(10,000 words, filling in for the leave on the 19th.)

Old Dragon City.

A storm was brewing.

Especially the Ding family, one of the prominent clans, felt as if facing a formidable enemy.

Because it seemed a family scion, more prone to failure than success, had wronged a commoner girl.

Ordinarily, such a matter wouldn’t be much. It wasn’t that one needed to be utterly depraved, resorting to complete annihilation and eradication. Rather, the Ding family was wealthy and willing to spend money. If money could resolve issues, whether minor or major, they wouldn’t be issues at all. However, the problem lay in the fact that this young woman, who had met an untimely demise, had some connection to the Dustpan Apothecary, a property of the Fan family. The greater issue was that someone had taken this thin connection seriously, insisting on justice.

And this person was a highly regarded guest of the Fan family.

The Hou and Fang families, generations of friends with the Ding family, had been in close contact and frequent interaction recently.

As for the Fu family of Old Dragon City, who had married a woman from the Jiang clan of Yunlin, they were too busy with their own affairs to bother with such trivial matters.

The Sun family, now led by the young Sun Jiashu, remained on the sidelines, probably intending to watch the fire from across the river.

At the Sun ancestral home, Sun Jiashu had just received a secret letter.

The Tongye Sect cultivator who helped the Ding family extend their lifespan years ago was returning to Old Dragon City today with the Ding woman. Because this person held a distinguished position within the Tongye Sect, their retinue included a Nascent Soul Realm Earth Immortal. Moreover, the person themselves was also an Earth Immortal.

Thus, almost everyone believed the situation was settled.

Sun Jiashu had recently taken a liking to fishing, at the very spot where that Dali youth had once fished. Whenever he wasn’t occupied with crucial family matters, Sun Jiashu would often steal away to sit here.

He was hesitant, unsure whether to gamble this time. If he did, how much should he wager?

Sun Jiashu had recently encountered a reclusive master who came and went without a trace. With just one sentence, the master had not only restored his slightly flawed state of mind but also helped him take another step forward.

The person had simply asked with a smile, “How can you, Sun Jiashu, be so sure you are wrong?”

Like a Buddhist monk’s sharp reprimand.

But it only worked on those with inherent wisdom and a strong foundation. Otherwise, even a thousand such reprimands would be useless.

Sun Jiashu put away his fishing rod and poured all the catch from his creel back into the river.

In the end, Sun Jiashu decided not to gamble this time.

Above the sea of clouds over Old Dragon City, a green-skirted woman was lightly hopping on hopscotch squares. Each landing sent ripples of mist into the air. Occasionally, she would take out a fist-sized crystal bead and toss it around.

Finally, she aimed at a certain spot in the sea of clouds and swooped down, her hands hanging tightly against her thighs, her legs together, plummeting straight down into a certain location within Old Dragon City’s inner city.

Like a green onion falling from the sky…

Extremely fast, the woman named Fan Junmao gracefully landed just before impact.

She was in the backyard of the Dustpan Apothecary.

Shopkeeper Zheng Dafeng was squatting on the steps, smoking his pipe.

Fan Junmao asked, “What’s the word?”

Smoke swirled, obscuring Zheng Dafeng’s expression. The man slowly said, “Debts must be repaid, a life for a life. I’m not like Li Er; he only went after the old ones. I’ll go after both the young and the old.”

Fan Junmao looked at this man, who was usually jovial, with a playful glint in her eyes.

A leopard cannot change its spots.

How many years had it been? He was still like this, as if his entire life of frivolity was only for that single moment of seriousness.

Long, long ago, at the four Heavenly Gates, three Heavenly Generals had abandoned their posts for various reasons, clearing the path for the unstoppable “rebel army.” Only the one in the south, considered the most cowardly and the most carefree, refused to yield, unwilling to retreat even in death.

Of course, the consequence of refusing to retreat in death was…death.

He was impaled on a Heavenly Gate pillar by a sword.

Everyone, friend and foe alike, found it inexplicable.

This Heavenly General’s death wish was simply beyond reason.

Fan Junmao sighed inwardly. She didn’t want to know, but unfortunately, she did.

The Sage Ruan Qiong had officially established his sect in the western mountains, with only three official disciples for the time being.

The sword shop by the Dragon Beard River remained open, not closed. Ruan Qiong had left one of his founding disciples, a girl, in charge. She was missing the thumb on her sword-wielding hand, so she wore her sword on her right hip and wielded it with her left hand.

When Ruan Qiong’s only daughter, Miss Xiuxiu, moved to Mount Divine Splendor, she was said to have carried a chicken coop with her, held so casually in her hand that it caused all the gods to glance sideways, mistaking it for some incredible spirit bird or beast. Later, some Qi refiners who had visited Mount Divine Splendor recalled the incident and found it amusing. It turned out that the brood of hens and chicks were just ordinary creatures found in any marketplace.

Thus, some immortal sects on the surrounding mountains believed that Miss Xiuxiu’s actions showed an unblemished child’s heart, which was the true Dao Heart.

They were serious, so some young cultivators who had moved to new residences began to ponder the underlying meaning, finding it profound.

As expected of Miss Xiuxiu, as expected of the talented cultivator once highly regarded by the Wind and Snow Temple.

Everything she did was imbued with mystery, everything aligned with the Great Dao.

The long-browed young man with the surname Xie, upon hearing this, found it amusing and told Miss Xiuxiu about it as a joke. Ruan Xiuxiu, who was sitting on a small green bamboo chair, watching the proud hen leading her chicks, pecking around, simply said, “Is that so?” and said nothing more.

The fortunate young man with the surname Xie looked at the absent-minded Miss Xiuxiu and frowned, a gesture that made his eyebrows appear even longer.

Ruan Qiong was a Jade Purity Realm cultivator with the backing of the Wind and Snow Temple as his “mother’s family.” Moreover, because he was skilled in sword forging and had many friends, he was able to use the suffix “Sect” for his school, naming it the Dragon Spring Sword Sect.

Initially, Ruan Qiong had wanted to simply call it “Sword Sect,” which was quite bold, but first, there was already a Sword Sect in the Central Earth Continent, which violated the rules established by the Confucian scholars. Second, a close friend who came to offer congratulations privately advised Ruan Qiong that establishing a sect in the Dali territory was already attracting enough attention. He shouldn’t waste his energy on such matters.
Although Ruan Qiong ultimately settled on the name “Dragon Spring Sword Sect,” he still felt a lingering unease. Whether ascending or descending the mountain, he avoided passing through the grand archway at the foot of the mountain, with its ostentatious plaque. Instead, he had the Great Li officials lead the Lu clan convicts to carve out a small path, which sparked considerable debate. He felt it was an ominous sign, as if he were deliberately shunning the main road in favor of some unorthodox and crooked path.

However, Ruan Xiu and the three founding disciples understood the reason.

Ruan Qiong declared to the four of them that whoever could rightfully remove the prefix “Dragon Spring” from the sect’s name would be the next sect master.

Currently, the Dragon Spring Sword Sect was enjoying unparalleled prominence in the Great Li Dynasty.

In addition to the mountain peak gifted by the Great Li Song clan as a founding present, Mount Divine Splendor, which served as the sect’s main peak, was joined by three surrounding peaks – Mount Precious Amulet, Cloudglow Peak, and Mount Celestial Herb. Chen Ping’an leased these three peaks to the Sage Ruan Qiong for three hundred years, effectively incorporating them into the Dragon Spring Sword Sect’s territory early on.

This was an excellent bargain.

Others struggled to find a temple even when carrying a pig’s head as an offering, and even upon entering, faced immense difficulty in successfully burning incense.

Therefore, for Chen Ping’an, a landowner of Dragon Spring County with unremarkable cultivation, this deal was very worthwhile.

Moreover, the newly appointed Northern Mountain Deity, Wei Bo, had previously toured the surrounding lands with Chen Ping’an, providing another golden talisman of protection.

Rumor had it that even his two young servant girls wore the “Peace and Tranquility” badges awarded by the Great Li court to meritorious Qi cultivators, which served as additional protective charms.

With these three talismans, one could practically strut about in Dragon Spring County, and that lucky fellow Chen Ping’an could probably even walk backward without a problem.

It was a pity that the boy had disappeared, reportedly embarking on a distant journey.

Most likely, he was someone who didn’t know how to enjoy the good life.

One side of Mount Divine Splendor featured a sheer cliff, a towering precipice with nothing to rely on.

There were ancient cliff carvings with four characters, “Heaven Opens Splendor.” After Ruan Qiong established the sect, Qi cultivators would arrive almost daily, riding the wind to admire the style of the four large characters, believing that Ruan Qiong’s choice of Mount Divine Splendor as the sect’s main peak might be a divine mandate from the profound heavens.

However, Ruan Xiu never joined the excitement at the cliff, seemingly never having gone there even once.

The usually immobile Ruan Xiu seemed to have grown taller and slightly plumper, with a rounder chin.

Ruan Qiong thought it was all good.

In truth, most fathers viewed their daughters as perfect, no matter what.

Occasionally, Ruan Xiu would go to the pavilion atop Mount Divine Splendor. Choosing a clear day, she would gaze into the distance, watching the winding streams converge into the Dragon Whiskers River, which then transformed into the rushing Iron Talisman River.

Ruan Xiu didn’t enjoy watching these streams and rivers. On the contrary, she found them annoying.

River deities, river hags, water gods, rain masters, cloud mothers, and all other deities associated with water had always irked her. Hearing their titles and appellations would fill her with frustration.

She wanted to deal with them as she would with newly forged sword billets, smashing them with a hammer to be done with it once and for all.

Today, Ruan Xiu leaned lazily on the railing, yawning.

A faint sound of footsteps came from outside the pavilion. Ruan Xiu turned her head and saw a group of four people approaching from afar, all dressed in Confucian robes and headscarves.

Ruan Xiu glanced at them and recognized them all. There was Prefect Wu Yuan, a young man who had risen through the ranks quickly, a favored disciple of the Great Li State Preceptor, Cui Chan.

Then there was a Mr. Cao, the current pottery production supervisor, and a Mr. Yuan. The Yuan and Cao surnames were both surnames of the Upper Pillar Kingdom. The individuals enshrined and worshipped in the literary and military temples being built at Old Porcelain Mountain and Immortal’s Grave were ancestors of these two men.

The last person was a deputy mountain master of the Azure Cloud Mountain’s Forest Deer Academy, formerly a court attendant of the Jade Capital Kingdom, who went by the pseudonym Cheng Shuidong but was actually an old蛟 (jiao), a type of dragon.

Ruan Xiu stood up, walked out of the pavilion, and ceded the best view to them.

The four exchanged smiles, but none were excessively fawning or ingratiating. Besides, Ruan Xiu was, after all, a woman who had appeared alone, so they dared not be too enthusiastic.

If it were any other Qi cultivator, they would have certainly thanked Ruan Xiu and introduced themselves to become acquainted.

The four had agreed to come here to play chess. Wu Yuan was to play against Mountain Master Cheng. Wu Yuan’s mentor, Cui Chan, was undeniably the foremost Go master of Great Li. When Wu Yuan was studying under Cui Chan, his chess skills improved greatly, making him a renowned player in the capital. Cao and Yuan were only there to watch.

The ancestors of Cao and Yuan were close friends, known as the Twin Jewels of Great Li, but centuries later, the two surnames had become somewhat like fire and water. Sitting across from each other, Cao and Yuan barely exchanged glances.

Currently, the Great Sui and Great Li had formed an alliance, with both sides establishing a mountain oath at Azure Cloud Mountain in Great Li and Eastern Mountain in Great Sui. Great Li was virtually the sole dominant power in the northern part of the Treasure Bottle Continent. Several tributary states of Great Sui, including the Jade Capital Kingdom, had begun to switch their allegiance and pay tribute to the Song clan of Great Li. Of course, there were some twists and turns. Many aristocratic clans felt this was a betrayal of trust, and then the sound of Great Li iron cavalry began to resound. After the horses came to a halt, many heads wearing official hats or scholar’s coronets fell to the ground.

The Great Sui court and the public, both on the mountains and in the Jianghu, had fallen into an eerie silence.

The dignified Great Sui, the orthodox source of cultural traditions in the northern Treasure Bottle Continent, a nation of great strength, had actually surrendered without a fight, ceding territory and suing for peace!

A famous scholar, drunk, sang loudly and composed a poem while climbing a mountain, leaving behind his final words before plunging to his death, “Since the founding of the Great Sui by the Gao clan, scholars have never been humiliated to this extent. Only death can prove my innocence.”

A Go master of Great Sui, famous across half the continent, chopped up his most beloved Go table and burned it as firewood.

The number of officials resigning from the Great Sui capital’s court, from high-ranking ministers to clerks, reached over a hundred. Rumor had it that the six ministries of the capital were instantly half-empty.

Regardless, the Great Li iron cavalry began to move south.

Chaos had begun in the Treasure Bottle Continent.

The sound of chess pieces falling echoed from the pavilion from time to time.

Ruan Xiu came to an ancient pine tree by the cliff, picked up stones from the ground, and gently threw them off the cliff.

The clouds flowed slowly like a vast river, and the world was boundless.

She suddenly dropped the remaining stones in her hand.

She still had to help her father forge iron today. Oh no, she was so late, she definitely wouldn’t be able to eat braised bamboo shoots with salted pork tonight.

A family of three, traveling by intercontinental ferry, from south to north, had finally reached their destination in the Northern Evergreen Continent: a celestial sect named Lion Peak.

Among the group was an additional pair of master and servant, a young nobleman exuding scholarly airs and a young servant boy helping him lead a horse. The horse’s back was adorned with a bridle and saddle decorated with gold and silver ornaments unique to the Plumage Dynasty. The servant boy was unwilling and had worn a sour face the entire journey, but his master insisted on providing directions, so he couldn’t say anything.
The trio of country bumpkins, utterly lacking in perception! Granted, the boorish husband and wife had produced a passable daughter, but even with her beauty, how could she possibly be worthy of *their* young master? The Flower Plume Dynasty was a top-tier dynasty in the Northern Ju Continent. While the emperor bore the surname Han, everyone knew that at least half the officials in the imperial court were, in reality, from their young master’s clan.

Furthermore, while the young master wasn’t the sole heir, his generation only consisted of him and his elder brother. The elder was born of a concubine, while the young master was the legitimate son. He’d be lowering himself even to marry a princess, so why was he fixated on a blind, backwater girl?

A family hailing from a small place like Precious Bottle Continent hardly deserved such devotion from their young master.

The young attendant had been so exasperated on the journey that he’d nearly burst into tears multiple times. However, the young master would only offer a few words of comfort, then continue following the three towards Lion Peak.

The master of Lion Peak might have some fame among cultivators, but so what?

If he met the young master’s grandfather, wouldn’t he still have to act with utmost deference?

Even those elusive, wandering Land Immortals – and he, merely a study companion, had seen a handful of them thanks to the young master’s status.

However, this attendant, with his overly discerning eyes, underestimated the master of Lion Peak. While only a Tenth Realm Nascent Soul Earth Immortal, in the Northern Ju Continent, such immortals were valuable. Without real skill, one could only become a carefree, reclusive mountain hermit, or struggle to establish a foothold.

Especially this master of Lion Peak. A true outsider, he’d almost single-handedly bullied a powerful, sect-level immortal family of the Flower Plume Dynasty into submission within a mere two hundred years, proving his exceptional combat prowess. Furthermore, Northern Ju Continent was known for producing experts, eccentrics, the unreasonable, and those who embodied all three.

Thus, establishing a base of operations in Northern Ju Continent often invited misfortune.

It was common for powerful cultivators to take issue with your mountain gate’s appearance and proceed to hammer it relentlessly. If they couldn’t win, they’d flee. If they could, they’d demand you tear down your signboard.

This was Northern Ju Continent, which forcefully stole the “North” from the Snowy Continent – a land of fierce customs where both the court and commoners revered martial prowess, and cultivators were skilled and eager for battle. Many scions of powerful immortal clans enjoyed roaming and deliberately disguised themselves as rogue cultivators, just for the pleasure of fighting.

Here, sword cultivators were as numerous as clouds.

Some of the most renowned swordsmen in the martial world possessed sword techniques that bordered on the divine, even capable of contending with Earth Immortals.

Therefore, compared to other continents, the Confucian academies of Northern Ju Continent historically produced sages with exceptionally high combat prowess. Academic achievement could take a backseat – otherwise, they simply couldn’t maintain order.

The current sage of the Fish Duck Academy was originally unremarkable, spending most of his time in seclusion. In the eyes of the native Northern Ju cultivators and the monarchs and ministers, he enjoyed spouting clichés, and wasn’t particularly well-liked. But even a cornered rabbit would bite. What more a sage who, before departing from the Central Earth Academy, had received the word “Restraint” from his mentor? The result? One day, in a fit of anger, someone publicly proclaimed that the sage’s moral teachings were utter nonsense. The man was but a stone’s throw from the Fish Duck Academy at the time and swaggered away, with many Northern Ju immortals echoing the sentiment.

The academy fell silent for a long time. Finally, one day, the sage left the academy. Within a month, he had consecutively beaten two Nascent Soul and one Jade Purity realm cultivator black and blue. It was said that each time, the Confucian sage would repeatedly rap them on the head with his knuckles, loudly questioning, “Do you understand now?” The three could only reply that they did. But the sage would invariably retort, “You understand *shit*!”

It became a laughingstock.

The master of Lion Peak was one of the few Earth Immortals that the Fish Duck Academy sage actually deemed tolerable.

However, these high-level secrets were beyond the reach of a mere attendant.

Reaching the foot of Lion Peak, the attendant thought that since they were here, they should at least ask for a cup of tea. But the young master stubbornly refused. He bid farewell to the couple and young woman, saying that a thousand-mile journey must come to an end. Then, he turned around and left with the attendant, who was once again on the verge of tears.

After wandering for nearly half a year, returning home was a good thing, but the departure lacked any semblance of grandeur.

After ascending the mountain, the woman and her daughter whispered to each other, rambling about how the rich young man was quite nice, kind, and presentable. He was obviously a scholar, and seemed much more learned than the half-baked Lin Shouyi and Dong Shuijing. However, her daughter neither nodded nor shook her head, infuriating the woman, who poked her daughter with a finger, playfully scolding her for being a “dim-witted fool.” The woman, who could no longer truly be considered a girl, smiled softly. She had always been like this.

She never got angry, never laughed heartily, and cared for no one except her younger brother, Li Huai.

The woman often said she was a soft dough, easily manipulated by anyone, and would suffer greatly after marriage.

Of course, the woman’s main point was that her daughter’s meek nature meant she couldn’t manage a household or control her husband’s family, so how could she support her younger brother?

The woman’s favoritism was never concealed.

Fortunately, the woman’s husband, a simple, honest man named Li Er, never favored sons over daughters, and doted on both.

But unfortunately, he held the lowest status in the family, and his words carried little weight.

And Li Liu was probably born with a submissive nature, and didn’t feel anything was wrong.

This time, the woman had heard that the master of this Lion Peak had some connection to her husband’s useless master. Her husband had assured her that once they arrived, the family wouldn’t have to worry about food and drink. This eased the woman’s constant scolding of Old Man Yang, and she felt that Li Er’s years as his disciple had finally amounted to something. Otherwise, the next time she returned home and saw Old Man Yang, she’d block his backyard every day, cursing the old fool so he wouldn’t need to wash his face every morning.

As the woman walked, she suddenly thought of her beloved son, undoubtedly suffering without her care, and became angry. She pinched her daughter’s arm. “What’s wrong with that young master with the strange surname? Have you never considered marrying him? Then we wouldn’t have to be here at Lion Peak, watching other people’s faces. We’d have the Situ family carry you in with an eight-bearer palanquin, and then we could move in openly, and quickly bring Li Huai over. A family of four, finally reunited.”
Li Liu smiled, her eyes crinkling, appearing to beg for forgiveness and act coy.

The woman was most susceptible to her daughter’s charm. Her anger dissipated, and she pinched Li Liu’s arm, though this time with a lighter touch. “You ungrateful wretch, you don’t even care about your own brother. I’ve wasted all these years raising you…”

As she spoke, the fickle woman smiled again, lightly pinching her daughter’s cheek. “This mischievous face really takes after me. Look, these little cheeks, so pretty and delicate, you could pinch water out of them.”

Li Er, carrying a large traveling bag, grinned.

But the woman grew melancholic. “We finally endured until that old crone in Apricot Blossom Lane died, and that vixen in Mud Bottle Lane moved away. If only we didn’t have to leave this small town, that would be wonderful. No one can out-argue me anymore.”

Traveling north, she was constantly on edge. The woman felt it a pity that she had a set of martial skills, but no place to put them to use.

Li Liu’s delicate beauty may not have come from her mother.

But Li Huai’s bickering and belligerence, certainly did.

On the summit of Lion Peak, the mountain lord accompanied an elderly man who looked like a wealthy merchant. His face was shiny with oil, and were it not for his presence here, attended by a celestial immortal with respect, he would likely be mistaken for a shopkeeper from the town below, or one of those gentry lords who oppressed the locals.

The portly old man wore a jade-green string around his wrist. He clicked his tongue and said, “Mr. Yang is truly broad-minded. If it were me, that gossiping shrew would have been reincarnated a thousand times by now.”

The old man beside the wealthy merchant had the air of a Taoist immortal, the image that commoners held in their hearts. Hearing his guest’s jest, he did not reply, offering only a polite smile.

The plump old man asked with a smile, “Let’s forget about that useless Golden Core cultivator. Just tell me, in the last millennium, how many Earth Immortals like yourself has Verdant Pearl Grotto produced? We’re allies now, surely you can be a little more forthcoming?”

The old immortal bowed slightly, apologetically. “Sword Immortal Cao, forgive this junior for being unable to speak further.”

It turned out that this wealthy merchant was Cao Xi, the Sword Immortal of the Azure Continent, sent to protect Li Liu, as stipulated in the contract.

Cao Xi asked again, “Why is Li Liu so reluctant to cultivate? What is the reason for this?”

The Lion Peak mountain lord said helplessly, “The Sword Immortal can ask my ancestral master herself.”

Cao Xi was taken aback. “She is the reincarnation of your lineage’s ancestral master? Lion Peak has only existed for a few years. How were you able to find her?”

The old immortal hesitated, as if he had received instructions. After some deliberation, he carefully said, “There is a secret method. And it’s not just my ancestral master.”

Cao Xi asked the most crucial question, “Does Li Liu know?”

The old immortal smiled without speaking.

That was the answer.

Cao Xi clicked his tongue. “Jackpot.”

Afterward, Li Er and his family stayed on Lion Peak. An old steward of Lion Peak received them, claiming they were distant relatives of Old Man Yang from the apothecary, and managing some miscellaneous tasks on Lion Peak. He gave the family a humble dwelling. He did not immediately assign any work to the woman, saying that it would take a few days to sort things out. The rules of Lion Peak were strict, and they should not disturb the immortals’ cultivation or wander about carelessly, lest they cause trouble that he could not bear.

The woman felt that these words were directed at her, and she was very uneasy.

She, of course, did not know that after leaving the house, the elder of Lion Peak’s law enforcement hall quickly wiped away a cold sweat. The mountain lord had given him a thankless task that was truly terrifying. The old man did not even dare to look at the woman named Li Liu.

A few days later, the woman grew restless, saying that she wanted to find some work in the town next to Lion Peak. Li Er borrowed some money and planned to open a shop. Later, a certain high-ranking figure of Lion Peak “coincidentally” discovered that Li Liu had the aptitude for cultivation, so Li Liu stayed on the mountain to cultivate on her own.

The woman was shortsighted and always believed that it would be a blessing if Li Liu married a rich man. She was not particularly happy about this. If Li Liu really became an immortal cultivator, she wouldn’t see her for years or decades. How could she benefit Li Huai?

But in the end, the woman followed Li Er to the town, rented a house, and wandered around, looking for a suitable shop, settling down.

Li Liu saw her parents off at the foot of the mountain. When their figures disappeared on the road, behind the woman appeared all the Nascent Soul and Golden Core cultivators of Lion Peak, including the mountain lord, each respectful and afraid to breathe too loudly.

Led by the mountain lord, they all said in unison, “Welcome Ancestral Master back to the mountain.”

Li Liu ignored them completely, refusing to let them follow. She went up the mountain alone, to a cave on Lion Peak that had been sealed for a long time, and strode inside.

The layers of restrictions, that even a terrestrial immortal would find difficult to break, were nothing to Li Liu, or rather, they posed no obstacle to her at all.

When she walked out of the cave, she wore a golden Lion Peak seal on her waist.

Cao Xi had been waiting at the entrance for a long time, holding a dagger-sized short sword in his hand. He raised the arm with the jade-green string and smiled. “Before you refine a river as your Natal Flying Sword, this short sword followed me into battle for three hundred years. After that, the sword energy was constantly nourished and accumulated. When you reach the middle five realms, you can use it freely. It can unleash ten sword strikes, each with the power comparable to a full-force strike from a Jade Purity Realm Sword Immortal. If you reach the Golden Core or Nascent Soul Realm, and unleash all the sword energy at once, that would be a sword strike from an Immortal Realm sword cultivator.”

Li Liu smiled gently, and with a wave of her hand, the short sword flew into her grasp. She casually drew the sword and lightly slashed toward the outside of the mountain.

A rainbow of sword energy rumbled out, with the power to split the heavens and the earth, shocking the entire Lion Peak into silence.

Li Liu, who had inexplicably advanced to the middle five realms, nodded. “As expected.”

Cao Xi lamented, “I’ll be damned.”

Cao Xi unexpectedly thought of his unworthy descendant, Cao Jun, who was now mixed up in the military ranks of the Great Li.

Alas, look at other people’s children, and then look at your own. How infuriating.

True Martial Mountain.

As one of the two ancestral homes of military strategists in Treasure Bottle Continent, True Martial Mountain had far more military strategists enlisting in the army than Wind and Snow Temple, which was more like a traveling troupe.

Recently, more and more cultivators had been leaving the mountain. Half went to the Great Li in the north, and the other half, following their own opportunities, chose to join the various countries in the central region of Treasure Bottle Continent.

The somewhat deserted True Martial Mountain had recently become lively again.
Ma Kuxuan, that arrogant newcomer who had barely ascended the mountains for a few years, had stirred up another earth-shattering incident. He had struck down a Sea Gazing realm cultivator. The True Martial Mountain had not announced the specific reasons, but it was definitely not some life-and-death feud. That seventh realm old cultivator had never had any interaction with Ma Kuxuan. Even if there were conflicts, it would be at most a verbal spat. It must have been the ruthless Ma Kuxuan who intentionally dealt a killing blow.

Even with two ancestral masters helping to plead for mercy, Ma Kuxuan was still confined to the Divine Martial Hall in the back mountains, forbidden from leaving for a year.

The Divine Martial Hall enshrined the successive ancestral masters of True Martial Mountain and more than a dozen nameless deities. It was said that in history, there had been a widespread sect catastrophe. In that time of crisis, the sect master of True Martial Mountain used a secret technique to invite the golden-bodied deities who had enjoyed thousands of years of incense offerings in the hall to descend the mountain together to slay the enemy. Their momentum was vast, and they ultimately wiped out more than a dozen immortal families in one fell swoop.

However, being confined in the Divine Martial Hall was definitely not a comfortable matter. Only True Martial Mountain cultivators who had committed heinous crimes would be imprisoned here. In the end, only one out of ten people would walk out alive. It was said that the deities enshrined in the Divine Martial Hall would “awaken” on some ancient fast days when the traditions had been severed, interrogating, flogging, and even devouring the souls of the cultivators.

In a celestial abode shrouded in immortal aura within True Martial Mountain, a highly respected old ancestor of the Military School exclaimed, “Is such a punishment for Ma Kuxuan a bit too severe?!”

The person across from him had a youthful and handsome face, with slender and fair fingers like a woman’s. He was engrossed in calculating a chess game. Faced with this junior brother’s almost impudent question, the man remained unmoved, unwilling to say even a word.

The old man slapped the table, “This kid Ma Kuxuan is a genius, the only true genius I’ve ever seen in my life! If you ruin him, I’m not done with you!”

The man, who had just picked up a chess piece, silently returned it to the box after hearing this, and frowned, “There are quite a few tragedies of sects with the ‘Sovereign’ title being destroyed by a stunning genius.”

The old man sneered, “But there are even more cases of sects being revitalized because of one person, sweeping away accumulated malpractices and decline!”

The man shook his head, “In cultivation, avoiding mistakes is of utmost importance. Otherwise, ruining the rules of many ancestors for the sake of one or two people, gaining a temporary period of prosperity, is just a castle in the air. Besides, True Martial Mountain is currently operating smoothly and does not need anyone to save it. Junior Brother Liu, let me advise you, your high regard for Ma Kuxuan, even your willingness to hand over all your magical treasures to him, and even secretly helping him win that fortune, is ultimately just your own matter. I will not interfere, because it does not violate the rules of my True Martial Mountain.”

The old man looked at the increasingly stern “young man”. The originally imposing Military School ancestor felt somewhat guilty, and snorted, “Ma Kuxuan is worth True Martial Mountain breaking some rules for him. Wind and Snow Temple has Wei Jin on the Divine Immortal Platform, who do we have?”

The man smiled slightly, “We have me.”

The old man was choked by this sentence and could not say a word for a long time.

The man seemed to feel that the atmosphere was too rigid, and finally showed a smile, “Alright, children have their own blessings, let alone Ma Kuxuan is not even your offspring, what’s the rush? For the great cause of the sect? Enough, I know your nature clearly. In the end, you still want Ma Kuxuan to go to Wind and Snow Temple to help you take revenge.”

The Military School ancestor, known for his hot temper, confessed, “That was indeed my initial intention, but after spending more time with him, I find Ma Kuxuan more and more pleasing to the eye. My bunch of good-for-nothing descendants can’t compare to Ma Kuxuan even if you add up ten thousand of them.”

The man surprisingly agreed with the old man, nodding his head, “Well, those turtle bastards of your family, you shouldn’t have given birth to them in the first place. But in the end, it’s still your own fault for not controlling the bird in your pants.”

The old man said angrily, “You are the sect master of True Martial Mountain, aren’t you ashamed to say such things?!”

The man laughed and teased, “I heard that you haven’t been tightening your belt lately? You found a beautiful concubine from the mortal world?”

The old man’s arrogance plummeted, and he said in a low voice, “I sincerely like that woman, she is charming and adorable. Those dogshit celestial maidens on the mountain are really boring.”

The man said indifferently, “As long as you like it.”

The old man suddenly felt resentful, “The atmosphere of True Martial Mountain really needs to be changed, especially the disciples recruited in the recent century. Their temperament is extremely poor. Just one Ma Kuxuan has made them panic and their Dao hearts are in chaos. One by one, they are saying sour and strange things behind their backs, even worse than gossiping women in the marketplace!”

The man waved his hand, “It’s not that their Dao hearts are in chaos, it’s that these people’s Dao hearts are already so unbearable.”

The old man asked doubtfully, “Aren’t you going to do something about it?”

The man asked rhetorically, “Then do I need to manage their eating, drinking, and shitting, and manage your belt?”

The old man rolled his eyes.

“Don’t worry, Ma Kuxuan won’t die.”

The man waved his hand and started calculating the chess game again.

The Military School ancestor laughed loudly and suddenly stood up, “Senior brother, you are really something. If you had said this earlier, why would I have bothered with you for so long!”

The man did not raise his head, “Your belt is loose.”

The old man laughed, “Senior brother is still so fond of joking…”

With a cry, the old man panicked and quickly cast a magical power, disappearing in a flash.

It turned out that the man had shattered the belt of an Earth Immortal of the Nascent Soul realm with a wave of his hand, and the latter had no idea.

If he wanted to kill someone?

In the eyes of the Treasure Bottle Continent, the strength of True Martial Mountain lies in its influence over secular dynasties. In terms of personal cultivation and combat power, the old god-like ancestors of the Military School of Wind and Snow Temple are much stronger than True Martial Mountain, which is deeply involved in the world.

Someone once joked that if the two ancestral courtyards of the Military School each sent out ten people to fight one-on-one, the Wind and Snow Temple, with its abundant strongmen, would be able to make True Martial Mountain, with its deep involvement in the world, call out to its ancestors.

The man put down the old chess manual that he had already memorized by heart. The name of the chess manual was “Collection of Endgames”, which recorded many famous endgame situations in history. The chess game that the man was calculating was also known as the Colorful Cloud Game. The two sides of the game were the City Lord of White Emperor City and the former top disciple of the Literary Saint.

The man sighed softly.

Inside the Divine Martial Hall in the back mountains.

Ma Kuxuan sat cross-legged on top of a towering statue, with a black cat sitting on top of his head.

One man, one cat, and one statue.

The black cat stretched out a paw and gently scratched Ma Kuxuan’s head.

Ma Kuxuan did not care. He had depended on the black cat for life since he was a child, especially after his grandmother passed away.
To the left, a gilded wooden statue of a deity, its eye sockets suddenly shimmered with golden light. With a resounding boom, the colossal statue began to descend from its altar, its gaze sweeping across the grand hall before finally settling upon Ma Ku Xuan, perched atop the central idol. The statue strode to the hall’s center, pivoted to face the youth and the cat, and, towering at three zhang, knelt upon one knee.

Ma Ku Xuan seemed accustomed to this spectacle, merely offering his usual reminder: “Remember to keep your lips sealed once you return.”

The wooden effigy offered a slight nod. Rising to its full height, it took long strides, ascending the altar to reclaim its original position. The golden gleam in its eyes swiftly faded, leaving it once more in silent stillness.

The hall’s doors and windows were immensely tall, allowing rays of light to pierce through the seams, illuminating motes of dust dancing in the air.

Ma Ku Xuan suddenly chuckled ruefully, “Too many treasures, too much fortune… it’s quite the nuisance.”

The black cat raised a paw, daintily licking its pads.

Ma Ku Xuan leaned back, reclining. With a leap, the black cat landed squarely on his chest, curling into a ball and soon falling into a deep slumber.

The feline occasionally shifted, seeking a more comfortable posture.

Ma Ku Xuan crossed his legs, one hand idly stroking the cat’s soft fur. He thought of the obsequious and insincere faces he had encountered on True Martial Mountain and found it all rather dull. “What does it matter if you dislike me? I hardly care for you either.”

The hall was filled with an ethereal silence.

Only the gentle snores of the man and cat broke the stillness.

The gilded statues of the gods stood in orderly rows, appearing to faithfully guard their exalted sovereign, year after year, millennium upon millennium.

The sage Zhou Ju, from Lakeview Academy, had not accompanied his revered master to meet the Daoist Celestial Sovereign of Julu Continent.

He feared he would be unable to restrain himself from speaking disrespectfully to that fellow named Xie Shi, only to cause his master embarrassment.

His master, having left the academy, was unlikely to prevail against the Celestial Sovereign Xie Shi. Nor could he simply watch as Xie Shi snuffed out his student with a mere slap. Would he then be forced to apologize to an outsider on his student’s behalf?

Thus, Zhou Ju found himself on a mountain peak not far from the wreckage of the Kun vessel at Dazhao Mountain.

According to records, the sky-piercing sword qi had originated from this very spot, obliterating the Kun vessel that was heading south towards Old Dragon City, causing widespread death and destruction. Almost all passengers below the Middle Five Realms had perished.

Zhou Ju searched the mountain in vain, finding not a single clue. This was, of course, to be expected.

Even a blind man could see that this calamity had been meticulously orchestrated by someone, aiming to frame the most powerful dynasty in the Treasure Bottle Continent.

But Zhou Ju could not fathom one thing: why would the Daoist lord of Julu Continent deign to lower himself and wade into these murky waters? Why even risk a direct confrontation with Lakeview Academy? If this continued, Celestial Sovereign Xie Shi might very well become the common enemy of all qi refiners in the Treasure Bottle Continent.

Did Xie Shi truly believe himself to be the second disciple of the Dao Ancestor?

Zhou Ju doubted that the Great Li Song Dynasty had the power to summon a Celestial Sovereign from another continent.

Having endured days of wind and dew, Zhou Ju decided to descend the mountain.

He recalled a matter his master had mentioned casually: in the past half-year, many long-lost, ownerless magical artifacts had appeared in the Basuo Continent, Tongye Continent, and Fuyue Continent. Several semi-immortal weapons were even rumored to be among them, causing immense commotion. Countless rogue cultivators swarmed forth, and even the deeply rooted immortal clans were unwilling to forgo such great opportunities, leading to a chaotic mix of dragons and fish, jackals and wolves.

Zhou Ju had no interest in these matters.

He had even less interest in the current state of the world.

Because it was destined to become even harder for scholars to study in peace.

This was not good.

Zhou Ju raised his head, gazing towards the heavens.

Even I, Zhou Ju, a humble sage of Lakeview Academy, can perceive the undercurrents. What about those of you who hold positions of even greater authority than my master?

Zhou Ju dejectedly descended the mountain, embarking on a leisurely journey, sometimes riding the wind, sometimes walking on foot. Eventually, he arrived at a bustling market town and drank a bowl of piping hot, spicy and sour soup.

Instantly, Zhou Ju’s face broke into a smile, banishing all worries.

The stall owner’s daughter, in the bloom of youth, possessed a slightly dark complexion but radiated a healthy glow. She stole glances at Zhou Ju.

There were not many scholars in her hometown, and even fewer as handsome as him.

She felt that even a single extra glance was a blessing.

And so, Zhou Ju ordered another bowl of spicy and sour soup.