Chapter 126: Land Sword Immortal
A single sword stroke split open the sky and landed on the street in front of the mansion. Like a comet’s trailing rainbow of sword aura, the path that had broken through the boundaries to enter this place lingered for a long time, like a blinding ray of sunlight piercing through a window into a lifeless room.
The white donkey, as if meeting an old friend in a foreign land, kicked up its hooves and ran in circles.
The bride in the blood-red wedding dress was clearly stunned. As the master of this landscape, she felt the power of that sword stroke more clearly than anyone else—the mountain roots shook, the water vapor seethed. If she had not used her qi to envelop the mansion behind her, perhaps nearly a thousand lanterns inside would have been extinguished in one go.
The female ghost was both shocked and furious. She did not look at where the flying sword had landed, but stared fixedly at the unsealable tear in the gloomy canopy of the sky. At the same time, beads of blood oozed from the surface of her blood-red wedding dress, like water droplets rolling on a lotus leaf, growing more and more numerous until they formed a continuous layer.
The female ghost shook her sleeves and roared up at the sky, “Death to all trespassers! How dare you, sword immortal! I will pluck your head and plant it in my garden, letting you live another decade or century in agony!”
A loud laugh came from far away, and the voice eventually coalesced around the flying sword on the ground. The tone was warm and mellow, with a unique charm, like a scion of a noble family speaking of romance and beauty, giving one a spring breeze feeling. Yet the words themselves were unabashedly bold: “Miss, please wait a moment. My physical body has not yet fully stabilized, so it cannot match the speed of my flying sword. I wonder what the scenery in your garden is like...”
“The place is not big, and the scenery is nothing special, but it’s enough to plant a head!” The female ghost’s pale face turned an even more sinister blue-purple. Her smile was savage. From the wide sleeves of her wedding dress, two streams of scarlet blood surged toward the tear in the sky canopy, rolling onward.
Someone said in a clear voice, “When the sword arrives, filth retreats!” The thick sky canopy shook violently. The two streams of blood that had flowed upward and converged at the tear suddenly exploded outward in all directions from the dome of this small world, like a rain of scarlet blood. The female ghost’s body trembled, and she lightly flicked her sleeves, causing countless raindrops to return into them.
A young man in a white robe descended from the sky, his entire body enveloped in a layer of misty white aura, like the mist over a great lake or the fierce wind at a mountain peak. His hair was tied up but without a hairpin or crown. His hands were pressed together in a sword seal. Around his body coiled a vast sword aura as thick as a strong man’s arm, dazzlingly bright, like a white flood dragon swiftly swimming around him. Any Yin filth or scarlet blood that touched this sword aura instantly dissipated.
The handsome man, who looked not yet thirty, landed gracefully between Chen Ping’an’s group and the bride ghost. The flying sword on the ground whooshed to his side, its tip pointing directly at the mansion’s plaque that read “Graceful Water, Lofty Wind.”
The man lowered his two fingers, and the dense, tangible sword aura paused briefly. He turned his head and saw the little girl in the red cotton jacket carrying the small book chest. A look of realization crossed his face—he remembered that an old possession he had relied on for many years no longer belonged to him. He smiled freely and beckoned with his hand. Li Baoping’s green bamboo book chest wobbled slightly, and the silver gourd inside shook gently. A flying sword no more than two inches long, pure white all over, flew out of the sword-nurturing gourd. The sword aura reluctantly seeped into the flying sword, which then shot toward the man’s brow, disappearing in a flash.
The sword immortal man rubbed his brow and said teasingly, “From now on, we’ll wander the world together. It’s not like you’re a young lady in her boudoir who has to stay in her embroidered tower and never come downstairs.” The white donkey trotted over to him with light, clip-clopping steps, rubbing its head affectionately against the man’s shoulder. The man smiled and reached out to stroke the donkey’s head. “Old friend, long time no see. I really missed you.”
The tear in the sky canopy had slowly closed after the man forcefully broke in, but it had consumed a great deal of the landscape’s spiritual energy. In that short time, at least fifty years of accumulated reserves were completely exhausted, all turned into useless turbid qi.
The bride ghost regained her composure and sneered, “Your scabbard sword, externalized sword aura, and lifebound flying sword—each one more formidable than the last. Truly an extraordinary land sword immortal. You’re not from Great Li, are you?”
The sword immortal who had appeared out of nowhere smiled faintly. “Just a rootless duckweed. My name is not worth mentioning.”
After saying this, the man did not just turn his head but directly and openly turned his back to the bride ghost. The land sword immortal, who had just emerged from seclusion, said gently, “I am half a friend of A Liang. Well, only half—the other half makes me his disciple. But unfortunately, A Liang refuses to acknowledge it, saying my temperament is too pedantic and my actions too soft, so I am never fast enough with my sword. He’d lose face if he took me as a disciple. I traveled thousands of miles here because I sensed something unusual with my old friend and the sword-nurturing gourd. May I ask, where is A Liang? And who are you all?”
Chen Ping’an explained, “We are also A Liang’s friends. The gourd was a gift from A Liang to Li Baoping, and the donkey is being taken care of by Li Huai. As for A Liang’s whereabouts, I believe you will hear about it yourself in the future.”
Compared to the bride ghost, Li Huai—who always had strange thoughts in his head—felt no unfamiliarity with this land sword immortal who claimed to be A Liang’s friend. In the child’s eyes, A Liang’s friend was naturally his own friend. Who cared if you were an immortal? Could that be greater than friendship? However, the incident on the ferry at Embroidered Flower River had left Li Huai once bitten, twice shy, so he didn’t dare speak casually anymore. He just kept winking at the white donkey.
The young sword immortal listened very seriously to the straw-sandal boy’s words, then nodded. “I roughly understand.” Almost everyone noticed a faint tremor in the ground, like a giant turtle turning over or a mountain range collapsing. The bride ghost’s expression changed drastically. Just as she was about to flee, she found that a lifebound flying sword had pinned down her qi flow. That snow-white flying sword, unknown when, had stopped three feet above her head.
The bride ghost, burning with fury, shouted angrily, “Han Langzhong! Water God of Embroidered Flower River! Are you two just going to do nothing?! If that Yin spirit really breaks the mountain root here and it goes northward, not only the three great rivers including the Embroidered Flower River, but also Qidun Mountain to the north, Tiefu River, and Longxu River—which of them will escape disaster and not be affected?!”
An old man holding a large red lantern stood in the air outside the sky canopy and sneered, “Where has Lady Chu’s earlier momentum gone?” The female ghost’s face darkened.
Beside the old man stood a martial god in armor with a green snake coiled around his arm. He stepped in to mediate, lest the Ministry of Rites Secretary and Lady Chu tear into each other and harm Great Li’s fortune. He said gravely, “Lady Chu, Secretary Han and I can dissuade that Yin spirit from breaking the mountain root, but we also hope that you will refrain from any further extreme actions.”
The bride ghost smiled charmingly. “If I were to consider sparring in Dao arts and swordsmanship with this sword immortal, would that count as an extreme action?”
Han Langzhong laughed in anger. “What a bodhisattva-hearted Lady Chu! I, Han, have learned my lesson today. Fine, fine, fine! My Great Li Ministry of Rites will surely repay this in the future!”
The female ghost sneered. “A mere secretary speaks such wild words. Are you trying to scare children? Only when you become the Minister of Rites of Great Li will you have the right to boss me around.”
The green snake on the river god’s arm flicked its tongue rapidly, emitting wisps of white mist. Clearly, he was more familiar with Great Li’s officialdom and future trends than the secluded bride ghost. He said with displeasure, “Lady Chu!”
The bride ghost covered her mouth with one hand and tittered, while holding her dress with the other. She bowed sideways in a curtsey. “I apologize to you, Lord Han.”
The old man holding the lantern was so angry that his lips turned blue, but he remained silent, prioritizing the overall stability of Great Li’s territory. If not for that, given Lady Chu’s brutal acts of wantonly slaughtering passing scholars, how could the Great Li Ministry of Rites have turned a blind eye for decades?
Truth be told, the old man never felt that the Great Li court had done wrong. The hegemony of mountains and rivers lasts for a thousand generations. What are a few deaths? What does innocence or misfortune matter? If he were not a Great Li official, not the Ministry of Rites Secretary responsible for contacting and recruiting qi refiners, given his temperament as a Confucian scholar, he would surely have taken action resolutely, even at the cost of mutual destruction. But as he climbed step by step to his current high position, he had seen battlefields with tens of thousands of casualties, seen the names of high mansions in Great Li’s capital change over and over, seen countless assassinations by foreign death-defying warriors like moths flying into flames, and seen the tragic scenes of two immortals fighting on a mountain, bringing disaster to hundreds or thousands of people below.
“In office, pursue its governance.” He, Han, was no longer the poor scholar who only studied the sages’ books and recited their principles. For the sake of Great Li’s laws, he had personally executed martial artists and chivalrous men who, out of a sense of justice, sought vengeance from mountain immortals on behalf of innocent commoners. Before the man died from his wounds, he cursed loudly, saying that such a Great Li was utterly ridiculous, calling him a lackey of the mountain immortals. He calmly told the man that maybe in thirty years, maybe in fifty years, but definitely one day, Great Li would no longer have such unjust deaths. The chivalrous martial artist spat blood in his face before dying.
In this world, nothing is a simple cut-and-dried matter. The old man holding the lantern, his mind full of mixed thoughts, looked to the north. For some reason, his superior had not yet appeared to intervene.
The young sword immortal paid no attention to Lady Chu or the Great Li secretary. As for the water god and Yin spirit, he couldn’t be bothered. He simply turned around again to face the bride ghost, who was being held in check by his flying sword, and asked with a smile, “You want to spar in swordsmanship with me?”
The bride ghost said with a coy smile, “If it’s just a touch-and-stop, I would be willing. After all, I have never seen a land sword immortal as young as you in my life.”
The young sword immortal waved his hand, and the white donkey hurried back to Li Huai. The man reached for the sword hanging at his side and nodded. “Fine.” The bride ghost narrowed her eyes. “Oh? Are you serious, young master?”
The young sword immortal grasped the hilt and said softly, “The sword is named High Candle.” He simply slashed downward. It caused heaven and earth to change color, and this small world shrouded in gloom suddenly blazed with light. The sword aura instantly struck down upon the female ghost. In panic, the bride ghost could only raise her hands to cover her face, her wide sleeves covering her entire body. The female ghost was cleaved in two on the spot.
Lady Chu’s wail resounded through the street and the magnificent mansion behind her. The servants and maids stood dumbfounded, blood flowing from their seven orifices. Some collapsed on the spot, dissolving into pools of pus. Inside the mansion, a young lady learning needlework was stabbing her own arm repeatedly without realizing it. Guards practicing martial arts were punching each other’s heads to pulp, not stopping even when their skulls were mostly shattered.
The female ghost hurriedly flew toward the mansion gate. Her severed halves were connected by countless red threads, like a lotus root broken but still linked by fibers. They quickly joined together in the air.
The young sword immortal said calmly, “Again.” He slashed horizontally. That streak of sword light spread out flat in the air like a shimmering water surface. The bride ghost, like a “beauty emerging from a bath,” was cut in half at the waist by this water surface. The blood-red wedding dress fell limply onto the top of the steps.
The female ghost transformed into rolling black smoke that flew into the gold-lettered plaque. Blood kept dripping to the ground. A woman’s anguished, twisted face occasionally bulged out from the plaque’s surface, and a voice begged for mercy: “Sword immortal, spare my life!”
The young sword immortal had only made two moves—one vertical and one horizontal slash—and had split the soul of the arrogant bride ghost into four parts. She could only return to the plaque that held the “mountain root and water source” of this small world in order to survive. There is a common saying: “Living under another’s eaves.” In fact, it already reveals part of the heavenly mystery. For ordinary mortals, under the eaves—whether on a beam or a plaque—there is often hidden profound significance.
Lin Shouyi’s heart trembled. No wonder A Liang said that among qi refiners in the world, sword cultivators had the most carefree temperament, the greatest killing power, and were the most unreasonable. It was a pity that although Lin Shouyi had excellent talent for cultivation, he was not suited for the sword cultivator path. Lin Shouyi felt a little regret, but quickly strengthened his resolve. Wouldn’t it be even better if he could surpass such a divine sword immortal through supreme Dao arts in the future? However, Lin Shouyi was well aware that the man before him was most likely a qi refiner of the legendary upper five realms. If pure martial artists outside of qi refiners were always one rank lower, then sword cultivators among qi refiners had always been one rank higher than other qi refiners.
The reason was simple: no one wanted to fight with an accomplished sword cultivator. Legend had it that someone once calculated that among qi refiners who had broken an enemy’s longevity bridge, sword cultivators were undoubtedly the largest group, accounting for one-third, even surpassing the decisive and karma-free military cultivators. You see, there are countless paths of cultivation, each with its own affinity—the hundred schools of thought, orthodox and heretical—and sword cultivators were merely one of them.
Chen Ping’an’s thoughts were not as complicated as Lin Shouyi’s. He was just pondering one thing: So this is how a sword can be used. The young sword immortal, one hand behind his back and the other holding his longsword, smiled and said, “Three strikes are enough, right? Lady Chu, care to take one more sword stroke from me?”
A figure appeared silently beneath the plaque. It was a man also young, but with unremarkable looks, with a sword held horizontally behind his waist. He said slowly, “Wei Jin of Fengxue Temple. That’s enough.” The white-robed sword immortal smiled. “It should be Wei Jin of Shenxiantai.”
Without another word, the land sword immortal, who claimed his realm was not yet stable, swung his sword again. The young swordsman opposite him expressionlessly reached for his sword hilt and slowly drew it an inch, then stopped. But between the two sword cultivators, a tiny, adorable miniature mountain appeared, winding and hanging in the air.
The young sword immortal Wei Jin’s sword stroke cut through the mountain range, but the force of this sword was nearly spent, so he did not persist. Thousands of miles away, a hundred-mile-long mountain range split at its highest peak into a huge gorge, as if an immortal had cleaved it with a single sword stroke.
(End of this chapter)