The Xuanqin army camp's battle formation disappeared in an instant, and two figures, one red and one black, appeared out of thin air in the snowy ground.
Zhao Yaqing walked forward and looked around carefully, but could not find any other people's figures. She couldn't help frowning and asked respectfully to Zhang Yan, "May I ask senior, where are Li Shiyin and her apprentice?"
"They have left," Zhang Yan looked towards Wuyi City, her expression filled with sadness and loss. She was still immersed in tremendous shock.
"They left?!" Zhao Yaqing's voice unintentionally rose by two degrees. "How could you let them leave?!"
This voice brought Zhang Yan back to her senses. She looked back at Zhao Yaqing lightly and said, "They came here to exchange swordsmanship. Li Shiyin's teachings have benefited me greatly. On the path of cultivation, the accomplished should come first. Li Shiyin is my mentor in passing down the dao. How could I harm her?
"If you have such despicable thoughts every time there is an exchange of swordsmanship, how can swordsmanship progress here?" She admonished Zhao Yaqing, "A true swordsman should have a pure heart and be loyal to the way of the sword. A swordsman should disdain the use of despicable means."
"You think too much, no wonder you can't even comprehend sword qi."
Zhao Yaqing was admonished out of the blue, with Li Shiyin used to admonish her at that. The fiery anger and hatred in her heart almost set herself ablaze. The resentment in her eyes simply could not be concealed, so she lowered her head to prevent Zhang Yan from seeing it.
She bowed and replied, "Senior's teaching is right, junior will bear it in mind!"
Zhang Yan looked at Zhao Yaqing disdainfully once more, then flicked her sleeve and strode away, heading deeper into the military camp.
As a Nascent Soul sword cultivator, Zhao Yaqing, this Foundation Establishment sword cultivator with poor talent, was no different from an ant in her eyes. The only reason she would bother with this ant just now was probably because she felt a little apologetic for letting Qin Ran and his apprentice get away.
...So, cultivators are still human after all. Sometimes they still retain universal moral values from when they were human.
Zhao Yaqing stood upright, raised her eyes to look at the two Nascent Soul cultivators flying back to the camp. She gritted her teeth tightly, still feeling humiliated.
"Something is not right..." Guardian Mei walked to her side, looking at the starry sword qi left by Li Shiyin in the snow that had not been taken back yet, and said, "This sudden swordsmanship exchange, and its abrupt end, I feel there's something fishy about it."
Zhao Yaqing came to her senses and also looked at the purple sword qi stuck in the snow, feeling terrified by the aura it exuded. She also felt something was amiss but asked coldly, "What's fishy about it? If not an exchange of swordsmanship, could it be that she came to flaunt her cultivation base in swordsmanship to me?"
Seeing that Zhao Yaqing was not herself, Aunt Mei's lips moved but eventually did not say anything more.
"While the universe has yet to settle, everything is unknown!" Zhao Yaqing looked up at Wuyi City as she gnashed her teeth, "Cultivation in the way of the sword is but a side path. ...Let her be complacent for a few days first!"
Master and disciple moved stealthily through the snow and once they were far enough, Li Shiyin asked, "Master, was what you said just now all true?"
"Which part?"
"The one about Xuanqin wanting to unify the Land of Immortal Legacy, and Cloud Heaven Sect wanting to engulf all the sects in the Land of Immortal Legacy," said Li Shiyin.
"That's two things..." Qin Ran smiled and said, "Xuanqin wanting to unify the Land of Immortal Legacy is true; Cloud Heaven Sect wanting to swallow all sects is made up by me."
"Huh?" Li Shiyin was shocked. "So Master, you lied to them?"
"Yup!" Qin Ran reached out and ruffled Li Shiyin's hair, teaching her, "This is called the art of lying. The truth is true, the lies are deduced based on the truth."
"When they go to verify, they will know that Cloud Heaven Sect is indeed fully supporting Xuanqin; And Xuanqin does indeed want to unify the Land of Immortal Legacy. So they will use this to prove the lies are also correct, believing them even more than I do..."
Hearing this, Li Shiyin was shocked, unable to speak for a long time.
When she came to her senses, she couldn't help but sigh, "Master, you're so sinister!"
After a pause, she added, "And you're very gutsy too..."
Using lies to deceive two Nascent Soul cultivators was something Li Shiyin didn't dare imagine. She dared to fight a Nascent Soul cultivator, and at worst would just be defeated and die. But scheming like this to such an extent was beyond her.
Qin Ran just smiled proudly to himself.
Master and disciple safely returned to Wuyi City, stopping at the city head.
Chasing the Wind turned his big head around. Seeing them, he asked in surprise, "Huh? Dad, where did you guys go?"
"We went to the Xuanqin army camp to play," Li Shiyin smiled and showcased proudly, "Just now I even fought with a Nascent Soul stage cultivator from Xuanqin, fought until heavens and earth lost their colors, mountains and rivers collapsed, stars fell!"
Chasing the Wind rolled his huge white eyes at her, quite speechless.
"Do you think I'm blind?" he asked, "The Xuanqin camp is so near, with just one look, I can see everything clearly. Would I not know if you guys fought or not?"
"Then you must really be blind..." said Li Shiyin. She pointed at Qin Ran, "If you don't believe me you can ask Master."
"Dad?" Chasing the Wind looked to Qin Ran.
Qin Ran nodded and said, "It can be considered fighting, I guess?"
"Huh?" Chasing the Wind stood up to look towards the Xuanqin side, still not seeing anything out of the ordinary. "How could there be fighting? Am I really blind?"
"Hey! Stupid tiger, do you know how to set up formations now?" Li Shiyin suddenly asked.
"Cough..." Chasing the Wind's eyes shifted around as he looked at the Xuanqin camp and replied, "Of course I do!"
"Ha! One look and I can tell you don't!" Li Shiyin walked to Chasing the Wind's side and punched him. "You're so stupid!"
"Who... who said I don't know yet?"
"Hmph..." Li Shiyin said proudly, "You've been learning about formations every day, and still don't know how to set them up. But... I know how to set up formations now. Sword formations! Pretty awesome right?"
Chasing the Wind glanced at her and said, "You can't even set up crap!"
"Hehehe, yes I can..." Li Shiyin shook her cute little head charmingly.
"Alright, I'll ask you, how many basic formation glyphs are there?" Chasing the Wind asked.
"I don't know!" Li Shiyin replied righteously.
Chasing the Wind turned around and lay down again, too lazy to talk to this person.
In his interspatial pouch, Qin Ran took out a jade slip and handed it to Chasing the Wind, saying, "This is shapeshifting technique, hurry up and learn it. With your current physique, it's ultimately still inconvenient here..."
Chasing the Wind took the jade slip from Qin Ran's hand with his big paw and held it against his forehead over the "king" character, "looking" at the contents within the jade slip.
"But Dad..." As he read, he said, "With how I look now, Wuyi City needs me more."
Hearing this, Qin Ran turned back to look down at the city walls, seeing there were still people kneeling down there, worshiping. Quite a number of Wuyi City residents really regarded Chasing the Wind as their guardian deity beast now.
"Practice it first, you don't necessarily need to use it yet," he sighed to Chasing the Wind. "The situation will change later on..."
grated, and just when he finally managed to get into an elite academy, he discovered that he actually had a system, and the way to earn rewards was extremely ridiculous. So for the sake of rewards, he had no choice but to start acting ridiculous as well. Su Cheng: "It's nothing but system quests after all." But later, what confused Su Cheng was that while he was already quite ridiculous, he never expected those serious characters to gradually become ridiculous too. And the way they looked at him became increasingly strange... (This synopsis doesn't do it justice, please read the full story)
ing gift was a patch of barren land, and disciples were all picked up along the way. He spent fifty years diligently building three "ramshackle little sects," thinking he could finally live a carefree life relying on his disciples. But right at the fifty-year mark, he was suddenly swept away by a spatial rift and exiled to the Chaos Desolation, the Disorderly Ruins. There was no spiritual energy there, only slaughter. Relying on the cultivation feedback from his disciples, Gu Changyuan hacked his way through a sea of blood for eleven hundred years. When the system finally fished him back out, he discovered the ramshackle little sects he'd built back then had developed a rather... unusual style. Hold on... I vanished for a thousand years, so how did my ramshackle little sects become holy lands?!
Cheng's father told him he was getting remarried—to a wealthy woman. Cao Cheng realized his time had finally come: he was about to become a second-generation rich kid. Sure, it might be a watered-down version, but hey, at least he'd have status now, right? The wealthy woman also had four daughters!! Which meant, starting today, Cao Cheng gained four stunning older sisters?? But that wasn't even the whole story... "My name is Cao Cheng—'Cheng' as in 'honest, smooth-talking gentleman'!"
e bizarre and supernatural had descended. The previous emperor was a thoroughgoing tyrant; no longer satisfied with human women, he had set his sights on a stunningly beautiful supernatural entity. He met his end in his bedchamber, drained of all his vital essence. As the legitimate eldest son and crown prince, Wang Hao was thus hastily enthroned, becoming the young emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty. No sooner had he awakened the "Imperial Sign-In Intelligence System" than he was assassinated by a Son of Destiny—a classic villain's opening. The Great Zhou, ravaged by the former emperor's excesses, was in national decline. The great families within its borders harbored their own treacherous schemes, martial sects began to defy the imperial court's decrees, and border armies, their pay and provisions in arrears, grumbled incessantly against the central government. Fortunately, the central capital was still held secure by the half-million Imperial Guards and fifty thousand Imperial Forest Army who obeyed the court's orders, along with the royal family's hidden reserves of power, barely managing to suppress the realm. As the Great Zhou's finances worsened and supernatural activities grew ever more frequent, the court sat atop a volcano. Ambitious plotters everywhere dreamed of overthrowing the dynasty, and even some reclusive ancient powers emerged, attempting to sway the tides of the world. At the first grand court assembly, the civil and military officials nearly came to blows, fighting tooth and nail over the allocation of fifty million taels of silver from the summer tax revenues. The spectacle opened Wang Hao's eyes—the Great Zhou's bureaucracy was not only corrupt but also martially proficient, a cabinet of all-rounders. Some officials even had the audacity to suggest the emperor release funds from the imperial privy purse to address the emergency. Wang Hao suddenly felt weary. Let it all burn.
