Radiant Blade of the Wilderness

Chapter 166: Wind-Shadow Saber

”Uncle Yi, did the Two-Faced say anything else?” Zheng Zhuxi’s tone turned urgent at once.

When she had left the mountain for Dingjiang Prefecture a few days ago, everything at the sect had been fine and her mother was safe and well. But being her mother’s daughter, she couldn’t help but worry.

Marshal Yi shook his head slowly.

”That boy only knew this much. Everything else drew a blank. I’m here for two reasons: first, to have you warn Sect Master Tao to be on guard against attacks from the shadows; second, to ask Young Master Ding to come with me to the county office and use spirit channeling on the boy after we’ve had him executed.”

The exact words were ”wait for Tao Wenshu to die, then use the year-end recruitment to slip into the Brightnight Sect”... Such certainty about Master’s death... Others have Candle-Star Pupils too... If I were the one behind this, by the time that Two-Faced boy arrived in Dingjiang Prefecture, the business on Master’s end should already be nearly settled. Otherwise, any mishap involving this Two-Faced boy, who has no martial skill or experience, would inevitably set back whatever is being planned over there... Ding Songyan kept his composure even under pressure, analyzing the situation rapidly in his mind.

He said to Marshal Yi in a heavy voice, ”Uncle Yi, keep the boy under guard for now. I’ll deal with him in a few days.

”Senior Sister and I need to head back to Alpine Lake Mountain right away, in case other means of sending word have been cut off.

”Also, please report to the prefecture office as soon as possible, and notify our sect by carrier pigeon or whatever other means you can.”

If the Two-Faced boy had any martial skill at all, and his ghost wouldn’t fade within days of death, Ding Songyan would have told Marshal Yi to kill him on the spot to prevent any complications.

Marshal Yi had simply meant to give the Brightnight Sect a warning. He hadn’t expected Ding Songyan to react so excessively, as though something were happening at this very moment.

”Understood.” The marshal was experienced and wasted no words. He simply tossed a waist token to Zheng Zhuxi to let them change horses along the way.

Without even stopping to pack their things, Ding Songyan and Zheng Zhuxi, who had already been bursting with impatience, used the Waxing Moon Phantom Form to sprint from the residence, mounted up at the west gate, and galloped toward Alpine Lake Mountain without sparing the horses at all.

Hooves thundered and dust flew as they rode. At every relay station they changed horses without delay, regardless of whether the animals were tired yet, lest they find themselves in the middle of nowhere with a horse that suddenly gave out.

With his true level of ability, Ding Songyan’s movement technique would certainly outpace any horse. But he didn’t know what was happening at the Brightnight Sect, and feared arriving at the gate exhausted and unable to handle an emergency. For now, he held back.

In under three hours, the two had galloped to the foot of Alpine Lake Mountain.

Taking their usual path up the mountain, Ding Songyan extended his right hand, placed it against his senior sister’s back, and swept her along with him through the mountain forest at the full speed of a perfected Dharma Realm movement technique, back toward the sect.

Ding Songyan was showing his true ability.

After recovering from his last viscera installation, he had spent one day condensing nearly two hundred void apertures in his immediate surroundings, then close to seven days completing the Dharma Realm Chapter of the Candlelit Nocturne Sutra, reaching the genuine perfected Dharma Realm in that art.

Whether for the Candlelit Nocturne Sutra or the Celestial Stars Scripture, the corresponding void apertures were all contained within the Chaos Scripture’s hundred-thousand-plus, and Ding Songyan could sense them equally well, with no need to search anew. He only had to spend some effort identifying which ones were currently needed, first condense them using the Chaos Scripture’s methods until that state became natural instinct, then switch to the Candlelit Nocturne Sutra’s approach.

What could have been done in just over three days was stretched to seven. At the end, Ding Songyan also spent two years of his lifespan to let his body commit the transformations of the Candlelit Nocturne Sutra at the perfected Dharma Realm to memory.

Before long, the two reached the Brightnight Sect’s boundary markers, leaving behind only gently swaying trees.

At a glance they saw a large number of Brightnight Sect disciples gathered at the shore of Alpine Lake. Grand Elder Wang Zhou was there, as were senior brother Xu Julong, third senior sister Lin Shuyue, and fourth senior sister Xue Xian.

They rushed over without pausing, and the moment they neared Alpine Lake, they saw one of the islands at the lake’s center shrouded in darkness, thick with stars, lashed by howling winds, the surrounding water surging in wave after wave.

Tao Wenshu, wearing a plain iron crown and a black robe scattered with stars, Starwave Sword in hand, was locked in fierce combat with a man of about thirty-seven or thirty-eight.

The man was clearly a Grandmaster as well, seemingly at the first-rank Spirit Resonated level. His brows were tinged with white and his facial features were hard-set; a pair of horns shaped like a mountain goat’s grew from his head. He held a long saber in each hand. The left gleamed with the sheen of water, and each stroke brought rain and answering waves. The right was thin as a cicada’s wing, so fast it was nearly invisible, each stroke riding a fierce gust of wind.

The two had been fighting for some time, and Tao Wenshu held the upper hand.

”What happened?” Zheng Zhuxi asked Senior Sister Xue Xian. Seeing her mother unharmed had eased her nerves somewhat.

”Wind-Shadow Saber Bai Zhaolin, a first-rank Spirit Resonated Grandmaster. He showed up out of nowhere and challenged Master to a life-or-death duel. And Master actually accepted.” Xue Xian herself didn’t entirely understand how things had come to this.

The life-or-death duel was a way for the orthodox community to settle personal grievances among themselves.

Against the unorthodox and demonic sects, there were naturally no rules to speak of: if you had a score to settle, you settled it, and if you bore a grudge, you took your revenge. Whether you came alone with a sword or banded together with other heroes to attack, all was fair game. But when both sides belonged to the orthodox path and some grievance had turned them against each other, with no one else able to mediate, you could hardly let the feud spiral into a bloodbath until their sects fought each other to the death, yet neither could you simply suppress it and forbid them from crossing swords.

The former risked undermining the orthodox community’s foundations and delighting the unorthodox. The latter would let resentment accumulate in one party until it could no longer be contained, erupting and causing even greater damage.

The life-or-death duel arose in response to this need. Both parties agreed on when, where, and how they would fight to the death to settle the grievance. Neither side’s forces could interfere in any way, nor seek revenge afterward.

To issue such a challenge, the grievance between the two parties had to be legitimate. One couldn’t say ”my son turned to evil and you killed him in the name of justice, so I’m challenging you to a duel to the death.” Furthermore, challenges could only be issued between equals in rank, or by the weaker party upward, never by the stronger to the weaker. Finally, the party being challenged could refuse, but their reputation would suffer for it.

From the various accounts and records Ding Songyan had read, at least three out of ten life-or-death duels stemmed from emotional entanglements. But given Master’s upright character, this one clearly had nothing to do with that.

Ding Songyan watched the fight on the island intently, ready to intervene at any moment.

So what if a freshly admitted disciple who hasn’t even completed his training doesn’t know jianghu etiquette?

At the same time, he matched Bai Zhaolin’s physical features and martial characteristics against the Secret Classic of Mountains and Seas, trying to quickly identify which lineage the Wind-Shadow Saber came from.

”Why would my mother accept?” Zheng Zhuxi murmured to herself, full of worry.

Grand Elder Wang Zhou turned to one side toward them and gave a brief account.

”Your mother had a quicker temper when she was young—quicker than yours. In some county, I forget which one, she came across a man who preyed on the weak. He was Bai Huan, the legitimate son of the Bai family, more than ten years older than your mother, and already at the perfected Great Proliferation Realm, third-rank Form Transfigured.

”When he committed his misdeeds he left no loose ends and almost no evidence, making everything look like ordinary quarrels gone wrong. If your mother hadn’t stumbled upon him by chance, no one would have believed he was such a villain.

”Your mother wasn’t as well known then as she is now. Her word alone wasn’t enough to serve as evidence, and there was little she could do about Bai Huan through proper means. But she refused to let a villain go unpunished, so she posed as a relative of one of his victims, used that as grounds for a grievance, and issued a deathmatch. Bai Huan saw that she was only at the middle stage of the Great Proliferation Realm, fourth-rank Mortal Surpassed, and didn’t take her seriously. He didn’t even verify her identity before accepting the challenge. In the end, your mother slew him on the dueling ground.”

This was rather like the Chen Jindong affair, though Junior Brother handled that one more discreetly... I never imagined Mother would once have assumed a false identity to help someone. She was never a rigid person... Zheng Zhuxi had a rough idea now of what had happened.

Wang Zhou continued, ”Wind-Shadow Saber Bai Zhaolin is Bai Huan’s son. He cultivates the Bai family’s direct lineage art, the Wind-Rain Eight Wilds Strategy. He has always been upright and has quite a reputation as a hero. He has been a Grandmaster for five or six years, and had never before spoken a word about revenge. His sudden appearance today with a deathmatch was entirely unexpected.

”Given who your mother is, there was no way she could refuse.”

Upright? A fine reputation as a hero? Not when a Two-Faced had just said ”after Tao Wenshu dies, slip into the Brightnight Sect.” That is hardly the behavior of an upright man. The same thought surfaced in both Ding Songyan and Zheng Zhuxi’s minds at the same moment.

Ding Songyan had already looked Bai Zhaolin over with the Candle-Star Pupils. Unfortunately the man was not Two-Faced, or Ding Songyan would certainly have called on the sect’s other Grandmasters to gang up and leave him dead at the sword.

When dealing with the unorthodox, what jianghu etiquette was there to observe?

Watching the fierce battle on the island, he couldn’t help sighing inwardly.

Master, oh Master, why do you have to be so principled?

Even if you had to accept the challenge, you could at least have stalled for a few days, looked into Bai Zhaolin’s background properly before stepping onto the dueling ground!

And why choose the island in the middle of the lake as the dueling ground? Bai Zhaolin clearly excels in wind and rain. You should have put him in an indoor training hall...

And now it makes it impossible for me to get close undetected, to step in at the critical moment...

After a moment of cross-referencing, Ding Songyan and Zheng Zhuxi arrived at the same conclusion simultaneously about the origin of the Wind-Rain Eight Wilds Strategy.

Nine Mountains’ Mountain God: human in form with goat’s horns. The result of consuming it? Brings rain upon the four cardinal directions, wind through the six directions, floods across the eight wilds, and calamity upon heaven and earth.

Calamity upon heaven and earth... Ding Songyan’s heart clenched, though he told himself Master should not be without some defense against this.

Caution taking precedence, he lowered his voice and said to Zheng Zhuxi, ”Senior Sister, let’s circle around to the side. Cover for me while I slip into the lake, swim to the island’s edge, and hide there in case something goes wrong.”

This isn’t in keeping with jianghu etiquette, and it isn’t exactly upright either... No, wait. Bai Zhaolin’s motives are suspect. He may well be in league with the Two-Faced. There’s no point observing jianghu etiquette with someone like that... And even if his arrival really was a coincidence, we should stop the fight first, then investigate whatever danger the Two-Faced may have brought, and only then resume the duel... Zheng Zhuxi’s thoughts raced through a hundred turns, and she quickly nodded.

”Okay.”

She and Ding Songyan quickly used the Southern Dipper Calamity-Averting Steps to circle around to the tree-sheltered side of the lake.

On the island in the lake, Bai Zhaolin was struggling under Tao Wenshu’s Celestial Stars Sword Art, on the verge of showing signs of defeat.

He had always known he was a cut below Tao Wenshu. It was why he hadn’t dared avenge his father all these years, simply because he had no chance of winning.

But he had never let the matter go.

However despicable he was, however much he enjoyed preying on the weak, he was still a father who had been very, very good to him!

Amid the clang and clash of blades, Bai Zhaolin held firm even while outmatched, his defense tight and disciplined.

He was waiting for an opening.

An opening he believed would surely come.