Sword of Coming

Li Baoping walked with her horse, and the person she was visiting was a senior from her hometown, someone who used to play Go with her grandpa. One referred to themself as invincible in Fortune Street, and the other referred to themself as unmatched in Peach Leaf Alley, so they both took things very seriously when they played Go with each other, almost as if they were gambling with their reputations.

Li Baoping didn’t like to play Go, so she couldn’t say for sure whether her grandpa and his friend were truly skilled at Go. However, she knew that they always had a myriad of excuses and reasons to retract their moves. They couldn’t compare to Mr. Qi at all.

The old man’s ancestral residence had been located near the tail end of Peach Leaf Alley in the past, not far away from Fortune Street. Of course, not a single place in the small town had seemed far away for the little girl wearing a red jacket back then.

She would look for crickets at the immortal tomb, she would collect shards at the mountain of porcelain, she would catch fish and crustacean at Dragon Tail Creek, she would gaze up at the high-hanging mirrors in people’s houses, she would jump up the steps at Dragon Riding Alley and smell the fragrant peach cakes from a distance, and she would hear the nests of swallows in people’s house suddenly starting to chirp loudly.

When Li Baoping was little, there was seemingly a never-ending list of fun things for her to do, causing her schedule to be absolutely jam-packed each and every day. This meant she needed to run as quickly as the wind, with nary a rest in between. However, almost as if she had run too quickly, she had already left the days of childhood behind her. When someone grew up, their childhood would stop and remain still, appearing increasingly distant and hazy when they occasionally looked back.

A gaunt but refined elder wearing a tall hat and a broad belt walked out from the thatched cottage, laughing heartily as he greeted Little Baoping. He hurriedly opened the simple wooden door with a delighted smile.

It was as if Little Baoping had suddenly grown up in the blink of an eye. Girls truly changed a lot when they grew up, and Little Baoping was much more graceful and quiet than before.

Was she still the lively little girl who liked to jump down walls and bring crabs home? Or was it the crabs pinching her and hitching a ride to her house?

No matter what, the old man was still sincerely fond of this young lady. Some children always had very good relationships with seniors, and both Fortune Street’s Little Baoping and Zhao Yao, once a scholarly attendant for Mr. Qi, belonged to this category.

Li Baoping briskly walked over with her horse, bowing in respect before standing up straight and greeting with a smile, ”Grandpa Wei.”

The old man was called Wei Benyuan, and he had previously been the clan leader of Wei Clan, one of the Four Families and Ten Clans in the small town. He had once communicated with the outside world via a letter before the collapse of the Jewel Small World, and the person delivering the letter for him had been a young boy with limpid eyes and wearing straw sandals. Wei Benyuan had only seen him once, yet he had developed a very deep impression of the young boy.

Sure enough, twenty years had yet to pass, but the young boy from the impoverished alley had rapidly grown up and made a name for himself, even becoming Little Baoping’s junior uncle. Fate was truly a mysterious and wonderful thing.

Wei Benyuan was all smiles after seeing Li Baoping, and he said, ”There’s no need to hitch your horse. Feel free to leave it wherever you want.”

Hearing this, Li Baoping let go of the reins and gently slapped the horse’s back, following which the handsome horse trotted over to drink at the stream.

”Where’s Big Sister Tao Ya?” Li Baoping asked.

”You’ve come at the wrong time,” Wei Benyuan replied. ”She went to train in the Fox Nation a few years ago, and she needs to temper her Dao Heart after obtaining a small fated opportunity. I’ll tell her to travel the world with you if she successfully advances to the Sea Observation Tier.”

Li Baoping didn’t offer a polite response to this suggestion, clearly not very willing to travel around the martial world with Big Sister Tao Ya. She was indeed close to Big Sister Tao Ya, but this didn’t mean they needed to see each other every single day.

It was important to be a good person, but one couldn’t be a foolishly good person, nodding and saying okay to everything, never turning down a single request. In reality, it was extremely difficult to be a good person who looked after both themself and other people.

Moreover, from a young age until now, Li Baoping had never liked to be restrained. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have consistently been the last to arrive and the first to leave when attending the private school back then.

However, this didn’t stop Li Baoping from respecting Mr. Qi.

Li Baoping and Wei Benyuan walked into the courtyard together, where there was a stone table and stone chairs that could withstand the harsh elements. This furniture was naturally made from immortal materials. The old man opened his pocket treasure and retrieved some items to brew tea. The tea set was mostly made from bright and glistening porcelain, and even those who weren’t experts in the field would find them pleasing to the eye.

These were some so-called inferior imperial wares that the Wei Clan had obtained in the small town through its relationship with the kiln supervision office, with the so-called defects being nothing more than a passing statement made by some influential official. After all, was it difficult to be pedantic and pick up on some tiny blemish? Afterward, the kiln supervision official simply needed to turn a blind eye and nod in approval, after which he could easily gain favors from the elderly clan leaders of the large clans and families. It was a win-win situation.

Just like Li Baoping’s Nascent Tier grandpa, Wei Benyuan had also been one of the very few cultivators in the small town back then. Li Baoping’s grandpa was incredibly skilled with talismans, but he had politely turned down the late emperor’s invitation to join the Great Li Empire for some unknown reason, choosing not to become a guest elder of the empire.

Meanwhile, Wei Benyuan was extremely skilled at refining alchemical pills, and he had left the small town very early on. The ancestral residence of the Wei Clan was now resting empty in the small town, with the descendants of the clan having all traveled to different regions to establish themselves. The Wei Clan’s culture was quite good, and the descendants all had decent characters and aptitudes. There was a mix of both cultivation talents and scholarly talents.

Wei Benyuan had chosen to settle down in this treasured land located on the very outskirts of Light Breeze City, where the peach forest and flowing streams were laid out in a particular manner that was conducive to refining alchemical pills. Wei Benyuan hoped to overcome the barrier of the Golden Core Tier, and he had obtained this piece of land through a land exchange with Light Breeze City’s Xu Clan to work toward this goal.

The late emperor of the Great Li Empire had been extremely generous toward the large clans and families in the small town, allowing them to purchase immortal mountains in the west for extremely low prices. However, Wei Benyuan felt that cultivating there was too noisy and troublesome, making him feel suppressed and stifled.

As such, he had performed a land exchange with the Xu Clan and obtained this piece of land, which had been cherished and cultivated for one thousand years. He had refused to become a guest elder of the Xu Clan, however, not changing his mind after several requests from Lady Xu, and not budging even after a personal visit and request from Clan Leader Xu Hun.

Wei Benyuan felt slightly worried. Li Baoping’s horse and the slender saber in the snow-white scabbard by her waist were both far too eye-catching.

”Have you encountered any accidents or unforeseen circumstances while traveling by yourself?” the old man couldn’t help but ask.

Before Li Baoping could respond, Wei Benyuan huffed in anger and continued, ”Old Man Li truly dares to be this careless? So be it if he’s crap at playing Go and an ink jar half full when it comes to scholarly pursuit, but even his brain has become scrambled in old age?”

”I’m not a child anymore, Grandpa Wei,” Li Baoping said with a smile.

”I don’t care what Old Man Li is playing at, but make sure to tell Grandpa Wei if anyone dares to pick on you,” Wei Benyuan said. ”My cultivation base might not be high, but I have a whole heap of relationships with other people that are just sitting there unused. I’ve left them behind for my descendants, but they’re unable to catch a significant number of them. I can’t waste them and bring them to my grave, can I?”

Li Baoping shook her head and replied, ”I genuinely don’t need any help, Grandpa Wei. I didn’t experience any conflicts or make any enemies on my way here.”

”Have those perverts gone blind? None of them were able to appreciate Little Baoping’s growing beauty?” Wei Benyuan asked in a teasing voice.

”Grandpa Wei, please act with the maturity of a senior,” Li Baoping said in exasperation.

”You’re truly not interested in my grandson?” Wei Benyuan asked with a smile.

Li Baoping shook her head in response.

Wei Benyuan suddenly laughed loudly and remarked, ”And that’s only right! It would be shocking if Little Baoping was interested in that young lad.”

Even though the old man wasn’t the type of strict senior who always put on a stern expression around his descendants, he would also never laugh as loudly and openly as this.

The old man faltered when he heard Li Baoping speaking to him using her mind’s lake, and he nodded before also replying with his mind’s lake, reassuring her that this area was safe and didn’t have any prying eyes from the Xu Clan. The peach tree garden was actually a mountain-protection formation as well, and even ordinary Nascent Tier cultivators might not be able to enter this area without being noticed.

Xu Hun wasn’t an ordinary Nascent Tier cultivator, but the clan leader of the Xu Clan possessed a brutish physique and was exceptionally skilled at offensive immortal techniques. He also had the scaly armor, and he was renowned in the continent for his battle prowess. Thus, the old man in the thatched cottage didn’t need to worry about him channeling an immortal observation technique.

Only after receiving this reassurance did Li Baoping retrieve two azure talismans and hand them to the old man, explaining, ”My older brother sent these over from the Northern Complete Reed Continent. He didn’t say much in his letter, only writing down the names of the two talismans. One is a Pill Formation Talisman, and the other is a Clay Pill Talisman. My grandpa should have personally delivered them to you, but he asked me to deliver them instead since I was coincidentally going on a distant trip.”

Wei Benyuan accepted the talismans and placed them on the stone table after hearing their names. He shook his head and said, ”You might be a cultivator already, Little Baoping, but perhaps you’re not fully aware of the immense value of these two talismans. I can’t accept them. Otherwise, I would never be able to repay this debt of gratitude in my lifetime. It’s naturally good to reach a high cultivation base, but if I had to choose between feeling awkward with a high cultivation base and maintaining my conscience, then I would still forgo the former and choose the latter.”

He smiled faintly and continued, ”This is simply an internal struggle for myself, and I greatly appreciate your older brother’s kind gesture. This is as expected of Xisheng, someone whom I taught Go from a young age. I’m not being polite on purpose, and Little Baoping should be well aware of my character, no?”

Looking at the two azure Dao talismans on the table, the talismanic core of the Pill Formation Talisman was like a miniature blessed land filling the room with flowing golden light and glowing iridescent radiance.

As for the Clay Pill Talisman, there was the image of a talismanic lotus that appeared like the lofty altar of a Dao branch’s ceremonial plaza. Purple air lingered around the talisman, creating a profound aura.

Li Baoping had seemingly predicted this outcome already, and she replied with a smile, ”My older brother told me to never visit Grandpa Wei again in the future if he doesn’t accept these two talismans. I’ll listen to my older brother.”

Wei Benyuan shook a hand.

Cultivation of the Great Dao, especially in areas that pertained to the foundation, couldn’t be taken lightly. This wasn’t the same as children playing house.

”I’ll genuinely listen to my older brother,” Li Baoping said again.

Wei Benyuan frowned and asked, ”Xisheng definitely won’t be feeling relaxed while trying to establish himself in another continent, so why is he giving away such a profound and hard-earned fated opportunity?”

He was reluctant to scold Li Xisheng, who was in the distant Northern Complete Reed Continent, and he was also reluctant to criticize Li Baoping, who was sitting right in front of him. Both of them were the embodiment of ideal juniors, so how could he bear to scold them? Thus, Wei Benyuan started to loudly criticize Old Man Li again, exclaiming, ”He’s old and muddleheaded; that Old Man Li is truly old and muddleheaded! He has peas for brains, so it’s no wonder that his Go skills are so terrible, and his Go etiquette is so deplorable!”

”Grandpa Wei, my older brother is always very measured in how he acts,” Li Baoping said.

Wei Benyuan thought for a moment before saying, ”I’ll accept them for now, but I’ll only be looking after them temporarily unless Xisheng can give me a clear explanation for them.”

”Well, that’s out of my control then,” Li Baoping said with a smile.

”There are all kinds of people at Light Breeze City, so I’ll truly feel worried if you still plan to travel around the Fox Nation afterward,” Wei Benyuan said. ”We naturally need to be cautious and guarded against smart and ill-intentioned people, but it’s actually those foolish and ill-intentioned cultivators in the mountains who are the most annoying to deal with. They forget justice when they see profits, they have debauched thoughts when they see beauty, they rely purely on gambling to build their clans and businesses, and they exude a miasma of chaos that clouds the world.”

Li Baoping nodded and said, ”Okay, then I’ll let Grandpa Wei accompany me. Otherwise, I’m also afraid of causing trouble for Big Sister Tao Ya when I visit her at the Fox Nation.”

Wei Benyuan smiled wryly and commented, ”You’re making it sound like I’m playing petty little tricks.”

Even though Tao Ya was a maidservant of the Wei Clan, Wei Benyuan had always viewed her as a junior and a part of the clan. Meanwhile, Li Baoping’s standing in his heart was even higher than that of his own granddaughters.

Li Baoping smiled and didn’t say anything.

Her grandpa had said something very strange once, explaining that the reason Old Brother Wei was stuck at the peak stage of the Golden Core Tier for so long wasn’t due to his aptitude, but because of his overly soft and kind-hearted nature. It wasn’t necessarily good for a cultivator to be too aggressive in pursuing progress, always fighting to stay ahead on the path of the Great Dao. In a similar vein, it was even worse for a cultivator to completely lack aggression and fight.

”Care to play a game of Go with me?” Wei Benyuan asked.

Playing Go, fishing, and watching enchanted picture scrolls were regarded as the three biggest pastimes in the mountains. These were the best ways to relax and pass time during breaks in cultivation.

Li Baoping turned down the suggestion, replying, ”You’re aware that I’ve never liked to play Go from a young age, Grandpa Wei. I was already exhibiting my greatest patience by watching you and Grandpa play Go back then.”

Wei Benyuan frowned and stood up, looking up at the peak of the lush mountain and saying with a cold chuckle, ”Why sneak around? Are you afraid of showing yourself?!”

If Li Baoping weren’t here, Wei Benyuan might have spoken more politely to this uninvited guest.