# 457
Chapter 457 – Reading Novels
“These… are all just novels,” Cao Yuan frowned. “How can they be textbooks?”
“They are the textbooks,” Zhou Ping said calmly. “Your training for this morning is to read.”
Lin Qiye and the others exchanged glances.
“But how does reading novels improve our strength?” Lin Qiye couldn’t help asking.
“Why not?” Zhou Ping asked in genuine confusion. “My sword techniques all came from novels.”
“…” Lin Qiye’s brow twitched. “You’re joking, right?”
“I never joke.” Zhou Ping’s voice was serious. “My sword techniques really were learned from novels… weren’t yours?”
His gaze was full of bewilderment.
Looking into his eyes, Lin Qiye almost started to believe that gaining power from novels was perfectly natural…
He held it in for a long time before finally squeezing out two words: “Nope.”
Zhou Ping pondered for a moment. “Maybe you should try.”
Lin Qiye and the rest looked at each other, resigned. Each picked up a novel, sat on a small stool, and began to read seriously.
Since the Sword Saint had arranged this training, they would just do it. Regardless of whether it worked, if they refused, Night Watch would never let them leave.
Resist? Pointless. The five of them combined wouldn’t survive one swing of Zhou Ping’s sword…
Except maybe Jialan.
Lin Qiye chose *Tianya Mingyue Dao*, partly because he’d already read the others, and partly because it involved blade techniques—if Zhou Ping was telling the truth, maybe this book could actually help him improve.
When that thought crossed his mind, he began to wonder if he was losing it.
In the quiet sound of turning pages, the morning slowly passed.
When Lin Qiye finally closed the book and pulled himself out of Fu Hongxue’s tale of vengeance, the air already carried the faint scent of food…
Well…
The scent of something burning.
Lin Qiye hurried to the kitchen and saw Zhou Ping standing there, staring at a flaming pot and the charred, unidentifiable object in the middle, as if deep in thought.
“Senior Sword Saint… what are you doing?” Lin Qiye’s mouth twitched.
If he hadn’t known who Zhou Ping was, he’d have thought some enemy had come to torch the kitchen.
“I was trying to cook, but it seems I failed.” Zhou Ping sighed in melancholy. “As expected, aside from swordplay and cleaning, I’m useless at everything…”
Lin Qiye quickly stepped forward, extinguished the flames, and said with a wry smile, “Senior, leave this to us. Go rest.”
Zhou Ping nodded.
“Right…” Lin Qiye pointed at a nearby white plate. “Senior, do you know where the carved-pattern plates went? These don’t look like ours.”
Zhou Ping tilted his head. “Carved-pattern plates? Weren’t those just dirty plates?”
“…” Lin Qiye guessed the truth and asked carefully, “Um… Senior, did you by any chance wash the carved—uh, the dirty—plates until they turned white last night?”
“Yeah.” Zhou Ping nodded. “The grime was tough. I had to scrape it off bit by bit with sword energy.”
Lin Qiye: …
“Is something wrong?”
“No, nothing… Senior, go rest. I’ll handle this.” Lin Qiye’s mouth twitched again.
Zhou Ping gave a soft grunt, turned, and left, even closing the door behind him.
Outside, he stood and stared at his toes.
One second,
Two seconds,
Three seconds.
He quietly crouched, hugged his knees, and curled into a ball.
“So embarrassing… I want to go home…”
…
Half an hour later.
Six people sat around a small low table, eating in silence.
Lin Qiye’s cooking wasn’t bad—having grown up poor, he’d had to make meals himself whenever his aunt was away. Six people, seven dishes and a soup; it looked quite hearty.
Zhou Ping took a bite of tomato and egg. “Not as good as my third uncle’s tomato stir-fried with tomato.”
Lin Qiye: …
“Any insights from today’s reading?” Zhou Ping asked.
Everyone shook their heads.
“You read *Tianya Mingyue Dao*, right?” Zhou Ping looked at Lin Qiye. “Didn’t learn Fu Hongxue’s blade technique?”
“…No.” Lin Qiye finally voiced the question plaguing him. “They’re just stories told in words—how could I learn blade techniques?”
“When you read, didn’t you try to become Fu Hongxue?”
“Become Fu Hongxue?”
Lin Qiye stared blankly. “You mean… immerse yourself in the character?”
“Mm.”
“I did, but it didn’t seem to help much…”
“Maybe you didn’t immerse deeply enough.” Zhou Ping spoke slowly. “Use your heart to feel the characters’ emotions—their rage, sorrow, worry, joy…
Dugu Qiubai’s *Dugu Nine Swords*, Yan Shisan’s *Thirteen Fatal Swords*, Xie Xiaofeng’s Xie Family Sword… my techniques all came from them.”
Cao Yuan hesitated, then asked, “Senior, you can do this because of your Forbidden Ruins, right? Without it, we naturally can’t gain power from books.”
Everyone else thought the same.
If anyone could become powerful just by reading, Great Xia would be full of Sword Saints.
“Forbidden Ruins, huh…” Zhou Ping murmured.
“Senior, what is your Forbidden Ruins?” Baili Pangpang asked curiously.
“I don’t know.” Zhou Ping placed a hand over his heart and lowered his head. “Neither do I. Ye Fan didn’t know either. He said it might be a Forbidden Ruins never seen before. They debated for a long time and gave it a name, but I don’t know what it is, nor do I care.
Forbidden Ruins shouldn’t be the measure of a person. The great heroes in books had no Forbidden Ruins either, yet with the chivalry in their hearts they became strong—acknowledged by the martial world…
I just want to be like them, a great hero.”
“A great hero…” Baili Pangpang repeated. “But Senior, you’re already the Sword Saint.”
Zhou Ping shook his head. “Still feels like something’s missing. Sword Saint isn’t enough…”
“Not enough?” Baili Pangpang grinned. “Then what is? Sword Immortal?”
“Sword Immortal?”
Zhou Ping’s eyes lit up. “Sword Immortal… that title sounds rather nice.”