Unsheathed

“Good,” Ma Kuxuan said as he stood up and dusted off his hands. “In that case, I’ll go back on my word just this once. From now on, you will be an esteemed guest of mine anytime you decide to visit.”

After that, Ma Kuxuan began walking along the bank of the Dragon Whisker River, intentionally releasing his aura instead of continuing to conceal it. Before long, a clump of waterweeds appeared in the river, gently swaying in the water as if it were observing the young man on the riverbank.

The old woman, whose appearance had been rejuvenated, poked her head timidly out of the water, seemingly too afraid to approach Ma Kuxuan. River deities were incapable of shedding tears, but she was still habitually wiping at her cheeks.

This was the first time that Shudian had seen such a vibrant smile on Ma Kuxuan’s face, and it was also only now that she discovered that even someone as cold and heartless as him was capable of shedding tears.

On that day, Ma Kuxuan sat down at the riverbank beside the woman, who gently held onto his hands while speaking to him in a kind and gentle voice.

All Ma Kuxuan did for a long time was sit in silence. The woman’s physical appearance had become rather unfamiliar to him, but her all-too-familiar nagging felt very much like home.

His grandmother spoke to him about a bunch of trivial nonsense and also badmouthed a bunch of people who had wronged her, but in the end, she told him that he didn’t need to do anything for her sake.

After a long conversation, she instructed her grandson to wait for her for a moment while she made a trip back to her shabby underwater abode before returning with all of the assets that she had painstakingly accumulated. She set everything down between herself and Ma Kuxuan, then introduced the items to him one by one before asking him to take all of it with him.

She told him that this was the betrothal gift that she had saved up for her precious grandson, and she asked him if there were girls that he fancied. At the same time, she expressed her vehement disapproval of Zhi Gui, denouncing her as a toxic vixen who was not to be touched. Aside from her, she was willing to accept any other girl as her granddaughter-in-law.

Ma Kuxuan told her that he only had eyes for Zhi Gui.

The woman habitually raised a finger to give him a disapproving prod on the forehead, telling him that he was an incorrigible fool and that he deserved to suffer for refusing to heed the wisdom of his elders.

As the conversation continued, the woman began to cry, telling Ma Kuxuan about how much she had suffered in order to become a river guardian, and that if it weren’t for the thought that her death would leave her precious grandson all alone in the world, she truly wouldn’t have been able to endure the suffering.

Ma Kuxuan was also brought to the point of tears as he heaved a forlorn sigh.

The woman implored Ma Kuxuan to promise her something, but Ma Kuxuan reassured her that her concerns were unnecessary. He told her that if Chen Ping’an were to trace the leads back to the Ma Clan of Apricot Blossom Alley, then for each person that he dared to kill, Ma Kuxuan would kill two people that Chen Ping’an cared about the most.

However, the woman refused to accept this, insisting that Ma Kuxuan make her a promise. In her eyes, Ma Kuxuan’s parents were irreplaceable, and the loss of their lives was not something that he could make up for simply by returning the favor twice over to Chen Ping’an.

Ma Kuxuan refused to answer.

In the end, the woman pulled out her trump card, telling him that she would reject him as a grandson if he refused to comply.

Ma Kuxuan could only go along with her wishes, but deep down, he knew that the promise was an empty one. This was why he had gone to the Yang Family’s medicine shop instead of going to his parents after parting ways with his grandmother last time.

It was only after learning that his grandmother had to remain in the Dragon Whisker River that he had no choice but to change his mind, instructing his parents to sell their ancestral dragon kiln before moving away from the Dragon Spring Prefecture. Thus began the long journey away from home.

On the way here, Shudian noticed something rather strange.

For some reason, Ma Kuxuan didn’t seem to have had the best relationship with his parents. It wasn’t the type of distant aloofness often seen in lofty immortals. Instead, it felt like he had simply never developed much of a bond with them, even from a young age, and after he embarked on his cultivation journey, they had only grown even more distant over time.

As for his parents, they seemed to have been basking in some type of immense joy this entire time. It felt like they didn’t find their son’s cold demeanor toward them strange or disheartening at all. Instead, it was like this was the norm for them.

Among the two, Ma Kuxuan’s father was always dressed in rather lavish attire, and he seemed very capable and professional, like a shrewd businessman. As for his wife, she had a pair of peach blossom eyes, and her appearance wasn’t anything special. Whenever she gazed upon someone, there was always an air of coldness about her, even when she had a smile on her face.

On the way here, all of the people and spirits that had been foolish enough to get in their way had been killed.

On many occasions, it felt like Ma Kuxuan had intentionally chosen to take more treacherous and perilous routes in order to encounter more bandits and malicious spirits that he could kill as a means of venting his frustrations.

During this period, cultivators from her clan came to rescue her for the second time.

The first time, the founder of her sect had personally arrived with a group of disciples to confront Ma Kuxuan. There had been around a dozen of them, and they had all been killed by Ma Kuxuan as easily as if he were crushing a cluster of ants.

Prior to killing them, Ma Kuxuan made Shudian make her second choice between whether she wanted to live or if she wanted those who had come to save her to die.

If she answered incorrectly, then she had to die.

She had given the right answer, so those people had died in her place.

On this occasion, her senior brother, who was a prospective Dao partner candidate of hers, had led the rescue party, arriving with some of his friends from the cultivation world to try and save her.

Once again, Ma Kuxuan asked her to make a choice between life and death, and once again, she chose to live.

Thus, her senior brother and his friends were all killed right before her very eyes.

At the time, it had been pouring with rain, and Shudian had collapsed to the ground in a state of severe mental anguish as she loudly asked why Ma Kuxuan had denied her when she chose death the first time, only to then go along with her wishes on the two subsequent occasions.

Ma Kuxuan had been standing under the pelting rain, but his robe remained completely dry as he smiled and answered, “My goal from the very beginning was to make you suffer a fate worse than death. Is that so difficult to understand? What you don’t understand is why a supposed celestial maiden like you has to now sit in the mud and wail like a pitiful dog. Whenever you come to understand the nature of your situation, you’ll be able to let go of the past and lead a happy and carefree life.”

He then grabbed her by the head before throwing her onto the back of her horse.

“I will not tolerate any further disrespect from you, so make this the last time that you display insubordination to me. If you do this again, I will cut off your tongue.”

From there, the convoy continued onward through the rain.

It was a warm and pleasant day in late spring.

Ma Kuxuan was at the forefront of the convoy, swaying casually on the back of his steed, mentally going through a list of the cultivators of the Upper Five Tiers on the Eastern Treasured Vial Continent.

First, he thought of Imperial Preceptor Cui Chan of the Great Li Empire. In his eyes, Cui Chan was a brilliant and capable man.

Then there was the leading figure of that Mohist branch, who had been hiding in the capital of the Great Li Empire for all these years. He had managed to outlast the cultivator from the Naturalist Lu Clan, biding his time until the latter passed away, and that was a rather impressive feat in itself.

Ma Kuxuan had personally witnessed the so-called twelve mountain ships before. They were truly gargantuan ships that seemed to take up the entire sky, casting such enormous shadows onto everything beneath them that it felt as if the areas they loomed over had been plunged into the darkness of night. They were the fundamental reason why the Great Li Empire’s forces had been able to complete such a rapid southward expansion.

The construction of every single one of those giant ships had been like a large chunk of meat sliced off the body of the emperor and the imperial court of the Great Li Empire, and on top of that, the imperial Song Clan still owed the main branch of Mohism on the Middle Earth Divine Continent a huge debt, as well as the Commercialists and various other powerful figures on the Middle Earth Divine Continent.

The Great Li Empire’s forces had been desperately gathering spoils wherever they went during the course of their southward expansion in order to pay off these debts, but it was difficult to say how long that was going to take.

The wandering Mohist hero by the name of Xu Ruo was not to be underestimated.

Heavenly Lord Xie Shi of the Northern Complete Reed Continent had already departed. There would’ve been no point for him to continue to remain on the Eastern Treasured Vial Continent, and apparently, he had a crisis to attend to back home, so he would’ve been made a laughingstock had he not returned to the Northern Complete Reed Continent when he did.

As for the rest of them, their existence didn’t really seem to matter at all. If they died, then their spiritual energy would return to heaven and earth, and while they lived, they were stingy misers who only knew how to take from the world and never gave anything back.

Heavenly Lord Qi Zhen of the Divine Edict Sect couldn’t even keep a disciple as blessed by fortune as He Xiaoliang. Even in the worst-case scenario, surely he could’ve broken all of her limbs and imprisoned her just to ensure that her fortune remained in the sect.

The lower sect of the Jade Tablet Sect, the True Realm Sect, had just conquered Bamboo Scroll Lake and was at the height of its powers. Despite this, Sect Leader Jiang Shangzhen was taking a very shrewd approach by willingly placing himself and his sect below others.

Whenever the disciples of his sect got into conflicts with others, he was always ready to admit fault regardless of the reason for the conflict, and the disciple would be punished accordingly. On many occasions, he took the initiative to offer up the heads of the offending disciples to the conflicting factions, and in doing so, he had spared the sect a great deal of trouble.

Liu Laocheng of Palace Willow Island was an Unpolished Jade Tier cultivator, and Liu Zhimao had also recently made a breakthrough, becoming the second vagrant cultivator of the Upper Five Tiers. Of course, he was now technically an official immortal of the True Realm Sect.

The old ancestor of the Wind Snow Temple, with the childlike appearance, hadn’t left his sect for the past several centuries, but he had made an appearance during the conflict between Sun Scorch Mountain and the Wind Lightning Field.

The female cultivator of True Martial Mountain had been even more reclusive than the old ancestor of True Martial Mountain, but her many disciples had been very active in the border forces of the Great Li Empire.

There was also the leader of the Cloud Forest Jiang Clan, as well as the first-ever deity of the Upper Five Tiers in the history of the Eastern Treasured Vial Continent, Wei Bo of Cloud Drape Mountain.

The Upper Five Tiers swordsman of the Luminous Vermilion Empire was yet to make an appearance, and it was unclear whether he had died in seclusion or was biding his time in preparation to make a return in the future.

As for the storyteller from the Great Sui Nation, he was currently a prisoner on Cloud Drape Mountain, protecting the prince of the Gao Clan. Ma Kuxuan didn’t want to speak of the old storyteller, but objectively speaking, what did he have left aside from his Unpolished Jade Tier cultivation base?

Finally, Ma Kuxuan thought of Chen Ping’an, and he opened his eyes as he interlaced his fingers with a contemplative look on his face.

It was funny to him that all those of a similar age to himself that he had encountered since leaving the small town felt so inept. Even after traveling so far away from home, this hometown rival of his remained the only opponent that was capable of evoking some interest in him.

He wondered if he would have to go all-out in their next clash.

The answer is probably still no.

With that, he lost interest, and he closed his eyes again and began thinking of the top prodigies on the Middle Earth Divine Continent.

As for the maidservant behind him, there would come a day when she came to realize that she no longer desired vengeance. Instead, she would earnestly wish to remain by Ma Kuxuan’s side, realizing that it would be the only safe refuge for her in the world.

Once that time came, it would be about time for her to die.

Ma Kuxuan would spare a part of her soul and her memories, then use a long-lost secret technique that even the old ancestors of True Martial Mountain couldn’t master to find her incarnation in her next life.

Once the time was right, he would return her memories to her, making it so that she would be tormented lifetime after lifetime with no hope of ever breaking out of the dreadful cycle. Lifetime after lifetime, she would be reincarnated as a human, only to be made to wish that she had never been born.

If Chen Ping’an dared to come after him for vengeance, then he would suffer an even worse fate than her.

However, he wasn’t going to do anything before Chen Ping’an came to seek out revenge. After all, the Ma Clan was at fault in their initial conflict.

Ma Kuxuan was certainly no saint, but he was also not so depraved that he would go around killing those who didn’t deserve death. However, there was no lack of people in this world who went out seeking death, and if he ran into such individuals, then he would gladly send them on

***

On Downtrodden Mountain, Pei Qian had woken up bright and early and packed up all of her belongings. She was about to go on a long journey!

The day before, Cui Cheng had told her, “Grab your little bamboo bookcase and hiking pole, we’re going back to your hometown. Don’t worry, just treat it like a sightseeing trip with me. Your training can come later.”

At the time, Pei Qian had barged onto the second floor of the bamboo building, determined to provoke Cui Cheng into giving her another beating as she yelled, “What’s going on today, Old Man Cui? Are you feeling feeble because you didn’t have enough to eat?”

She was going to be beaten anyway, so she may as well talk some trash while she was at it.

However, to her surprise, Cui Cheng had invited her on this sightseeing trip instead of administering her usual beating.

Pei Qian was rather taken aback by this, and she replied, “Even though the old cook is gone, we still have Nuanshu cooking for us, don’t we? Besides, it’s not like I took your bowl of rice at the table earlier!”

Cui Cheng was almost unable to suppress the urge to give her another solid beating.

Recently, Cui Cheng would often come down from the second floor of the bamboo building, and he would also join everyone to eat at the table.

“Scram!” Cui Cheng snapped.

Pei Qian’s eyes began darting around frantically, and only after stalling for a long while did she finally swagger her way out of the bamboo building.

Standing in the walkway, she placed her hands on her hips as she yelled, “Zhou Mili!”

Zhou Mili was sitting beside the staircase on the first floor, and she immediately rushed over to the foot of the bamboo building before asking, “How come I didn’t hear you howling in pain today?”

“What do you think?” Pei Qian sneered as she crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow. “Once you enter the second floor, there’s only one way you could possibly return unscathed!”

Zhou Mili’s face puckered up in a thoughtful manner as several options raced through her mind, and she asked, “Did we spike his rice with laxatives? How come I don’t know about this? Did you assign the task of spiking his food to Nuanshu? But that doesn’t make sense! Such a task should be left to me, the right-hand guardian of Downtrodden Mountain!”