Chapter 713: Chen Eleven
Chen Ping'an held his two blades, not making a move in haste.
Facing a "peer" who was among the top ten, there was some finesse to how this fight should be fought.
One had to know that those top ten were ranked without order of precedence.
And he was only eleventh.
As for the round-faced girl in the cotton-padded coat before him—whose true identity, master lineage, roots, and origins were all shrouded in mystery, as if hidden behind a moon—since she dared come here, she certainly had full confidence that she could leave alive. Otherwise, that old dog Dragon Lord would not have indulged her willfulness.
So he absolutely could not scare her away.
He had to let her feel at ease, let her go all out, and beat him to death.
Besides, if someone among the top ten couldn't even kill someone ranked only eleventh, it wouldn't be right. Word getting out wouldn't sound good.
Chen Ping'an walked slowly toward her, the pair of short blades spinning rapidly between his fingers and across the backs of his hands.
Blade light intertwined, like dozens of fireflies. The movements were too fast, the blade light too abundant. The radiance coiled and wrapped around continuously, finally condensing into two small, cute balls of moonlight in Chen Ping'an's hands.
She Yue watched the young man without rushing to strike. She waited patiently for his opening move.
She was curious how he would start—with deceptive talismans? Or with the flying swords of a swordsman that had given the Jiayin Tent sword immortal seeds such trouble? Or with the mountain summit realm fists of a pure martial artist?
She Yue had heard many legendary tales about the last hidden official of Sword Qi Great Wall, especially two sayings that she, who normally disliked remembering things outside of herself, had kept clearly in mind.
Within and beyond Sword Qi Great Wall: Yuan Aliang far, hidden official near; south Shouchen, north hidden official.
As for Chen Ping'an's flashy movements at the moment, She Yue ignored them. When it came to the world's "moon playing" divine abilities, before her, they were all jokes.
In the past, one of her neighbors, the king-ranked great demon Lotus Nunnery Master, had only gained some advantage because of his older age.
She merely shifted her gaze, looking left and right, and still felt that this young hidden official, so famous in the Barbaric Wild World, was just like when she had glanced at him from afar while heading north earlier—not bad looking, but just not bad. Indeed, not as handsome as Jiang Shangzhen's face.
Of course, whether a man was handsome or not didn't matter. The same principle applied to women.
Once, a neighbor in the sky had said that when someone met the right person, both would see the most beautiful scenery in each other's eyes—like the sun and moon facing each other from opposite ends of the sky, their gazes unchanging throughout eternity.
Unfortunately, She Yue had little interest in matters of love and romance. She couldn't even imagine true devotion and entanglement.
Chen Ping'an walked slowly, asked slowly, a hint of doubtful probing on his face: "Earlier, there was an anomaly in the sky, with one moon missing, so much so that even I could sense it. It couldn't be that you, Miss She Yue, tucked it into your sleeve, could it? If that's really the case, how are we supposed to fight? I'm just a man on this city wall in a small world, while you, Miss She Yue, are in the vast world of the bright moon... Besides, I'm only ranked eleventh. From you top ten, there's a gap of one step, but the difference is like heaven and earth. I have enough self-awareness for that."
The round-faced girl didn't say what had happened to that bright moon. She said, "If you don't want to fight, I don't care anyway. I came here to see the sights. You're the one being aggressive, shouting about killing me."
No wonder he and that Jiang Shangzhen from Tongye Continent were good friends—both were pretty shameless.
When a man lost his face, it really didn't matter much how old he was.
The two were still about thirty zhang apart, but for their realms, it was close enough that the distance was almost negligible.
Chen Ping'an stopped at twenty zhang, abruptly sheathing his blades, the tips pointing backward, as if showing goodwill to the woman. He smiled and asked, "Miss She Yue, you're the guest. How do you think we should fight? Let's figure out a plan first—you make the decisions. Otherwise, it's easy to hurt the goodwill."
She Yue ignored him, instead glancing at his twin blades and saying, "Good blades. The sharpness is unmatched, yet the concealment is deep. What are their names?"
Chen Ping'an shook his head and laughed, "Picked up by the roadside, not worth mentioning. They can't compare to your divine skill, Miss She Yue, of encompassing the great moon and refining heavenly luck. It's a pity that Senior Dragon Lord, worried that I might be distracted from asking the Way and practicing fist techniques, sealed off heaven and earth from me. Regrettably, I wasn't able to witness such a strange and unique sight."
She Yue said, "Even though you've been deliberately showing weakness, your killing intent is too heavy—you can't hide it. You shouldn't have accidentally condensed the blade light into the shape of a moon. Of course, I suspect you did it on purpose. You, the hidden official, leaving the city wall for battle—details of great and small battles have been compiled into books, and I can look through them. Fei Ran loves to read them with wine."
Chen Ping'an stopped again, sighing helplessly: "Could it be that holding a sharp weapon naturally gives rise to a killing heart? Blame my insufficient cultivation. I admire your keen eye, Miss She Yue. As for that Brother Fei Ran, if he admires me so much, after you and I spar, please pass a message for me: let him simply take my surname Chen."
She Yue looked slightly strange.
Chen Ping'an exclaimed in sudden realization: "That shameless bastard Fei Ran has already taken the surname Chen as an alias? He came here as a guest before, and didn't even bother to inform me. Taking without asking is theft—scandalous!"
Too many years without speaking with outsiders.
He missed it.
So Chen Ping'an was very willing to make an exception for her.
Today, before fighting, he would talk a lot. The more, the better. Even if just one more sentence could help him pass a bit more time.
He truly never wanted to experience that mind-numbing agony of nearly stagnant time in the river of light again.
The short blades in his hands were as small as daggers. He had obtained them from the valley slaughter in Beiju Luzhou, when he was ambushed by assassins from Gede Mountain.
After a dangerous encounter and a fierce fight, Chen Ping'an, who didn't trust his own luck too much, had Sui Jingcheng help collect the spoils, and among them she found this pair of short blades, engraved with the characters "Morning Dew" and "Evening Glow." In fact, initially, neither Chen Ping'an nor Sui Jingcheng recognized their value, mistaking them for ordinary weapons. Even the female assassin from Gede Mountain, the former owner of the blades, didn't recognize them as a precious immortal treasure. Later, Chen Ping'an met his close friend Liu Jinglong, who had read countless miscellaneous books and revealed their secrets. Not only did Liu Jinglong teach Chen Ping'an the method of refining them according to records in books, but he also identified the "true identity" of one of the blades. Its inscription read "Chasing Deer," and it was precisely the "Cao's Dagger" recorded in historical texts. That Cao was Cao Mo, whom Chen Ping'an planned to use as his latest alias when traveling the world.
In the future, whether going to the Barbaric Wild World or returning to his home world, against all enemies below the Upper Five, Chen Ping'an would make sure they never knew how they died.
As for those dead men, whether they could see his true face or know his true name would depend on his mood.
Of course, the prerequisite was that he could leave Sword Qi Great Wall.
"Cao's" Cao Mo was the first among the assassins' biographies in that grand historical tome.
And there was the "Three Defeats Ground," which Cao Mo eventually regained.
What an excellent omen!
After all, on the city wall of Sword Qi Great Wall, Chen Ping'an had indeed lost three times.
He would consider himself sharing in that senior Cao's fortune. In short, Chen Ping'an guaranteed that he would not let the "Chasing Deer" in his hands be covered in dust.
Currently, in Chen Ping'an's right hand was one of Cao's daggers, recorded in official history as "Chasing Deer." Since the remaining one had no historical record, Chen Ping'an, following Gede Mountain, named it "Cutting Deer."
First chase the deer, then cut the deer!
As for naming things,
he truly was skilled.
She Yue asked, "Are we fighting or not?"
Back when She Yue was in Tongye Continent, facing that "Jiang Shangzhen who kills celestials with a single willow leaf," she had seemed utterly defenseless. Besides the fact that She Yue's killing power and realm were both inferior to his at the time, it was also because the round-faced girl had never intended to get entangled with Jiang Shangzhen. In She Yue's view, cultivating the Way and fighting people were just not very interesting. And a fight she was destined to lose only annoyed her—she would avoid it whenever possible. As for fights she was destined to win easily, the cotton-padded girl found them even less appealing. So, during her entire solo journey across Grand Pure World, she had only made a few moves.
But today, facing this "hidden official eleventh," one of the young top ten,
She Yue indeed had some private motives.
In Tongye Continent, Jiang Shangzhen had chased her for ten thousand miles but still couldn't kill her. Before leaving, he "kindly" and "good-heartedly" whispered some words into her mind, touching on the very foundation of She Yue's Way.
It was like a prophecy that seemed to be divinely ordained. It was as if she had been destined to come to Tongye Continent to hear Jiang Shangzhen speak the truth.
She Yue was not good with words, but she was far from foolish. When Jiang Shangzhen spoke, she initially didn't take it seriously, but after hearing it, a tremor stirred in her Way's heart. There was no doubt—it was indeed the obscure guidance of the Great Way.
Jiang Shangzhen's words were like a poem of roaming immortals from Grand Pure World, like an incomplete "Pacing the Void" lyric.
"Wanting to take a boat to ascend the blue sky, must have perfect coins to make up the lack. Just borrow the moonlight from the five lakes, sell wine at the edge of the white clouds on the four seas."
Jiang Shangzhen said nothing more at the time, but his earlier words had mentioned Hidden Official Chen Ping'an many times. It seemed like idle chatter, but She Yue wanted to come here and try her luck.
Otherwise, given She Yue's usual temperament, she would not have been so uncharacteristically patient with this hidden official.
She would have either left early, or struck early and left early.
But if She Yue later learned the truth, she might want to smash that surnamed Jiang with a bright moon.
Because the Way's opportunity being with the hidden official was pure nonsense made up by Jiang Shangzhen. He was simply acting as a matchmaker in his dual capacity as Chen Ping'an's "close friend and brother" and a guest minister of Luopo Mountain, looking for a sister-in-law for himself.
So he deliberately dragged these two "peers," who were millions of miles apart, together. However, the most impressive thing about Jiang Shangzhen was that the prophecy was real. This involved a huge secret of Tongye Continent, which historically only Old Chief Xun Yuan of Yu Gui Sect and one of Yu Gui's half-revitalizing ancestors, Du Mao, had known.
Tongye Continent was said to have once had a Tongtian Indus tree.
With such a tall tree, naturally a broken moon could hang from a sparse parasol.
The tree was close to the sky, the moon came to the mortal world. Tree and moon together, half in the world and half in the sky.
The reason She Yue had chosen to ascend at Tongye Continent in the first place, rather than going to Fuyao Continent or Posuo Continent, was originally an instruction from Zhou Mi. After Lotus Nunnery Master died, another person of the moon emerged. As for Zhou Mi asking She Yue to help find Liu Cai, that was just a secondary matter.
But the problem was that Jiang Shangzhen's insinuation that She Yue's Way was connected to Chen Ping'an was absolutely false—a blatant lie by Jiang Shangzhen.
Jiang Shangzhen always seemed to handle women with such truth mixed with falsehood, falsehood mixed with truth, until in the end he could make every woman mistakenly believe it was all true.
In fact, after Jiang Shangzhen got far away from She Yue, he laughed joyfully in his heart: Good brother, Zhou Fei can only help you this much. Consider it helping you find a round-faced girl in a foreign land to chat with.
As for whether She Yue would obtain this opportunity, or whether she would truly make up for her Way, Jiang Shangzhen scoffed—what did it have to do with him?
He, with such skinny arms and legs, had already done his part. Those on the sidelines watching the show, get your arms rolled up and join the fight!
Besides, whether Holding Moon Mountain in the Barbaric Wild World would end up drawing water with a bamboo basket all for nothing, making bridal clothes for others, or whether the round-faced little girl would end up with an empty bamboo basket and no moon—it was all uncertain.
Because Old Man Xun, when alive, had deduced something, guessing that this prophecy might be somewhat related to the most proud man in the world, Bai Ye.
She Yue going to find Bai Ye?
Or Zhou Mi going to haggle with Bai Ye?
Jiang Shangzhen found it amusing just thinking about it.
Anyway, even if the little girl couldn't obtain the perfect Way, he, Jiang Shangzhen, was magnanimous enough to give her a good Chen brother as a friend. Shouldn't she be satisfied?!
Chen Ping'an had no idea about all these twists and turns.
If She Yue had mentioned Jiang Shangzhen here, even just half a sentence, Chen Ping'an might have guessed something.
Unfortunately, the round-faced girl in the cotton-padded coat wasn't too willing to bring up that "sister-in-law" calling Jiang Shangzhen—it had disgusted her somewhat.
At that moment, Chen Ping'an looked troubled, stopping ten paces away and asking again, "Really not discussing the rules first before making a move? This is our first meeting, no grudges. If I punch lightly, it's meaningless; if I use heavy techniques, there will be casualties."
She Yue asked curiously, "In the past, when you fought people, did you always talk this much?"
"I don't like it. In the past, I really didn't like it."
Chen Ping'an retracted his smile, holding his two blades with the tips pointing forward.
Regarding this matter, back in his hometown but in a foreign land, when he was fighting for his life against Ma Kuxuan, he had even taught the other how to be a person.
The wide sleeves of Chen Ping'an's bright red dharma robe seemed to have threads binding them into knots, binding the cuffs. The young man slightly hunched his back, his body stooped, his eyes looking up a little. "But you people keep making me dislike it—what can I do?! Miss She Yue, how about you teach me to act according to my own preferences?!"
She Yue looked at the young man's face and eyes. "Enough talk. One stick of incense. Come kill me."
She Yue raised her wrist, two fingers together, and moonlight condensed like a lamp. She gave a gentle flick, and the moonlight dissipated into Sword Qi Great Wall, used to time their one-stick-incense period. Suddenly, moonlight filled the city wall, but then it slowly dimmed at a rate perceptible to both, as if the moonlight was gradually leaving the world. Mortals wouldn't notice, but immortals could observe and count.
Chen Ping'an squinted with a smile, but he had already straightened his back. "Since the distant guest has a request, the host dares not refuse."
Even She Yue, with her good temper, was getting annoyed with this person. He had already hidden it so hard, but inside him, there was still so much killing intent, so much fierce aura weighing heavy. Yet he insisted on smiling and talking warmly, like meeting an old friend again, catching up with a buddy.
She said coldly, "You intend to kill, but you want to fool me into fighting with less force. This man, you're not decent."
Chen Ping'an nodded, deeply in agreement, with a slightly guilty expression on his face, but his words were, "I come from a narrow alley in the mortal world; you come from the bright moon in the sky. Miss She Yue is a banished immortal from the books. Why be so particular with someone like me? Isn't that bullying me, Miss She Yue?"
So being able to talk to someone was a joy in life.
It truly made the hidden official feel so delighted he almost wanted to cry.
He remembered reading in a book about people who loved to drink but stayed sober, and people who cried at the end of a road.
At the time, he felt the sages' realms were too high, his own vision too low, so he couldn't understand why they cried. Back then, he thought that after traveling far and reading more, he would understand.
But after knowing why the ancients cried, he realized it was better not to know.
When the ancients reached the end of a road in their chariots, they could still turn back.
So Chen Ping'an used the flat sides of his two blades to lightly slap his own cheeks, imitating the woman.
Whenever She Yue got angry, before making a move, she had the habit of lifting both hands and slapping her cheeks hard.
Chattering with this guy for so long, in the end, she didn't feel any opportunity in her Way from him. Instead, he had said so many sarcastic things that she was now truly annoyed and angry.
And now he dared imitate her?!
After She Yue slapped her cheeks hard, a clear radiance scattered from her cheeks, turning into countless rays of light. The moonlight she had gathered and refined flowed like water, like a river of time, ignoring the various heavenly prohibitions of Sword Qi Great Wall and Jiazi Tent. Fine, broken moonlight was everywhere on half of Sword Qi Great Wall.
The "She Yue" standing in place on the city wall was stabbed by the two blades—one cut off her neck, the other pierced her heart.
Of course, it was just She Yue's illusion, used simply to test the speed of the opponent's strikes and the sharpness of the blade edges.
She Yue's lifebound divine ability allowed even a celestial realm swordsman like Jiang Shangzhen to use his lifebound flying sword just to find her true form. Even if this hidden official was bonded to Sword Qi Great Wall, he was still only at the Jade Foundation realm.
She Yue could dodge and evade, and she could even deliver "flying swords" like a Jade Foundation sword immortal, or unleash thousands of techniques like a celestial realm cultivator.
If She Yue wanted to learn a technique, no matter how exclusive or secret it was, as long as it was under the moonlight, and as long as the realm difference was not too great, as long as she "saw" it once, she could grasp at least seventy to eighty percent of its true meaning.
It really wasn't that She Yue looked down on the hidden official's array of techniques.
In the Barbaric Wild World, when it came to the variety of one-on-one combat techniques, She Yue was unquestionably first among her peers.
So in the confidential records at Jiazi Tent, this round-faced girl in cotton was honored as the "World's Arsenal."
Talismans, flying swords, golden bodies and dharma forms, mechanical puppets, great demon true bodies, immortal armor, offensive heavy weapons...
Whatever I think of, I can manifest it, all my moonlight being the material.
Even the physique of an ordinary mountain summit realm martial artist—if She Yue wanted it, she could have it.
Unfortunately, limited by her current cultivation, her "martial physique" could only reach the toughness of the Ninth Realm at most, and She Yue didn't particularly like close-quarters martial combat techniques. It was like moonlight in the human world—the moon would only hang high in the sky.
The first "She Yue" that took two short blades had been deliberately shaped by She Yue into a Distant Traveler realm physique, so it was no surprise that she died on the spot.
After the cotton-padded, round-faced young woman's illusion shattered, the moonlight disappeared without a trace.
Although Chen Ping'an followed behind another She Yue and also vanished in a flash, near the city wall, before his hands could strike, a strange phenomenon suddenly appeared in his palm. A flawless dharma seal materialized out of thin air, in the palm of his hand, commanding the five dharma thunders.
This Five Thunders Righteous Method, conjured on a whim, was not meant to kill She Yue's illusion. Dealing with a Distant Traveler martial artist didn't require such a fuss.
But the thunder light blazed brilliantly, before the double blades struck the enemy, it had already illuminated the area within several dozen zhang. This was used to detect any traces of moonlight dissipating afterward. If the two blades clashed, even if only a slight collision occurred, Chen Ping'an could gain a thread of first-mover advantage. A thread was one in ten thousand; Chen Ping'an hoped to turn it into ten thousand in one-on-one combat between mountain and stream!
You give me one in ten thousand; I'll give you ten thousand.
Treat people with sincerity, entertain guests with generosity.
May you be satisfied and may I get my wish.
Unfortunately, Miss She Yue was too distant—she didn't leave that loophole.
Fine.
Otherwise, the so-called top ten young people in the world would be too disappointing.
Why else would you be qualified to stand in the same rank as her?!
Chen Ping'an, at the edge of the small world's canopy, used his twin blades to shred a large mass of moonlight. Then he hovered in the wind, looking down at the city wall.
She Yue's form split from one into three, each far apart from the others.
In addition to Chen Ping'an's two true lifebound flying swords as a swordsman, Cage Sparrow and Well Moon,
he also had two great-refined flying swords as a qi practitioner, First Day and Fifteen, plus two imitation swords from Hatred Mountain sword immortals, Cough Thunder and Pine Needle.
With a slight thought from Chen Ping'an, Cough Thunder and Pine Needle shot like wind and lightning toward two of the girls.
Chen Ping'an himself used Shrinking Land, instantly appearing a few thousand zhang away to face one of the She Yues, who had actually assumed a combat stance against him.
Was she, having seen that the Distant Traveler physique was too fragile, now using a Mountain Summit physique to gauge the weight of his mountain summit fists?
Did she think she was Xiao Xun throwing punches?!
Just seeing She Yue's first punch, even Chen Ping'an, who always liked to overestimate his opponents, had to admit that her fist technique was too crude, her intent too fake, her foundation too poor.
Perhaps the only merit of this martial artist She Yue was that her speed wasn't slow. It had a bit of the feel of Yu Juanfu's fist inquiries back then.
A flash of bright red, wide sleeves fluttering, holding twin blades, twisting and turning, fireflies constantly chasing the enemy, cutting through heaven and earth.
The martial artist She Yue, despite having a Mountain Summit physique and learned fist techniques, could only retreat and retreat, only dodge and dodge.
Even though her movement speed was always slightly superior, Chen Ping'an several times "coincidentally" appeared at her retreat point, making her situation perilous.
Her original intention was to try a punch or two on his body to test how tough his physique was, but with this kind of fist exchange, how could she succeed?
For the same Mountain Summit realm, the gap between pure martial artists was indeed too large.
Just as a blade was about to pierce her shoulder, Chen Ping'an twisted his body, replaced the blade with an elbow, and lightly struck She Yue on the forehead.
She Yue slid backward more than a dozen zhang, the pair of cloth shoes formed by moonlight shattering into pieces. As she stopped her retreat, she "put on" a new pair of cloth shoes.
That young man, his body slightly tilted, then leaned back, actually presenting his back to a Mountain Summit realm martial artist She Yue. He smiled lazily at her and asked, "Isn't it no fun at all?"
The martial artist She Yue was expressionless. The round-faced girl in the "cotton coat" now had an ethereal and beautiful dharma robe floating on her, and over that robe, she also had a set of military treasure armor, with multicolored light flowing, dazzling to the extreme.
Chen Ping'an couldn't identify the dharma robe, but he had some guesses about the treasure armor. He widened his eyes, returning a bit of his "baggage hoarder" nature, and asked curiously, "Miss She Yue, this treasure armor you've manifested—could it be the 'Seven Colors' Sweet Dew Armor? By the way, the Barbaric Wild World is not small, its history no less than elsewhere. You come from the moon; you're a divine seed that I envy but can never become. Besides the Seven Colors, have you also seen the 'Sea of Clouds' and 'Glow of Dawn' armors?"
His good friend Zhong Kui read widely and knew much. He had recognized the origin of the armor Wei Xian was wearing at a glance.
Buddha Realm, Flower Bud, Mountain Ghost, Narcissus, Glow of Dawn, Colored Robe, Sea of Clouds, Western Mountain.
A total of seven earliest "ancestors" of the Sweet Dew Armor. Apart from the Western Mountain that Chen Ping'an had obtained and lent to Wei Xian, according to Zhong Kui, only the Mountain Ghost and Colored Robe had been recorded as still existing. The rest were no longer in existence.
The martial artist She Yue remained silent, raised her fist stance again, and beckoned to the obnoxious young man.
No matter how hard your fists, no matter how elusive your person and blades, can you really kill someone?
The woman's eyes seemed to say: If you have the guts, completely shatter this martial artist physique. Maybe I'll talk with you a bit.
Chen Ping'an, thinking of the Western Mountain Sweet Dew Armor he had obtained by luck, couldn't help but recall some people and events.
Sometimes, he had to admit that seeing more and knowing more was not easier; not all of it was good.
Because it was easy to accept fate.
Fortunately, Chen Ping'an had always accepted fate precisely so that he could not accept it at certain moments.
Otherwise, if the joys and sorrows of worldly affairs inadvertently connected, it would be especially hard for those most cautious to bear.
Since Miss She Yue was asking for a beating, he would show some sincerity.
As a pure martial artist, being too mindful of "men and women don't touch" was not heroic enough!
Chen Ping'an turned around and used the Upper Five Realm technique of Sleeve within Heavens to put away the pair of dharma blades that he had become accustomed to.
As for fist inquiries, he couldn't ask for more.
He wished she would throw a thousand punches, using the full fist intent of her Mountain Summit realm physique to hit him.
But when Chen Ping'an suppressed his own mountain summit realm to its lowest level, even though the martial artist She Yue was fast enough, she showed no intention of actively throwing a punch. It was clear that she either wanted to exchange a punch with Chen Ping'an or let him hit her with the three layers of her physique, dharma robe, and Seven Colors Sweet Dew Armor.
If Chen Ping'an went through the motions, She Yue didn't care. There was only one stick of incense worth of time. When the time was up, she would leave Sword Qi Great Wall on schedule.
So Chen Ping'an had to stop being so stingy that even he felt embarrassed. Not only did he strengthen his punches, but he also slightly increased his speed. One punch shattered the half-real half-false Sweet Dew Armor, another punch destroyed the nameless dharma robe, and a final punch exploded the martial artist She Yue's head.
All turned into moonlight.
She Yue knew that testing the young hidden official's Ninth Realm like this was meaningless. Her form dissipated on the spot, splitting from one into ten, scattered across half of Sword Qi Great Wall. At the cliff edge and one end of the city wall, there were two.
No longer was she the easygoing round-faced girl. The forms and appearances were varied—some were golden bodies, some were sword-riding immortals, some were true demon bodies.
Even bonded to Sword Qi Great Wall, Chen Ping'an still found it hard to pinpoint She Yue's true form. Nine false and one true? Possibly all true, or all false.
These beings of unknown truth spoke in unison: "Why don't you use the sword immortals from those paintings? Wouldn't that save time and effort?"
Chen Ping'an smiled and said, "One stick of incense is actually a very long time. But since I have nothing to do, I cherish every bit of it."
As he spoke, Chen Ping'an stepped on something and slowly rose into the air. Beneath his feet appeared a huge imitation of the Jade Capital structure. Like water receding to reveal stones, it gradually showed its full appearance. Finally, the peak of the Jade Capital rose higher and higher until it almost touched the top of the sky's canopy and stopped.
The young hidden official, wearing a Daoist "crimson-purple" heavenly robe, looked like a true immortal of the Jade Capital, his dharma power reaching through the heavens, allowing him to stroll leisurely here.
He walked step by step to the peak of the Jade Capital, finally reaching a corner where the upturned eaves were most intricate and competing.
Chen Ping'an reached out and grabbed a sword immortal pennant pole, lightly tapping it against the empty canopy beside him. Ripples spread out in circles, layer upon layer, endless.
She Yue suddenly asked, "I am not Liu Cai. You seem... angry? Do you have some guesses about Liu Cai? Because I am not Liu Cai, it confirms something in your mind?"
Chen Ping'an's expression remained normal. He casually smiled and said, "How could that be? Don't be so suspicious, Miss She Yue. How could I guess about someone who can see all the moons in the world and wear through many cotton shoes looking for him but still not find him?"
Half of the incense had passed.
Chen Ping'an instantly concentrated his mind, sinking to the bottom of an ancient well. His mind and spirit were deep and profound, as if a free and unfettered journey. His thoughts followed the ripples spreading in all directions. He smiled and said, "Miss She Yue, as a yaozu cultivator, when you choose names in the future, you should be careful. Otherwise, you might easily reveal the roots of your Way. This is a major taboo for traveling the world. Remember it well. She Yue, She Yue—too obvious. Learn from Fei Ran, whose name sounds full of literary grace, like a refined scholar. After acknowledging the Chen clan as his ancestors, it's even better."
The ten She Yues seemed to have a competitive spirit of "if you raise a foot, I'll raise a ten-foot pole." Ten became a hundred, a hundred became a thousand. On the city wall, she was everywhere.
Only one "She Yue," appearing in her true form, looked up at the majestic building and smiled: "But I've already chosen my name, and it's known to the world. How can I 'in the future'? Besides, I don't want to change it."
High in the sky, a gentle breeze passed slowly. The young man's sleeves and sideburns fluttered together.
He smiled and gave the answer: "In the next life."
She Yue didn't seem too wary of Chen Ping'an's next move. She just couldn't help frowning.
He was only eleventh?!
And that guy standing at the highest point of the imitation Jade Capital seemed to have seen through She Yue's thoughts. He said, "If I weren't here, taking advantage of some heavenly and earthly advantages, I wouldn't even qualify for eleventh."
She Yue suddenly felt the urge to get serious with him, no longer just try things out.
Chen Ping'an didn't add anything superfluous. He just slightly twitched the corner of his mouth, a fleeting playful expression that happened to be perfectly seen by She Yue.
As if saying: I probably can't kill you, and you probably can't kill me either. So let's both take it seriously and try a bit more.