Radiant Blade of the Wilderness

Chapter 193: Three Questions, Three ”I Don’t Knows”

An openwork brick wall stood nearby, its many large openings revealing glimpses of the garden beyond.

Lu Boxiu was creeping behind the wall when he suddenly heard several sets of footsteps approaching. He quickly drew himself in, becoming indistinguishable from the shadows of the trees and merging into the night.

This was his signature skill.

He had once been a disciple of the Northern Yong School in the Gan Kingdom. His hatred of oppression by the nonhuman species had driven him to fake his death, flee south, and defect to Great Zhao. His gift for stealth and concealment gradually earned him favor, and he was now one of the Emperor’s personal guards, holding the rank of Direct-Chamber General.

Lu Boxiu did not rely entirely on Shadow Concealment. His body silently shrank by two sizes as he crouched behind the solid brickwork between the openings.

He knew Prince Kang had close ties to the Brightnight Sect and that the estate employed no shortage of its disciples as guest advisers and retainers. Only a physical barrier could hide him from the Candle-Star Pupils and keep their depth-piercing sight from laying him bare.

The footsteps drew closer without showing any sign that something was amiss.

Lu Boxiu silently exhaled and considered his route forward.

Ding Songyan moved Frostshade, still sheathed in its deep black scabbard, to his right hand. As he passed an openwork brick wall, he swung the sword as though merely stretching his arm.

Still huddled behind the wall and not daring to look out, Lu Boxiu suddenly felt every hair stand on end. He instinctively tried to roll toward the garden, only to feel the space around him strangely solidify and obstruct his movement.

The constraint was extremely fragile and shattered at the slightest impact, but it still delayed Lu Boxiu for a split second and kept him from escaping in time.

He immediately heard a dull thud.

His vision went black. He lost consciousness and slumped against the openwork wall.

”What happened?” Li Baima spun around and looked at Ding Songyan.

”I was stretching my arm and struck the wall with my scabbard.” Ding Songyan smiled apologetically.

He had just withdrawn the black-sheathed Frostshade from one of the wall’s large openings.

”You startled me.” Wu Mo breathed a sigh of relief.

Doesn’t seem like an enemy attack.

Li Baima nodded and cautioned him quietly,

”Be more careful next time.”

Ding Songyan agreed. Once Li Baima and the others turned away and continued onward, his face abruptly sharpened, his eyes transformed, and several blue-black scales emerged across his skin.

These physical abnormalities vanished in an instant.

Ding Songyan half closed his eyes and followed Li Baima and the others like a sleepwalker.

Barely a dozen breaths later, his eyes snapped open. He frowned slightly and murmured soundlessly, The Jianwu Emperor sent him?

......

Outside the main gate of Prince Kang’s estate.

Hong Wansheng had paced over to the entrance, ready to enter the estate at any moment and explain Lu Boxiu’s purpose.

He stood beneath a tree shedding yellow leaves, concealed in its shadow as he watched the buildings shrouded in darkness. Everything seemed to be sleeping. The estate was extraordinarily peaceful, without the slightest disturbance.

The night watchman’s calls approached from the distance, then receded and gradually faded away.

After this repeated several times, Hong Wansheng’s expression gradually grew grave.

Why has Lu Boxiu vanished without a trace?

Even if someone discovered him, there should have been a fierce battle!

Could Lu Boxiu truly have bypassed every layer of the estate’s defenses, reached the inner study, and hidden there until dawn so he could emerge and point out the flaws in its night watch?

As thoughts raced through his mind, Hong Wansheng saw the side gate open and the bird-headed Niao Jingbai walk out.

”What brings Pavilion Attendant Hong here so late at night?” Niao Jingbai asked in crisp, perfectly articulated Great Zhao.

Hong Wansheng was also one of the emperor’s personal guards. He held the highest grade of Pavilion Attendant and could command troops when dispatched from the palace.

He and Lu Boxiu answered directly to Prince Shou, Hong Gaoyuan, one of the three Hong Supreme Masters.

Hong Wansheng cupped his hands with a rueful smile.

”It is a secret order from His Majesty. I cannot disclose it for now.”

Inwardly, however, he offered a word of praise.

Prince Kang’s estate is reasonably well guarded. They noticed my suspicious movements so quickly and reported them to the eunuchs and stewards.

Niao Jingbai bobbed his human-faced Bifang-like head and opened his pointed beak.

”If there is anything I can assist with, Pavilion Attendant Hong, please do not hesitate to tell me.”

Hong Wansheng exchanged a few polite words with him and watched Niao Jingbai return to the estate.

After this exchange, he believed it was only a matter of time before Lu Boxiu was discovered, so he continued waiting.

The third watch passed, and the fourth neared its end. The longer Hong Wansheng waited, the more alarmed he became.

Why has Lu Boxiu still not emerged?

Has he still not been discovered?

Did he simply disappear?

Even if Prince Kang’s estate were a vast ocean, throwing in a stone should still make a splash. And the one who infiltrated it is Lu Boxiu, a second-rank Subtlety Attuned Grandmaster who advanced through normal cultivation!

When he looked again at Prince Kang’s estate sleeping beneath the night, an inexplicable fear seized Hong Wansheng. It seemed like a monstrous divine beast capable of swallowing all things.

Just as he lost his composure and resolved to enter the estate to inquire, a figure crept through the shade of the trees and swiftly circled around from the side. Lu Boxiu emerged, his face bird-like, his breastbone protruding, and much of his body covered in black feathers.

Hong Wansheng quietly breathed a sigh of relief and brightened.

”You reached the inner study without being discovered along the way?”

Lu Boxiu shook his head, looking bewildered.

”You could not bypass the guards and chose to withdraw halfway?” Hong Wansheng ventured another guess.

But if so, he should not have taken this long to leave the estate.

Lu Boxiu shook his head again. He looked as though he had just awakened from a dream and still could not distinguish reality from illusion.

”Then why did you return only now?” Hong Wansheng stopped guessing and asked directly.

Lu Boxiu rubbed his head and answered dazedly, ”Not long after I entered Prince Kang’s estate, someone knocked me unconscious. I only just woke up...”

”What...” Hong Wansheng’s gaze sharpened. ”Who did it?”

Lu Boxiu slowly shook his head.

”I don’t know.”

”How did they knock you out?” Hong Wansheng pressed urgently.

A vacant look entered Lu Boxiu’s eyes.

”I don’t know.”

Hong Wansheng grew equally bewildered.

”Then what did the person who struck you look like?”

Lu Boxiu’s face finally recovered a little of its color, and his gaze grew marginally livelier.

”I don’t know.”

Hong Wansheng fell silent. He could not imagine what Lu Boxiu had encountered.

A second-rank Grandmaster was knocked unconscious in the middle of an infiltration without seeing or learning anything at all?

”Why did that person not throw me at Niao Jingbai’s feet? He is overseeing the watch tonight.” Lu Boxiu muttered to himself, utterly perplexed.

Hong Wansheng looked him up and down.

”Perhaps they found your identification token, recognized you, and decided to spare you some embarrassment.”

Lu Boxiu remained silent for a moment, then released a long breath.

”Brother Hong, Prince Kang’s estate is full of hidden talents. It’s truly unfathomable.”

Hong Wansheng was speechless for a moment before answering, ”It appears His Majesty worried needlessly. Let us return and report.”

......

Once the fourth watch ended, Ding Songyan completed his patrol and returned to his room.

He lit the oil lamp and muttered inwardly, Had I known the Jianwu Emperor sent him to ”inspect” the estate’s defenses, I would not have struck.

I also want to see whether Prince Kang’s estate has any defensive gaps. Twelfth Madam remained near the perimeter before, and I still cannot determine her exact strength, so that incident tells me little...

Since the deed was done, Ding Songyan stopped dwelling on it and looked toward the Peerless Beauties of the Jianghu and Martial World’s Jade Tree Rankings on his desk.

He casually opened the former and unexpectedly found several lines written on the title page.

Earlier, he and Li Baima’s group had begun directly with the portraits.

The lines read:

”To preserve happy marriages, those already wed shall not be listed;

”To make way for the new, those over forty shall not be listed;

”To uphold public morals, those who have not entered the jianghu shall not be listed;

”Yo honor the netherworld, the deceased and those whose fates remain unknown shall not be listed.”

Ding Songyan was rendered speechless with amusement.

These enthusiasts are quite interesting...

Few women qualified for the Peerless Beauties of the Jianghu. It currently listed only twelve, of whom merely four came from Great Zhao or were regularly active there.

New Yu had three, one each from the Six Dragon Sect, Luan-Feng School, and Moon Mother Sect. The Feng Kingdom had two, from the Celestial Secrets Sect and Nether Capital House respectively. The Gan Kingdom likewise had two, both from the Celestial Maiden School, whose reputation for beguiling the world was well earned. The remaining woman was Cao Xingxi, a disciple of the Impermanence Order’s leader who belonged to no nation.

The four regularly active in Great Zhao were Zhang Yingbo of the Five Saints Sect, Ji Hanyi of the Sage-Severing Way, Bai Lingxu of the Sovereign Xi School, and Sun Yiguang of the Imperial Vestments School.

Ji Hanyi was primarily active in Great Zhao and New Yu. The enthusiasts’ latest appraisal described her as ”pure and ethereal, exquisitely beautiful beyond compare.”

Bai Lingxu was currently thirty-four and a first-rank Spirit Resonated Grandmaster. Her appraisal read, ”magnificent and commanding, with beauty enough to topple a kingdom.”

The Imperial Vestments School was a reclusive sect about which Ding Songyan knew little. He merely guessed from its name that it inherited the Quail Bird lineage. Sun Yiguang was twenty-six, at the perfected Great Proliferation Realm, and third-rank Form Transfigured. Her appraisal read, ”bright and sweet, with a gentle warmth that captivates the soul.”

Apart from his undeserved younger sister Ji Hanyi, Ding Songyan paid the most attention to Cao Xingxi of the Impermanence Order.

She inherited the Tri-Azure Bird lineage and was among the easier disciples of the Impermanence Order to locate. Sooner or later, Ding Songyan would have to ”visit” her in his search for the secret behind his transmigration.

Cao Xingxi was twenty-nine, a first-rank Spirit Resonated Grandmaster ranked third on the Orchid Fresh List. The Peerless Beauties of the Jianghu described her as ”half illusion and half reality, aloof and ravishing.”

After reading for a while, Ding Songyan closed the volume and thought leisurely, Once Senior Sister and Miss Xiao Qing formally begin traveling the jianghu, the Peerless Beauties of the Jianghu will certainly grow to fourteen...

I am still some distance from making the Martial World’s Jade Tree Rankings. If only I had a chance to cultivate the Five Saints Sect’s arts.

The Martial World’s Jade Tree Rankings contained thirteen men, of whom four were regularly active in Great Zhao: Yu Chongyuan of the Five Saints Sect, Wang Chongzhen of the Grand Joy Sect, Jiang Lanting of the Yin-Yang Order, and Li Linquan of the Thunder Sound House.

Yu Chongyuan was thirty-six and had already attained the Heaven-Man Realm. Li Linquan was twenty-six and had just entered the Dharma Realm. Wang Chongzhen was twenty-eight and reportedly would become a Grandmaster before the year’s end, while Jiang Lanting was twenty-five and third-rank Form Transfigured.

Ding Songyan had assumed that Li Linquan, who had consumed Yao grass, would look feminine. Instead, the man was strikingly handsome and possessed a distinctly masculine bearing. Yet even his portrait carried a trace of allure that inspired instinctive affection and tenderness.

Instead, it was Jiang Lanting of the Yin-Yang Order whose appraisal read, ”a face like a beautiful woman’s, refined and carefree.”

When Ding Songyan had reached Jiang Lanting’s pages earlier, he had nearly thought he was holding the Peerless Beauties of the Jianghu by mistake.

With a soft breath, Ding Songyan extinguished the oil lamp and sat on the bed. Only after sensing the currents of qi in the void for a while did he enter a deep sleep.

Near noon the next day, he filled his stomach, picked up Frostshade, and left the estate for Martial Star Ward, located south of Golden Pool.