people.”

Liu Zong was just about to sigh with emotion and say something.

However, Chen Ping’an’s voice became solemn as he warned, “Hurry up and leave. Catch up to Zhong Qiu and help him deal with that person if you can. If you trust me, then don’t try to escape. You’ll only have a chance to survive until the end if you join forces with Zhong Qiu.”

Liu Zong nodded, not saying another word as he brushed past Chen Ping’an. Meanwhile, Chen Ping’an also stepped forward and moved sideways, perfectly covering Liu Zong’s back.

Elsewhere, Zhong Qiu stood still, and a person with a child-like appearance stood on a sword hovering in mid-air and blocked his path.

On Chen Ping’an’s side, Ding Ying, wearing his silver-colored lotus flower hat, slowly walked out from a small alley.

The old man was holding a continually trembling flying sword between his fingers.