Unsheathed

A young girl appeared atop the wall.

“Don’t follow me anymore,” Chen Ping’an said. “Just stay by Gu Can’s side and protect him. Also, tell him not to try and do anything about this, and he’s certainly not permitted to take out his anger on Cloud Pagoda City.”

Tan Xue nodded eagerly in response, then flew away in a hurry as if it had just been spared of some terrible fate.

Chen Ping’an set the pair of heads down onto a stone table in the courtyard, then sat down at the table as he turned to look at the assassin, who was petrified with fear.

“Do you have anything you want to say?”

The man seemed to have been convinced that he was going to die, and all of his fear washed away at this realization as he declared with as much venom as he could inject into his voice, “I’ll be waiting for you on the other side!”

“What if I change my mind and decide to kill everyone that you know in Cloud Pagoda City?” Chen Ping’an asked.

“Why should I care? I’m about to die!” the man snapped as he glowered intently at Chen Ping’an.

Chen Ping’an turned to take a glance at the handful of residents of the manor who were standing at the entrance of the courtyard, then rose to his feet as he declared, “I’ll come visit you again in a few days.”

After that, he sprang onto the wall, seemingly planning to depart from Cloud Pagoda City.

As he did so, Fifteenth destroyed all of the assassin’s remaining bonded acupoints.

Chen Ping’an did indeed return to the manor in secret at a later date, and he was treated to a farcical spectacle.

As it turned out, the assassin wasn’t actually a resident of the manor. Instead, he was an immortal who had been very close with the previous clan leader, a cultivator who was very fortunate to have survived the massacre of his entire sect in Bamboo Scroll Lake. Prior to this, he hadn’t been residing in Cloud Pagoda City.

Instead, he had been staying in a border city in Stone Brush Nation, close to two hundred kilometers away from Bamboo Scroll Lake. However, this was where Cloud Pagoda City had dropped off the trio of assassins, so he had decided to come to this manor to rest and recuperate.

It just so happened to be the case that the other surviving assassin had extensive connections in Cloud Pagoda City, and that was why he had been able to gather so many cultivators to go after Chen Ping’an for vengeance. The assassins had attacked Chen Ping’an partly out of their personal vendettas against Cyan Gorge Island, and their other objective was to try and knock Liu Zhimao down a peg.

If they had succeeded, perhaps some of the islands that were enemies of Cyan Gorge Island would’ve granted the trio their protection, and it was possible that they could even experience a resurgence. With all of that in mind, this had seemed like a very good idea.

Risk and reward had always come hand in hand, and if they were successful in this endeavor, not only would they earn resounding reputations for themselves, they would also be able to slay what was clearly a very esteemed guest of Cyan Gorge Island.

The assassin was a Sea Observation Tier cultivator that had once been revered by everyone in the manor, yet after having his bonded acupoints destroyed by Chen Ping’an, everything had changed.

A pair of guest elders of the manor who were both fourth tier cultivators had joined forces with a fifth tier pure martial artist, and even then, the three of them had proceeded with extreme hesitation and timidity, fearing that the assassin would have some hidden trump card up his sleeve to protect himself.

After some extensive deliberation, the three of them had finally dared to strike, and by the time they detained the assassin, all three of them were sweating profusely, not from physical exertion, but from the mental strain involved.

Only after it was made certain that the assassin had no means with which to retaliate did the current clan leader erupt into a furious tirade at him, denouncing him for being an ungrateful cur that had almost gotten all of the manor’s residents killed.

The clan leader had been livid, declaring that he was going to find the assassin’s beautiful daughter, who had come to visit him once several years ago, and that once he did, he was going to defile the poor woman night and day while forcing her father to watch.

The assassin had been completely tied up at this point, and he began to struggle like a wild animal upon hearing this, tearing open his own skin and flesh against his restraints in the process.

The more the assassin struggled, the more pleasure the clan leader derived from seeing his struggles, and to fan the flames even further, he declared that he knew that the assassin’s daughter was hiding in one of the border cities of the Stone Brush Nation.

He had heard that she possessed no cultivation aptitude, but she was very beautiful, and he was confident that it wouldn’t be too difficult to find her as long as he was willing to spend the money to track her down.

Even if he couldn’t find her, he would send people to the Stone Brush Nation to spread word that her father was about to die in Cloud Pagoda City, and surely that would be enough to goad her into emerging from hiding.

Three days later.

A young man arrived in a border city in the Stone Brush Nation ahead of the Cloud Pagoda City cultivators searching for the assassin’s daughter.

The Cloud Pagoda City cultivators were led by a fourth tier cultivator and a fifth tier martial artist, and they failed to notice that there had been a man trailing them and observing them in secret the entire time, recording their words and actions with brush and paper as he did so.

After their fruitless search, they immediately moved on to another nearby prefectural city.

In the end, they tracked down the assassin’s daughter in a moderate house in an alley. The only two residents of the house were the assassin’s daughter and an old woman tasked with looking after her.

The Cloud Pagoda City cultivators didn’t immediately rush in to abduct their target. After all, this was the Stone Brush Nation, not Bamboo Scroll Lake, and certainly not Cloud Pagoda City. If that old woman turned out to be a Middle Five Tiers cultivator, then they would all pay for their lives for their impatience.

To counteract this problem, the group collectively thought of an idea. They sent out the most trustworthy-looking member of their group, and while the old woman had been out running some errands, the man paid the assassin’s daughter a visit, informing her that her father had been severely wounded in Cloud Pagoda City by a Cyan Gorge Island cultivator, and that he didn’t have long left to live.

He was only just barely clinging to life, and all he could do was mumble the name of his daughter and the name of the prefectural city that she was staying in over and over again, and that was how he had managed to find her. He told her that she had to go to Cloud Pagoda City right away to see him one last time or it would be too late.

Initially, the young woman refused to open the door, but after hearing the terrible news delivered by the man, she immediately threw the door open with tears streaming down her face. The man struggled to contain his lust at the sight of her frail and vulnerable appearance.

After packing up her things, she suddenly thought of the old woman that was staying with her. The man was trying to convince her to leave right away, but she refused, insisting that she had to wait for the old woman to return. The old woman was in very ill health, and if she returned home, only to find the young woman missing, then she would surely be overcome with grief and worry.

Under such circumstances, perhaps the old woman would have already passed away by the time she reached Cloud Pagoda City, and if that were to happen, then she would truly have no one left in this world.

The man’s confidence was immediately bolstered upon learning that the old woman was just some frail pushover, and he decided that it couldn’t hurt to allow the young woman to inform the old woman of the situation. If he were to try to pressure and rush the young woman too much, then that could potentially arouse suspicions.

Hence, he made a last-minute decision to deviate from the original plan, waiting with the young woman for the old woman to return.

Before long, the old woman returned with a basketful of fresh produce, and as soon as the man’s gaze was drawn to her, his expression instantly stiffened as the tip of a dagger came piercing out of his chest. The young woman behind him then quickly clasped a hand over his mouth before gently laying him down in the courtyard, while the old woman looked on in an expressionless manner.

The young woman quickly informed the old woman of what had happened in Cloud Pagoda City, and the latter nodded in response, telling her that either that clan in Cloud Pagoda City was coming after her as a form of vengeance, or it was doing this to try and appease the enemies of Cyan Gorge Island.

The young woman begged the old woman to take her to Cloud Pagoda City. Even if she couldn’t make it to see her father one final time, she still had to go.

The old woman heaved a forlorn sigh, lamenting the end of the peaceful days that she had spent here, then sprang up into the air and traveled to the place where all of the other Cloud Pagoda City cultivators were staying.

After a horrific battle, she emerged as the only survivor, albeit with grievous injuries, and she informed the young woman that she had decimated all of the Cloud Pagoda City cultivators for her. However, in her current state, there was no way that she would be able to accompany her to Cloud Pagoda City, so the young woman would have to make the journey on her own.

Prior to her departure, the old woman gave her a pill to be taken as a last resort, one that would instantly kill her upon consumption.

The young woman wiped the tears from her eyes and forced a smile onto her face, then departed from the prefectural city on her own to travel to Cloud Pagoda City.

Before long, she had already left the city in a horse-drawn carriage.

Unbeknownst to her and the old woman, there was another group of Cloud Pagoda City cultivators staying in an inn in the city, but they had all been knocked unconscious by a young man carrying a longsword on his back. The man then paid a visit to the old woman in the courtyard, the latter of which was in the process of cooking up some medicine while coughing up mouthfuls of blood.

The old woman had already resigned herself to her fate at the sight of the man, but to her surprise, the man tossed a pill at her, then crouched down beside her to help her cook her medicine. While keeping an eye on the flame, he asked some questions about the cultivator in the courtyard that had been killed by the young woman.

The old woman inspected the fragrant, green pill that had been given to her while carefully considering her answer to the question, telling Chen Ping’an that he was an evil cultivator from Bamboo Scroll Lake who wanted to abduct her young mistress to serve as an open collar lady for him.

She speculated that the man was most likely from Cloud Rain Island or Flowing Gold Island, and the old woman was originally planning to wait for her master to return and resolve the problem, but that was clearly not going to happen, considering he was at death’s door himself in Cloud Pagoda City.

While hearing her responses to his questions, the man had even begun taking notes.

After the medicine was ready, the man stood up to depart, only to pause midway as he pointed at the lifeless body that was still laying in the yard outside as he asked, “Do you think that man deserved to die?”

The old woman hesitated momentarily, then decided to answer in a truthful manner, “If he doesn’t die, then my young mistress will meet a terrible fate worse than death in Cloud Pagoda City, and perhaps he’ll be one of the people contributing to her misery.”

The man offered no response to this and left the courtyard.

Late at night, several days later, a lithe and elegant figure leaped over the wall of that manor in Cloud Pagoda City. Even though she had only stayed in the manor for several days during her visit, she had an exceptional memory, allowing her to traverse through the manor with ease, despite the fact that she was only a third tier martial artist.

Of course, she was also helped by the fact that the three honorary elders of the manor were all currently still on their way back to Cloud Pagoda City.

However, as soon as she landed in one of the courtyards of the manor, the entire manor abruptly lit up as a series of lanterns were ignited.

As it turned out, the owner of the manor had spent an exorbitant amount to hire a sixth tier swordsman as a temporary honorary elder, and at this moment, the tip of his bonded flying sword was resting against her chest.

The swordsman then drew another sword that he was carrying from its scabbard, and with a flick of his wrist, the veil over the woman’s face was torn away by his sword, and he was very impressed with what he saw underneath.

“Not bad at all! You’re very beautiful for someone who’s not a cultivator. I’m sure you’ll make a fine addition to my bed after some taming.”

The swordsman then turned to the owner of the manor with a smile as he said, “You weren’t lying to me, she really is quite a fine, young woman. In exchange for her, you won’t have to pay me the remaining half of what you owe me.”

The woman requested to see her father one last time, after which she would allow her captors to do with her as they pleased.

The swordsman nodded in agreement with her request, then returned his sword to his scabbard. However, he then suddenly lashed out and poked a finger into the woman’s throat, then pressed against several of her acupoints in rapid succession, causing her to involuntarily open her mouth.

The swordsman then plucked a pill out of her mouth before giving it a sniff with an intoxicated look on his face, following which he casually tossed the pill onto the crushed and crushed it underfoot.

“It would be a terrible waste for such a fine woman as yourself to die like this. Do you know how much I spent to buy you? The equivalent of two hundred thousand taels of silver in immortal currency!”

The woman’s body had been rendered completely numb by the pressing of her acupoints, making it impossible for her to even end her own life by biting off her own tongue. All she could do was allow herself to be dragged over to a side room in the courtyard, and the door was kicked open to reveal her father, his body riddled with wounds and his eyes wide with fury and horror.

The woman couldn’t help but burst into tears.

The swordsman had a triumphant look on his face as he said, “Now that you’ve had your little reunion, it’s about time…”

Right at this moment, his entire body suddenly stiffened. His bonded sword was on its way back to his acupoint when it crashed tip-first into the tip of another bonded flying sword.

Not only had a small piece of the sword’s tip been chipped off by the collision, the sword itself had also been captured, plucked out of thin air by a pair of fingers.

The swordsman immediately swung around and cupped his fist in a respectful salute as he declared, “Junior Du Shehu of Cloud Pagoda City pays his respects to his esteemed senior of Cyan Gorge Island!”

As it turned out, a slightly pale-faced young man with a sword on his back and a gourd hanging from his waist had appeared beside him, seemingly out of thin air.

The young man reached out a hand to offer the swordsman two lesser heat coins, which the swordsman accepted in a fearful manner before immediately fleeing from the manor.

He had received two lesser heat coins from the owner of the manor as his compensation, so in total, he had been given four lesser heat coins, which was nowhere near enough to repair his bonded flying sword, but he was just thankful that he had been allowed to leave alive.

It was just a pity that he wouldn’t be able to get a taste of that fine young woman.

That night, a horse-drawn carriage slowly trundled its way out of Cloud Pagoda City en route to the Stone Brush Nation.

By the time it was morning, the carriage was already far away from Cloud Pagoda City, and Chen Ping’an stopped the carriage before jumping down from the horse as he prepared to return to the dock outside Cloud Pagoda City. He was hoping that the boat that he had tethered to the dock hadn’t been stolen. Otherwise, that would pose a minor inconvenience.

The woman opened the curtain of the carriage. Her father had already fallen asleep beside her, and he had recovered adequately from his injuries, to the point that his life was no longer under threat. However, it was going to be next to impossible for him to ever return to the Middle Five Tiers.

The woman glowered at the young man as she fought back her tears, and she threatened with as much venom as she could inject into her voice, “I will find you and kill you someday!”

However, the young man completely ignored her, not even bothering to spare a glance at her, and that only exacerbated her fury and indignation.

All of a sudden, the man turned around, and the young woman’s blood instantly ran cold.

“I’ll be staying in Bamboo Scroll Lake for at least two to three years. If that’s not enough time for you, then you can come to the Dragon Spring Prefecture of the Great Li Empire to find me after that,” Chen Ping’an said, while the young woman looked on with a flabbergasted expression.

“You can bring a friend with you to retrieve your body because you’ll be the only one I’ll be killing when you come after me for revenge,” Chen Ping’an continued.

The woman looked on with a dazed expression as Chen Ping’an departed.

Inside the carriage, her father seemed to have been awoken by the commotion, or perhaps he had been awake all along.

In any case, he heaved a forlorn sigh and said, “Don’t think about going after him for vengeance.”

The young woman wiped the tears from her eyes, then turned to her father and asked, “I couldn’t ask when he was with us, but how did you end up making an enemy out of him?”

Her father had no response to this.

After returning to the dock outside Cloud Pagoda City, Chen Ping’an discovered that not only was his boat still there, a pair of Cloud Pagoda City cultivators had been assigned with the task of guarding it. The fear here was most likely that if the boat were to be stolen, then Chen Ping’an could potentially fly into a rage and lay waste to the entire city.

Chen Ping’an thanked the pair of cultivators, then departed on his boat.

As the boat drifted away, his mind also began to drift, and he absentmindedly drew a circle in the air with his hand.

Chen Ping’an had no plans to visit any nearby islands for now, so he decided to return to Cyan Gorge Island. On the way back, he was met with the giant louchuan that had been sent to pick him up, and he leaped onto the louchuan, where Gu Can and Tan Xue were waiting for him.

“It’s only been a few days since I last saw you, but you’ve gotten thinner yet again,” Gu Can remarked in a concerned manner.

“How are things going on Palace Willow Island?” Chen Ping’an asked.

Gu Can rolled his eyes as he habitually tucked his hands up their opposite sleeves and replied, “It was all just a bunch of shouting, glaring, and empty threats, but that’s nothing new. The longest election of the ruler of the cultivation world in recent Bamboo Scroll Lake history dragged on for close to half a year.

“I heard that the island masters at the time were on the verge of building houses on Palace Willow Island to settle in for the long haul. The shortest election only lasted less than a month, but that was only because one of the island masters lost his patience and killed over twenty of the other island masters at the time in a fit of rage.

“A new ruler of the cultivation world was elected that very same day, and it was his wife, the only woman to have ever become the ruler of the cultivation world of Bamboo Scroll Lake.”

Chen Ping’an nodded in response.

“Did you see anything interesting on your trip?” Gu Can asked.

“I saw a line,” Chen Ping’an replied after some thought.

Gu Can and Tan Xue exchanged a perplexed look.

Gu Can decided not to ask questions as the answer would most likely be too difficult for him to comprehend anyway, and he changed the subject as he smiled and said, “The first letter by flying sword has already been received on Cyan Gorge Island, and it came from Cloud Drape Mountain back home.

“I’ve instructed the people in the sword chamber to look after the flying sword like their lives depend on it, and I can assure you that no one would dare to open your letter.”

Chen Ping’an forced a smile onto his face as he nodded and said, “The more peaceful things are on Palace Willow Island, the more you and Tan Xue have to be careful. I’m guessing that the Great Li Empire and the Luminous Vermilion Empire will have a secret showdown in Bamboo Scroll Lake.

“If such a scenario eventuates, I suggest you take a step back and remain a passive bystander. Whether Liu Zhimao will be able to become the ruler of the cultivation world or not isn’t something that can be decided by you and Tan Xue.”

Gu Can nodded firmly as he replied, “I’ll be sure to keep that in mind. I know what I’m doing, and I have a rough idea of which people I can kill and which powers I can’t afford to mess with. I’ll consider everything carefully before I make any moves.”

Tan Xue rubbed its belly, feeling a little hungry.

Meanwhile, Chen Ping’an turned his gaze back to the lake.

He didn’t know if he would ever get to see such a stunning piece of scenery again in this lifetime.