Chapter 409: Some Stories Don't Need to Be Known
The tavern was still bustling with noise inside and out.
The Great Sui dynasty had always been prosperous, and the common people were willing to spend money—they dared to, since the Geyang Gao clan sitting on the dragon throne had created an incomparably stable age of peace over these hundreds of years.
By the window on the second floor, Mao Xiaodong looked outward and reminded Chen Ping'an behind him, "Remember to protect yourself, don't worry about me."
A ninth-realm Golden Core Sword Immortal, a Dragon Gate realm military cultivator, a Dragon Gate realm formation master, a Roaming Far realm martial artist, and a Golden Body realm martial artist.
Five assassins.
Regardless of their identities or stances, they had all gathered together, hidden within a thousand zhang radius of this tavern.
Such a lineup—let alone hunting down and killing an Earth Immortal below the sword cultivator realm—could probably even kill a Jade Pu realm cultivator.
Chen Ping'an thought back to that demon-subduing event at the City God Pavilion in the Colorful Clothes Kingdom. That girl with bells tied to her wrists and ankles—they had only met by chance back then. As the daughter of a commandery governor, her cultivation wasn't high, but every time she made a move to help, it was just right, giving Chen Ping'an a very good impression of her.
After that, traveling through two continents and one Hanging Mountain, it had always been either Chen Ping'an alone battling strong opponents, or after the four in the painting accompanied him, he was still the one to deliver the final blow. This time in the Great Sui capital, it became a situation where Chen Ping'an only needed to stand behind Mao Xiaodong—this felt unfamiliar to him. But deep down, there was still some regret, since it wasn't like in the Lotus Pod Blessed Land, where "there was an Old Man Heaven above suppressing everyone with the Heavenly Way." Returning to the Grand All-Under-Heaven, Chen Ping'an's cultivation was still far too low.
Mao Xiaodong laughed. "When you reach my age, if you're still a useless Nascent Soul cultivator, I'll go curse you out on behalf of our teacher."
Chen Ping'an had no choice but to pat the sword-nurturing gourd at his waist and silently tell the flying swords First and Fifth to be ready for the assassins' appearance at any moment.
Inside the wide sleeves of his Golden Nectar Dharma Robe, the fingers of his right hand pinched a Reduced-Distance-Inch talisman to guard against sneak attacks, while his left hand held a Day-Night Traveler True Body talisman to withstand powerful enemies.
Mao Xiaodong felt considerably more at ease.
Little Junior Brother's long journey through the martial world hadn't been in vain.
Suddenly, Mao Xiaodong's voice sounded in Chen Ping'an's mind lake. "Have you ever walked by the banks of the River of Time before? Compared to the suppression of the Grand All-Under-Heaven's righteous qi you felt earlier at the Sage Temple, it's even harder to bear."
Chen Ping'an replied using the martial artist technique of condensing sound into a thread. "I've walked it twice. The first time was before I started martial arts, in the town of the Pearly Bead Cavern Heaven. The second time was in the Lotus Pod Blessed Land, when the old temple master of the Observing Dao Temple dragged me along to watch at least two hundred years of flowing time, often in reverse order and interlaced. So even though I was already a fifth-realm martial artist by then, I still found it exceptionally hard to endure—no less painful than when I was fed punches on Fallen Mountain back in the day."
Mao Xiaodong asked with a smile, "When we were chatting in the study earlier about your travels, why didn't you mention this earlier? Such a noteworthy feat—not bringing it up to brag is like suffering all that hardship for nothing. Even someone like me, a Nascent Soul cultivator, had never experienced the scenery of the River of Time before becoming the overseer of Cliff Academy. That's a scroll that only Jade Pu realm cultivators can access."
A flash of inspiration struck Chen Ping'an, and he hit on the truth. "Academy Master Mao truly has the divine ability to move mountains, temporarily using this place as a small world for the academy?!"
Mao Xiaodong nodded. "Exactly. Over the past few years, by using the pretext of protecting Little Bao-Ping, I've been moving around the Great Sui capital, hiding my true intentions from the heavens, all to accomplish this secret matter. Carrying the literary lineage incense of an academy on my shoulders—one must always be on guard."
Chen Ping'an nodded. "Understandable."
Mao Xiaodong laughed angrily. "You haven't even called me 'Senior Brother Mao' once, and you want my understanding?"
Chen Ping'an acknowledged he was in the wrong and stopped speaking.
Mao Xiaodong held one hand behind his back and raised the other arm, using his finger as a brush. In an instant, he wrote the four characters "Cliff Academy." With every stroke completed, golden light flowed out from between his fingers without dissipating.
After finishing writing, Mao Xiaodong flicked his sleeve and smiled. "Four cardinal directions!"
The four golden characters flashed and vanished in all directions.
Mao Xiaodong turned his head and said, "Just sit and drink your wine."
As soon as the words fell, Mao Xiaodong had disappeared without a trace.
Chen Ping'an took a deep breath. The familiar feeling engraved in his heart surged like river water. Chen Ping'an, like someone who couldn't swim well, was instantly submerged underwater.
The world fell silent.
There was no sound or movement anywhere in the tavern.
That Dragon Gate realm formation master was in the middle of secretly "arranging his troops," when his spiritual qi suddenly stagnated and his circulation faltered. He looked up sharply and saw pedestrians frozen in place on the road. Out of the corner of his eye, birds in the sky were all suspended midair.
This formation master, no longer caring if he would be detected by Mao Xiaodong of Cliff Academy, immediately stopped hiding his aura and let it pour out like a torrent. He pinched a golden talisman between his fingers, about to make a move.
A hand pressed down on his shoulder. A voice laughed, "This formation of yours is derived from the Dragon Gate Formation lineage passed down by the Central-Earth Dao Lord Ning Quanzhen, right?"
The formation master was stunned.
He couldn't shake off the large hand on his shoulder no matter how hard he tried. His face flushed red, hoping that one of the other four could come to his rescue in time.
A formation master relied on the power of heaven and earth channeled through his arrays. The tempering and polishing of his physical body was far inferior to that of sword immortals, military cultivators, and pure martial artists.
Fortunately, the formation master wasn't completely in despair.
A dazzling sword light originating from the northeast, like a white thread, swiftly flew over. The tip of the sword was aimed directly at the space between Mao Xiaodong's eyebrows behind the formation master.
Within this small world, the sword light's trajectory was not perfectly straight. The sword tip trembled subtly, and the body of that life-bound flying sword rose and fell unevenly.
With a sizzling sound, wherever the flying sword passed, it rubbed and sparked a series of fiery flashes, extremely eye-catching.
This was the sharp flying sword clashing with this small world.
Mao Xiaodong did not dodge. There was no sign at all that he was channeling the abundant spiritual qi of a Nascent Soul cultivator.
That flying sword, now less than a zhang away from the tall old man and the formation master, suddenly rippled like a stone thrown into a lake. It plunged into the water and disappeared.
At the same time, the formation master bled from all seven orifices. His body trembled involuntarily. This movement clashed again with the omnipresent flowing time of the small world, causing even more bleeding. More terrifyingly, not only was his internal qi chaotic and disordered, but in all the key energy palaces where his life-bound objects were nurtured—his heart door and the doors of each palace—it felt as if thousands of needles were piercing in. The formation master struggled to move the two fingers pinching that life-saving talisman. His fingers could move, but the spiritual qi inside his body, thick and viscous like mercury, had frozen like ice and was utterly immobile.
Mao Xiaodong grabbed the man by the neck and casually threw him behind him.
The life-bound flying sword of that Golden Core sword immortal stirred up a whirlpool of flowing time behind Mao Xiaodong, like an unwelcome guest breaking in, shooting out fiercely.
But it was already too late.
The formation master, already grievously wounded and near death, happened to block the flying sword's path.
That ninth-realm sword immortal had no intention of stopping his flying sword. He pierced straight through the formation master's body and, using his mind to control the sword, continued to assassinate Mao Xiaodong!
The formation master died on the spot, his eyes wide open in death.
Hadn't it been said that once Mao Xiaodong left East Flower Mountain, he was just a Nascent Soul cultivator?
On the path of cultivation, the Hundred Schools of the Three Teachings, every road—refining elixirs, gathering herbs, taking tonics for longevity, summoning spirits and commanding ghosts, observing qi and guiding it, burning and refining inner alchemy, arts of aging delay—once one crossed the great threshold and entered the Middle Five Realms, becoming an immortal in the eyes of mundane priests, it was indeed infinitely glorious.
But those who cultivated the Dao abandoned the mortal world on the mountains and didn't bother with worldly right and wrong—and that was not without reason.
Because down the mountain, there were also qi cultivators who didn't believe in superstition.
And even more so, Confucian academies.
Mao Xiaodong took a step and appeared several dozen zhang away. He turned around, neither too early nor too late, and caught the flying sword that had followed him there between two fingers.
Although this feat of casually pinning a flying sword between two fingers was shocking and would have amazed half the Earth Immortals on the continent if it were spread.
But as Mao Xiaodong dissolved the sword intent...
The small world he commanded was also subtly shaking, almost imperceptibly.
That Roaming Far realm martial artist, placed in someone else's world, could no longer ride the wind to travel far, but he still sprinted like thunder, directly crashing through two walls, through an entire shop, and threw a punch at Mao Xiaodong.
Several people in the shop were shattered by him, their broken pieces slowly coming to a halt in the air inside the shop.
That punch gathered all the true qi's pure energy, leaving nothing in reserve—a move that clearly traded life for life.
Mao Xiaodong mobilized the world's spiritual qi to form a stele inscribed with golden characters—which trembled faintly—and a memorial archway that appeared out of thin air. Both were smashed to dust by that single punch from the Roaming Far martial artist.
That eighth-realm old martial artist charged forward, unstoppable.
The other Golden Body realm martial artist, who had leaped onto the rooftop and was skimming along like a dragonfly touching water, didn't have the old Roaming Far's speed. His Golden Body shield qi clashed with the small world's flowing time, and the Golden Body martial artist seemed to burst into a huge flame. Finally, he leaped down and pounced straight at Mao Xiaodong, who was standing in the street.
Mao Xiaodong, whose two fingers had been cut with faint wounds, flung the flying sword imprisoned between his fingertips at that Golden Body realm martial artist.
Mao Xiaodong extended his palm to block the fist of that Roaming Far martial arts grandmaster.
Mao Xiaodong's wide sleeves billowed violently, and his beard fluttered.
The Golden Body realm martial artist was probably a close friend of that Golden Core sword immortal. Ignoring the flying sword aimed at his heart, he still charged at Mao Xiaodong.
Sure enough, the sword immortal's mind lake stirred slightly. He did his utmost to shift the sword tip slightly, but it still pierced through the martial artist's shoulder.
Mao Xiaodong was punched in the back of the heart by what should have been the weakest—a seventh-realm martial artist.
The small world shook from the impact.
The Roaming Far martial artist, whose fist was blocked but whose momentum and spirit were still fierce, took the opportunity to rain down punches like drumbeats.
Like flowing shadows, Mao Xiaodong stepped backward one after another. The old Roaming Far's arms were knotted with muscle, blood seeping out, soaking his clothes, but each punch was more ferocious than the last.
The Golden Body realm martial artist did not join in the chaos by following the Roaming Far grandmaster in close combat against Mao Xiaodong. Instead, he tried his best to keep up with their pace.
It wasn't that he didn't want to press the assault to severely wound Mao Xiaodong; it was that he understood the importance of priorities.
Chen Ping'an did not stay where he was. He leaped out of the window and onto the tavern roof, which offered a wide view.
He also did not intervene in the battle.
The Roaming Far old man threw his final punch, sending Mao Xiaodong flying backward more than ten zhang.
The old man immediately stopped and retreated, needing to catch a new breath.
The Golden Body martial artist instantly sidestepped a few steps, standing between the Roaming Far and Mao Xiaodong.
Even that was not enough to be safe.
The ninth-realm sword immortal saw the gap and acted.
The flying sword shot out.
Straight at Mao Xiaodong.
Its speed was even faster than when the life-bound flying sword first appeared.
This was both because Mao Xiaodong's qi was unstable and the world's rules were not strict enough, and because the old Golden Core sword immortal, in that short time, had begun to find some gaps and shortcuts through the several flights of his flying sword. When a sage of the Three Teachings presided over a small world, it was said that heaven's net was vast and nothing slipped through, but no matter how fine the mesh of a fishing net, and even if the net was constantly shifting, there were still holes to exploit.
Those who could become the most money-eating sword immortals under heaven and reach the Golden Core Earth Immortal realm were no easy opponents.
Mao Xiaodong reached out and grasped the ruler at his waist, immediately stabilizing himself.
His snow-white beard was already dotted with specks of blood.
Facing that slender flying sword, which clung like a bone-gnawing maggot, Mao Xiaodong did not catch it between two fingers this time.
He swept his sleeve, trapping the flying sword inside.
Then, strands of sword qi bloomed from within the sleeve. The cuff shook and fluttered, accompanied by the sound of tearing silk.
The Roaming Far martial artist had already finished recovering his breath. He stomped the ground, cracking the street like a spiderweb. This martial grandmaster, wrapped in thunderous momentum, used the opportunity his ally had created to engage Mao Xiaodong in close combat, preventing this unexpectedly "ascended" Jade Pu realm academy master from keeping his distance and grinding them down with attrition.
A grandmaster of the Roaming Far realm locked onto him.
An ordinary Earth Immortal cultivator's sea of qi would be pulled along by this, leaving no room for distraction.
A burly man clad in silver-white armor had used two extremely rare high-rank Reduced-Distance-Inch talismans and a Cyan Straw Cloak talisman to conceal his form and qi. He caught hold of a spot where the flow of time was thinnest, allowing him to descend from the sky. His ten fingers interlocked into a single fist, smashing down on Mao Xiaodong's head.
At the critical moment.
The flying sword trapped in Mao Xiaodong's sleeve was about to break out.
The Roaming Far grandmaster's fist was about to arrive.
But the most dangerous killing move was still that Dragon Gate realm military cultivator, clad in armor.
Aside from the formation master who had been almost useless, the other four assassins cooperated flawlessly.
It was hard to imagine that among the four, only the ninth-realm sword immortal and the Golden Body martial artist were old acquaintances.
The ruler hanging from Mao Xiaodong's waist detached on its own.
It struck the military cultivator's cheek like a slap, sending him flying horizontally. He crashed onto a distant rooftop, shattering a large area of tiles.
Mao Xiaodong scuffed the ground with his toe, lifted his sleeve, and pointed at the sword immortal farthest away. "I return it to you!"
In an instant, heaven and earth inverted and twisted.
It was like a sheet of xuan paper that a mischievous child had twisted without crumpling—indescribably bizarre and absurd.
That Roaming Far martial artist watched helplessly as he brushed past Mao Xiaodong.
Moreover, Mao Xiaodong had become "upside down."
Clearly within arm's reach.
Yet infinitely far away.
And on the surface of the paper that had been spread out, densely packed golden characters, each the size of a fist, were passages from classic articles used by Confucian sages to enlighten all living beings.
He turned his head and roared, "Be careful!"
Mao Xiaodong seemed to move slowly, but his figure disappeared in the east and reappeared in the west, then in the north. No matter his position, he kept closing the distance between himself and the Golden Body martial artist.
That Golden Body martial artist didn't even know where to dodge.
The tall old man, who had inexplicably appeared before him, slapped his entire head off with a single palm strike.
Meanwhile, that Dragon Gate realm military cultivator was being battered by the ruler like raindrops on his armor.
The small world returned to normal order.
Mao Xiaodong held the headless body's shoulder with one hand to keep it from falling. He looked at the ninth-realm old sword immortal, whose eyes were red, and asked, "No revenge for your friend?"
Mao Xiaodong suddenly flicked his wrist, sending the corpse flying. It slammed into the wall of a shop and turned into a mess of shredded flesh.
The ninth-realm sword immortal and the Roaming Far martial artist both saw countless smaller golden characters surging from all directions into the tall old man's energy palaces.
Both had tragic expressions, and their hearts were filled with bleakness.
How could they fight this?
They exchanged glances.
They saw determination in each other's eyes.
Mao Xiaodong looked around. From start to finish, there had been no trace of anyone. It seemed there was no Jade Pu realm cultivator hidden here.
That meant these five assassins, resolved to die, had no backup.
Mao Xiaodong raised his tattered sleeve, glanced at it, then looked up and said, "You sword immortals, Earth Immortals, and martial grandmasters—haven't you always been shouting that academy cultivators are nothing but embroidered pillows who only flap their lips?"
Mao Xiaodong laughed. "Yes, you're not wrong."
The sword immortal and the Roaming Far old man tensed up.
Mao Xiaodong walked unhurriedly, like a scholar pondering in his study.
On the borders of this small world, flying swords resembling life-bound tools of sword immortals began to spin.
Their ranks weren't high—roughly equivalent to the life-bound flying swords of Ocean Observation and Dragon Gate realm sword immortals.
But with so many of them, who dared to be careless?
Not only that, but on various rooftops, groups of blue-robed Confucian scholars of varying ages appeared, some holding books, some carrying swords.
Their cultivation was also low.
But they won by numbers.
In the streets and alleys, waves of iron-armored, burly soldiers surged out.
Those flying swords of various shapes and sizes all flew toward the Golden Core sword immortal.
The Confucian scholars on the rooftops and the armored soldiers on the ground charged at the Roaming Far martial artist.
Mao Xiaodong went to the side of the military cultivator, who was barely handling the ruler. But he didn't get too close. "You're the real death warrior, aren't you? Using a military man's metal core as a cover, carrying a Earth Immortal cultivator's golden core in your chest. As long as you get close to me, you'll blow us both up. Even if you can't kill me, you'll take half my life, leaving the remaining assassins to finish me off and keep me, Mao Xiaodong, here."
That Dragon Gate realm military cultivator's gaze was resolute. He paid no heed to Mao Xiaodong's words, only punching back the ruler to keep his metal core from being shattered by it.
Mao Xiaodong pointed at the cultivator, gesturing.
Around the cultivator, strings of golden characters rose from the ground like pillars of a house being built from the ground up.
Eventually, they formed a cage.
That military cultivator gave a bitter smile, his face twisted. Countless golden threads bloomed from his body and energy palaces, and his entire body shattered with a bang.
Since he couldn't kill Mao Xiaodong, he would at least destroy the ruler, which was surely a key life-bound object.
But the explosion of a Dragon Gate realm military cultivator's suicide, coupled with a golden core's detonation, completely destroyed the golden cage of sages' words.
The ruler, however, was unharmed, except that the characters engraved on it had dimmed a bit in spiritual nature.
It drifted lightly back to Mao Xiaodong's hand.
Mao Xiaodong hung it at his waist.
The ninth-realm sword immortal was in dire straits but still alive.
The Roaming Far old man was wreaking havoc, killing any Confucian scholar or armored warrior within three zhang, mixing his vigorous pure qi into the area to turn the puppets' spiritual qi into turbid qi that Mao Xiaodong couldn't control.
Mao Xiaodong's face was expressionless. He let the last two assassins slowly exhaust their own spiritual qi and true qi.
The spiritual qi in the small world would eventually reach its limit.
This directly affected the stability and duration of this "Cliff Academy" world.
At this moment, the current world had unknowingly shrunk to a radius of four hundred zhang.
If he were at East Flower Mountain, where the real Cliff Academy was, with the same effort, Mao Xiaodong could probably maintain a world radius of eight hundred zhang.
This technique—not the orthodox Confucian academy mountain-moving secret art—allowed Mao Xiaodong to step into the Jade Pu realm, but its flaw was that Cliff Academy's form and spirit were incomplete, with the foundation still left at East Flower Mountain.
But it wasn't a big problem.
As long as no outsider intervened, the last two assassins would still die here.
Worst case scenario, even if Mao Xiaodong withdrew the small world's divine ability now and temporarily returned East Flower Mountain to the care of the surnamed Liang Nascent Soul who guarded the academy gate...
Killing the enemy would be hard, but self-preservation wouldn't be difficult.
Still, it wouldn't be an enjoyable thing if that happened.
Mao Xiaodong frowned.
A flying sword, like a golden ear of wheat, abruptly broke into this small world.
After hovering in midair, its tip bobbed up and down repeatedly, pointing in one direction.
Mao Xiaodong immediately withdrew his divine ability without a second word, "falling in realm" back to Nascent Soul cultivation.
Chen Ping'an, who had been standing on the rooftop watching, didn't even need Mao Xiaodong to send him a mental message.
He slapped the sword-nurturing gourd, and First and Fifth shot out.
A Reduced-Distance-Inch talisman in Chen Ping'an's sleeve burned with a bang. He didn't target that Roaming Far old man but instead shrank the earth to a cun, heading straight for the ninth-realm sword immortal, whose killing power was far more terrifying.
If anyone were watching, they would think Chen Ping'an had chosen the wrong opponent.
At the same time, two zhang-tall Day Wandering God and Night Wandering God "divine true bodies," even more majestic than the earlier military cultivators, descended from the sky and crashed toward that martial grandmaster before Chen Ping'an made his move.
The Day Wandering God was clad in golden armor, radiating light from every part of his body, holding an axe in both hands.
The Night Wandering God wore a set of black armor and held a large halberd.
Mao Xiaodong smiled knowingly.
He also slapped his ruler and then dashed toward the ninth-realm sword immortal.
That Roaming Far martial artist, who had been determined to die here, was not afraid to fight in the small world Mao Xiaodong had created. When Mao Xiaodong suddenly withdrew his divine ability for some reason, logic said that if he and the Golden Core sword immortal cooperated closely, they might have some chance of victory.
But just when the situation was improving and it was no longer a certain death, the Roaming Far martial artist hesitated for a moment, then leaped into the air and fled.
The sword immortal was briefly surprised, but then immediately retreated as well.
Mao Xiaodong said, "Since we don't have the upper hand firmly, don't chase a desperate foe."
But he found that Chen Ping'an had already stopped and had no intention of giving chase. However, he didn't immediately withdraw the two Day-Night Wanderers, letting the immortal money slip from his money pouch with a rustling sound.
Mao Xiaodong came to Chen Ping'an's side. "Let me rest a bit, then I'll take you back to the academy."
Chen Ping'an nodded, but kept his senses sharp for everything around. Even the hand he had reached over his shoulder to grip the sword hilt behind his back didn't loosen his fingers.
He let his palm burn, the flesh and blood mangled.
Though young, he was an old hand at the rivers and lakes.
That ninth-realm sword immortal had lost a close friend here, making his killing intent even stronger.
So Chen Ping'an had chosen him as the target for combat first.
As for the Roaming Far martial artist old man, when there was a way to retreat, no one could predict for sure that he would withdraw, but at least compared to the Golden Core sword immortal, the possibility of this person abandoning his ally to leave danger and flee on his own was greater.
Mao Xiaodong withdrawing the small world happened in an instant.
Chen Ping'an making this decision was also an instant.
Because of this...
This action made the Roaming Far martial artist feel wariness and speculation. For example, why did the other party pick the more dangerous sword immortal to attack? Was he planning to really close the net? Or was there another trap waiting for them?
Chen Ping'an released the hand holding the sword and at the same time withdrew the two divine beings that emitted a rare heavenly majesty back into that True Body talisman.
After the world returned to normal, panicked screams rose and fell all around.
Chen Ping'an glanced not far away, at the head of that Golden Body martial artist that had rolled to the ground.
Three dead, two escaped.
"Ready to go."
Mao Xiaodong reached out and pressed on Chen Ping'an's shoulder, saying only one sentence: "Some of other people's stories, you don't need to know. What use is there in knowing?"