A Blind Swordsman's Sword Coffin

The tree was powerful. If Cang Lu were only as strong as when he fought Sect Master Lu Kangnian, he wouldn’t have been able to take the tree’s core trunk.

Li Guanqi pointed at the hologram of Cang Lu and asked, “Is he very strong?”

The tree did not hesitate. A ripple of energy came.

Very... strong!

“Compared to me?”

The tree did not answer immediately. Li Guanqi squinted. After a while, a slow message came.

I... don’t know...

The answer surprised him. The tree was essentially his slave and wouldn’t hide the truth. That meant, based on what he’d shown, the tree spirit considered him on a similar level to Cang Lu.

Li Guanqi nodded, then dispelled the suppressive power of Spirit Pardon.

The tree spirit couldn’t believe Li Guanqi wasn’t targeting its core trunk and was letting it go just like that. When Li Guanqi turned to leave, a branch appeared beside him. He looked at it, then at the tree.

The tree burst with golden light and snapped off a two-zhang-long branch as thick as an arm. Li Guanqi looked at the trunk, which was covered in golden patterns. He hesitated, but accepted it.

He glanced at the tree’s wounds and tossed out a few hundred mid-grade spirit stones, shattering them.

The tree shook its branches happily. A golden silhouette slowly formed, giving him a fist salute and a bow.

Li Guanqi smiled and turned to leave.

It was valuable material used to make ancient treasure-tier artifacts. Only an idiot would decline such a precious gift.

Splash!

He looked up at the thick mist around him and shot into the sky like a flash of lightning.

He left Floating Wood Valley in deep thought. Taking out the jade slip Gu Yong gave him, he asked, “Where is Cang Lu?”

Soon, he received a reply.

Our eyes were killed. The flow of information has stopped.

Li Guanqi frowned. The Heavenly Intelligence Pavilion’s spies were secretive, and perhaps the ones tailing Cang Lu weren’t even cultivators. They could’ve been inconspicuous regular people. Yet Cang Lu still escaped.

“How many people died in total?”

The jade slip flashed.

One early Illusory Refinement Realm. Seven Divine Transformation Realm. Eighteen Nascent Soul Realm. Thirty-two Golden Core Realm. Six regular mortals.

Li Guanqi frowned. He hadn’t expected Cang Lu to have killed so many people. Knowing how efficient the Heavenly Intelligence Pavilion was, that meant...

Cang Lu pulled them all into a domain at once. He fought all of them at the same time.

Cang Lu’s capabilities had been a mystery from the beginning. The more Li Guanqi thought about it, the more mysterious Cang Lu seemed.

He fell silent, solemn. He didn’t understand how Cang Lu’s abilities had risen so quickly—unless Cang Lu had been at the Illusory Refinement Realm since the beginning.

Even the Heavenly Intelligence Pavilion couldn’t track him, so it was up to Li Guanqi.

He didn’t know where to go. The world was vast—how could he possibly find a master of disguise who was at the Illusory Refinement Realm?

Finding a person in the Taiqing Territory was like finding a needle in an ocean.

He flew aimlessly through the sky, extending his divine consciousness ten thousand zhang in all directions.

Seven days passed. He realized he was reaching the central region of the Taiqing Territory. The surrounding qi had thinned considerably compared to the rest of the continent.

As the sun set, Li Guanqi retracted his divine consciousness with a heavy heart.

While searching for a place to stay, he heard the murmurs of a young boy.

“Mother... Give me... the knife... The doctor said... If I give you my kidney... You’ll live... Give me... the knife...”

The boy’s voice was determined but weak. Li Guanqi snapped his head back. This wasn’t a voice transmission—the voice had appeared directly in his mind. He wasn’t even releasing his divine consciousness, so he hadn’t listened intentionally.

Why is a regular mortal’s voice appearing in my mind?!

Closing his eyes, he unleashed his divine consciousness like a tidal wave. A moment later, his eyes snapped open. Found him!

The boy was dozens of li away. Li Guanqi teleported in a flash.

In just a few breaths, he arrived above a village. The voice had come from the wooden house beneath his feet.

Li Guanqi descended slowly. He stopped a dozen zhang from the house and extended his divine consciousness inside.

There was a pale woman wearing patch-covered clothes. One of her legs was crippled.

The boy on the kang bed-stove[1] was only seven or eight years old. He had a large tumor growing on his neck, which was leaking a yellow liquid. He looked determined but lay sick in bed, his cheeks sunken and lips pale.

The house had almost nothing. It was desolate.

The woman clutched his hand tightly, gazing at him with tearful, pained eyes. Even her hand trembled. Almost crying out loud, she said, “Silly child... Don’t say such things! Do you hear me?!”

The boy’s expression went numb. He gazed blankly at the hole-riddled roof, then spoke with great determination. “Mother, I won’t... survive this winter. The doctor said... If I gave you my kidney, you’d live...”

The woman tried to cover his mouth, but he gripped her hand.

“Mother... give me the knife. I don’t want to live... I want to die...”

Tears streamed down his cheeks, but he didn’t dare look back at his mother.

His lips didn’t move, but Li Guanqi heard a voice.

If only there were real immortals in this world.

A cold snowflake landed on Li Guanqi’s face. He froze, staring at the wooden house as old memories flooded through him.

When he saw Yu Sui’an, he pitied her for suffering in her early childhood because he knew what it felt like. But this... it felt like looking at his past self.

Li Guanqi took a deep breath. He hesitated for a long time, but finally walked up to the wooden house.

1. A traditional heated platform used for sleeping and daily activities in northern China, where winters are cold. ☜