The Attributes of a Saint

The night in Crimson Flame City was far from cool.

The restlessness of the underground fire veins seemed even more intense than during the day. The dark red rocky pavement was like a red-hot branding iron, steaming with infuriating waves of heat.

Gu Yang pulled down his bamboo hat, his figure weaving through the intricate labyrinth of alleys like a phantom.

He walked quickly, yet made absolutely no sound.

Suddenly, Gu Yang's silhouette vanished into the shadows at the end of Dead End Alley. His breathing ceased completely, as if he had never existed at all.

A few breaths later.

That Ugly Slave, carrying a giant sword and hunching her back, sneaked a peek inside. Her face was smeared with sallow grass juice and dotted with nauseating black moles, her eyes frantically searching the blind alley.

Where did he go?

In that moment of bewildered helplessness, a cold, rough hand lunged out of the darkness without warning. Like iron tongs catching a venomous snake, it locked onto the back of her neck in a death grip.

Bang!

A dull, teeth-aching thud echoed.

Ji Shuanghua didn't even have time to circulate her protective spiritual energy before her entire body was ruthlessly slammed against the rough, uneven bluestone wall by that tyrannical force.

Her cheek scraped violently against the moss- and filth-covered stone bricks. A burning, stinging pain instantly flared up as a few traces of blood seeped out, mixing with the black soot on the wall in a miserable state.

Ugh...

A sense of suffocation instantly flooded her brain.

Which gutter rat are you?

Gu Yang's voice exploded by her ear, hoarse, icy, and carrying undisguised disgust. Sent by the Lin family?

Along with the interrogation, Gu Yang's grip suddenly tightened.

His knuckles sank deeply into the tender, soft flesh of her neck, pinning her face firmly against the wall that reeked of urine.

Pain.

An agonizing pain that felt as if her spine was about to snap.

But the moment this intense pain traveled up her nerve endings into her brain, Ji Shuanghua's pupils, initially constricted in terror, suddenly dilated.

This feeling...

This feeling of being dominated by absolute power...

It was too familiar!

Although she couldn't see his face right now, this trembling killing intent, this sheer indifference that didn't even treat her as a human, it could be none other than the man who had thrown her away like trash in the Biluo Secret Realm!

It was him!

Ji Shuanghua's body trembled instinctively, but it wasn't out of fear. Instead, it was a tingling numbness and excitement originating from the depths of her soul. The Shattered Jade Sword Bone within her body was like a shark smelling blood, beginning to thrash madly through her meridians.

Not talking?

Seeing the ugly woman in his grasp remain silent, her body turning soft like a puddle of mud, Gu Yang scowled.

He violently grabbed her collar, roughly tearing her away from the wall and turning her around to face him.

By the faint moonlight filtering into the alley, Gu Yang finally saw the true face of this rat.

Sallow, withered skin, inexplicable black moles, messy hair like dead grass, and a sour stench deliberately smeared on for disguise.

Gu Yang's brows instantly knitted into a tight knot, the disgust in his eyes practically overflowing.

Truly disgusting.

Those words were like a heavy sledgehammer, smashing ruthlessly against Ji Shuanghua's heart.

If anyone else dared to evaluate the Eastern Region's number one beauty, the Ice Soul Sword Immortal, in such a way, they would have long been decapitated by her sword.

But at this moment, looking into Gu Yang's unwavering eyes that stared at her as if looking at a rotting lump of meat, Ji Shuanghua only felt a jolt of electricity instantly pierce through the crown of her head.

He doesn't recognize me.

He doesn't know I am the lofty Ice Soul Sword Immortal.

In his eyes, I am just an ugly, dirty, and lowly stalker.

Therefore, this disgust was real.

This humiliation was pure.

Stripped of her status and the filter of her beauty, she was trampled beneath his feet.

Haa...

A broken gasp squeezed out of Ji Shuanghua's throat. Those eyes, usually as cold and clear as frost, were now glistening with a sickly wetness, staring fixedly at Gu Yang. A trace of greed and obsession actually seeped into her gaze.

Gu Yang felt a chill of revulsion from that stare.

Is this woman a lunatic?

Or a rogue cultivator who practiced some evil art and suffered qi deviation?

I don't care who sent you.

Gu Yang released his hand, letting her slide to the ground like a puddle of mud.

Seeing as you are a piece of trash, I won't kill you. I'm afraid of dirtying my hands.

Roll as far away as you can.

If I ever see your disgusting face in my sight again, I'll chop you into pieces and feed you to the dogs.

After saying that, Gu Yang didn't even cast another glance at the woman on the ground, turning and striding away.

The alley returned to a dead silence.

Only the faint sound of a blacksmith striking iron could be heard in the distance.

A long time passed.

The heap of shadows huddled in the corner stirred.

He didn't kill me...

Because I'm a piece of trash... because he was afraid of dirtying his hands...

Ji Shuanghua muttered to herself, her voice hoarse and trembling.

Was it shameful?

It was shameful to the extreme.

The dignified Saintess of the Supreme Sword Sect, cursed as disgusting trash.

But... it felt so good.

This sense of reality, being stripped of all halos, utterly cast down into the dust, and despised like garbage, made her tremble.

The hypocritical compliments and careful fawning of her martial brothers on ordinary days seemed so pale and powerless in the face of Gu Yang's truly disgusting.

The sword qi within her body was like a burst dam at this moment, violently washing through her meridians.

The bottleneck known as Supreme Forgetfulness that had always stuck her actually split open with a massive crack amid this extreme humiliation and self-loathing.

There was no need to sever the threads of emotion.

There was no need for a heart as still as water.

As long as this pain remained, her sword could become even sharper!

You didn't recognize me...

That's great... you didn't recognize me.

Ji Shuanghua staggeringly stood up from the mud. Her originally hunched back was now perfectly straight. A heart-palpitating, razor-sharp sword intent flashed around her, instantly slicing countless fine sword marks into that urine-reeking wall.

She picked up the broken bamboo hat from the ground and put it back on her head, concealing those eyes that had turned bloodshot red from extreme excitement.

Stumbling yet resolute, she moved toward the direction where Gu Yang had disappeared.

...

[Loading today's intelligence...]

[Green Intelligence: Zhu Lie, a true disciple of the Blazing Sun Holy Land, and his follower Zhao Fen, are not on this journey for experiential learning. Instead, they are acting on secret sect orders to retrieve the inheritance fire seed lost by the Holy Land three hundred years ago at all costs, the Golden Crow Origin Fire.

The Sun Seeking Compass in Zhu Lie's hands is extremely sensitive to the aura of the Golden Crow.

Because the Sun Seeking Compass produced a slight reaction at the Lin Manor, the two have already passed the preliminary round of the Lin family's martial arts marriage tournament and have decided to visit the Lin family's forbidden grounds tomorrow.]

...

Gu Yang remembered there was a green intelligence report before.

It said that on the night he awakened the Golden Crow Origin Fire, the Sun God Mirror deep within the Blazing Sun Holy Land sensed the anomaly of the origin fire seed.

They believed this was the origin fire that had been lost outside.

They also dispatched several disciples, moving from west to east, to systematically investigate genius disciples possessing fire-attribute constitutions.

To think they had tracked it all the way here.