A Pawn's Passage

Madam Qi rode a donkey while smoking a pipe, moving unhurriedly.

Qi Xuansu recognized this donkey. Madam Qi had kept it for many years. She rode this same donkey when she went to Fengtai County to pick him up. No one knew what sort of strange creature it was, but after all these years, it had never aged.

Suddenly, the donkey halted, repeatedly lifting and stamping its front hooves and snorting anxiously, refusing to take even half a step forward.

Madam Qi hopped off and slapped the donkey’s rump with her pipe. She scolded in annoyance, “Get lost.”

The black donkey bolted as if granted amnesty, vanishing in the blink of an eye.

Madam Qi then walked into the city on foot.

Chen Shuhua immediately sensed Madam Qi, her gaze piercing layers of barriers, locking onto Madam Qi in the distance.

Madam Qi met her stare without the slightest fear. “Hey, do you really think Thanglong Prefecture belongs to you?”

Chen Shuhua replied coldly, “Yao Qi?”

The two were roughly of similar age, but Chen Shuhua had stayed in Poluo most of her life and rarely visited the Central Plains, so she was not as familiar with Madam Qi as Sage Cihang or Sage Donghua were.

“It’s me.” Madam Qi tapped the ash from her pipe nonchalantly. “Do you think that you can do whatever you please just because you’ve become an Immortal and that the Daoist Order can do nothing about you?”

Chen Shuhua narrowed her eyes. “You three Pseudo-Immortals might as well attack me at one go. I want to see what you can possibly do to me!”

As soon as she spoke, the two first-rank Spirit Guards rose into the sky.

The Spirit Guards looked miserable. Their armor was damaged in several places and glowed dimly. In contrast, Chen Shuhua’s hechang did not even have a wrinkle. She was completely unharmed.

Clearly, in the earlier fight, the two first-rank Spirit Guards had not gained the slightest advantage. They had merely managed to avoid being killed outright.

But with Madam Qi—another Pseudo-Immortal—joining them, they finally had enough power to fight back.

Still, victory was beyond reach because Chen Shuhua held an immortal sword, while the three of them had no equivalent immortal object. That was why Chen Shuhua was so confident that they could not do anything to her.

Madam Qi’s figure flickered and vanished, using the Heavenly Immortal’s Teleportation Technique. She appeared behind Chen Shuhua and swung her tobacco pipe, the Face Wrecker, straight at Chen Shuhua’s head.

Chen Shuhua did not move at all. A strand of sword qi manifested out of thin air, striking the Face Wrecker and jolting Madam Qi so hard that she nearly lost her grip on the tobacco pipe.

Chen Shuhua held the sword in one hand, while she pointed with her left hand. Two sharp sword qis streaked through the air, aimed separately at Spirit Guard Jia Yin and Spirit Guard Ding Chou.

The two Spirit Guards swung their weapons to meet the attacks. The sword qi exploded violently into a vast, overwhelming tide of energy.

While the Spirit Guards were held back by the tide of sword qi, Chen Shuhua and Madam Qi had already clashed.

Madam Qi wielded her Face Wrecker like a longsword, employing the Nandou 28 Swords Technique.

Chen Shuhua sought to end the fight quickly and unleashed the Beidou 36 Swords Technique without restraint.

The immortal sword and smoking pipe collided relentlessly, each impact rang like thunder, echoing across the heavens. Each clash burst with light so dazzling that it turned night into day.

No one knew what material this Face Wrecker was made from, but it was unbelievably sturdy.

Even facing the immortal sword, it refused to break, leaving Chen Shuhua genuinely surprised.

Madam Qi was an old, seasoned pseudo-immortal, while Chen Shuhua was new to the Longevity stage. Though there was a gap between their cultivation levels, it was not so large that Madam Qi could not fight back.

But stalemate could only last so long.

Chen Shuhua kept striking with her sword, gradually overwhelming Madam Qi’s sword qi, slowly tipping the balance in Chen Shuhua’s favor.

Suddenly, Chen Shuhua switched to the Seven-Kill Sword Technique. Madam Qi felt a sharp pain in her chest. Blood spread across her robe as she was struck by the formless strike. This sword technique moved without a shadow or trace, which made it utterly impossible to defend against.

Immediately after, Chen Shuhua’s sword lashed out like a dragon. Streaks of blood-colored light trailed through the air, leaving lingering marks. Her sword qi spread in twisting currents, weaving a net around Madam Qi without leaving any gaps.

If Madam Qi hesitated for even a heartbeat or tried to avoid direct confrontation, the countless strands of sword qi would instantly converge to shred her to pieces. She had no choice but to fight head-on.

But in a direct clash, Chen Shuhua naturally held the advantage.

Moreover, the Seven-Kill Sword Technique was said to rank fifth after the Beidou 36 Swords, Taiyin 13 Swords, Cihang Sword Sequence, and Nandou 28 Swords. Under such pressure, Madam Qi’s blood surged violently, threatening to gush out from her chest wound.

In an instant, Madam Qi fell into a perilous situation.

Fortunately, the two Spirit Guards rushed in, helping Madam Qi break free of the encirclement.

Chen Shuhua let out a cold snort and pointed her divine sword toward the heavens.

It looked as though the sky was about to collapse.

This was no illusion. Chen Shuhua had unleashed the full might of the immortal sword, using the weight of the heavens to press down on the mortal world, similar to Great Sage Jiang Hedao’s Heaven and Earth Convergence.

The one wielding the sword was acting in accordance with Heaven’s Will, so naturally, the one opposing her was defying Heaven’s Will.

When Princess Himiya Akiko faced this technique in the past, her solution had been simple. She used the Ame-no-Murakumo Sword to prop up the sky itself.

Heaven may fall, but an immortal object could hold it up. Put plainly, only an immortal object could counter an immortal object.

However, Madam Qi and the two Spirit Guards did not have an immortal object.

Yet at this moment, Chen Shuhua suddenly felt numbness spreading through her entire body. Her limbs refused to obey, and her momentum faltered.

Madam Qi laughed. “Chen Shuhua, did you forget that an Earthly Immortal must undergo a rebirth of the body?”

Chen Shuhua’s expression shifted.

Rogue Cultivators in the Cicada Shedding Realm undergo a minor rebirth of the body.

After stepping into the Longevity stage, one must undergo a major transformation that cleansed the meridians and marrow, casting off the mortal body and forging an immortal physique. This usually lasts 49 days. During this period, one would suffer symptoms akin to a severe illness, and each person’s ailments differed, often related to their environment or past experiences. For example, excessive yang would cause fire to flare within the body, long exposure to the bitter cold would cause lung issues, or past soul-splitting would lead to chronic headaches.

Chen Shuhua had refined her Longevity Stone using dragon qi, which became the foundation of her advancement. But since the Southern Dragon Qi had already decayed, her “illness” became the combination of the corrupted dragon qi’s five poisons.

This was something Chen Shuhua had never anticipated. It was a grave miscalculation.

Now that her symptoms erupted, their severity far exceeded normal cases. It was as though the corrupted dragon qi had invaded her body with full force. Even as an Immortal, Chen Shuhua struggled to withstand it.

Chen Shuhua’s face turned pale. She intended to flee Thanglong Prefecture and head to the hideaway she had long prepared to endure the 49 days of rebirth.

Just then, the moon and stars in the night sky rapidly dimmed.

In the next instant, wind and clouds shifted, the earth quaked, and a colossal palm appeared across the heavens, covering the moon and blotting out the stars.

With such overwhelming might, it could only be the work of an immortal.

Another immortal had taken action, clearly intent on keeping Chen Shuhua from escaping.

Seeing this, Chen Shuhua’s face changed drastically. “Golden Patriarch!”

The one who struck was none other than the Heavenly Court’s Golden Patriarch, Wu Guangbi’s master, and widely known as the Emperor of Nanyang.

In the past, Golden Patriarch had long been acknowledged as the foremost Pseudo-Immortal on the Gold Leaderboard.

Now, exactly as many had predicted, Golden Patriarch had finally broken the shackles of the Pseudo-Immortal stage and attained immortality.

In truth, Golden Patriarch relinquished his position as the Heavenly Court’s Grand Leader to focus on pursuing immortality. His efforts were rewarded. This peer of the Three Deputy Grand Masters finally took that pivotal step within his dwindling years

and attained immortality. Clearly, he had already completed the 49 days of rebirth and possessed far greater experience than Chen Shuhua.

Earlier, when Qi Xuansu learned that Chen Shuhua was secretly refining a Longevity Stone, he did not act recklessly. Instead, he asked Madam Qi if she could come.

Madam Qi had answered that she needed to meet and speak with the Golden Patriarch.

Put plainly, Madam Qi named her price and invited Golden Patriarch to intervene. After all, Golden Patriarch was not a Daoist but a titan of Jianghu. Sage Donghua could not appear personally. Only someone like Madam Qi, who also held immense status in Jianghu, could approach the Heavenly Court elder.

Now it was clear that Madam Qi had shown sufficient sincerity and had succeeded in persuading Golden Patriarch to act personally. Of course, this also required the Taiping Sect’s tacit approval. Whether for the sake of the Daoist Order’s overall stability or as part of their compromise with the Quanzhen Sect, the Taiping Sect allowed it and did not interfere.

With Golden Patriarch joining the fray, Chen Shuhua was instantly plunged into peril. She could fall with a single misstep.

Chen Shuhua understood this perfectly. She could no longer care about her “illness.” Her eyes turned blood-red, her lotus crown exploded, and her hair flew wildly as she poured all of her strength into the immortal sword.

The immortal sword’s radiance swelled as if it had no limit.

A beam of sword light shot straight into the heavens and spanned 50 kilometers.

Chen Shuhua merged completely with the sword light, splitting Thanglong Prefecture below into two and attempting to cleave Golden Patriarch’s descending palm in half.