“Kill Officer Cao?” Wu Hongbiao’s heart jumped. “Just the two of us?”

“Yes, the two of us.”

The small room in the cloth shop was empty. Wu Hongbiao sat cross-legged on the floor, while Chen Ji leaned against the doorframe, the two exchanging a silent gaze.

Wu Hongbiao looked towards the doorway. Chen Ji stood backlit by the moonlight, his expression unclear.

He patiently advised, “You haven’t been in the Military Intelligence Agency long, and haven’t dealt much with Officer Cao. Don’t entertain such dangerous thoughts.”

Chen Ji noticed that even Wu Hongbiao, one of the most elite spies, had a moment of hesitation at the thought of killing Officer Cao.

He couldn’t help but ask, “How powerful is Officer Cao?”

Wu Hongbiao replied gravely, “You are not an Official, so you don’t know their power. I am merely a Post-Heaven Realm martial artist. Officer Cao has been in the military for a long time; he’s at least a Perfected Pre-Heaven Realm Official, probably just a step away from the Dao-Seeking Realm.”

Chen Ji looked puzzled.

Wu Hongbiao sighed helplessly, explaining as he munched on a coarse grain cake, “Well, you wouldn’t understand these realms even if I explained them. Let me give you the simplest example: Once in Jinling, Officer Cao’s whereabouts were exposed. A military formation of over a hundred Secret Intelligence Agency agents couldn’t apprehend him. He single-handedly killed dozens of them before escaping into the Qinhuai River.”

Chen Ji pressed, “If the Pre-Heaven Realm is already so formidable, then how powerful must the Dao-Seeking Realm be? Is it difficult to cultivate to the Dao-Seeking Realm?”

“Of course it’s difficult!” Wu Hongbiao sighed. “Look at me, I can’t even find the knack to break through from Post-Heaven to Pre-Heaven, let alone Pre-Heaven to Dao-Seeking. In the entire city of Luocheng, there are probably only two Dao-Seeking Realm masters: one is Liang Gou’er, and the other should be hidden in the Yan Shi controlled by the Liu family.”

Wu Hongbiao stated solemnly, “At the Dao-Seeking Realm, such a master absolutely cannot be taken down unless by a military formation of over five hundred soldiers charging them. Liang Gou’er entered the Dao-Seeking Realm at twenty-four. That year, he went to the Ning Dynasty’s border army and, during a confrontation between the two armies, consecutively slew eight generals from our Jing Dynasty, instantly becoming famous. Unfortunately, Liang Gou’er’s cultivation path was severed; otherwise, he was the most promising individual in the Ning Dynasty to advance further.”

“Severed by someone?”

Wu Hongbiao pondered for a moment. “I’ve always suspected it might have been our Jing Dynasty’s doing, perhaps even your uncle’s.”

Chen Ji was stunned. “Why do you say that?”

Wu Hongbiao explained, “After Liang Gou’er’s cultivation path was severed, a female saber wielder appeared in our Jing Dynasty’s border army. She assassinated a general of considerable talent in the Ning Dynasty’s border army. Some recognized that she used the Liang family’s saber techniques. She must have been someone specifically trained by our Jing Dynasty, sent to the Ning Dynasty to marry Liang Gou’er, solely to disrupt his state of mind and sever his cultivation!”

“That female saber wielder not only severed Liang Gou’er’s cultivation path but also tricked him into giving up the Liang family’s hereditary saber techniques. It was truly killing two birds with one stone, a highly cunning scheme.”

Chen Ji asked, puzzled, “But why do you say this was your uncle’s doing?”

Wu Hongbiao pulled out the stopper from his bamboo flask, took a drink, and replied, “Three years ago, when your uncle was assassinated, a female saber wielder also appeared by his side.”

Chen Ji was speechless.

His uncle’s background seemed incredibly complex.

Even now, he couldn’t form a clear understanding of his uncle; it always felt like a veil of mist shrouded him, appearing both righteous and wicked, someone who would stop at nothing to achieve his goals.

Chen Ji murmured, “Post-Heaven, Pre-Heaven, Dao-Seeking… What’s above the Dao-Seeking Realm?”

“The Divine Dao Realm!”

Wu Hongbiao continued, “According to your uncle, there are only a handful of individuals in the entire world who have reached this realm. Lu Yang, the Headmaster of our Jing Dynasty’s Martial Temple, is one, and the Sect Master ‘Apostle Son’ of Mount Huang in the Ning Dynasty is another. Even Laojun Mountain of the Luocheng Daoist Court and the Luotian Sect of the Ning Dynasty don’t have such figures.”

“A figure like Headmaster Lu Yang is a grandmaster who has already touched the threshold of the Celestial Realm! Furthermore, the people of Jing Dynasty have always enthusiastically recounted his legend of ‘Sixty-Year Demon Extermination,’ have you heard of it?”

“No, I haven’t! Sixty-Year Demon Extermination? Are there still demons in this world?”

“They are Demonic Sects scattered throughout the Jing Dynasty, using human sacrifice as a cultivation method, often abducting children and women, and even massacring villages—they are extremely vile! Headmaster Lu Yang emerged from the Martial Temple to eradicate these demons, wiping them out completely, leaving no trace!”

“So, it’s called ‘Sixty-Year Demon Extermination’ because he killed them in the Jiazi year?”

Wu Hongbiao shook his head. “No, it means he exterminated demons for sixty years.”

Chen Ji choked. Sixty years is a full cycle; no Demonic Sect could withstand a Divine Dao Realm Grandmaster fighting them relentlessly for sixty years.

The Martial Temple!

Liang Gou’er had once mentioned this place.

He had suggested that Chen Ji shouldn’t practice the saber but should instead go to the Jing Dynasty’s Martial Temple to learn their ‘Sword Seed.’

Only now did Chen Ji finally gain a vague understanding of the Officials in the world.

However, he himself… probably wasn’t even considered a Post-Heaven martial artist.

Facing someone like Officer Cao, he even worried that gunpowder might not be enough to kill him.

How to make the officer stand still and let himself be blown up was already a difficult problem.

Wu Hongbiao asked, “Do you still want to kill Officer Cao? Give up!”

Chen Ji was silent for a long time. “But if I don’t kill him, he’ll kill me.”

Wu Hongbiao fell silent too.

His expression showed struggle and hesitation; unlike Chen Ji, he knew Officer Cao’s formidable power, which made him realize it was impossible with just the two of them.

But eventually, Wu Hongbiao said, “Then let’s kill him, but how?”

“I’ll figure out a way; there’s always a way!”

Chen Ji pondered for a moment, then suddenly asked, “You said, why doesn’t my uncle let me return to the Jing Dynasty?”

Wu Hongbiao thought for a bit. “I can’t fully grasp his thoughts, but he once said that all children of noble families should experience the front lines, otherwise they’ll just become dissolute wastrels, spending their days dog fighting and frequenting brothels. Back then, he risked his life coming south to the Ning Dynasty, and with the immense merit of assassinating the Chen family’s Minister of War, he returned to our Jing Dynasty and single-handedly established the Military Intelligence Agency! I suppose he might want you to become someone like him!”

Wu Hongbiao spoke with yearning, “In our Jing Dynasty’s military, countless people admire your uncle and wish to become like him. I think you should also aspire to that and follow the path he once walked.”

Chen Ji was startled. So, his uncle founded the Military Intelligence Agency?

It truly was a new discovery every day…

But if he had to assassinate a grand minister to return, then he might as well not return to the Jing Dynasty.

The Ning Dynasty was quite good. “I have another question: you’re clearly close to death yourself, so why did you still come to deliver this message to me?”

Wu Hongbiao grinned. “I told you, we’re brothers!”

“Understood!” Chen Ji turned to leave. “I can’t stay here long. I’ll bring you some food and water every night for the next few days. Take good care of your injuries!”

Stepping out, Chen Ji stood in the moonlight in the backyard of the cloth shop, letting out a long breath.

To kill Officer Cao, he probably needed a thorough plan, starting with knowing what he looked like and what identity he used to conceal himself daily.

He struggled to climb out of the yard, returned to the apprentice dormitory, and lay down. The room was still filled with snores, but Chen Ji felt an unusual tranquility in his heart.

The pain in his chest and thigh flared up again.

This pain constantly reminded him that weakness was the original sin of this world.

Chen Ji lay quietly on the communal bunk, gazing at the rafters, his mind still swirling with the words about Officials from that night.

He slowly closed his eyes, mobilizing the molten currents within the sixteen internal furnaces, channeling half of them to condense in his heart.

In an instant, the internal fire weakened, like a flickering candle in the wind, threatening to extinguish at any moment.

The ice current in Chen Ji’s dantian sensed the weakening of the power suppressing it and immediately began to stir restlessly.

It permeated from the Tianshu acupoint, spreading throughout Chen Ji’s entire body.

A long-unfelt chill enveloped him, and Chen Ji once again plunged into that mysterious and unknown dark cloud sea, returning to the ancient battlefield.

Previously, he had always been forced into this place; before the age of twelve, he had been plagued by this nightmare more than once, and his parents even thought he was seriously ill, taking him to a psychologist.

But this time, Chen Ji had returned voluntarily.

As the young monk had said, Chen Ji always had a gambling streak; only, others gambled money, while he gambled his life.

Feeling the mist of the cloud sea flowing around him, he was like a meteor piercing down from the sky, landing with a body full of black luck.

Strangely, this time there was no sound of battle cries on the ancient battlefield; everything seemed to have frozen.

Chen Ji saw a three-legged Golden Crow suspended in the sky, its tail feathers completely still.

He saw a golden feathered arrow traveling through the battle formation, yet it was held motionless in the air by some unknown force, and the person who had angrily shot it with a fully drawn bow was also frozen in place.

He saw a giant, rushing towards the battlefield like Kuafu chasing the sun, but stopped mid-stride.

This battlefield was like a vast, lonely amber, trapping everything for tens of thousands of years.

However, the emperor clad in golden armor, holding a royal banner, and commanding the battle formation was nowhere to be seen.

“You still dare to come here?”

A grand voice sounded behind Chen Ji.

Chen Ji whirled around to see the golden-armored figure, towering like a mountain, standing behind him, looking down from a mountaintop above.

He felt no fear, only calmly asked, “What is your name?”

“My name is ‘Xuanyuan’!”

The two characters ‘Xuanyuan’ boomed like a great bell, as if echoed by heaven and earth, and even the black clouds in the sky slowly began to disperse.

Chen Ji then asked, “And who am I?”

Xuanyuan burst into laughter as if he had heard something immensely amusing. “You don’t remember, you actually don’t remember anything at all.”

But as he laughed, Xuanyuan’s tone became desolate. “The peach blossoms of Guixu, the snow on East Kunlun Mountain, the sea beyond Penglai—you’ve forgotten it all…”

Chen Ji frowned. “Who exactly am I?”

Xuanyuan turned his head to look beyond. “This is the biggest joke I’ve heard in fifteen thousand years. If even you have forgotten who you are, then who am I? What does my fifteen thousand years of solitude amount to?”

Chen Ji quietly watched the other figure. He suddenly realized that this was by no means a real battlefield; the battle formations, the wondrous beasts and birds, the people—all were illusions.

And the golden-armored emperor ‘Xuanyuan’ before him was the only living being in this world.

Xuanyuan slowly calmed down, his voice authoritative. “Why have you come to my world? Are you not afraid I will use you to return to the mortal realm?”

“I am afraid!”

“Then why did you still dare to come?”

Chen Ji replied earnestly, “Impart your Sword Seed to me!”

He couldn’t go to the Jing Dynasty’s Martial Temple. Perhaps one day he really would go to the Jing Dynasty, but that was too far off, and he couldn’t wait.

Hearing Chen Ji’s words, Xuanyuan was visibly stunned, as if he had heard something incredible, then burst into laughter again. “Impart my Sword Seed to you? Hahahaha, that’s the second biggest joke I’ve heard in fifteen thousand years.”

Chen Ji was speechless for a moment. “Is it that funny?”

Xuanyuan turned back, planted his royal banner on the mountaintop, and said gravely, “Do you know that you and I were once enemies?”

“I don’t know, but perhaps we were also friends!”

This time, it was Xuanyuan’s turn to be silent. After a long pause, he said in a deep voice, “Then do you know that what you once disdained the most was precisely the Sword Seed I cultivated?”

Chen Ji quickly said, “I respect it now, I definitely respect it! It’s awesome!”

Xuanyuan was speechless.

Above them, the two stood in silence, trapped in a suffocating awkwardness.

Xuanyuan seriously scrutinized Chen Ji, as if needing to get to know him again. “You’ve changed too much!”

Chen Ji said earnestly, “What I actually want to say is that I’m not anyone you know. My name is Chen Ji, just a small apprentice in the Taiping Medical Clinic. I don’t disdain the Sword Seed, nor do I have grand ambitions. I just don’t want to be easily killed by others. I don’t know what grievances or past affections you have with that non-existent person, I just want to make a wager with you.”

“Oh?” Xuanyuan became interested. “How do you want to wager?”

“You want to use me to return to the mortal realm?”

“That’s right!”

“If you impart your Sword Seed to me, and one day you do return to the mortal realm through me, then my current cultivation will have been for your sake!”

Xuanyuan pondered, “You’re wagering that I’ll never be able to return to the mortal realm?”

Chen Ji looked up directly at the towering mountain. “Do we wager?”

The golden-armored emperor chuckled. “Even you are using provocation now. I can impart the Sword Seed to you, but not because of this ridiculous gamble.”

Chen Ji was puzzled. “Then why?”

Xuanyuan spoke enigmatically, “For the ten miles of peach blossoms in Guixu.”

Chen Ji didn’t understand.

But if it was for peach blossoms, then so be it. For pear blossoms or camellias would also be fine.

“How do I cultivate the Sword Seed?” Chen Ji asked.

Xuanyuan replied profoundly, “To cultivate my sword dao, you must nourish your sword intent with a star, and seize the sword intent of others to forge your Sword Seed. I chose the Ziwei Emperor Star. From all the stars in the sky, you may choose one for yourself. Remember, once chosen, it cannot be changed.”

“How do I nourish the sword with a star?”

“I will teach you now. Nurturing the sword requires patience. The stars are distant and beyond reach. The first time I touched the Ziwei Emperor Star with my divine consciousness, it took me four hundred and thirty-four years.”

Chen Ji was speechless.

He didn’t know how much time had passed, but the ice current permeated into Chen Ji’s heart, drawing a fierce counterattack from the molten currents, suppressing all the ice currents back into his dantian.

The morning rooster crowed.

Chen Ji slowly opened his eyes. Enduring the pain in his thigh, he threw off the blanket, struggled to get up, and slowly shuffled to the courtyard.

He looked at the myriad stars in the sky and quickly found the location of the Ziwei Emperor Star.

The so-called Ziwei Emperor Star was actually Polaris, approximately 434 light-years away from his location.

The Big Dipper revolved around it throughout the four seasons.

If the sky were likened to a funnel, the Ziwei Emperor Star would be at its apex, right in the center.

Chen Ji pondered Xuanyuan’s words: once the star for nourishing the sword was chosen, it could not be changed, so he had to be extremely cautious.

But according to Xuanyuan, merely touching the Ziwei Emperor Star with so-called divine consciousness took a full four hundred and thirty-four years. If Chen Ji wanted to cultivate this path, his lifespan would have to extend from his palm all the way to his heel.

He wouldn’t even finish it by dying of old age.

Chen Ji, draped in his clothes, leaned against the apricot tree. Besides his pain, a touch of youthful melancholy settled upon him.

The crow curiously eyed him, wondering what was wrong with him now.

Chen Ji asked, “Uncle Crow, how do you live to be four hundred and thirty-four years old?”

The crow opened its beak, silently scoffing.

However, at that moment, the rising sun cast a golden ray from the farthest reaches of the horizon, coloring the layers of clouds.

Chen Ji suddenly froze…

As everyone knows, the sun is the closest star to him!