Unsheathed

The canal master’s expression was adrift as she looked toward the back wall of the shrine, and she shook her head slightly before saying with a sullen expression and a quivering voice, “Esteemed Immortal, did you truly just kill Du Yu?”

Chen Ping’an thought for a moment before replying with a smile, “He’s half dead, and I’ve imprisoned his soul. The Ghost Axe Palace is a large immortal force, and Du Yu’s parents are also powerful Dao partners in the mountains according to you. That being the case, how can I dare to disrespect Du Yu? I’m simply giving him some minor punishment.”

The canal master was unable to stand still, and she surprisingly collapsed to the ground on her backside, with her colorful embroidered dress appearing like a dazzling peony blooming on the ground.

The young man standing in front of her had a sweet tongue, but his heart and mind were actually crawling with venomous snakes and scorpions! Even though he looked young, he was definitely an old monster who had already been cultivating in the mountains for countless years. He was a lofty immortal who acted viciously and ruthlessly with a kindly smile on his face!

Chen Ping’an flicked his sleeves, causing the dust on his clothes to immediately disperse into the surroundings and his azure robe to become spotless again. He directly walked through the split in the divine altar, and as he walked past the young man who was playing dead beside the campfire, he smiled and said, “Hurry up and wipe away your drool. Then continue to play dead.”

The young man hurriedly obeyed his instructions.

Chen Ping’an sat on the door threshold of the shrine and looked at the canal master and her two maidservants as he grabbed his Sword Nurturing Gourd and took a swig of yin energy water from the deep stream of Treasure Mirror Mountain.

There was once a city god called Shen Wen in the Eastern Treasured Vial Continent, a water goddess of the Burial River in the Parasol Leaf Continent, the canal master, the lake lord of Verdant Bamboo Lake, and the city god of Imperial Accompanying City in the Northern Complete Reed Continent.

Chen Ping’an had indeed used a secret mystical ability to imprison Du Yu’s soul, and he hadn’t been making things up to purposely frighten the female canal master.

This wasn’t some elementary immortal technique from the mountain, and it was something that he had obtained from Liu Zhimao, Bamboo Scroll Lake’s River Severing True Lord, during his second transaction with him. This was a very high-grade technique, and it required a huge expenditure of spiritual energy to use. Right now, the accumulated spiritual energy in Chen Ping’an’s water palace — most importantly, the spiritual energy in his water element bonded item, the water seal hovering in his water palace — had almost been completely exhausted of the water fortune essence that he had slowly accumulated and condensed over time.

Chen Ping’an wouldn’t dare to use an internal observation technique to travel to his water palace in the short term. He was afraid to see the aggrieved and indignant expressions of the little children in green.

Chen Ping’an retrieved a snow-white Militarian armor pellet from his sleeve, as well as a vermilion alchemical pill that had a dense array of talismanic symbols inscribed on its surface. This was what the Ghost Axe Palace’s Du Yu had wanted to do just then — launch a sneak attack on Chen Ping’an using these treasures. The alchemical pill was refined from the internal core of a demon, and its effects were similar to those used by the assassins who had surrounded Mao Xiaodong in the capital of the Great Sui Nation back then.

However, those alchemical pills had been refined from legitimate golden cores, while the alchemical pill in Chen Ping’an’s hand right now was far inferior. This alchemical pill was most likely refined from the internal core of a Sea Observation Tier demon. As for the Militarian armor pellet, it was clear that Du Yu hadn’t wanted to suffer severe wounds along with his opponent, so he had wanted to use this Divine Dewbearing Armor to block the destructive power of the exploding alchemical pill.

Du Yu’s plan had been very good.

Chen Ping’an had indeed felt slightly uneasy when hearing about the tragic events that had taken place in Imperial Accompanying City in the past, but he had still kept an eye on Du Yu as well as the expressions of the two maidservants.

However, Chen Ping’an had become slightly adrift for a moment, and Du Yu had seized this opportunity to make a move.

Unfortunately for him, the subtle ripple of his aura had caused some crushed rocks near the wall to send up a very small cloud of dust. The canal master might have failed to detect this, but to Chen Ping’an whose fist intent was free flowing like water as if he were being assisted by a deity, the small cloud of dust had been like rumbling thunder.

After all, only the fists of the tenth tier martial artist in Downtrodden Mountain’s bamboo building were truly silent until they exploded like thunder. Because of this, there were many times when Chen Ping’an would need to guess or gamble to… avoid being hit too hard. It was impossible to block Cui Cheng’s fists, even if he suppressed his fist intent to the Far Roaming Tier. Moreover, even when Chen Ping’an had been training with Martial Arts Maniac Zhu Lian, Cui Cheng had forced the hunchbacked old man to beat Chen Ping’an half dead. As such, his fist attacks had been extremely wild and chaotic.

To put things simply, Du Yu’s cultivation base was still very lacking.

This was similar to how Chen Ping’an’s treasure had been coveted by Malicious Ghost Valley’s Gao Cheng back then, so his only option had been to flee without any hesitation.

If Du Yu hadn’t attempted to turn the tables and had chosen to directly flee after regaining consciousness, Chen Ping’an would have still blocked him from escaping anyway. However, Chen Ping’an definitely wouldn’t have gone as far as to kill him and imprison his soul.

Chen Ping’an put the vermilion alchemical pill, one of Du Yu’s life-saving trump cards, inside his sleeve. He held the snow-white armor pellet in his hand and slowly rolled it around, looking toward the canal master and saying, “I said before that you should tell me everything that you know. You also said that you wouldn’t actively seek death anymore.”

Still sitting on the ground, there was an expression of deep grief on the canal master’s face as she said in tragic misery, “Esteemed Immortal, I’m genuinely not hiding anything from you. Perhaps you’ll only be happy once you unjustly kill me?”

She threw her body to the ground and rested her face on her arms, lying down and refusing to stand up as she trembled in a pitiful manner and sobbed, “Just what sin did I commit to be unjustly treated by Esteemed Immortal like this?”

Chen Ping’an stood up, causing the canal master to immediately fall silent.

In the next moment, Chen Ping’an squatted down beside the canal master and placed a hand on her head, pushing down forcefully and making her suffer a similar fate to Du Yu. She was knocked unconscious with half of her head embedded in the ground.

The two maidservants were terrified, and they immediately turned around to flee. However, Chen Ping’an flicked his sleeve and struck one of them in the back with his astral energy, causing her slender body to slam into the wall and render her unconscious.

Only a trembling maidservant remained conscious, and it was as if she had been frozen still by an immortal technique after taking just a single step. She didn’t dare to move at all.

Chen Ping’an turned around and sat on the steps, saying, “You’re a bit more honest than your sister who has failed to master the skill of smashing through walls. The expressions in your eyes revealed a lot of information to me when the canal master was explaining some details just then, so why don’t you repeat the explanations to me and treat this as an exercise in filling in the gaps for your master?

“Regardless of whether you believe me or not, I’ll repeat this one more time. There’s no bad blood between me and the three of you, and killing the water deity of an area will cause me to attract karmic fate even if the water deity is only a follower or a subordinate.”

The maidservant wasn’t stupid, and she said through sobs, “Lady Canal Master respectfully referred to Young Master as Great Esteemed Immortal just then, but why do I feel like Young Master appears more like a pure martial artist? Du Yu also said that Young Master is a martial arts grandmaster just then. Martial artists won’t attract karmic fate when they kill deities.”

Chen Ping’an chuckled in speechlessness and patted his Sword Nurturing Gourd, causing Fifteenth to fly out and circle in the air like a sparrow flying around a tree. In the darkness of night, a streak of green sword light rapidly dashed around Chen Ping’an.

The maidservant was astounded, and she exclaimed, “Sure enough, Young Master is actually a sword immortal!”

It was said that the paramount lake lord of Verdant Bamboo Lake was most afraid of these sword immortals who could behead people with their flying swords!

“If you say so,” Chen Ping’an smiled and said.

The maidservant was extremely hesitant, and the look of pain and grief on her face was completely different from the look of immense pity on the canal master’s face just then. These were her true feelings.

If she revealed the secrets tonight, then judging by the canal master’s fondness for being suspicious and the lake lord’s violent temperament, would she not suffer the fate of death when she returned?

Casting one’s gaze over the one lake, three rivers, and two canals that were ruled over by the lake lord, there were so many of her sisters who had suffered the fate of having their souls being dragged out and transformed into burning water lamps because of some trivial matters that had angered the lake lord.

In fact, there were more victims than she could count on two hands. Only when the water lamps burned up the final drop of essence soul oil would the souls of her sisters be freed from the sea of agony. However, they would also be stripped of the ability to reincarnate.

Chen Ping’an had initially wanted to mention some related matters and subtly reveal some of his plans for afterward in order to make her feel more comfortable, but he ultimately said just a single word: “Speak.”

The maidservant shuddered in fright, no longer daring to think that she could get off without speaking the truth. She blurted out everything that she knew, including her own speculations of what had taken place. She revealed everything to the young sword immortal.

The lake lord of Verdant Bamboo Lake was one of the few high-ranking water gods of the Silver Screen Nation, and he could enjoy an equal standing even when he met with the several formal gods of the mountains. As such, he had always looked down on the city god temple of Imperial Accompanying City, and he especially looked down on the deity honored in the fire god shrine.

This deity had once had a disagreement with the canal master and fought with her, and the lake lord had almost threatened to unleash the lake water to drown Imperial Accompanying City, wanting to force the deity of the fire god shrine to step forward and kowtow in apology in front of the entire prefectural city.

Afterward, it was a white-haired sword immortal who had been passing through the area who had mediated the situation and calmed both parties down, resolving the conflict between them. However, the lake lord’s resentment toward Imperial Accompanying City had grown even stronger. When the prefectural overseer sent a secret letter to his good friend in the capital, the city god temple had been completely oblivious to the matter, but the lake lord had seen everything very clearly.

The lake lord had secretly instructed the canal master of Algae Stream to stop the messenger, and after learning of the contents of the letter, he had handed the canal master a jade seal that could allow deities to leave their jurisdiction and venture far away. The lake lord had ordered the female canal master of Algae Stream to accompany the messenger to the capital of the Silver Screen Nation.

Upon hearing this, Chen Ping’an asked, “How is the relationship between the fire god shrine and the city god temple?”

“Their relationship is quite ordinary,” the maidservant replied. “The fire god shrine is theoretically a slightly lower grade than the city god temple, but the deity of the shrine isn’t very fond of interacting with the city god temple. Because of this, the fire god and the city god almost never appear together at the banquets held by the immortal forces in the mountains.”

“And what’s the lake lord’s attitude toward the city god temple?” Chen Ping’an asked.

“The lake lord holds the city god in very low regard, and when Lady Canal Master occassionally gets drunk at the dragon palace at the bottom of the lake, she’ll reveal some of her conversations to me and my sister when she returns to the private residence,” the maidservant replied in a soft voice. “She said that the lake lord jokes about the city god being a bumpkin who loved to plagiarize the poems of relatively unknown scholars and literati when he was alive. He would then spend huge amounts of money to build his fame and reputation.

“Even though the Silver Screen Nation has appointed him as a city god, he’s someone who only cares about his fame and reputation and has no talent in governance. He spends his time composing poems and enjoying scenery, and he refers to himself as the Moon Appreciating Spiritual Master. He also likes to delegate his work to other people, but he has no talent in managing his subordinates, so the current calamity befalling Imperial Accompanying City isn’t a natural disaster at all. Rather, it’s clearly a man-made disaster.

“Despite all of this, Verdant Bamboo Lake and the city god temple have a neutral relationship on the surface, and the city god often brings royals, officials, and nobles sightseeing outside the capital to the dragon palace at the bottom of the lake to broaden their horizons. There are a dozen or so beautiful maidservants in the residence at the bottom of the lake, and all of them are extremely seductive and charming, allowing the esteemed guests to arrive with high spirits and depart with complete satisfaction.”

“The city god temple has committed wrongdoings again and again, leading to the huge calamity today,” Chen Ping’an said. “The fire god shrine will naturally be affected as well, so I dare say that the lake lord of Verdant Bamboo Lake is actually happy to see this happen.”

The maidservant fell silent for a moment, after which she smiled bitterly and said, “The lake lord is the paramount water deity of the nation, so how can a lowly maidservant like me guess the profound thoughts in his mind?”

Chen Ping’an nodded in response and put the armor pellet back inside his sleeve. He then gently flicked a finger and caused the maidservant to fall backward to the ground, unconscious.

After doing this, he waved his sleeve and summoned the maidservant who was embedded in the wall. She flew over as if she were being dragged by someone, and she eventually tumbled along the ground and slowly regained consciousness. She had a splitting headache, and it was as if her entire body were about to fall apart.

“The measly maidservant had scrambled eggs for brains, and I wasn’t able to extract any useful information from her at all. You look a bit smarter, so why don’t you explain the situation to me?” Chen Ping’an asked.

The maidservant wanted to fall to her knees and kowtow to beg for her life, but Chen Ping’an flicked his finger with relatively minimal force. Even so, the maidservant was still sent flying backward like a broken kite, directly flying out of the entrance of the water immortal shrine. Chen Ping’an reached forward and made a grabbing motion, dragging her back before holding her up by the neck. He looked into her eyes, and the maidservant was utterly petrified when she locked gazes with Chen Ping’an. Her face became purple, and she started to whimper as if she had something to say.

Chen Ping’an casually tossed her to the courtyard ground, and the maidservant collapsed in a heap before taking a deep breath and standing up. She turned around to look at the canal master, and there was a complicated look of gratitude, attachment, and displeasure in her eyes.

In the end, she put on a stern expression and viciously spat at the young immortal who was purposely acting mysterious, saying with a cold chuckle, “I’ve finished my explanation!”

Chen Ping’an simply extended a hand to swat away the spit, with his expression calm as he sat down on the steps and gently put down his verdant green hiking pole.

Chen Ping’an flicked his finger again and knocked the second maidservant unconscious.