Unsheathed

Fan Dache was still unable to overcome the barrier of the Dragon Gate Tier and become a Golden Core Tier cultivator.

No matter how much wine Fan Dache drank, with him treating the others every time, he was still unable to become as thick-skinned and shameless as the second shopkeeper. He couldn’t help but feel guilty, thinking that he had let down the Ning Residence’s training ground and that he had wasted everyone’s time by having them practice with him. Thus, Fan Dache would always be the one treating the others when they drank wine together. This was nothing, and even if Fan Dache weren’t present, it would be enough as long as his money was present.

Whenever they drank at Die Zhang’s wine shop, the cost would always be counted toward Fan Dache’s tab. Among the group of friends, Dong Huafu visited and drank the most. Fan Dache had felt slightly confused in the beginning: Since when did the wine shop allow people to drink on credit? The answer was finally revealed to him when he asked, and as it turned out, Chen Sanqiu had made the decision to help him place a lesser heat coin at the wine shop.

Fan Dache followed up by asking how much of the lesser heat coin was remaining, and it probably would have been better for him not to ask. A sense of grief immediately welled up inside him, and he immediately asked for several pots of Azure Divine Mountain Wine in a rare display. He decided to drink until he was completely drunk.

The two young boys who had become employees of the wine shop — Spirit Rhino Alley’s Zhang Jiazhen and Raincoat Alley’s Jiang Qu — had now become friends who spoke about everything under the sun. During their private conversations, they had revealed to each other that their dreams weren’t very grand.

The storyteller on the small stool appeared less and less, so the children in the nearby streets and alleys naturally enjoyed fewer and fewer fantastical stories.

Feng Kangle, the little boy who had some savings in his ceramic pot and whose father made yangchun noodles in the wine shop, felt like he couldn’t allow things to continue on like this. Even if the stories were bad, they were still stories, after all. If worse came to worst, then he would directly pay the storyteller to tell them stories.

And if one copper coin wasn’t enough? Well, his father was making a lot of money now, so he could occasionally toss Feng Kangle two or three copper coins. After one year at most, Feng Kangle’s ceramic pot would presumably struggle to house any more copper coins.

Thus, feeling rich and brave, Feng Kangle mustered his courage and secretly ran to the street where the Ning Residence was located with his ceramic pot, a street that he had never visited before. However, he still didn’t dare to knock on the front gate after pacing back and forth for a long time. The gate was too large, and the child was too small, and Feng Kangle felt like the people inside wouldn’t be able to hear him even if he knocked as hard as he could.

When the storyteller had sat on the small stool, Feng Kangle, the first child to approach and speak to him, hadn’t felt afraid at all. Now that the storyteller was hiding behind the tall walls of the Ning Residence, however, the little boy immediately started to feel apprehensive. He squatted at the foot of the wall and basked in the sun for several hours, and before the sky became dark, he took his leave from the street where the bluestone slabs could almost be used as mirrors.

The soles of his shoes would squeak whenever he twisted his feet, and Feng Kangle would entertain himself this way every once in a while. He didn’t dare to do this too much, lest he disturb anyone and receive a beating. However, he immediately stopped when he reached the muddy dirt road of the alley where his home was located. His dad wouldn’t care if his shoes became dirty, but his mom would care! Would it be fun for his bum to burn with pain?

There were many times when his mom would start to cry as she hit him, while his father would always squat beside the door and remain silent. Feng Kangle would feel extremely aggrieved at those moments. He was the one hurting, so what was with his parents’ reaction? How were his parents even more unreasonable than him, a little child?

Feng Kangle walked onto the alley, where there was a decent number of children waiting expectantly for the good news. They were hopeful that they could once again listen to those stories set in faraway lands for free.

The little boy was facing an awkward situation, especially since he couldn’t reveal his cowardly nature and tell the others that he had only seen the large gates of the residence but not the storyteller inside.

Thus, he apologized to the storyteller in his mind before acting heartbroken and explaining how the second shopkeeper was far too miserly, and how he had complained about there not being enough copper coins in the ceramic pot. He wasn’t willing to tell stories now, and he cared more about money than his own conscience. The children started to scold and curse the storyteller with Feng Kangle, and in the end, the children wound up feeling more disappointed than angry.

After all, the storyteller hadn’t finished telling the previous story yet, pausing it at the moment when the mountain god was forcing a maiden to marry him, and when a scholar was beating the drums outside the city god pavilion to voice this injustice.

He needed to at least finish telling this story, no? Did that scholar end up saving the pitiful maiden whom he loved? Was the second shopkeeper not afraid of the scholar incessantly beating the drum during the pause in the story, all the way until the drum outside the city god pavilion broke?

The little girl, who didn’t look very adorable but always brought enough roasted seeds, was the most disappointed out of all the children. This was because after the storyteller ate more and more of her roasted seeds, she was even able to play the role of the lady on the sedan chair when the children played house now. Feng Kangle and the others would form a so-called sedan chair with their arms, and she would sit on top and sway back and forth.

However, with the storyteller not appearing with his small stool and bamboo stick for a long time, this esteemed role was once again given to the little girl whom Feng Kangle and the others liked. As a result, she was relegated back to the role of playing the lady’s maidservant.

In any case, the storyteller had secretly promised her that he would be on her side the next time they had a snowball fight, so why was he going back on his word? She had spent a great deal of effort to persuade her parents to buy more roasted seeds, and if they couldn’t bring themselves to eat these roasted seeds, then they could leave them until the New Year. However, the New Year didn’t appear to be different or special in their hometown.

This was in stark contrast to the festive New Year atmosphere that the storyteller recounted about his hometown, where the children would wear new clothes and receive red pockets from their parents. Each house would also put up door gods and couplets, cooking up an entire table of scrumptious dishes.

Each time he finished telling a story or a small chapter of a story, the second shopkeeper, who liked to scare the children with anecdotes about gods and monsters but wasn’t afraid himself, would also offer some remarks unrelated to the stories that the children would almost certainly not pay any attention to.

For example, he would talk about the good points of the Sword Qi Great Wall, such as how people could drink together with sword immortals, and turning around, they could see the sword immortals crunching down on pickled vegetables or slurping yangchun noodles. This was a very rare opportunity. Indeed, these kinds of scenes couldn’t be seen anywhere else in the Majestic World, not even if one was willing to pay exorbitant amounts of money.

The storyteller would also say that no matter how many places one visited and passed by, and regardless of whether these places were better than one’s hometown or not, one would ultimately only have a single hometown. This hometown was the place that people would think of the most. However, it was a shame that the children would quickly disperse once the storytelling session was over, with none of them liking to listen to these remarks.

These were the smallest and most trivial matters in the world, and the small alleys where the children lived couldn’t hold too much. As such, these trivial matters would quickly disappear when the wind blew or the rain fell. Even the children couldn’t remember these matters, to say nothing of anyone else.

These matters ultimately weren’t the same as the stories told by Chen Ping’an, where even the mountain spirits and water monsters responsible for carrying the sedan chairs would be given a name. He would further talk about their clothes and appearances, giving them opportunities to appear more in the story. In fact, Chen Ping’an would even talk about the origin of the pickled vegetables and describe how they were incredibly crispy. The children would drool when they listened to this, especially since those at the Sword Qi Great Wall didn’t celebrate the New Year, but they would still have to shudder through the incredibly cold winters that froze their hands and feet.

————

The Sword Qi Great Wall sat on the border of the Savage World, and over at the city wall, the sea of clouds appeared like layered steps carved out by drunken craftsmen. Here, the words and actions of sword immortals were almost all significant matters.

Of course, some matters indeed couldn’t be regarded as significant, such as Sword Immortal Zhou Cheng rocking back and forth on the swing year after year, Mi Yu not caring about day or night as he slept on a large bed of iridescent clouds, and the two enemies, Zhao Geyi and Cheng Quan, spitting at each other after they drank wine.

Including those from the Great Emblem Sword Sect, many sword cultivators from the large immortal forces were already preparing to leave the Sword Qi Great Wall in waves. Regarding this, the elderly sword immortals and the large clans of the Sword Qi Great Wall — such as the Chen Clan, the Dong Clan, and the Qi Clan — didn’t have any objections.

After all, it was already more than enough help that they had participated in one large-scale battle alongside the local sword cultivators of the Sword Qi Great Wall. Afterward, it was only because the subsequent large-scale battle had broken out so soon that the return journey of many outsider sword cultivators had been delayed.

Someone had once joked that relationships built with sword immortals from the Sword Qi Great Wall were the most useless relationships in the world. However, this couldn’t be taken seriously, and anyone who did take it seriously would be an absolute fool. Moreover, the person who uttered this remark wasn’t necessarily the one who killed the most demons, but he was definitely the one who killed the most powerful demons. Otherwise, how could he have inscribed the newest colossal character on the great wall?

There was the greatest number of outsider sword cultivators from the Northern Complete Reed Continent, but not all of them returned home to the Majestic World, with some such as the sect leader of the Great Emblem Sword Sect choosing to remain at the Sword Qi Great Wall. There were several other sword immortals from the Northern Complete Reed Continent who chose to stay, with all of them being relatively older cultivators with higher cultivation bases. Meanwhile, those who left were all relatively young.

Of course, there were also some who traveled to the Sword Qi Great Wall alone, such as Duckweed Sword Lake’s Li Cai, the Southern Whirl Continent’s Sword Immortal Yuan Qingshu, and so on. Apart from these sword immortals, many earth immortals and sword cultivators from other immortal forces of the nine continents also decided to stay.

Die Zhang’s wine shop grew bigger and bigger, eventually purchasing the two neighboring shops and gaining two additional walls for customers to hang their safety tablets.

Thus, sword cultivators from the Northern Complete Reed Continent, especially the disciples of the Great Emblem Sword Sect, were able to leave their names and comments in the wine shop. Whenever they visited the wine shop to drink, they would often drag along the local sword cultivators with whom they had fought side by side in the two large-scale battles, eventually creating a new trend in the wine shop.

The outsider sword cultivators and local sword cultivators who had life and death relationships would inscribe characters on the two sides of one safety tablet, with some politely offering auspicious words, some cursing in an uncouth manner, and some leaving behind drunken remarks. There were also some who directly copied phrases from the Seal Manual of the Two Hundred Sword Immortals or the folding fans, and all kinds of other strange and wonderful remarks were left on the safety tablets.

On one of the safety tablets, a young Golden Core Tier cultivator who was the direct disciple of some sect leader in the Circling Ascension Continent had inscribed his name on the front surface and also written: I’ve looked through all of the safety tablets, so dare I say, what does it matter if the sword skills of those from the Majestic World are inferior to those from the Sword Qi Great Wall? Our writing is a great deal better!

On the backside, a Nascent Tier sword cultivator from the Sword Qi Great Wall had written his name along with a comment. His name was relatively straight and proper, but the remaining characters quickly deteriorated into a crooked mess, reading: Your handwriting is poor, just as poor as the second shopkeeper’s skill in selling wine. We won’t complain even if a dozen more of you come to the Sword Qi Great Wall.

Zuo You was currently discussing some sword technique comprehensions with Wei Jin, and the latter was just about to stand up and take his leave when the old great sword immortal appeared.

Chen Qingdu waved a hand and said, ”You can stay here. In my eyes, the sword skills of you two are around the same level.”

Wei Jin smiled bitterly upon hearing this.

Even if the old great sword immortal wanted Senior Zuo You to feel ambitious and motivated again, there was no need to drag him into the equation, was there?

Chen Qingdu didn’t beat around the bush, and he said frankly, ”I actually have a request to make. In fact, it’s not exactly right to call this a request, as one is an order from your master, and one is an expectation of mine. It’s up to the two of you whether you listen or not, and it’s up to my sword how I respond afterward.”

Wei Jin felt very helpless.

There was clearly no room for discussion, at least not for him. It was temporarily unknown how Senior Zuo You would respond.

”Why didn’t Master tell me himself?” Zuo You asked.

Chen Qingdu smiled and replied, ”What’s the point of a master uttering words that his disciple won’t listen to? If I heard this, then wouldn’t the most reasonable old scholar in the Majestic World turn into someone who couldn’t discipline his own student?”

”It’s indeed the case that I’ve caused Master to worry,” Zuo You conceded.

Singing praises of the old scholar was quite effective when it came to dealing with Zuo You. In fact, it was the only effective method, and the most effective method.

Chen Qingdu then turned to Wei Jin and said, ”Wei Jin, you might not be convinced and willing if I try to persuade you now, so you can listen to my words after you participate in another large-scale battle. You’ll have three places to choose from after you leave the Sword Qi Great Wall: the Southern Whirl Continent, the Circling Ascension Continent, and the Golden Armor Continent. You can treat this as a holiday.

”Wei Jin from the Eastern Treasured Vial Continent’s Wind Snow Temple shouldn’t be a lovestruck and heartbroken man, and in any case, will it make much of a difference where you’re feeling heartbroken? There’s no need to stay at the Sword Qi Great Wall, and it’s not like the lady whom you love can see you if you’re too far away.”

The old great sword immortal chuckled and continued, ”I’m naturally speaking to you in such a blunt manner because your sword skills are even poorer than those of Zuo You. So, remember to practice the sword more when you leave the Sword Qi Great Wall in the future. Once your sword skills improve, at least to the same level as Zuo You, then I won’t be as pushy the next time.”

Wei Jin smiled bitterly and asked, ”Is this the only option, Old Great Sword Immortal?”

”Why are you asking me? Go and ask your sword,” Chen Qingdu tilted his chin and replied.

Wei Jin felt even more helpless.

The old great sword immortal didn’t stop Wei Jin from leaving this time.

Only the two individuals with lofty sword skills remained.

”Your junior brother didn’t agree to lighting a bonded candle, but he engaged in a small transaction with me. When he enters the battlefield in the future, I’ll either save him once, or I’ll save a person he wants to save once,” Chen Qingdu revealed.

He then smiled and continued, ”He who is afraid of death suddenly isn’t afraid of death, and the normally taciturn Zuo You is surprisingly saying so much. Just what are the disciples belonging to the scholarly lineage thinking?”

”It’s actually very easy to find out,” Zuo You replied.

Chen Qingdu could naturally find out if he became a disciple of the scholarly lineage.

Chen Qingdu chuckled and said, ”I suggest that you don’t speak your thoughts out loud. Your juniors are still at the Sword Qi Great Wall, so it would be quite bad for their senior, whom they view as invincible, to be beaten black and blue.”

It wasn’t that Zuo You didn’t care about the old great sword immortal’s veiled threat, but there was simply a more important matter that he cared about right now. ”What should be done if he comes?” Zuo You asked.

Chen Qingdu held one hand behind his back and stroked his beard with his other hand, after which he ran his hand through his hair and replied, ”Our doors are wide open, and we’ll entertain our guest for as long as he’s willing to stay. When facing enemies, sword immortals will only complain about there not being enough great demons to kill. Do you not understand even this?”

Zuo You nodded and said, ”That makes sense.”

”Oh? You finally want to unleash your blade for your own sake?” Chen Qingdu asked in amusement.

”Those belonging to the scholarly lineage only speak reason and don’t make nonsensical boasts, and as the first senior brother, I’ll let the others know that my title as the most skilled swordsman in the Majestic World isn’t an exaggeration, but instead underselling me,” Zuo You said.

”You still want a loftier title?” Chen Qingdu asked with a smile. ”How lofty should it be? Perhaps you want to stand on your tippy-toes and crane your neck to reach my shoulder?”

”Chen Qingdu, let’s create an isolated space and have a fight,” Zuo You said.

Chen Qingdu clasped his hands behind his back and walked away.

Zuo You closed his eyes and continued to nurture his mind and his sword intent.

The next large-scale battle would be most suitable for unleashing the full power of his sword.

Extremely far away in the distance, Sword Immortal Zhou Cheng was still rocking back and forth on the swing, humming a difficult-to-understand song from some foreign land.

This was a song that a young outsider had taught her many, many years ago, when she was still a young girl. In fact, he hadn’t technically taught her, but he had liked to sit near the swing and hum the song to himself. Zhou Cheng hadn’t liked the song back then, and she most definitely hadn’t wanted to learn it. There hadn’t even been enough time to practice sword techniques, so would there have been enough time to learn these useless things?

Afterward, Zhou Cheng had heard about the notion of vagrant cultivators for the first time, and the young cultivator had also explained his reason for coming here, saying that he wanted to take a look at the hometown in his heart. He didn’t have any feelings for it, but he simply wanted to come here to take a look.

Great Sword Immortal Lu Zhi walked over to the swing and grabbed one of the ropes, gently rocking it back and forth.

Zhou Cheng didn’t turn around, and she asked in a soft voice, ”Big Sister Lu, someone was willing to risk their life to come here and look at the hometown in their heart, so why aren’t you willing to go and look at the hometown in your heart? You won’t die, and you’ve also accumulated so much military merit, in any case, and the old great sword immortal agreed a long time ago that he wouldn’t stop you as long as you had enough military merit.”

Lu Zhi was a slender woman who appeared slightly skinny, with her cheeks subtly sunken in. However, her skin was pale and her forehead was especially smooth and shiny, almost as if it had accumulated the soft moonlight for many years.

She couldn’t be regarded as beautiful, but as she quietly stood beside the swing, her aura was similar to that of Zuo You’s given that he didn’t suppress his sword qi.

Lu Zhi shook her head and replied, ”The reason we made that agreement was so that I could find myself some other things to think about beyond practicing the sword. Being able to do something doesn’t mean I definitely have to do it.”

Zhou Cheng didn’t say anything else.

Lu Zhi gently rocked the swing and continued, ”After I was able to rightfully go to Stalactite Mountain, my thoughts about that reached their conclusion. Now, my thought is about going to the south, to two places very far away. One is to have my horse drink at Elite Cavalry River, and the other is to stand with my sword on Holding Moon Mountain.”

Zhou Cheng turned around and asked with a smile, ”You like that man who can’t say any good words?”

Lu Zhi shook her head and replied, ”It’s not the case that women necessarily need to like men. I wouldn’t like myself to like someone else, and I would only like myself to not like another person.”

”Big Sister Lu, you’re truly speaking like those people from the Majestic World,” Zhou Cheng commented with a smile.

”Zhou Cheng, what will you do if this swing disappears one day?”

”I’ll be dead at that time, so there won’t be any need to worry about it.”

”Is there any need to go so far because you like a person?”

”It’s not that I like him a lot or anything. Everything is gone, and I’m the only person left from my lineage, so what else can I think about? Big Sister Lu is extremely talented, so you can have ambitions to chase. It’s a different story for me, and it won’t be of any use for me to have these ambitions, so I won’t even think about them.”

Lu Zhi gazed toward the south and said with an apathetic expression, ”There are more than just one or two sword immortals who can’t do anything but wait for death. Say, isn’t this comical?”

Zhou Cheng didn’t say anything, nor did she smile in response.