Chapter 152: Higher Than the Heavens
Cui Chan, who had been sitting on the ground in a daze, glanced sideways at the little girl and the painting scroll, and said grumpily, "Even if the sky falls, this painting scroll won't suffer so much as a single crease. Do you know what it means when the sky falls? In the Middle Earth Divine Continent, there was once an unnamed person who stabbed a sword straight through the Heavenly River, directly channeling the endless currents of a Yellow River Paradise. From afar, it looked like a huge hole had been torn in the sky’s curtain, with water gushing down. That’s how the second of the world’s ten scenic spots, 'The Yellow River’s Waters Come from Heaven,' came to be, along with White Emperor City within the Colorful Clouds. The city lord of White Emperor City is truly extraordinary—one of the few ambitious figures who dares to openly identify with the devilish cult’s doctrines. A real romantic. I once had the honor of playing a game of Go with him, right in the Colorful Cloud River outside White Emperor City. Our game was praised as one of the 'Ten Colorful Cloud Games.' I lost more than I won, but even in defeat, I was honored. After all, the banner inscribed with 'I yield the first move to all under heaven' has stood atop White Emperor City’s walls for over six hundred years. There are very few Go players qualified to face the city lord in a match..."
The little girl didn't want to hear all this pointless chatter. She said angrily, "Why are you showing off with all this talk? I say the scroll is broken, and that's that! If I win, I’ll stamp your forehead with my seal. Want to bet?!"
Gambling?
Cui Chan immediately perked up, his dejected expression vanishing. He stood up abruptly, slapped his butt, and asked with a smile, "And if I win?"
Li Baoping said generously, "If little master comes out of the scroll and still insists on killing you, then I’ll come back and collect your corpse for you! You tell me where you want to be buried. How about by the Immortal Grave in our little town? I go there often, so I know the way well—it’ll save me a lot of trouble..."
Cui Chan bared his teeth and waved his hand. "Stop, stop, stop. If I win, you have to convince Chen Ping'an not only to not kill me, but also to take me as his disciple."
The moment he left that old well, he had been struck square on the forehead by Qi Jingchun’s "Quiet Heart, Proud Intent" seal, which thoroughly scattered the last "ounce of righteous qi" from this skin bag. He had truly fallen from a fifth-tier cultivator to a mere mortal, just as Qi Jingchun had once said back in the town’s Yuan Family old residence—if he didn’t repent, he would suffer the consequences.
But such was the general trend on East Vial Continent. The Great Li was marching south, the arrow had to be released from the bowstring. Moreover, the Great Way Cui Chan walked had no turning back; he couldn’t afford to retreat even half a step. So even if he had been certain back then that Qi Jingchun had left a contingency, he still did what he had to do. At most, he was just more careful in his actions and words.
But regardless, whether it was the boy Cui Chan or Imperial Preceptor Cui Chan in the capital, no matter how treacherous, bloodthirsty, and deep-scheming his temperament might be, he had never lacked the integrity to admit defeat and accept the bet. This was something he had never lost, from his apprenticeship and student days all the way to his fall to becoming a mere barbarian preceptor in the northern reaches of a small Vial Continent.
Li Baoping shook her head. "Even though I’m sure to win, I won’t agree to something like that."
Cui Chan blinked. "If you won’t do a deal like this, how will you ever become the Cliff Academy’s Little Master, Lady Teacher?"
Li Baoping looked at this former "master uncle" with disdain. The little girl had already said what she needed to say, as if she had beaten back the tiger blocking her heart’s path. She never cared about "collecting corpses." With a single hop, she was over it, and with a whoosh, she dashed off to some unknown distance, searching for her next opponent. Even their master Qi Jingchun had once been at a loss with her.
The little girl raised her arm and shook the white jade seal in her hand. "Scared?"
Cui Chan laughed dryly. "A wild little girl from the mountains—I won’t stoop to your level."
Li Baoping slowly lowered her arm, gently breathed on the seal’s inscription, and showed signs of looking for a place to stamp it.
Cui Chan swallowed his saliva. "Li Baoping, don’t be like that. Let’s talk things out nicely. We’re both Confucian disciples—gentlemen use their mouths, not their hands. We share ties of the same school. Besides, aren’t you afraid your little master will see how willful you are, with none of the refined elegance of a proper young lady, and stop liking you?"
Li Baoping said happily, "Little master stop liking me? There’s no one in the whole world little master likes more than me!"
Cui Chan sighed. "But one day, your little master will have a girl he likes the most."
The little girl didn’t hesitate. "Then I’ll be the second most liked. That’s still something to be happy about."
Cui Chan looked at her as if she were some kind of divine spirit or ghost. "That works too?"
The little girl suddenly gave him the exact same expression, staring behind Cui Chan. Cui Chan turned his head, thinking there was some accident—after all, this body of his could endure no more trouble. But in an instant, he knew something was wrong. Behind him was empty, with nothing unusual.
A seal struck his forehead with lightning speed, hitting Cui Chan so hard he fell backward.
As he fell, the boy Cui Chan was filled with grief and indignation. This was the third time!
Lying face-up on the ground, Cui Chan roared, "Li Baoping! If you sneak-attack me with that seal again, each time you do, you’ll drop from second-favorite to third, and so on. You figure it out yourself! I, Cui Chan, was once a Confucian sage—my words should still carry some weight! Don’t say I didn’t warn you!"
Of course, these were just empty threats. A Confucian sage indeed had the divine ability to pronounce heavenly decrees, but it required an extremely strict connection to the school’s literary fortune and the nurturing of one’s own righteous qi.
Now, aside from the possessions stored in that cun-square treasure and a skin bag of golden branches and jade leaves, Cui Chan had nothing left. To make matters worse, the cun-square item was like the smallest paradise in heaven and earth. Even for its owner, whose spirit was connected to it, there were requirements for the cultivator’s realm. The one on Cui Chan required at least a fifth-tier cultivation base. For anyone else to forcibly break into it, they would need to be at least tenth-tier, like a soldier-cultivator swordmaster. For an eleventh-tier cultivator, opening it was easy.
The reasoning was simple: the cun-square item was one’s own home, but the door was locked. Fifth-tier cultivation was the key in the owner’s hand; you still needed to unlock the door to enter.
If a thief or robber wanted to break in, it wasn’t impossible, but it was difficult.
Currently, Cui Chan’s physique was extremely frail, both in spirit and flesh. He was even weaker than an ordinary sickly youth. If he could be properly recuperated later, he might regain the strength of a normal person. As for cultivation, that would truly be up to heaven—he would need great opportunities and immense fortune. But given his journey so far, Cui Chan felt that simply surviving to become Chen Ping'an’s disciple would be more than satisfying.
From a twelfth-tier Confucian sage to a tenth-tier cultivator, then to fifth-tier, and finally to a mortal who couldn’t sink any lower.
Cui Chan felt that his life had really been a series of great ups and downs—and downs.
Still daring to threaten me?
This guy didn’t learn his lesson—he was even worse than Li Huai.
Li Baoping was so furious she ran over, crouched down, and started stamping the seal rapidly all over the boy Cui Chan’s head.
Swift and decisive, like a sudden storm.
Catch someone off guard.
Even a tough character like Cui Chan felt, at that moment, that life was no longer worth living.
After all, his opponent was just a little girl, not the Old Scholar, Qi Jingchun, or any of those fellows.
---
Inside the landscape scroll, the boy who had swung his arm and slashed down with his sword lost consciousness as he hit the ground. The tall woman, now restored to her true form, caught him. She carefully supported Chen Ping'an as they sat down, her hands gently cradling the thin boy. Because her hair, tied up with a golden thread, hung down in front of her chest, blocking the boy’s face, she tossed it behind her back. She lowered her head, gazing at the dark-skinned Chen Ping'an.
Suddenly, she raised her head, a surprised look on her face.
Within the confines of the scroll, a domain forbidden by a sage, an extremely tall golden figure appeared, standing atop Sui Mountain’s peak, as if conversing with the Old Scholar. Even the woman, who was used to vastness, felt that this uninvited guest was truly not to be underestimated. The Old Scholar seemed unwilling to let the conversation be overheard and cut off all sensory connection. She didn’t mind and lowered her head again, looking at the sleeping boy. She smiled. "If he becomes a cultivator later and his skin lightens up, he’ll be a handsome young man. Not exactly beautiful, but he’ll definitely have an air of 'upright and clever.'"
At the top of the Great Mountain Peak.
The golden divine being, whose dharma body had originally been a thousand zhang tall, shrank to a burly man one zhang in height as he landed. He was clad in an awe-inspiring golden suit of armor, its surface engraved with countless talismans. Some ancient runes, long lost, radiated a primitive and desolate aura, their lineage unknown for thousands or tens of thousands of years. Others, though a thousand years old, were still as fresh as yesterday, emitting a sacred glow. Each talisman was embedded in the armor, and between the lines, they looked like golden rivers, while the characters themselves resembled golden mountains.
The Old Scholar felt somewhat guilty, shrinking his neck and deliberately looking around.
The man’s face was covered by armor, and his voice was deep and muffled. "Since I assumed the position of the True God of Sui Mountain, it’s been exactly six thousand years. This is the first time someone has dared to raise a sword to provoke my Sui Mountain. Scholar, do you have any explanation?!"
The Old Scholar looked bewildered. "Say what?"
The golden-armored man knew the Old Scholar’s temperament inside out. He didn’t feel like saying much more. He turned his gaze toward Chen Ping'an’s direction and frowned. "The aura on her body has a deep origin. Who is she? Was it her who personally struck the sword at Sui Mountain?"
The Old Scholar said in a small voice, "I advise you not to provoke her. This old maiden has a bad temper."
The golden-armored man said calmly, "And my temper is good?"
The Old Scholar rolled his eyes. "Fine, fine, you all have bad tempers. I’m the only one with a good temper, okay? You guys always like to be unreasonable with reasonable people. It pisses me off!"
The golden-armored deity seemed to recall something, and the tense atmosphere suddenly dissipated.
The Old Scholar sighed. "I won’t go into the details of this matter. Just know it’s related to Little Qi. How about you let it slide this once?"
The man said nothing.
The Old Scholar laughed. "Consider it your tacit agreement. Ah, you’re not bad in every way, but you’re a bit thin-skinned and like to put on airs. What’s the relationship between us? Back in the day, we went to peek at that Mountain God Lady’s true face together. Who’d have thought she was bathing and changing clothes at the time? If it weren’t for my righteous act of single-handedly bearing her furious wrath and lecturing her on sages’ principles for three days and three nights, ultimately winning her over with reason and getting her to let bygones be bygones, where would you put that old face of yours..."
The man said sullenly, "Shut up!"
The Old Scholar knew the matter was settled and didn’t press further. The rules of Sui Mountain’s god were as unbreakable as gold and iron. For this big oaf to turn a blind eye, the Old Scholar felt he was quite impressive. He was a bit cocky as he pointed into the distance. "By the way, do you see that boy? Little Qi helped me take him on as my closed-door disciple. What do you think? Pretty good, huh? Haha, I’m fond of him anyway. His temperament is just like mine back in the day—he likes to reason with people. If reasoning fails, then he fights. And his fighting style is like Little Qi’s back then. Tsk, do you have any wine on you?"
The golden-armored man swept a judging glance over the boy. "Either Qi Jingchun is crazy, or you’re blind."
The Old Scholar wasn’t angry. He chuckled. "You big roughnecks don’t understand the affairs of scholars."
The golden-armored man should be the most powerful and influential deity of the Five Great Mountains in this Righteous World. But the stronger one’s strength, the more constraints one faced. For deities like them, with extraordinary combat power and a detached status, especially when not affected by incense offerings, the rules they had to abide by in the Righteous World were often greater. The Old Scholar had once, for a period of time before his statue was placed in the Confucian Temple, been responsible for watching over the five major mountains within Sui Mountain. It was both a cold post in a minor official department and, at times, a remarkable feat.
For example, one of the Old Scholar’s three most famous acts was using his destined character to suppress a large Central Earth Five Great Mountain range so that most of it sank underground.
That enormous Five Great Mountain True Deity, who had great backing, had his golden body shattered. The Second Disciple of the Dao Ancestor was greatly enraged and nearly tore through the sky’s curtain to force his way into the Righteous World from beyond the heavens.
At that time, the Scholar, not yet too old, didn’t hide back in a Confucian school. Instead, he went alone straight up to the heavens. At the border between two realms, he confronted the furious Second Disciple of the Dao Ancestor face to face. The scholar stretched out his neck, pointed at it, and said, "Come on, cut here."
That trip to the heavens, the scholar was utterly unyielding.
Could that be called a good temper?
If he truly had a good temper, could he have taught disciples like Qi Jingchun, that Zuo guy, and Cui Chan? One might establish a school and become a founder, one was heretical, and one betrayed his master.
The golden-armored deity suddenly asked, "For a man destined to die like Qi Jingchun, you broke your vow to leave the Merit Forest and even gave up your very Great Dao. What did you gain?"
Worthies broke the rules, gentlemen went against reason—each had their own bleak end. Within the Confucian tradition, sages and masters would punish them according to the rules.
But a sage who went against his own heart suffered the worst fate.
For a man destined to die like Qi Jingchun, the Old Scholar had truly risked his old life.
Almost no one could understand.
Knowing the situation was already set, to engage in pointless fights of passion was meaningless.
So even this golden-armored deity, who had witnessed the world change colors, still found it utterly baffling.
The Old Scholar rubbed his head, smoothed his hair, and smiled. "I once had a question for Qi Jingchun to answer. Since Qi Jingchun gave his answer, I, as his teacher, certainly couldn’t be worse than my disciple."
The god of Sui Mountain sneered. "Don’t give me all this fog and mystery. 'The student surpasses the teacher'—wasn’t that something you said? If disciples don’t have to be inferior to their teachers, then your reasoning doesn’t hold."
The Old Scholar pointed at the golden-armored deity. "You, you just read books mindlessly. 'Believing everything in books is worse than having no books at all'—do you understand that?"
The golden-armored deity laughed angrily. "I can’t be bothered with you anymore. I’m leaving. Take care of yourself."
He hesitated for a moment, then said, "If things really don’t work out, you can come to Sui Mountain."
The Old Scholar waved his hand. "That place at Sui Mountain—even taking a shit there feels like defiling the sages. I’m not going. Besides, I’ve indeed lost the opportunity to realize the Way and no longer have my former abilities. But if anyone wants to mess with me, heh, just let them come. Too bad, though. If I had had this kind of encounter back then when I met that Taoist bastard Number Two, I would have grabbed his leg and made him chop off my head. If he didn’t chop it, I wouldn’t let him leave. There’s no way I would have been scared enough to have my legs shake afterward."
The golden-armored deity shook his head. He really had no more interest in talking. He wasn’t about to listen to this scholar ramble about old tales. Anyway, ever since meeting the Old Scholar, every encounter invariably ended in disappointment, yet after each disappointment, he couldn’t help looking forward to the next meeting.
What a strange thing.
The Old Scholar suddenly called out, "Don’t go, don’t go! I need a favor. Just a small, insignificant matter. Don’t be scared."
Without a word, the golden-armored deity shot up as a beam of golden light, about to leave this place.
But the next moment, he resumed his true form, hovering in midair.
It turned out the Old Scholar had shamelessly grabbed his ankle and was hanging in the air along with him.
He had no choice but to land again. Looking at the Old Scholar, who stood beside him clapping his hands with a grin, he said irritably, "For shame! If you have something to say, then say it!"
The Old Scholar rubbed his hands together. "Well, I just took on a closed-door disciple. My first impression on him probably wasn’t too good, so I wanted to make it up. Give him a meeting gift or something. Since we’ll be parting ways soon, I really don’t have a chance to teach him reading, and my heart feels guilty."
The golden-armored deity sneered. "Help you prepare a meeting gift? Sure, that’s easy. My Sui Mountain has the Mountain-Suppressing Sword that lost its sword spirit. Want to give that to your disciple? Weighty enough?"
The Old Scholar put on a look of insincere bashfulness. "How can this be? The gift is too heavy. I’d be too embarrassed to accept it... But on the other hand, it’s your goodwill as an elder. If you insist on forcing it on me, I can have Chen Ping'an come pick it up in a hundred years. By then, he might be able to lift it..."
The golden-armored deity took a deep breath. Those who knew him well would recognize this as the precursor to action.
The Old Scholar immediately turned serious. "How can we force growth? You really are something! You have the heart, that’s fine. But don’t you know the principle that haste makes waste? My little disciple is going to travel and study with his sword on his back. Just give him a masterless sword embryo. Only requirement: something he can use right out of the box, not something only a tenth-tier cultivator can touch. How about it? Show some goodwill as an elder?"
The golden-armored deity taunted, "If I don’t give it, are you not going to let me leave?"
The Old Scholar silently sidled closer to the golden-armored deity, grabbed his arm, and said with righteous indignation, "How could that be? Am I that kind of person?"
The god of Sui Mountain shook his head helplessly. "For these disciples, you really would throw away your life and your face. Fine, fine, I’ll give it, I’ll give it!"
With a flick of his wrist, a fist-sized object shaped like a silver ingot floated between them.
The Old Scholar’s expression turned serious. He didn’t reach for it right away. "Did you come here this time with an agenda? Otherwise, how could you casually carry this with you? It’s not some exaggerated treasure, but to you, it means a lot. If you don’t explain clearly, I won’t accept it."
The golden-armored deity crossed his arms and looked south. "How do you think I managed to follow the clues and find you?"
The Old Scholar frowned. "Isn’t it because your cultivation is deep and you’re connected to Sui Mountain’s fortune? I made a bit of noise here, revealed a flaw, and you took advantage?"
The golden-armored deity turned his head. "Do you really not know, or are you pretending to be clueless?"
The Old Scholar asked doubtfully, "Since when did you roughnecks learn to keep people in suspense? That fake Sui Mountain of mine, though it was cut open by a sword, it won’t have any real effect on your side."
The hot-tempered golden-armored deity finally couldn’t hold back and cursed, "Damn it! That sword slash went straight to my Sui Mountain! And you’re pretending nothing happened?! To outsiders, that sword might have been at the end of its strength when it appeared, but my Sui Mountain’s protective formation is as tight as can be! How many people in the whole world can break into the formation with just one sword? Now the entire Middle Earth Divine Continent is buzzing, speculating whether it’s some kind of message from your so-called Taoist bastard Number Two’s side, or if some old immortals from the Sword Qi Great Wall have come to demand justice."
The Old Scholar was dumbfounded. "That fierce?"
This sentence was like pouring salt on the golden-armored deity’s wound.
"Screw you!" He roared and swept his arm horizontally, sending the Old Scholar’s "body" flying hundreds of miles, slamming into the river in the rear mountains of Sui Mountain.
He snorted, slapped the inconspicuous silver ingot, and sent it flying toward where the Old Scholar had fallen.
Then, a beam of golden light as thick as a mountain peak blasted through the scroll’s sky and returned to Sui Mountain in the Middle Earth Divine Continent.
In the river behind Sui Mountain, the Old Scholar leisurely dogpaddled back to shore. With a shrug, his soaked scholar’s robe instantly dried and became crisp. He opened his palm and looked at the silver ingot, pulling a long face. "Hot potato."
When it came to opportunities, whether a teacher gave them to a student or a master to a disciple, the principle was gradual progress. It was never about giving the biggest gift—it was about giving something the recipient could hold, bear, and digest.
Otherwise, those ancient aristocratic families of mountain immortals, with all their accumulated deep wealth passed down through generations, branching out—if today this son became a cultivator and was handed a peerless divine weapon, and tomorrow that grandson had good bones and was given a magical artifact that could break mountains and destroy cities, they would have long since rebelled. Why should this Righteous World listen to the rules upheld by these academies and schools?
Moreover, the entanglement of cause and effect was the most troublesome.
Very troublesome.
That’s why the Old Scholar had secretly taken away that jade hairpin back then.
In fact, A Liang simply hadn’t seen its true secret. The Old Scholar had given it to Qi Jingchun for a deep purpose—to prepare for the worst outcome. If Qi Jingchun ever found himself surrounded by enemies on all sides, he would at least have a safe haven.
But in the end, Qi Jingchun chose not to use it. Apart from not wanting to drag his teacher, the Old Scholar of the Merit Forest, into it, it was probably also a backup plan to protect Chen Ping'an.
This forced the Old Scholar to personally make a trip to Vial Continent to meet the little junior disciple Qi Jingchun had accepted for his teacher.
By then, Qi Jingchun was already dead. Even if his teacher had traveled a long way and wasn’t satisfied with this closed-door disciple, out of respect for Qi Jingchun, given the Old Scholar’s nature, he would most likely hold his nose and acknowledge him. If later Chen Ping'an encountered an obstacle he couldn’t overcome, even if the Old Scholar imprisoned himself in the Merit Forest, he could still say a word or two.
But Qi Jingchun had miscalculated one thing: he hadn’t expected his teacher to leave the Merit Forest so soon.
It was all for him.
Just as he had done for Chen Ping'an.
Perhaps this was the true meaning of "fellow travelers on the same path" and "passed down through the same lineage."
The Old Scholar took one step and appeared on the mountaintop. He sighed emotionally, "Little Qi, when it comes to protecting one’s own, you are far stronger than your teacher. Hmm, I am very satisfied with Chen Ping'an, this closed-door disciple. Thinking it over, it was only in the Merit Forest that I came to understand one thing—I was exactly lacking such a student."
The Old Scholar suddenly opened his eyes wide. "Where is he?"
He stomped his foot in panic, then suddenly quieted down, wearing a sly smile. "Ah, really, this disciple of mine is still young. Oh, oh, seems like he’s already fourteen or fifteen—not that young. In many places outside, people his age are already married and having children..."
Somewhere in the sky, the woman smiled. "Twice."
The Old Scholar pretended to tilt his head and put his hand to his ear. "What? What did you say? I can’t hear clearly. I’m not only hard of hearing, but I also mumble. People always misunderstand me..."
No wonder he had once taught a big disciple like Cui Chan.
But as the voice faded, the old man turned his head to look at a large boulder with four characters carved into it: "Straight to the Celestial Court."
The old man withdrew his gaze and looked down the mountain. "I still want to gaze upon this grand landscape. A thousand years is too short; ten thousand years is not long enough."
---
When Chen Ping'an woke up, he found himself once again sitting on the railing of that golden arch bridge. The bridge was still as long as last time—endless in both directions. All around was a sea of surging clouds, leaving him feeling lost and bewildered.
He couldn’t imagine what would happen if he fell off—would he be smashed to pieces? Would he keep falling into an endless abyss? Would the journey to the ground be so long that, if he didn’t starve to death, the originally fourteen-year-old boy might already be fifteen by the time he hit the ground?
Chen Ping'an often thought about strange things like this.
But because he hadn’t read much, it all seemed very rustic.
The woman in white sat shoulder to shoulder with Chen Ping'an and said softly, "This place was once a battlefield. When the great battle ended, only this bridge was left. See over there? There used to be an Eastern Heavenly Gate standing there—quite big. The guy in charge of guarding the gate back then was a lecherous fellow clad in a silver battle armor called 'Great Frost.' He wasn’t a bad person, just had a sharp tongue. My first master fought his superior and won. At the time, the latter had several helpers watching from afar, but they were all too afraid to come out and help."
Chen Ping'an followed her finger to an empty spot, where occasionally a flash of brilliant light flickered and vanished.
She said softly, "Now there’s nothing left."
Chen Ping'an felt a sense of longing and sighed, "I see."
She gently swung her legs, her hands resting on the railing, and laughed. "Cultivating and walking the path of immortality, painstakingly building the Bridge of Longevity—it’s all to achieve the goal of keeping something, not becoming a speck of dust in the river of time. That’s why everyone likes to call themselves 'swimming against the current.'"
Chen Ping'an hummed in agreement. That much he could understand—living well, who didn’t like that?
She turned her head and asked with a smile, "You’ve come such a long way. Are you tired?"
Chen Ping'an thought seriously for a moment. "Tired? Not really. Compared to when I was a child and went into the mountains to gather herbs and burn charcoal, this is actually lighter. But meeting so many strange people and things, I always have trouble sleeping soundly."
Chen Ping'an turned around and said happily, "But the sleep I just had was very sound. Back in the town, even though we were poor, I could fall asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. Now, traveling with Baoping and the others, I don’t dare to do that—I’m always afraid something will happen."
She continued, "No complaints?"
Chen Ping'an thought for a moment, imitating the immortal sister beside him, resting his hands on the railing and swinging his feet, looking into the distance. He said softly, "Yes, there are. For example, a girl named Zhu Lu—how can she be so unkind? There was also that female ghost in her wedding dress, who, because she thought the man she loved didn’t love her anymore, killed many passing scholars. If Baoping and the others hadn’t been with me at the time, I would have already used a strand of sword qi to kill her."
"As for other things, I can’t really call them complaints, not exactly. But they still annoy me a little. Like Li Huai never studies hard—no matter how much I advise him, he won’t listen. I really don’t know how Mr. Qi endured not beating him back then. And after eating some good mountain delicacies, those guys just won’t eat my cooking anymore. I’m actually very frustrated. Oil and salt are expensive! And when I go to the river to fish, I can’t always choose my timing. Often I catch very few. Every time I go back and see their disappointed faces, I feel particularly wronged. If it weren’t for not wanting to delay your study trip, give me a day or two to bait the spot and keep watch at night—I could catch big fish, no problem."
"Most recently, there was the time Lin Shouyi got angry. Actually, I was very nervous inside. Although it was mainly to get him to train hard, I had selfish motives. Someone told me that my Bridge of Longevity was broken and I might never be able to cultivate. But I don’t want to give up just like that. For one thing, I promised you, immortal sister, that I would become an immortal who flies around. For another, I’m envious of A Liang and the others. Like Li Huai said—standing on a sword, whooshing here and there, going wherever you want. How cool and majestic. Of course I want that."
The tall woman listened quietly to the boy’s thoughts, then teased him. "Oh, so you do think about yourself sometimes."
The boy squinted, trying to look as far as possible, and laughed. "Of course. After my parents died, I’ve always thought about myself. It was hard to think about others. Actually, it was only after meeting you all that I became like this. Fighting, buying a mountain and a shop, learning to read and write, making small book boxes, practicing stance drills and boxing, spending money on books, picking routes, sharpening knives, feeding the horses—I’m busy every day. But I don’t regret it! I’m very happy!"
Chen Ping'an murmured, "I just miss them a little. I wonder how they’re doing."
She also said with the same melancholy the boy had used earlier, "I see."
Chen Ping'an suddenly lowered his head and said softly, "Immortal sister, I’m rich now. Very rich!"
She burst into laughter.
But recalling the boy’s growing-up years, she quickly understood.
Just the fact that he had to put up Spring Festival couplets on New Year’s Eve—such a small thing—had made the boy mumble about it for so many years. So having money was definitely the greatest joy.
The boy suddenly looked determined. "Immortal sister, don’t worry. I’ll do my best to achieve what I promised you."
She turned sideways and placed her hand on the boy’s head, saying gently, "Meeting you has already made me very happy."
She seemed to feel she hadn’t said enough, so she bent down and pressed her forehead to his.
The innocent boy was just a little shy, wanting to scratch his head but not daring to.
She laughed and straightened up.
In the end, the sword spirit and the boy—one barefoot, one in straw sandals—sat together, gazing into the distance, swinging their legs.
Time flowed, unnoticed.
If today were a ferry crossing on the river of time, and one sailed upstream twenty thousand years, when it came to the sword spirit’s killing power and murderous intent, she alone reigned supreme—higher than the heavens!