Unsheathed

Autumn on the Sword Qi Great Wall was a rather somber affair, with all of the trees and plants losing their vibrant, green plumages.

Meanwhile, it was spring in the Majestic World, and everything was teeming with new life.

It was the Jingzhe solar term, and all of a sudden, the mood of the gods seemed to have taken a turn for the worse. Dark clouds quickly gathered over the clear and sunny skies above Downtrodden Mountain, following which a torrential downpour arrived.

Three girls were sitting together in the walkway on the second floor of the bamboo building, looking out at the rain.

There was a bright, green hiking pole on Zhou Mili’s left, and a gold shoulder pole on her right. As the official right-hand guardian of the Downtrodden Mountain ancestral hall, Zhou Mili had secretly given the hiking pole and the shoulder pole the unofficial titles of the junior right-hand guardian and the junior left-hand guardian. However, she didn’t dare to reveal this to Pei Qian. Pei Qian was really annoying and pedantic when it came to rules, and there were many occasions when Zhou Mili wanted to stop being friends with her.

However, whenever they had a falling-out, Zhou Mili would immediately begin counting numbers off on her fingers, waiting for Pei Qian to come and play with her.

Chen Nuanshu was a little concerned. Not long ago, Chen Lingjun seemed to have made up his mind that he would immediately travel to the Northern Complete Reed Continent to embark on his river journey as soon as he reached the Golden Core Tier.

Pei Qian lay on her back, her arms folded over one another beneath her head, serving as a pillow. She had one leg crossed over the other, and recently, she had also been feeling rather vexed. Training martial arts with Zhu Lian was a very underwhelming experience, and on one occasion, she flew into a rage, yelling at him in a furious voice before knocking him unconscious with a stomp to the head.

After the event, she felt very guilty, but she didn’t want to apologize to him. While her reaction had been a little excessive, the fact of the matter was that Zhu Lian had been at fault first. He should’ve beaten her to a pulp in their sparring matches, just like Cui Cheng did. It wasn’t like he was actually going to kill her. She was on the receiving end of the punishment, yet even she wasn’t afraid, so she had no idea what Zhu Lian was afraid of.

What’s the point in these sparring matches if you always go so easy on me? Do you know how much money it costs my master each time I take a medicinal bath?

Pei Qian had run the calculations with Chen Nuanshu before, and they discovered that at the rate that she was burning through money in her martial arts cultivation, she wouldn’t be able to make enough money to cover the expenses even if she were to run the shop on Dragon Riding Alley with Shi Rou day and night for a hundred years!

This was why she was so angry that Zhu Lian was always going so easy on her. In any case, the sparring matches always ended with her being knocked out anyway. Initially, she had kept her complaints to herself, but Zhu Lian continued to show a complete lack of effort in their sparring matches, which had led to her violent outburst.

That day, after waking up in the middle of the night, Pei Qian went to Zhu Lian and asked him to cook her a late-night meal. She then ate a few extra bowls of rice than normal, and Zhu Lian seemed to have realized that this was a form of unspoken apology from her.

At the time, he was still wearing his apron, and he was even encouraging her to eat more, so he didn’t appear to have been angry. In Pei Qian’s eyes, Zhu Lian was rather old and ugly, but there was one good quality about him, and that was that he never held grudges.

There was something else that Pei Qian was even more worried about, which was that her master would be unhappy with her if she shamelessly followed Zhong Qiu to the Sword Qi Great Wall.

All of a sudden, Pei Qian rolled her eyes in annoyance. An unwelcome guest had just come to look at the small pond behind the bamboo building again.

Wei Bo appeared in the walkway with a smile, then asked, ”How’ve you been doing lately, Pei Qian?”

”I’ve been doing terribly. I’m so bored that my head hurts,” Pei Qian grumbled.

She then thrust her palm against the floorboards beneath her to launch herself to her feet. She exerted just enough force with her palm strike to send her hiking pole springing up into the air with her, and after catching it, she sprang onto the railing and unleashed her Deranged Demon Sword Techniques. Countless water droplets were sent spraying in all directions, much of which was directed toward the walkway. Wei Bo merely stood still and watched, in no hurry to announce the purpose of his visit.

All the while, Pei Qian continued her performance as she yelled at the top of her lungs, ”The heavens weep and the vast earth cries! May immortal coins come raining out of the skies!”

While it was true that Downtrodden Mountain was very short on funds, Pei Qian was perhaps the only one desperate enough for money that she would pray for it to fall from the heavens.

”I have a letter. Who wants to see it?” Wei Bo asked with a smile.

Pei Qian immediately set down her hiking pole, then jumped down from the railing before waving a hand. Chen Nuanshu had already stood up to welcome Wei Bo, while Zhou Mili was only now lazily rising to her feet, and the three of them bowed down together as they collectively greeted, ”What an immense honor it is to have the great mountain god visit our humble abode!”

Wei Bo smiled and nodded, then handed over the letter to Chen Nuanshu.

Chen Nuanshu hurriedly wiped down her sleeves, then accepted the letter with both hands before carefully pulling it out of its envelope. She handed the envelope to Zhou Mili, while Pei Qian took the letter, then sat down in a formal posture with her legs crossed and her back straight. The other two girls also sat down beside her, and their three little heads leaned in so close to one another that they were almost touching.

Pei Qian turned to complain to Zhou Mili, urging her to hold the envelope less forcefully as she was creasing it in her hand. She asked Zhou Mili how she could be expected to entrust her with any significant duties if she couldn’t even be trusted to hold onto an envelope.

Zhou Mili’s face instantly puckered up, looking on the verge of tears. Pei Qian smiled and patted her on the head while offering some words of consolation, and Zhou Mili quickly began smiling again.

The three girls read through the letter extremely slowly and meticulously, not willing to miss even a single word. They were eagerly hoping to see themselves mentioned in the letter. Even if their names were only mentioned in passing, that was enough for them to be overjoyed for a long time.

After carefully reading through the letter once, Zhou Mili proposed, ”Let’s read it again.”

”Of course! Why even bother to say something so obvious?” Pei Qian scoffed.

In the end, they read the letter three times before Pei Qian finally slipped it back into the envelope.

She cleared her throat and put on a mature expression, then asked, ”Both of you saw what was written on the letter, right? My master has provided a very solid and indisputable reason for why he’s asking you not to go to the Sword Qi Great Wall. Now then, the question is: do either of you feel any resentment at the decision? If you do, then make sure to tell me, and as my master’s first-ever disciple, I’ll be sure to talk some sense into you.”

”I can’t go to the Sword Qi Great Wall,” Chen Nuanshu said with a smile. ”Even when I’m staying overnight in the Dragon Spring Prefectural City, I begin to miss our Downtrodden Mountain.”

She had always had a habit of staying somewhere and not leaving. In the past, it was the scripture library of the Yellow Court Nation’s Zhilan Cao Clan, and now, it was the Dragon Spring Prefecture. In the past, she had to hide from everyone like a thief, but now, she could go to Downtrodden Mountain, Dragon Riding Alley, or the Dragon Spring Prefectural City as she pleased without any fear of being discovered. She really enjoyed being here, and she reveled in her current busy lifestyle.

Zhou Mili had her arms crossed, and even though she was doing her best to put on a stern facade, she was still unable to completely hide her elation.

”The mountain master has clearly written that I, as the right-hand guardian of Downtrodden Mountain, must stay behind to keep an eye on this little pond. This is a heavy responsibility. As a matter of fact, I plan to move my bed to the pond so I can keep an eye on it day and night.”

If it weren’t for her best efforts at resisting, she would’ve already broken out into a wide, beaming smile by now.

In his letter, Chen Ping’an proclaimed that he had told many people on the Sword Qi Great Wall stories of the great water monster of Mute Lake. Furthermore, these were apparently all stories where she featured in major roles, not just typical stories where the monster was beaten to death as soon as they appeared.

I can’t believe my stories are being told in another world! I wouldn’t even have dared to dream of this in the past!

”That tells me that the two of you know what’s best for you,” Pei Qian said with a nod of approval. ”Just treat it as if I went on a journey to the Sword Qi Great Wall in your stead. No one in the Majestic World is able to recognize the true power of my Deranged Demon Sword Techniques, but I’m sure all of the sword immortals on the Sword Qi Great Wall will beg me to become their disciple once they see my almighty sword techniques!

“Unfortunately, I’m going to have to disappoint them and tell them that I already have a master. They can cry and beg all they want, but it’s not going to do them any good. Those sword immortals can only blame their own bad luck for not meeting me sooner.”

”Would you dare to speak like this to the sword immortals over there in person?” Chen Nuanshu asked with an amused smile.

”Of course not! I’m not stupid!” Pei Qian replied in a justified manner.

Zhou Mili nodded vigorously in agreement. Sometimes, she felt like Chen Nuanshu wasn’t all that bright.

Chen Nuanshu pulled out some sunflower seeds, and Pei Qian and Zhou Mili each grabbed a handful in a well-rehearsed fashion. Pei Qian gave Zhou Mili a stern glare, and the latter instantly stiffened, as if she had fallen prey to an immobilization technique.

She had been very pleased with herself, thinking that she had managed to grab more sunflower seeds than Pei Qian, but under the weight of Pei Qian’s oppressive glare, her fist slowly loosened as she dropped a few sunflower seeds back onto the palm of Chen Nuanshu’s hand. However, Pei Qian clearly still wasn’t satisfied, so Zhou Mili could only relinquish more of her prized haul. In the end, she still had quite a bit left, something that she was very pleased about.

Chen Nuanshu pulled out a handkerchief before setting it down onto the floor. They could toss sunflower hulls as they pleased anywhere else on Downtrodden Mountain, but the bamboo building was the only exception.

”You were mentioned in the letter as well, Wei Bo,” Pei Qian said. ”If you don’t remember what the part about you says, I can go to Cloud Drape Mountain every day to remind you. Right now, I can vault over mountains and valleys like the wind!”

”It’s fine,” Wei Bo refused with a smile and a shake of his head.

”Really? I’m worried that you’ll forget,” Pei Qian said in a skeptical manner.

”Shouldn’t you be more worried about how you’re going to explain your sparring match against Bai Shou to your master?” Wei Bo jibed.

”What? Who’s Bai Shou? I’ve never even heard such a name before!” Pei Qian replied with a puzzled expression. ”Is this someone you saw in a dream, or am I the one dreaming right now?”

Even after extensive contemplation, this was the best strategy that the three girls were able to come up with.

”Chen Ping’an will definitely believe you!” Wei Bo declared as he gave Pei Qian a thumbs-up.

”See? I told you this would work!” Zhou Mili whispered triumphantly into Pei Qian’s ear. ”Mountain God Wei isn’t stupid, yet even he believes it!”

”Well done!” Pei Qian praised with a nod. ”That’s one merit point for you, but only in my little notebook, so it has nothing to do with our Downtrodden Mountain ancestral hall.”

Zhou Mili was in a great mood, so she grinned and replied, ”There’s no need for that. We’re good friends, so I’m willing to give you my ideas for free!”

Chen Nuanshu approached Wei Bo before offering the latter a handful of sunflower seeds.

Wei Bo thanked her with a smile before accepting the sunflower seeds with both hands. He leaned back against the railing, then began chatting with the three girls while snacking on sunflower seeds. Sitting on the palm of one of his hands was a pile of sunflower seeds, while a growing pile of sunflower seed hulls appeared in his other hand. As one pile expanded, the size of the other one dwindled, until there was only one pile left.

Wei Bo was aware of Chen Ping’an’s intentions. He wanted his disciple and student to go and see the Sword Qi Great Wall as early as possible. If they were to go too late, then perhaps the people of the Majestic World would no longer be able to access the Sword Qi Great Wall. Given that this was a period of relative peace, they would be able to enjoy themselves on the Sword Qi Great Wall for some time and take in the sights and scenes that it had to offer.

Even though it wasn’t explicitly spelled out in the letter, Wei Bo was able to see another hidden concern of Chen Ping’an’s. He felt it was unsafe to entrust Cao Qinglang and Pei Qian to Zhong Qiu over the course of such a long journey. However, at the moment, Zhu Lian was essentially half a mountain master on Downtrodden Mountain, so he definitely wouldn’t be able to go anywhere.

As for the other three picture scroll martial artists, they were all busy as well, and Wei Bo certainly wasn’t going to be able to leave the Eastern Treasured Vial Continent, either. Hence, Chen Ping’an’s true concern was the current lack of top-tier cultivators and martial artists on Downtrodden Mountain.

Of course, there was the Immortal Tier guest elder, Zhou Fei, but even if Chen Ping’an could somehow convince Jiang Shangzhen to serve as caretaker for the two children, he definitely wouldn’t make the request.

This wouldn’t have been a problem if the letter had arrived a little earlier. That way, the two children would’ve been able to travel to Old Dragon City with Liu Jinglong, then travel to Stalactite Mountain and the Sword Qi Great Wall from there.

With that in mind, an idea occurred to Wei Bo, and he decided to try and see if Cui Dongshan could step in and accompany the two children to the Sword Qi Great Wall.

Several days later, a secret flying sword letter from Cui Dongshan arrived on Cloud Drape Mountain, instructing Zhong Qiu, Pei Qian, and Cao Qinglang to go and wait for him in Old Dragon City.

From there, they would all travel to the Sword Qi Great Wall together via intercontinental ship.

The news that the big white goose was coming with them immediately erased what little apprehension Pei Qian felt toward the upcoming journey.

***

Half a month later, the agreed-upon date for the second sparring match arrived, yet Yu Juanfu changed her mind, requesting an indefinite postponement.

The gamblers in the city were in no hurry. After all, they had already been screwed over by Chen Ping’an, and the thought was that with a bit more time, perhaps they had better chances of seeing through Chen Ping’an’s tricks.

However, some of the more experienced gamblers were beginning to grow rather uneasy. Their fear was that Yu Juanfu had already been won over by Chen Ping’an, and that they might have already been conspiring together to screw over everyone else. If that were to happen, then not only would all of the complacent gamblers be losing out, but even many of the bookmakers would struggle to make any money.

This led to a seasoned gambler remarking, after having a drink, that gambling was likely going to become a riskier hobby than ever on the Sword Qi Great Wall.

Yu Juanfu had no thatched cottage to stay in, and as a woman, she naturally didn’t want to camp out in the city without a roof over her head, so she was staying in Sword Immortal Sun Juyuan’s manor, just like Sword Immortal Ku Xia. However, she would make a trip to the top of the city wall every day, where she would practice her fist techniques for many hours.

Sun Juyuan wasn’t very fond of Yan Lü, Jiang Guancheng, and the others, but he had a decent impression of Yu Juanfu. He even made the time to meet with her and instruct her in her fist techniques from the perspective of a swordsman, something that Yu Juanfu was very grateful for.

Outside of going to the top of the city wall to practice his sword techniques, Lin Junbi spent most of his time in the Sun Manor under the pergola, studying the Iridescent Cloud Go Manual.

There were only three things that he was interested in: the state of the Middle Earth Divine Continent, cultivation, and Go.

Regarding the state of the Middle Earth Divine Continent, that was something that he could only passively observe. When it came to cultivation, his diligence was unquestionable. As for his skills as a Go player, he was already the undisputed best that the Shaoyuan Empire had to offer, and the person that he wanted to meet the most was Cui Chan.

His senior brother, Bian Jing, was barely ever around as he spent almost all of his time at the Mirage Market.

Ku Xia never said anything about this. For a swordsman, they would have their own path once they reached the Golden Core Tier, and at that point, they would have to rely on themselves for further progression.

If they didn’t already have a path beneath their feet, then they would’ve never reached the Golden Core Tier in the first place.

Among the swordsmen of the Shaoyuan Empire, Zhu Mei was the only one with whom Yu Juanfu was willing to chat, although their ”conversations” mostly consisted of Zhu Mei yapping away, while Yu Juanfu tolerated her presence.

Zhu Mei had also bought Yu Juanfu a copy of the Seal Manual of the Two Hundred Sword Immortals. At the moment, there were some more refined copies of the seal manual going around on the Sword Qi Great Wall. Apparently, they had been produced by the Yan Clan, but given the prices at which the seal manuals were being sold, it seemed that the Yan Clan was only just barely breaking even on costs.

On this day, Zhu Mei was drinking tea in Yu Juanfu’s room.

Yu Juanfu was carefully flipping through the seal manual, while Zhu Mei asked in a curious voice, ”Don’t you want to go and see your fiancée, Big Sister Yu? I heard that you came to the Sword Qi Great Wall from the Golden Armor Continent. Since you left your hometown, he’s been making a real name for himself, and he’s friends with people like Cao Ci and Liu Youzhou.

“Lots of young celestial maidens from powerful sects are infatuated with him, and there are tons of rumors going around. Are you opposed to this arranged marriage solely because you don’t like your elders telling you what to do, or is it Huai Qian that you don’t like?”

”A bit of both,” Yu Juanfu replied.

”Let’s not talk about Huai Qian then,” Zhu Mei said. ”How about we talk about Sword Immortal Zhou instead? It feels like every time he goes into battle, he always goes overboard. Apparently, the last time he went into battle was to stand up for you, Big Sister Yu. Even now, there are still many detailed accounts of that occasion. Everyone says that he went way overboard that time and even ended up drawing the ire of the Confucian school.”

Yu Juanfu hesitated momentarily, then revealed, ”That’s a fake story.”

Zhu Mei’s eyes instantly widened with excitement as she waited for Yu Juanfu to continue.

”Mr. Zhou has accumulated a great deal of merit, so as long as he doesn’t commit any overly severe transgressions, the Confucian school generally won’t go after him,” Yu Juanfu explained. ”Don’t tell anyone else about this, you hear me?”

Zhu Mei nodded in response.

”I’m serious,” Yu Juanfu reemphasized. ”If you’re too loose-lipped about this, and someone like Yan Lü finds out, then you’ll be giving him a lot of leverage to use against you.”

Zhu Mei continued to nod, then suddenly pulled a funny face, but Yu Juanfu failed to notice, as her attention was focused on a certain seal on the seal manual.

She was slightly intrigued, but she was never going to buy a seal or a folding fan.

Unable to suppress her curiosity, Zhu Mei asked, ”What’s the deal with your name, Big Sister Yu? Does it have some type of special meaning?”

”No,” Yu Juanfu replied with a shake of her head as she continued to flip through the seal manual. ”I’m a woman, and ever since I was a child, I’ve always disliked the name Yu Juanfu. I can’t change my name on our clan’s ancestral genealogical records, but I can adopt whatever alias I please when I’m out traveling the world. On the Middle Earth Divine Continent, I used the alias of Yu Qiyun. On the Golden Armor Continent, I decided to change it to Shi Zaixi. You can refer to me directly as Shi Zaixi if you like. I prefer it over Big Sister Yu.”

”Zaixi! Zaixi! Can I call you Zaixi?” Zhu Mei chirped in a mischievous manner.

Yu Juanfu could only shake her head in exasperation as she continued to examine the seal manual.

There were quite a few intriguing seals in the manual, and the more Yu Juanfu saw, the more incensed she felt. From the inscriptions on these seals, it was clear that Chen Ping’an was a very learned man, so why was he constantly fooling around like some uneducated idiot?

After flipping over the page, she saw a concise inscription that read: ”The goose crashes into the wall.”

This caught her completely off guard, and she had to fight back the urge to laugh out loud. Indeed, given how tall the city walls were, an inattentive goose could easily fly headfirst into the wall if they weren’t watching where they were going.

It took a tremendous effort for her to suppress the smile that was threatening to plaster itself across her face, and in the end, she concealed her amusement with a cold harrumph.

***

Chen Ping’an was drinking with Qi Jinglong at the wine shop.

As usual, Qi Jinglong was only having a bowl of yangchun noodles and a dish of pickled vegetables.

All of the other swordsmen in the shop were observing Qi Jinglong with cautious expressions. Everyone was of the opinion that his drinking capacity had to be utterly unfathomable.

Chen Ping’an had told everyone that Qi Jinglong could easily outdrink anyone on the Sword Qi Great Wall, and no one doubted this claim.

Bai Shou enjoyed coming to the wine shop as he was allowed to drink wine here. Liu Jinglong only permitted him to drink a single bowl of wine per visit, but with his limited drinking capacity, that was already enough to have him slightly inebriated.

There seemed to be something on Qi Jinglong’s mind, and he appeared rather distracted while eating his noodles.

”You feel like when Celestial Maiden Lu isn’t saying anything, she’s constantly looking at you with more and more affection, and that’s making you feel a little unsettled, right?” Chen Ping’an asked with a smile.

Qi Jinglong offered no response as he took a glance at the flagon of wine on the table. All of a sudden, he was struck by the urge to drink.

Chen Ping’an fell silent with a faint smile, pretending as if he were an expert in such matters.

I have no clue what you should do! You’re gonna have to figure it out yourself!

Meanwhile, two figures in scholarly robes, one young and one old, were standing at the head of an intercontinental ship that was traveling from Old Dragon City to Stalactite Mountain, looking out at the scenery. A handsome, white-robed young boy was playing around with a dark-skinned girl who was swinging a hiking pole as if it were a sword.

Cui Dongshan evaded the sweeping hiking pole as he yelled, ”We’re about to see my teacher and your master soon! Are you happy?!”

”I am! I’m over the moon!” Pei Qian yelled with all her might as she pursued Cui Dongshan all over the deck of the ship.