Unsheathed

Back then, Qi Jingchun had used the locust branch collected and dragged over by Li Baoping to secretly carve a locust wood sword. He had then secretly placed this sword in Chen Ping’an’s bamboo basket. Inside this locust wood sword, there lived a small incense person of unknown origin.

However, after appearing for a short time once in Autumn Reed Inn and once in the Zhilan Cao Clan’s residence, the timid incense girl had never appeared again. Chen Ping’an went with the flow, and he didn’t try to do anything by force.

It was late night, and an old man was still puffing away at his smoking pipe in the Yang Family’s medicine shop. He furrowed his brows, and after making a grabbing motion, an incense girl fell to the ground from the void.

“Qi Jingchun went to so much effort to conceal you. What’s his goal?” Old Man Yang asked coldly.

The incense girl timidly stood up, and it was as if she were extremely apprehensive of this old man. Her hands tightly gripped the hems of her clothes, and her lips moved slightly as she spoke.

The more Old Man Yang listened, the more tightly his brows knitted together. After contemplating for a long time, he finally said, “I accept.”

He used his smoking pipe to tap the ground, causing a small temple to materialize and roll toward the incense girl.

The incense girl was delighted, and she was just about to jump inside the small temple. However, she suddenly looked up, and it was as if she wanted to say something.

Old Man Yang’s expression was cold, and he said, “Knowing everything is naturally the best. However, if you can’t achieve this goal, then it’s best that you don’t know anything at all. Only this way can you live a peaceful life.”

It appeared as if the incense girl was still a little bit hesitant. She wanted to take a trip back to Clay Vase Alley, such that she could at least say goodbye to that young boy.

Old Man Yang raised his smoking pipe and exhaled a cloud of thick smoke. “Being truly smart is to keep all of your smarts hidden away. Do you genuinely think that the young boy doesn’t think about anything at all? Do you think that apart from practicing fist techniques, he only knows how to be foolishly kind and charitable? And you even followed him around for so long. You’re genuinely foolish, but he isn’t foolish at all.”

The incense girl pouted in slight disappointment. However, she was instantly transfixed with shock after walking into the small temple.

Standing in the temple, it was as if she were an infinitesimally small grain of rice in a humongously large vat.

On the tall walls of the small temple, there were countless dazzling names that were all glowing with different colors.

Above the incense girl, there was a sea of spectacular and brilliant stars.

Old Man Yang put his smoking pipe away and clasped his hands behind his back. With his back slightly hunched, he left the pharmacy and left the small town. He sighed as he walked across the stone arch bridge, and his sigh was filled with a sense of pity and puzzlement. After slowly crossing the stone arch bridge, he walked along the bank of the Dragon Whisker River and arrived outside the blacksmith shop. He didn’t walk inside, and he instead walked to the riverside.

With a soft stomp, the river goddess immediately swam up from the bottom of the river. Her soul was shuddering, and she felt slightly dizzy. After realizing that it was Old Man Yang, she immediately put on an obsequious smile and said, “Great Immortal, there’s no need for you to use your paramount mystical abilities. Just give me a shout, and I’ll immediately come up.”

“Head to the river source of the Dragon Whisker River at once,” Old Man Yang ordered expressionlessly. “Actively disperse half of your godly body into the river and help Ruan Qiong increase the Yin energy of the water.”

The river goddess was stupefied.

Disperse half of her godly body? The old man said this casually, but the agonizing pain and damage to her Great Dao that this entailed was simply inestimable.

The river goddess felt the urge to flee to someplace tens of thousands of kilometers away.

However, it was a shame that this was clearly impossible.

“If you succeed, I’ll help you ask for a river goddess temple after Ruan Qiong finishes forging the sword,” Old Man Yang added. “That way, you’ll be able to fully recover your godly body in at most 50 to 60 years. Afterward, you’ll also enjoy incense and offerings for hundreds upon thousands of years. This is a long-term benefit, and you’ll definitely end up obtaining more than you sacrificed.”

“Dispersing half of my godly body will be far too painful. I’m scared of pain…” the river goddess murmured hesitantly. Her voice was so quiet that it could barely be heard.

The old man didn’t say anything, and he simply looked at the rippling surface of the Dragon Whisker River.

“Great Immortal, can I refuse?” the river goddess asked

“Of course you can,” Old Man Yang replied with a nod.

The river goddess was delighted, and she also felt extremely surprised at the same time. Since when had this great immortal become so understanding and reasonable?

Old Man Yang smiled coldly and continued, “The effect will be even better if I pulverize your entire godly body. Rest assured, after your soul vanishes tonight, I’ll make sure to compensate your descendants in the future.”

The river goddess felt a slight sense of despair. After weighing things up for a moment, she asked in a quivering voice, “Great Immortal, can all of the compensation be given to my grandson?”

She was filled with hope, and this was because she knew that this Great Immortal treated her grandson, Ma Kuxuan, slightly differently regardless of how fair he was when it came to other matters.

However, Old Man Yang shook his head and refused again, saying, “No.”

The river goddess’ expression was ashen, and she said in a pitiful voice, “Then I’ll go to the river source of the Dragon Whisker River.”

Old Man Yang didn’t say anything.

The river goddess gritted her teeth and started to swim upstream. After passing the stone arch bridge that was no longer peculiar, she directly headed into the depths of the mountains.

Ruan Qiong walked to the riverbank and stood next to the old man. “Whether I successfully forge a sword for that young girl or not, I’m not worried at all. I don’t have any intention of making a deal with you,” he said.

“This main aspect of this deal has got nothing to do with you forging a sword for that young girl.”

Old Man Yang shook his head and continued, “However, I can help you conceal your daughter’s true identity for 30 years. The condition is that you finish forging the sword as quickly as possible. This is the deal that I’m after.”

Ruan Qiong was unfazed, and he asked with a smile, “True identity?”

“Ruan Qiong, you simply need to nod or shake your head,” the old man said calmly.

Ruan Qiong felt slightly stifled, but he still nodded and agreed to Old Man Yang’s proposal.

The old man smiled and said, “When you look back in the future, you’ll realize that this was worth it.”

Ruan Qiong asked a strange question, saying, “Then what wouldn’t be worth it?”

“Ruan Qiong, eavesdropping on other people isn’t a good habit,” Old Man Yang chuckled.

“You, the eldest grandson of the Li Clan, and Wei Bo. I must keep an eye on the three of you,” Ruan Qiong admitted in a frank manner.

The old man nodded before shaking his head and saying, “It might be better to swap my position and Li Xisheng’s position around.”

“After 1000 years? Or after 10,000 years?” Ruan Qiong asked with a smile.

The old man didn’t say anything else.

Once they entered the chaotic age of battle between the hundred schools of thought, fiercely ambitious individuals, heroic figures, talented prodigies, and peculiar beings would rapidly spring up one after another like bamboo shoots after rain. In just a short period of time, the world would be completely changed.

The old man had witnessed these magnificent scenes before — more than once.

At the end of the day, Ruan Qiong was only a Militarian sage and not a Naturalist sage. Even though he was already planning very far ahead — for example, the matters pertaining to his daughter Ruan Xiu’s growth — it was still not far ahead enough.

At this moment, Old Man Yang suddenly said, “Of course it wasn’t worth it. What’s the point of gathering the souls of two ordinary mortals? The price to pay for doing so isn’t small. If it were Ma Kuxuan, however, that’s naturally another matter altogether.”

Ruan Qiong smiled and asked, “Senior, you’ve never been optimistic about Chen Ping’an?”

“It’s fine as long as someone else is optimistic about him,” Old Man Yang replied expressionlessly.

————

The official post road toward the north reopened, and this caused the already bustling Red Candle Town to become even livelier.

It was nighttime, and a decorated boat with green bamboo curtains leisurely navigated out of the inlet and sailed toward the town. After entering the river that separated Red Candle Town into two, the decorated boat immediately received a guest. This was a wealthy elder dressed in brocade robes and a middle-aged man dressed in coarse clothes. They looked like a wealthy master and his steward coming out to drink flower wine[1].

This was a medium-sized decorated boat with five boat hostesses. Two of them rowed the boat, and two of them played instruments and prepared wine. The remaining boat hostess was the most beautiful of them all, and she sat beside the old man and carefully served him like an obedient and lovable woman. The old man laughed heartily, and he pointed at the unrefined man and said, “How about it, Old Man Xie? People rely on elegant robes, just as Buddhas rely on golden robes. This saying isn’t wrong, is it?”

Perhaps it was his embarrassment turning to anger, or perhaps he was an honest and frank person, the middle-aged man accepted a cup of wine from a boat hostess and thanked her before turning to the old man and saying, “Stop calling me Old Man Xie all the time. We’re not that familiar with each other.”

The old man was a shameless person, and while he was accepting his cup of wine from the boat hostess, he seized the opportunity to caress the back of her hand. He didn’t forget to wink and make eyes at the slender woman either. This disgusted the boat hostess immensely. However, she had no option but to put on a forced smile.

The old man didn’t pay any heed to this, and he simply indulged himself in the cup of wine. “You might not be familiar with me, but I’m very familiar with you! Your name spread from the northeast all the way to the south. Each time I talk about you with old friends, they all beg me to introduce them to you after learning that we’re from the same hometown. They all say that it will be a big regret of theirs if they don’t manage to see a great hero such as yourself.”

The middle-aged man simply frowned in reply. He lowered his head and continued to drink wine.

The old man had a split mustache, and right now, he was sitting cross-legged with his head tilted and gazing at the bustling nightlife on the banks. He swirled his wine cup with one hand, and he pinched and stroked his mustache with his other hand. He looked extremely sleazy and uncouth no matter how one looked at him. This was made worse by the fact that he was purposely touching the boat hostess’ shapely behind with his knee. The boat hostess was accustomed to seeing the tangling bodies of men and women, yet she still regretted her decision to sit next to this old man instead of the quiet middle-aged man.

When the old man raised his hand to stroke his mustache, his sleeve slid down to reveal a dark green rope bracelet on his wrist. The observant boat hostesses on the decorated boat felt slightly disappointed upon seeing this. If this bracelet were worn by a young child, it would still appear fairly dainty and adorable. On the wrist of an old man, however, it appeared quite strange and out of place.

The old man suddenly retracted his gaze, and he asked the beautiful woman beside him, “Do women in this business believe in pledges as eternal as the mountains and seas?”

Not only was this boat hostess stumped, but the other boat hostesses didn’t know how to reply either. They exchanged glances with each other, and they didn’t know what the old man was trying to get at.

The old man laughed heartily and pointed at the middle-aged man sitting opposite him. “Look for him. It’s genuinely useful. He’s an impressive mountain lord, and he looks after quite a number of mountains. Pledges as eternal as the mountains and seas. The mountains mentioned here…”

The middle-aged man frowned but remained silent. He continued to slowly and absent-mindedly sip wine.

The old man then pointed at himself and continued, “In reality, looking for me is also useful. There’s an extremely tall building in the world, and the name of this building is also very impressive. It’s called the Sea Suppressing Pagoda, and it naturally sits next to the sea. My house is located near this pagoda.”

The middle-aged man was finally unable to endure this any longer, and he said with a displeased expression, “Person with the surname Cao, what’s the point in bragging to them about this?”

The old man took a small sip of wine before picking up his chopsticks to eat some snacks. He shot a sideways glance at the middle-aged man and replied, “It’s precisely because they don’t understand anything that it’s interesting to talk to them about this. Bragging about these things to cultivators is what’s truly uninteresting.”

There was a dark expression on the middle-aged man’s face, and he lowered his head and continued to drink wine.

When talking about pledges as eternal as the mountains and seas, these were now mainly used by teachers in mortal empires and cities to describe pledges of love between men and women. In reality, the true meaning of such a pledge was already no longer understood by ordinary mortals.

Indeed, such pledges were especially important to cultivators. Cultivators could make pledges to the mountains and seas, and such pledges would then possess indescribably mystical abilities to bind a person to their pledge. As such, these pledges were far more useful and effective than the written pledges sold by mortals in the world.

When choosing mountains, these could be the Five Mountains officially recognized by the imperial courts. The higher one’s cultivation base, the higher the level of the mountains needed to be. Generally speaking, pledges of this type would be used when forming alliances between empires or when signing agreements pertaining to trade. As time went on, however, it became increasingly common for such pledges to be used during engagements.

In terms of seas, this had already lost much of its original importance. This was because following the death of the last True Dragon in the world, the seas and lakes in the nine continents of the Majestic World had already become ownerless. Mortal empires didn’t have the right or power to assign official gods to the Five Lakes and Four Seas, and as a result, there were no longer any legitimate water gods in the world who could step forward to rule those five gigantic lakes and four boundless seas.

The sun rose from the east and set in the west, and it was rumored that the sun rose from someplace in the East Sea.

1. To drink flower wine means to visit prostitutes. ☜