Chapter 408: Sword Technique
(Journal Issue 4 has been updated. 1: The average subscription for "Sword Comes" actually broke 30,000 long ago. 2: Been busy this month, but I'll strive for at least 150,000 words of updates.)
Strange. Although Mao Xiaodong had already left, the main hall of the Confucian Temple remained not only closed to the public but even had a kind of martial law atmosphere about it.
In the rear hall, in addition to Yuan Gaofeng and a group of Confucian Temple deities who had manifested their golden bodies, there were also two groups of distinguished and rare guests.
The Great Sui Emperor, traveling incognito outside the palace, stood with a white-haired eunuch wearing a large red python robe.
And two men: an old man with white hair who, even among the human monarch and the Confucian Temple sages, still had an imposing manner, and a relatively younger, refined man who, perhaps feeling he lacked sufficient qualifications to participate in confidential matters, had gone to the front hall to pay respects to the statues of the Seventy-Two Disciples.
The old man was not from Bottle Gourd Continent. He called himself Lin Shuangjiang, but he spoke a pure Bottle Gourd Continent elegant speech and the official language of Great Sui.
Lin Shuangjiang was likely an alias. That wasn't important. What mattered was that after the old man appeared in the Great Sui capital, his sorcery was so profound that even the python-robed eunuch behind the Great Sui Emperor and a palace offering master combined their full efforts but could not harm the old man in the slightest.
Lin Shuangjiang glanced at Yuan Gaofeng and the other two literary deities who had appeared together and bickered with Mao Xiaodong, his expression displeased.
His gaze shifted. Some deities who were founding military officials or Confucian generals, as well as those who had established achievements of expanding territory in Great Sui history as civil officials—these two groups naturally gathered together, like a faction in the court, with an indistinct boundary separating them from Yuan Gaofeng's sparse camp. Lin Shuangjiang's gaze finally settled on the Great Sui Emperor. "Your Majesty, Great Sui's military morale and popular sentiment are both usable. The court has literary valor, the battlefield has military valor. The situation is like this—must you still endure humiliation and bear the burden? If at the time of signing the Mountain Covenant, Great Sui truly could not resist the Great Li iron cavalry and was doomed to destruction, now the situation has changed drastically. Do you still need to drag out an ignoble existence, Your Majesty?"
Lin Shuangjiang sneered. "Should I, an outsider, tell Your Majesty how many capital officials of Great Sui have resigned their seals and returned their official caps over the past few years, and how many literati have fled into the mountains to escape Zen meditation? And how much the martial temples' qi fortune has decayed from the capital to the local areas? Need I speak of that? It's said to be a hundred-year covenant. Your Majesty exchanges your personal infamy in history for a hundred years of peace for the people of Great Sui. But are you truly certain that even if the barbarian Song clan of Great Li keeps their promise and doesn't move a single soldier against Great Sui, Great Sui can actually hold on peacefully for a hundred years? Then you stare at the sky, waiting for a pie to fall from heaven? That the Song clan of Great Li will destroy itself, and then the Geyang Gao family can just pick the fruits?"
Lin Shuangjiang's face was cold. "When the upper beam is not straight, the lower beam will be crooked. Your Majesty must know the character of Great Li's Song clan. Now the vassal king Song Changjing is acting as regent, with martial artists holding power. Back then, even the Five Marchmounts proper deities, which were closely related to the Gao family's national mandate, were plotted against by the Great Li Emperor and had all their titles revoked. Is the Mountain Covenant between Great Sui's Donghua Mountain and Great Li's Northern Marchmount Piyun Mountain truly effective? I dare assert that within no more than fifty years, at most thirty—even if Great Li's iron cavalry is stalled at the Zhuying Dynasty—once the successor to the Great Li throne and that Embroidered Tiger successfully digest the entire northern Bottle Gourd Continent, thirty years later, from the common people to the border troops, then to the petty clerks and minor officials, and finally to the court ministers, all of Great Sui will regard the Great Li Dynasty as a dreamlike paradise."
Lin Shuangjiang said sternly, "When the people of Great Sui, from the depths of their hearts, consider a foreign land as better than their own homeland, how will you, the Great Sui Emperor who personally brought about this calamity of national subjugation, have the face to meet the ancestors of the Geyang Gao clan?"
Yuan Gaofeng roared angrily, "Lin Shuangjiang, you are too presumptuous! The state affairs of Great Sui do not permit you to recklessly spout nonsense here!"
A Great Sui civil official who had once formulated national policy to incorporate the Huangting Kingdom as a vassal state said softly, "Your Majesty, think thrice."
Lin Shuangjiang said no more.
The art of opening and closing: opening is speaking; closing is silence.
The blank space left after speaking—the unspoken truths—showed even more skill and was more capable of seducing hearts.
As the rear hall fell silent, in the front hall, a man in a long gown with a handsome and youthful face was, like Chen Ping'an, looking at each of the accompanying Seventy-Two Disciples' statues one by one.
The Great Sui Emperor finally spoke: "Only after Song Zhengchun died did the two gentlemen come to visit today, correct?"
Lin Shuangjiang nodded in acknowledgment.
The Great Sui Emperor pointed at himself and smiled. "And if one day I am beaten to death by a tenth-rank martial artist, or stabbed to death by a flying sword from that Mohist wandering knight named Xu Ruo, then how would it be calculated?"
The Great Sui Emperor pointed to the sky above, then to the front hall behind him. "If Xu Ruo acts to recklessly kill a monarch, as a cultivator, he would probably be punished by one of the sages over there. Xu Ruo is an important figure in the Mohist school. Previously, when the imitation White Jade Capital built by a Mohist branch was destroyed, the Central Continent Mohist main lineage changed its mind and bet on and chose the Song clan of Great Li. Xu Ruo is very likely the key figure. So Xu Ruo is probably unwilling to act and 'trade pieces' with me—the Mohist school would lose too much. But if Li Er kills me, a pure martial artist, it seems that according to your mountain rules, the Confucian sages won't interfere."
Lin Shuangjiang said calmly, "As long as that Li Er hasn't reached the 'Divine Arrival' realm among tenth-rank martial artists, I can prevent him from even entering the Great Sui capital. Provided that your Confucian Temple is willing to cooperate with me at that time and activate the city's protective formation."
Even so, the Great Sui Emperor was not swayed and continued asking, "Easy to guard against a thief in the night, not so easy to be prepared for constant vigilance. If we have to guard against him day after day for a thousand days, can we succeed? Does Old Gentleman Lin plan to stay in Great Sui indefinitely?"
Lin Shuangjiang frowned.
At this moment, a warm and mellow voice sounded in everyone's lake of consciousness: "If Li Er dares to come to the Great Sui capital to kill people, I will be responsible for going out of the city to kill him. I can only guarantee this one thing; I will not interfere with anything else."
Yuan Gaofeng sneered, "Ha! The Qi refiners of the Central Continent are indeed formidable. Killing a tenth-rank martial artist is like a child crushing a chick."
Lin Shuangjiang said nothing more, but stated firmly, "If Mr. Fan says it, he can do it."
The Great Sui Emperor smiled. "Really?"
The man in the front hall replied with a smile, "For a merchant family passed down through generations, trustworthiness is the foundation of existence."
---
Li Huai used the method Pei Qian had taught him to play Gomoku, but he lost terribly.
After admitting defeat, still angry, he used both hands to haphazardly wipe away the chessboard densely covered with stones. "No more, no more. This is boring. Playing this chess makes me dizzy and hungry."
Listening to the crisp sounds of the stones knocking against each other.
Xie Xie, who was cultivating at one end of the green bamboo-floored corridor, her eyelashes trembled slightly. She felt unsettled, so she opened her eyes and turned her head to glance over there. Pei Qian and Li Huai were each picking up black and white stones, randomly tossing them back into the stone containers beside them with a crackling sound.
The stone containers were made by the Great Sui official kilns, worth a few dozen taels of silver at most. But the stones—Xie Xie knew their value was beyond measure.
If this were still when Cui Dongshan was staying in this small courtyard, Xie Xie would occasionally be forced by Cui Dongshan to play chess with him. If she placed a stone with slightly too much force, Cui Dongshan would slap her spinning into a wall, saying that if she chipped even one of the stones, she would ruin his 'complete' collection, making it incomplete and spoiling its quality. Even with her life, Xie Xie couldn't afford to pay it off.
In the world, ordinary households use beautiful stones ground into chess pieces. Wealthy families usually use pottery or porcelain. Mountain immortal families carve them from special fine jade.
But these two containers of stones in Cui Dongshan's possession had an astonishing origin. They were 'Caiyunzi,' coveted by chess players everywhere. A thousand years ago, they were made by the younger brother of the Lord of White Emperor City, the owner of the Glazed Pavilion, using a unique secret technique of 'drip-crafting.' With the collapse of the Glazed Pavilion and the owner disappearing for a thousand years, the special 'great refinement drip-crafting method' had been completely severed. Central Continent immortals who were obsessed with chess once obtained one and a half containers of Caiyunzi. To complete the set, they offered an astronomical price of one Xiaoshu coin per stone.
But now, the glazed chess stones were in the hands of Pei Qian and Li Huai, treated no better than pebbles on the ground.
Xie Xie sighed inwardly. Fortunately, Caiyunzi was worth its price. Even a strong, robust man using all his strength could not break them by pounding, and they would only produce an even clearer sound upon hitting the board.
Li Huai didn't want to play Gomoku, so Pei Qian suggested playing the rustic game of picking up stones. Li Huai immediately became confident—this was his specialty. When he was at the village school, he often played with classmates. That girl with the braided horns, Shi Chunjia, often lost to him. And when he played stone-picking with his sister Li Liu at home, he had never lost!
They each took five stones from their respective containers and played a round. Finding it too easy, they decided to increase it to ten stones.
When Xie Xie heard the sounds even crisper than placing stones on a board, her heart trembled slightly. She only hoped Cui Dongshan would never learn of this tragic event.
Occasionally, one or two Caiyunzi would fly off the back of a hand and fall onto the bluestone floor of the courtyard, only to be picked up by the two children, who treated the matter as nothing at all.
Xie Xie could no longer calm her breathing. She simply stood up and went to her side room to look through some books.
Li Baoping came out of the main room's study and squatted beside Pei Qian and Li Huai to watch. Li Huai was still being thoroughly routed.
Li Baoping silently grabbed five black stones from another container and put five white stones back. On the floor, five black and five white stones remained. Li Baoping explained to the two confused faces, "Playing this way is more interesting. Each of you chooses one color—black or white. Each time you grab the stones, for example, Pei Qian, if you choose black and grab seven stones in one handful, if two of them are white, then you only count as having grabbed three black stones."
Pei Qian said timidly, "Sister Baoping, I want to choose white."
Li Baoping nodded. "Okay."
Li Huai said angrily, "I want to choose white too!"
Li Baoping glanced at him.
Li Huai immediately changed his tune. "Forget it, black looks better anyway."
Shi Rou's mind stirred.
This little girl in the red short-sleeved jacket always seemed to have such peculiar ideas. Among everyone, because Chen Ping'an clearly favored Li Baoping, Shi Rou had observed her the most. She found that the little girl's words and actions weren't deliberately acting worldly-wise; she was actually quite innocent and naive. Yet strangely, many of her thoughts were both within the rules and yet beyond them.
Just as Shi Rou was secretly observing Li Baoping, the battle was already over. According to Li Baoping's rules, Li Huai lost even worse.
Pei Qian shook her little head, weighing a few stones in her palm, tossing them and catching them gently. "Ah, loneliness. Seeking but one defeat—is it that hard?"
Li Huai was sneaky, his eyes darting as he tried to think of another way to save face.
Pei Qian threw down the stones, picked up the walking staff at her feet, and hopped into the courtyard. "Sister Baoping, you loser Li Huai, let me show you something—what it means to hold a long pole and fly over roofs and ridges! My divine skill isn't fully developed yet, so for now I can only walk on eaves and rush on walls! Watch closely! You must watch closely!"
Pei Qian backed up to one wall of the courtyard, facing the opposite wall. She took a deep breath, then dashed forward, suddenly jabbing the walking staff precisely into a gap between the courtyard stones. Pei Qian's feet left the ground, the long pole bending into a large arc. With a bang, the staff snapped straight, and Pei Qian lifted high into the air, her small body stretching gracefully. She landed steadily on the wall top, turned around, and grinned at Li Baoping and Li Huai. "See that!"
Li Huai was dumbfounded. "I want to try it too!"
Pei Qian lightly leaped down from the wall, like a little wildcat, landing without a sound.
She generously tossed the walking staff to Li Huai.
Li Huai also imitated Pei Qian, backing up to the wall base. He ran forward with short, hurried steps, then glanced at the ground, abruptly jabbing the staff into a stone gap. With a soft shout, the staff bent, and Li Huai's body shot upward. But his final body posture and angle of force were wrong, resulting in his legs pointing to the sky and his head pointing to the ground, his body tilting sideways. "Ai, ai, ai"—he ended up falling straight back to the ground.
Yu Lu instantly turned into a gentle breeze, catching Li Huai and setting him upright.
Li Huai boasted without shame, "Fell short by just a hair! A pity, a pity."
Pei Qian sneered. "Want ten more tries?"
Li Huai said solemnly, "Although I, Li Huai, am gifted—not once in a millennium, but at least once in eight hundred years—I am a rare martial arts prodigy, but my ambition lies elsewhere. I won't compete with you on such matters."
Li Baoping took the walking staff from Li Huai and tried it herself.
Result? Under everyone's astonished eyes, this little girl in the red jacket not only succeeded but succeeded too well—she flew directly over the wall.
A slight sound came from beyond the wall.
Familiar with such situations, Li Baoping wasn't hurt. She just landed unsteadily, her knees gradually bending until she squatted, then fell backward, sitting on the ground.
Li Baoping stood up, completely fine.
A stooped old man stood not far away, smiling. "You okay?"
Li Baoping laughed. "What could happen?"
Zhu Lian nodded with a smile.
Li Baoping ran back to the courtyard.
Zhu Lian, a martial arts grandmaster at the Distant Travel realm, had keen eyesight. He knew Li Baoping would be fine, so he didn't intervene.
Zhu Lian continued strolling around the courtyard.
Before Chen Ping'an had left the academy, the conversation he had with Li Baoping—Zhu Lian was nearby listening, and Chen Ping'an hadn't deliberately hidden anything from him.
Zhu Lian even felt sorry for Sui Youbian, that she hadn't heard that conversation.
Back when the four of them from the scroll were still together at the old dragon city's Dust Pharmacy, the old man surnamed Xun, who had early on seen Sui Youbian's "sword immortal potential," liked to frequent the pharmacy. One time watching chess, as Sui Youbian and Lu Baixiang played in the courtyard, the old man spoke a few words, using chess theory to expound on the way of the sword.
Horizontal and vertical, placing stones on the points.
The subtlety lies in the word 'cut'—that is sword technique.
Whether a chess formation is good or bad lies in the word 'definition.' Occupying a mountain and calling oneself king, feudal lords setting up separate regimes, mountains and rivers forming barriers—these are sword intent.
When the chess game ended, including the replay, Sui Youbian remained unmoved, which left the old man surnamed Xun very embarrassed. Pei Qian had mocked him for a long time, saying he just blew his own conch, scaring people with empty words and big talk—no wonder Sister Sui didn't appreciate it.
But that very night, Sui Youbian went into seclusion to comprehend the sword, staying in her room for a day and two nights.
Now Sui Youbian had gone to Tongye Continent, to that inexplicably ascendant Yuqui Sect, which had become the leader of the continent's immortal sects, to become a sword cultivator.
Wei Xian had run off with Cui Dongshan.
Lu Baixiang wanted to travel the mountains and rivers alone.
Only he, Zhu Lian, had chosen to stay by Chen Ping'an's side.
At Lion Park, Chen Ping'an had acted twice—once against a mischievous demon creature, and once against Li Baozhen. Zhu Lian hadn't found either performance particularly outstanding.
But it was Chen Ping'an's conversation with Li Baoping that made Zhu Lian repeatedly ponder it in admiration.
Li Baozhen, Li Baoping, Li Xisheng—the Li clan of Fortune and Emolument Street.
The four were connected by blood. And although Chen Ping'an was called 'little master uncle' by Li Baoping, he was ultimately an outsider.
How Chen Ping'an handled Li Baozhen was extremely complex. To hope that, regardless of the outcome, it wouldn't hurt Li Baoping's heart was even harder. It was almost a deadlock where no matter what he did, it was 'not wrong' yet also 'not right.'
If Chen Ping'an concealed this matter, or simply explained the situation of meeting Li Baozhen at Lion Park, Li Baoping would certainly not have any problem at the moment, and their relationship would remain as before.
But once Chen Ping'an killed Li Baozhen, who was courting death, even if Chen Ping'an was completely in the right, and Li Baoping understood reason, that had little to do with whether the little girl would be hurt deep in her heart.
That was the crux.
Thus that conversation took place.
Zhu Lian walked slowly, muttering to himself, "This is the sword technique on the human heart—cutting with extreme precision."
What is cutting?
Chen Ping-an's first decision not to kill Li Baozhen was about keeping a promise, fulfilling his commitment to Li Xisheng—essentially like obeying the law.
Then, using the family heirloom Li Baozhen carried as a 'pawn' with Li Baoping and the entire Li clan of Fortune and Emolument Street—that was a matter of emotion and human reason.
Thus, he isolated Li Baozhen from the entire Li clan, much like Cui Dongshan's flying sword technique of drawing a circle to trap within a thunder pool, confining Li Baozhen alone inside.
Li Baozhen was Li Baozhen. The Li clan behind Li Baoping and Li Xisheng was the Li clan with Li Baozhen removed.
Chen Ping'an had made a clear demarcation.
And, silently, he pointed out a mental trajectory for Li Baoping, offering a magnanimous possibility: 'No one is wrong, and when the time comes, everyone is responsible for their own survival.' When looking back later, even if Chen Ping'an and Li Baozhen fought to the death and one died, Li Baoping would still be sad, but she would never swing from one extreme to another.
This was the sword technique the old man surnamed Xun had spoken of.
Chen Ping'an's drawing of his sword was perfectly attuned to this principle.
It was a subtle tug-of-war on the human heart.
So that day, Chen Ping'an had also been watching the chess in the pharmacy's backyard and had heard the old man's invaluable golden words. But Zhu Lian dared to assert that even though Sui Youbian went into seclusion to comprehend the sword for a day and two nights, and her talent for learning the sword was excellent, she might not have grasped the true meaning as well as Chen Ping'an.
Every person's path beneath their feet varies in nearness and farness, and also in height and lowness.
He remembered two lines Li Baoping had taught Pei Qian:
'Carrying a bamboo box, wearing straw sandals, a million punches—the dashing youth is most at ease.'
'Carrying an immortal sword, wearing a white robe, traveling millions of miles—the world's best little master uncle.'
Zhu Lian murmured to himself, "Little Baoping, your little master uncle might not be a sword cultivator yet, but he should already have the rudiments of a sword immortal's heart, shouldn't he?"
Zhu Lian suddenly stopped walking, squinting toward the end of the path leading to the small courtyard.
There, an elderly Confucian scholar accompanied by a white deer appeared.