Unsheathed

Chapter 510 (2): I’ll Let You Have Three Punches at Me

The little girl’s brows furrowed tightly in contemplation and befuddlement. She had no idea what he was talking about, but she also didn’t want him to see that she had no idea what he was talking about, so she was trying to pretend like she did have some idea of what he was talking about.

However, that was proving rather difficult. It was just like how Chen Ping’an had been put on the spot by those spirits posing as scholars that had requested him to recite an impromptu poem. He had been completely stumped at the time, just as she was completely stumped now.

Chen Ping’an rose to his feet, and as soon as he did so, the talisman on the window flew off on its own, following which the window itself was also flung open.

At this point, the ship was already high up above the clouds, and he stood at the window with his sleeves billowing in the wind, while the little girl looked on with a pout of envy and displeasure.

Why does he get to be so tall?!

She hesitated momentarily, then seemed to have suddenly arrived at an epiphany as she got up to stand on her chair. Wouldn’t it make her story more fleshed out and well-rounded if there were some struggles included?

With that in mind, a wide smile instantly appeared on her face, and she clasped her hands behind her back as she began pacing back and forth over the tiny surface of the chair as she said, “After I bought those newspapers, the man who sold them to me immediately burst into laughter with his friends.

“I didn’t know what they were laughing about, so I smiled at them. You told me to be polite to others, regardless of whether they’re humans or demons. One of his friends just so happened to leave his room, and as he accidentally bumped into me as he opened his door. I stumbled as a result, and the newspapers spilled out of my hands and onto the ground.

“I told him that it’s fine, and I bent down to pick up the newspapers, but he stepped on me and even ground his foot into my back. I don’t think that was an accident. I couldn’t help but grimace because it hurt, and he sent me flying with a kick. The man who sold me the newspapers told him to let me go, seeing as I was a passenger on the ship, so the other man did, and I picked up the newspapers and ran back here.

“I’m not lying to you! I grimaced just a little bit because it really hurt, but only a little!”

She raised two fingers as she insisted, “Only this much!”

Chen Ping’an turned to her with a smile as he asked, “Do you think it’s right to be kind and polite to all people at all times in all settings, or should it depend on the circumstances? Would it be more appropriate to be polite to kind people and ruthless to bad people? However, if the punishment that we administer upon an evil-doer does not match the extent of their transgressions, wouldn’t that go against the theory of sequential order?

“In clashes between good and evil, the outcome is often that the good side is brought down to their counterpart’s level. Over time, the seed of evil will flourish more and more, while the forces of good are diminished further and further. How can we resolve this problem?”

The little girl’s face immediately crumpled in a look of focus and contemplation, and she was doing her best to tell herself that she understood exactly what he had just said, but she simply didn’t want to respond.

Chen Ping’an smiled as he tapped his folding fan against his own heart and said, “There’s no need for you to think too much about it, I’m just talking to myself.”

The little girl was feeling a little guilty for making Chen Ping’an think so much.

Compared with the mysterious and unfathomable Chen Ping’an, she much preferred the simple and jovial Chen Ping’an that helped the farmers in the fields and pummeled his way through a mountain with his bare fists.

Thankfully, a smile quickly appeared on Chen Ping’an’s face, and he leaped out the window to arrive on the deck of the ship outside.

“Let’s go look at the scenery. There are a lot of beautiful things in this world, not just oppressive bullies.”

He leaned against the windowframe as he extended a hand and jibed, “Should I lift you out by the back of your collar?”

“I can come out on my own!” the little girl snapped in an indignant manner, then jumped out through the window, but she was still clearly feeling a little fearful.

She grabbed onto Chen Ping’an’s sleeve in an uneasy manner, and all of a sudden, she felt like standing in the bamboo bookcase wasn’t so bad.

She turned to take a glance at the open window, then said, “I know we’re both poor, but it’s not like we don’t have any belongings. If our stuff gets stolen, we’ll be in an even worse situation! I don’t want to eat sauerkraut fish, and you better not think about it, either!”

“They can try and steal our stuff, but they may not live to tell the tale,” Chen Ping’an said in an indifferent manner.

“That was a really badass quote!” the little girl praised as her eyes lit up.

However, she immediately received a knock to the head from Chen Ping’an’s folding fan.

“Don’t learn to speak like that from me!”

The little girl threw her hands onto her head and stepped on Chen Ping’an’s foot with an indignant expression.

She didn’t dare to walk on the railing, but Chen Ping’an insisted, picking her up and placing her on the railing himself.

Initially, she felt very timid and fearful, but her eyes soon began to glow with excitement at the sight of all of the people watching her.

She looked down to see Chen Ping’an walking lazily along the deck below her. He was holding his folding fan in one hand while raising his other hand up high to hold onto hers.

She told him that he didn’t need to hold her hand, and that she could walk along the railing unassisted just fine.

Before long, the strange duo had drawn the attention of many of the cultivators and martial artists on the ship.

They watched as the little girl in black swung her arms back and forth, walking along the railing with her chest puffed out in a proud display.

Meanwhile, the scholar in white slowly walked along on the deck below her with a smile on his face.

“Hey, can I ask you something? One time, I woke up in the middle of the night to find that you weren’t with me. Where did you go?” the little girl asked.

Chen Ping’an smiled as he replied, “I took a little stroll. I pretended to almost be beaten to death by someone, then… Don’t worry about it. Just treat it like you’re reading a boring story. The story is so boring that you feel like you’re about to be put to sleep halfway through reading it, so you put it away.”

“You know, it’s really frustrating being left on a cliff hanger like this!” the little girl complained.

“We’re travel companions, are we not? You’ll have to bear with me,” Chen Ping’an said with a smile.

The little girl crossed her arms as she continued walking along the railing and yelled, “In that case, I want to eat turtle jelly! One bowl isn’t going to be enough, I want two large bowls! I paid for the newspapers, so you have to pay for the two bowls of turtle jelly!”

“Sure, but we’ll have to see if the next ferry station sells turtle jelly,” Chen Ping’an replied with a nod.

“If there’s no turtle jelly, then I’ll change to something else,” the little girl said, and she felt like she was extremely smart, having accounted for all possible scenarios!

“I’m not getting it for you if it’s too expensive,” Chen Ping’an said in a hesitant manner.

The little girl swung a displeased kick in his direction, only for him to casually dodge by cocking his head to the side, then swiped her foot away with his folding fan as he urged, “Focus on walking.”

Among the onlookers were the administrator and some of the workers on the ship.

There was also a man standing on the second-floor observation deck with some friends. He and seven or eight other people were gathered around a young man and woman, who resembled a pair of moons nestled in a bed of stars.

He was staying in the room next to the heaven-grade room on the ship, and it was supposed to be very expensive, but he didn’t have to spend a single snowflake coin on accommodation, one of the benefits of having powerful connections.

The young woman at the center of the group wasn’t particularly stunning in appearance, but she was dressed in a precious Dao robe, and she smiled as she asked, “Has this little fish monster reached the Abode Tier yet?”

The young man beside her nodded as he replied, “If I’m not mistaken, she appears to be precisely at the Abode Tier. She’s not yet able to fly, so if she were to fall off the ship, then she’ll surely fall to her death unless there just so happens to be a body of water down below.”

There was a brawny man next to the young couple, and he chuckled, “I don’t know where this little water monster came from, Young Master Wei, but she’s definitely not the brightest. She went to purchase some newspapers from Administrator Liu earlier, and she spent an entire lesser heat coin on them!”

“Oh? So she’s quite a rich little water monster then,” the handsome young man referred to as Young Master Wei exclaimed with a look of mock surprise.

The young woman was very amused, and her eyes were filled with deep affection as she gazed upon the young man beside her.

Everyone else also burst into laughter, as if they had just heard an exquisite joke.

“That scholar appears to be the owner of that dirty little thing. Why is it that he seems more like an uncouth martial artist than a Qi refiner?” the young woman asked.

“Make sure you don’t say something like that in front of my father,” Young Master Wei said with a smile. “Right now, he’s the number one martial artist of our Great Guan Empire, so he’s going to feel very awkward if he hears you badmouthing martial artists.”

“My apologies, I misspoke,” the young woman hurriedly said with an apologetic smile.

“Why are you being so formal with me, Qingqing? You make me feel like a stranger sometimes,” Young Master Wei said in an exasperated manner.

A bright smile instantly appeared on the young woman’s face.

She was from the Nightglow Grass Hall of the Spring Dew Garden, and her father was one of the Spring Dew Garden’s guest elders. He was a very shrewd businessman and was responsible for managing half of the entire Spring Dew Garden mountain range on his own. He was a Golden Core Tier earth immortal, and wherever he went, he was always treated as an esteemed guest.

On this occasion, he had sent his daughter to invite this Young Master Wei to the Spring Farewell Banquet, which was set to take place at the end of the gathering in the Spring Dew Garden.

On the southeastern coast was the Great Guan Empire, which had as many as three subsidiary strategic barrier nations. The young man came from the Iron Warship Residence, one of the three most powerful clans of the empire. The clan had given rise to countless officials over the course of generations, but as a young man, the current clan leader, Wei Ying, decided to resign from his official post to join the military.

He had carved out a completely new path for himself and currently wielded immense power in the military, serving as the empire’s foremost border general. His eldest son was an assistant minister of one of the empire’s six ministries, and this young man was his youngest son, Wei Bai. He had been pampered from a young age, and he was also a young cultivation prodigy that was extremely renowned across the entire empire.

There was even a story about Wei Bai that began with a rare excursion from one of the Spring Dew Garden’s Nascent Tier patriarchs. While passing by the Wei Clan’s Iron Warship Residence, he spotted Wei Ying and Wei Bai greeting him at the entrance, and he remarked that at the moment, Wei Bai was still being referred to as Wei Ying’s son, yet to emerge from his father’s shadow, but in no more than thirty years, the roles would be reversed, and Wei Ying would be known as Wei Bai’s father.

Wei Ying had been ecstatic to hear this. The Nascent Tier patriarch of the Spring Dew Garden was renowned for being stingy when it came to praising others, so this was a lofty compliment indeed.

The Nascent Tier patriarch’s praise of Wei Bai’s cultivation aptitude instantly made him the object of envy and admiration from countless people in the imperial court. Even the emperor himself bestowed an imperial edict and a prized treasure upon the Iron Warship Residence, encouraging Wei Bai to continue to work hard in his cultivation and become a pillar of the empire as soon as possible.

On paper, Wei Bai and the young woman were not a good fit.

Back when they first met, Wei Ying had immediately tried to bring them together, even remarking directly to her face that they were a match made in heaven. However, at the time, the patriarch of the Spring Dew Garden still hadn’t visited the Great Guan Empire, so her father was very much in disapproval.

Wei Bai still hadn’t reached the Abode Tier yet, so his future potential was very much unclear. After all, the Abode Tier had always been known as the first major hurdle for Qi refiners.

However, after that, Wei Bai continued to progress rapidly in his cultivation, and after receiving such unadulterated praise from the patriarch of the Spring Dew Garden, the status of the Iron Warship Residence was greatly elevated. All of a sudden, the young woman’s father became the one desperate to bring them together, while the Iron Warship Residence began to display reluctance.

This was why she had been sent to invite Wei Bai to the Spring Farewell Banquet. Even if it weren’t for the instructions of her father, she would’ve been more than happy to make this trip.

There were no servants or guards accompanying her. The Spring Dew Garden wasn’t exactly a dominant power in the area, but it had an extensive network of connections and friends, so her safety was all but assured.

For example, the patriarch of the Golden Crow Palace would travel alone once every few years to the Spring Dew Garden to collect water for his tea.

However, Wei Bai was accompanied by a pair of guards, one of whom was a guest elder of the Iron Warship Residence. It was said that she had once been a demonic cultivator and had already been seeking refuge in the Iron Warship Residence for several decades. As for the other guard, he was a Vajra Body Tier martial artist, someone that could influence the martial fortune of an entire small nation!

Wei Bai turned to a well-built old man behind him, then asked, “Can you see the depths of this cultivation base, Master Liao?”

The old man was resting with his eyes closed, and he opened his eyes as he smiled and said, “Judging from the sound of his breathing and footsteps, he should be the equivalent of a fifth tier martial artist here on the border of our Great Guan Empire. He’s a little stronger than the average fifth tier slouch.”

There was a cruel-looking old woman standing beside the old man, and she chimed in in a hoarse voice, “That’s an accurate evaluation, kid.”

The old man gave a cold harrumph.

Given the huge age gap between the two, it wasn’t inappropriate for the old woman to refer to him as “kid.” However, he was a Vajra Body Tier martial artist that was renowned far and wide, but the old woman never showed him any respect, instead looking down on him as Qi refiners often did.

The brawny man from a major sect in the Great Guan Empire, and he rubbed his hands together eagerly as he proposed, “Should I go down there and see what that pretentious scholar’s all about, Young Master Wei? It’ll be a fun way to pass the time and provide some entertainment for everyone, and if I may be so fortunate, perhaps Mr. Liao can also provide me with some instruction in my fist techniques.”

The sect that he belonged to was the leading sect in the southern region of the Great Guan Empire, with close to ten thousand members. It had many lucrative revenue sources, such as engagements in the grain and salt transport trade, and that was all thanks to the Iron Warship Residence. Without the Iron Warship Residence’s support, there was no way it would be able to hold onto its wealth.

There was a Vajra Body Tier martial arts master in the sect, but by his own admission, he had a losing head-to-head record against the old man with the Liao surname. In the northern region of the continent was a sect in which everyone used swords. The entire sect only had fewer than two hundred members, including the sect leader, yet it had unmatched authority over the cultivation world in the north.

The old sect leader was a man who liked to travel the world alone, and it was said that he had already reached the Far Roaming Tier, but no one had witnessed him in battle for close to twenty years. However, the people of the cultivation world in the south proclaimed that he was being so enigmatic and elusive because he was trying to avoid any earth immortals and powerful swordsmen that may try to challenge him.

Wei Bai shook his head with a smile as he replied, “Leave him be. Unlike the soldiers of our Iron Warship Residence, you martial artists are all very proud people, and that young man is no exception. He must feel as if he’s been granted a fated opportunity that’s allowed him to become the owner of that little water monster, and he’s eagerly showing off to everyone.

“There’s no need for us to teach him a lesson. If he continues to blatantly show off like this even after reaching the Spring Dew Garden, then eventually, someone will teach him to be more humble.”

“You are truly as kind and gracious as a Bodhisattva, Young Master Wei,” the brawny man praised.

“Hardly!” Wei Bai chuckled with a shake of his head. “By the way, what’s become of that enigmatic Sect Leader Peng?”

“He’s progressed to the Far Roaming Tier, which seems like a boon, but is instead a curse,” the old woman scoffed. “He’s having to constantly run and hide, and that’s why he appears so enigmatic. If he were just an ordinary Vajra Body Tier martial artist like this Liao brat here, there wouldn’t be any trouble for him.

“He would just be a little ant that us cultivators could easily crush to death underfoot, but we wouldn’t want to for fear of dirtying our shoes. However, now that he’s reached the Far Roaming Tier, he’s become a bigger ant, one that’s worth crushing, so he’s being targeted from all directions.”

“Let’s see you say that to Old Man Peng’s face!” the old man with the Liao surname sneered.

“Not only would I say it to his face, I would press my finger directly into his forehead as I say it!” the old woman sneered.

The old man couldn’t be bothered to bicker with her, so he closed his eyes and continued to rest.

The brawny man wasn’t feeling awkward in the slightest. It wasn’t like they were talking about him anyway, and so what if they were? It would be an honor to be spoken of by an old guest elder of the Iron Warship Residence, and that would be a story that he could brag about once he returned to his sect.