Unsheathed

Earlier, on the way here, Mi Yu had raised a question to Chen Ping’an. ”Do the sword immortals not know who these jade tablets are meant for? If I were one of them, I would not feel good about injecting my sword qi into something that I know is going to be given to one of those bastards.”

”They know. I was fully transparent with all of them,” Chen Ping’an replied. ”What’s there to feel bad about? From now on, whenever someone sees one of these jade tablets in the Majestic World, they’ll be sure to bring up the sword immortals attached to them, as well as their cultivation bases and their most notable feats. Essentially, these jade tablets will be like portable advertisements to enhance their reputation, and perhaps they’ll become even more well-known than you, Sword Immortal Mi.”

”I’m a sword immortal as well, Lord Hidden Official; why didn’t you tell me about this beforehand?” Mi Yu asked with a wry smile.

”Many of the sword immortals who agreed to do this asked me if your sword qi was going to be in any of the jade tablets, and they were all very relieved when I told them no, so what was I supposed to do?” Chen Ping’an asked with a smile. ”How are you still so unpopular when you’re now a member of the Hidden Official’s branch? Will it help if I rip out your page in Secondary Book A and put it at the very front?

“If that would make you feel better, then you can rip it out yourself and put it near the pages of Yue Qing and your brother, Mi Hu. I can pretend not to notice.”

Mi Yu was instantly distraught, and the emotional damage that he suffered was worse than any heartbreak he had experienced from any woman.

All of the administrators in the hall carefully put their jade tablets away. They were being careful not just because they saw these jade tablets as very precious objects, but also because they were worried that they had been tampered with and could explode at any moment along with the sword qi inside.

They were also concerned that the jade tablets perhaps weren’t designed to explode, but would expose their whereabouts instead, or allow Chen Ping’an to see everything that they said and did. After all, the jade tablets carried by all of the noble and virtuous scholars of the Confucian academies served that purpose.

Mi Yu couldn’t help but recall something that Chen Ping’an had told him on the way here.

”We don’t have to tell them what they can hope to receive from the Sword Qi Great Wall using those jade tablets. Instead, we can simply let them guess. The answers arrived at by smart people after extensive thought don’t have to be correct; they’ll be very reliable, nevertheless.”

The discussion in the main hall was going very smoothly. More and more arguments were being openly aired out, but that wasn’t a bad thing.

Only at around dusk was the meeting once again adjourned.

Mi Yu had zero interest in gauging the intentions of the administrators over the course of the discussion, but he was bound by duty to take an interest in what everyone had to say, and it was truly a torturous endeavor, so much so that for the first time, he felt like practicing swordsmanship wasn’t actually that bad.

Everyone departed again, returning to their courtyards for private discussions. After the majority of the sword immortals left, it was actually already safe for the administrators to communicate through their mind’s lakes in the main hall, but they still felt more reassured from being able to retreat to the privacy of their courtyards.

At the very least, they felt safer and more secure in those courtyards. Otherwise, even with the sword immortals absent, the vacant chairs that they left behind still presented quite an intimidating sight.

Chen Ping’an continued to stroll through the Spring Banner Inn on his own, having arranged to meet up with everyone in four hours.

Mi Yu was busy because Chen Ping’an had sent him on a couple of errands.

Back in the summer palace, Mi Yu often felt himself a little superfluous in the face of the young sword cultivators of the Hidden Official’s branch, but he certainly had his hands full on Stalactite Mountain.

One of those errands involved visiting all of the administrators and specifically mentioning the word ”reciprocation” to them. He had to implicitly tell them that the Hidden Official was willing to personally do them a small favor in exchange for some benefits, but also make it clear that this was solely going to be a deal with the Hidden Official and had nothing to do with the Sword Qi Great Wall.

He wanted Mi Yu to be the one to collect the offerings from the administrators as Yan Ming and Nalan Caihuan weren’t fit for the task.

Mi Yu asked Chen Ping’an where these offerings were ultimately going to end up, and the latter told him that everything had to be given to Yan Ming and Nalan Caihuan, but before that, everyone in the Hidden Official’s branch could each pick out an item that caught their fancy.

Mi Yu asked if that applied to him as well, and Chen Ping’an’s response was an affirmative one.

He told Mi Yu that if he wanted to make a good impression on that Nascent Tier female administrator, then he could pick out the treasures that she offered up before returning them to her.

That was precisely what Mi Yu had been intending, and he jumped at the opportunity.

The other errand was for Mi Yu to go find Yan Ming and Nalan Caihuan, and the three of them had to think of a good name for this congregation at the Spring Banner Inn, one that would make all of the administrators feel as if they had taken part in some kind of prestigious and honorable event.

At the very least, they had to make it appear to the outside world that the administrators hadn’t just been threatened and extorted this entire time. Even more importantly, they had to convince the administrators that this was an event that they should feel proud to have been part of, something that they felt like was worth telling others about.

That way, even after all of the administrators left Stalactite Mountain, they would still be creating hype and generating interest, creating the appearance that the Sword Qi Great Wall had been great to do business with.

The Qi refiners of the Majestic World were all very keen on keeping up appearances, so Chen Ping’an was happy to give them a chance to brag to their peers, and it wasn’t like it would cost the Sword Qi Great Wall any money anyway.

They had been attended to by as many as eleven sword immortals at once.

While their time in the Spring Banner Inn had been extremely grueling, they could make something good out of this experience by spinning the story to make it appear as if they had all been esteemed guests of the Sword Qi Great Wall. In doing so, they would be able to greatly enhance their reputations.

Meanwhile, Chen Ping’an really was just taking a casual stroll. Along the way, he made a large snowball, which he kept in his minimization treasure, planning to give it to Guo Zhujiu as a gift. At the moment, the Sword Qi Great Wall was at the height of summer.

Three hours later, Mi Yu returned.

”I bet she refused to accept your gift, but she was moved by the gesture nevertheless, so you got to keep the treasure and make a good impression on her, right?” Chen Ping’an jibed with a smile. ”Did she yell at you to leave while clearly hoping that you would stay? Given your expertise in wooing women, I’m sure you still managed to successfully leave that treasure behind in the end.”

”Lord Hidden Official, if you were to divert even just a little bit of your attention to women, I’m certain you would’ve already left me far behind in the dust,” Mi Yu praised. ”In the end, I placed that treasure at her door.”

Chen Ping’an hesitated momentarily, then said, ”I made you run two errands for me, so you can claim an additional treasure for yourself. Once we return to the Sword Qi Great Wall, you can pick one to give to your brother.”

A hesitant look appeared on Mi Yu’s face.

He knew that Chen Ping’an was doing this for his benefit, and he also knew that his brother would most likely be very pleased to see that he was doing well in the Hidden Official’s branch and was at least making something out of himself rather than wasting his life away. However, he still couldn’t bring himself to do something like this.

The two of them strolled along side by side as Chen Ping’an continued, ”I’m not asking you to make this a calculated move and do this to appease your brother. If that were my intention, then I would be insulting both you and your brother. I think and calculate so much for the sake of ensuring that there are at least a few things that I won’t have to plot and scheme about. You’re reluctant to do this because you haven’t figured out which is more important: what you think or what your brother thinks.

“If you wanted to repay your brother for everything that he’s done for you, you could easily spend the rest of your life trying to repay him in futility. If he hadn’t been dragged down by you all this time, your brother would’ve already reached the same heights as Yue Qing long ago, but instead, he’s only recently reached the Immortal Tier, and everyone on the entire Sword Qi Great Wall knows why.

“I suggest that you go see your brother, not to repay him for anything, but to tell him that you appreciate everything that he’s done for you, and that you’re aware that he wants what’s best for you. If you want to be even more shameless, then you can come clean to your brother and tell him that you have no aspirations of ever reaching the Immortal Tier, but you can promise him that as long as you’re around, the continuation of the Mi Clan’s lineage on the Sword Qi Great Wall won’t be a problem at all.

“He can focus on his own cultivation, while you focus on what it is that you enjoy most, and before long, there’ll be a bunch of little boys and girls running around, calling him uncle. I think this is a good idea from an outsider’s perspective, but obviously, how you feel about this is more important than my opinion.”

”I think it’s a decent idea as well,” Mi Yu replied with a smile. ”I’ll give it a try.”

Following Mi Yu’s departure, Chen Ping’an made his way down a path that was paved with five-colored rocks from some immortal sect. The Spring Banner Inn didn’t receive many guests, so the stone path was displaying very few signs of wear and tear, and that reminded him of the Luminous Jade Cliff in the Spring Dew Garden on the Northern Complete Reed Continent.

Shao Yunyan just so happened to have been nearby, holding an intricate porcelain bowl in one hand while casting fish food into the water.

”It seems like you still have some concerns on your mind,” Shao Yunyan remarked.

”I do,” Chen Ping’an replied with a nod. ”I’m worried that among all of the intercontinental ship administrators, the sects and backers behind some of them may already be colluding with the Savage World. What I’m even more worried about is that their collusion could run so deep that they would be determined to ruin the agreement forged in the Spring Banner Inn even if it comes at the cost of their lives.

“I’m also worried that someone completely unexpected on Stalactite Mountain would interfere by force. If any one of those concerns turns into reality, then regardless of what the truth is, the outcome that everyone will see is that some people have perished at the hands of the sword immortals of the Sword Qi Great Wall.

“There’s a good chance that some administrators from the Circling Ascension Continent and the Pure White Continent will perish, and this is particularly true for Bai Xi of the Mountain and Water Cave. If that happens, then everyone will be thrown into a panic, and everything that we’ve negotiated and decided up to this point will get thrown out the window.”

”But you’ve already done so much,” Shao Yunyan argued. ”Even if someone dies, it should be abundantly clear to everyone that you’re not the perpetrator. Will that really be enough to turn the whole situation completely on its head?”

”Even if it’s clear that I’m not the perpetrator, very few people will be willing to listen to reason,” Chen Ping’an said as he wiped some snow from the railing. ”It takes a lot of effort to build a table, but it’s much easier to smash it to bits. As the figurative table-builder in this case, I have to be prepared to protect my table. Let’s say someone leaves Stalactite Mountain and kills a bunch of administrators for no reason. Even if that has nothing to do with me, would any intercontinental ships dare to come to Stalactite Mountain in the future?”

A grim look appeared on Shao Yunyan’s face as he pondered these possibilities.

”I’m not afraid of a mishap taking place; what I’m much more afraid of is that the mishap will constantly hang over our heads like a sword that could drop at any moment,” Chen Ping’an continued. ”As long as the enemy remains patient and refrains from making a move, all I can do is passively wait.”

”What are you going to do?” Shao Yunyan asked.

”I’ll have to go and pay a visit to the Great Heavenly Lord,” Chen Ping’an sighed. ”Hopefully, he’s not going to refuse to see me.”

”I just received word that he’s already gone into seclusion,” Shao Yunyan said with a peculiar expression.

Chen Ping’an raised a hand to his forehead in dismay.

After some thought, he said, ”I suppose that’s not entirely a bad thing. At the very least, it’s helped me make up my mind on the third sword immortal that I’m going to send to the Southern Whirl Continent with you.”

The third sword immortal would be Lu Zhi. She had already earned enough battlefield accolades for her to leave the Sword Qi Great Wall, but it seemed like her preferred option was to go on an adventure in the Savage World rather than return to the Majestic World.

Of course, this arrangement would only be possible if she were willing to leave the Sword Qi Great Wall. Otherwise, even the old great sword immortal wouldn’t be able to make her leave, let alone Chen Ping’an.

However, even if Lu Zhi were to agree, her premature departure from the Sword Qi Great Wall would still have quite a significant impact, so it would be a case of choosing the lesser of two evils.

Two days later, Chen Ping’an returned with a bountiful haul of gifts, while Mi Yu remained at the Spring Banner Inn.

It didn’t take long at all for word of what had taken place in the Spring Banner Inn to spread, and the entirety of Stalactite Mountain was stirred up into a frenzy overnight.

The general gist was that the Sword Qi Great Wall had arrived at an agreement with the intercontinental ship administrators from the eight continents. The intercontinental ships would supply the resources, while the Sword Qi Great Wall would be responsible for the war efforts, and the two parties would work together to oppose the Savage World.

Mi Yu, Shao Yunyan, and Xie Songhua were each hidden on an intercontinental ship going in a different direction, and even the administrators of the three ships were completely oblivious to the fact that they were carrying a sword immortal onboard.

They were traveling toward the Circling Ascension Continent, the Southern Whirl Continent, and the Eastern Treasured Vial Continent.

Lu Zhi had also arrived on Stalactite Mountain in secret, ready to assist one of the three sword immortals if necessary.

On the Clay Pot, Bai Xi was sitting in the cabin with slightly furrowed brows when the sound of door-knocking rang out.

Before Bai Xi even had a chance to open the door, an old man appeared in the room, then cast away the illusion to reveal himself to be a lazy-looking young man.

Bai Xi immediately stood up and asked, ”To what do I owe this honor, Senior?”

”No need to refer to me as senior,” the young man said with a smile. ”My name is Bian Jing, and I’m just an insignificant little sword cultivator from the Middle Earth Divine Continent. I wanted to ask you about some details on what happened in the Spring Banner Inn before I decide whether to go on a killing spree or not.”

Bai Xi offered no response.

The young man’s eyes turned fully black, and he wrote something down on the surface of the desk, then said in a raspy voice, ”The patriarch of your Mountain and Water Cave is a friend of mine. Come to think of it, I was the one who gave him his bonded treasure. What I just wrote down on the desk is something that every past administrator of the Clay Pot has gotten to see before they die. Haven’t you ever wondered why the past administrator of the Clay Pot has died no more than a few years after leaving the role? They had to die to protect this little secret.

“You’re in luck because you were born late enough to meet me, and as a result, a massive fated opportunity has fallen right onto your lap. Now that you’ve met me, the Nascent Tier bottleneck that you’ve been struggling to overcome won’t pose an obstacle to you for much longer.”

Bai Xi immediately cupped his fist and extended a respectful bow.

After taking a seat, ”Bian Jing” smiled and asked, ”Is this ship of yours secure? There’s no chance that someone could be spying on us right now, is there?”

Bai Xi remained standing as he replied, ”I’ve already conducted a careful search of the entire ship, particularly the room that I’m staying in, and I’m certain that nothing has been tampered with. As for that jade tablet, I left it in my private residence on Stalactite Mountain. On top of that, I’m sure I haven’t done anything to arouse any suspicions, and I even intentionally raised some complaints at the end to put on a more convincing act. That young Hidden Official may be cunning, but I’m certain that I’ve thrown him off my trail.”

”What’s this about a jade tablet and the young Hidden Official? Elaborate,” Bian Jing ordered with a smile.

Bai Xi told Bian Jing about the intricacies of the jade tablet, then provided a detailed recount of everything that took place in the Spring Banner Inn over the past few days.

After hearing what Bai Xi had to say, Bian Jing nodded and revealed, ”Right now, I’m restricted by this vessel of mine. You were guessing that I’m at the Immortal Tier, but that’s an underestimation.”

Bai Xi cupped his fist and extended another respectful bow.

He was in the presence of an Ascension Tier great demon!

”When are you planning to make your move, Senior?” Bai Xi asked tentatively.

Bian Jing offered no response as he took a glance at Bai Xi, who swallowed nervously, then continued, ”All that I ask is that you destroy the Clay Pot after the event. It’s fine if you kill everyone else onboard. Otherwise, our Mountain and Water Cave will look very suspicious, and that would only hinder your future plans.”

”You know what? You’re a smart kid!” Bian Jing praised with a smile. ”Just for that alone, you deserve this fated opportunity.”

He had prepared an elaborate plot on the Parasol Leaf Continent, but it had been prematurely exposed, and as a result, all that he managed to achieve was to inflict some damage upon the Planchette Writing Sect and Peace and Tranquility Mountain, but that fell far short of what he had been trying to accomplish.

As for the plot that he was hatching on the Circling Ascension Continent, one of the key steps was to have Bian Jing travel from the Circling Ascension Continent to the Middle Earth Divine Continent. Fooling the imperial preceptor of the Shaoyuan Empire had proven to be very difficult, but thankfully, Bian Jing had been up to the task.

As for the Southern Whirl Continent, he hadn’t bothered to do anything there because any plans that he made would inevitably be thwarted by Chen Chun’an anyway.

”There’s no hurry,” Bian Jing continued. ”It would be too risky for me to make a move right now. I’m not going to touch any of the intercontinental ships that are currently on their way back to their home continents. Instead, I’ll kill them all the next time they leave Stalactite Mountain, after they’ve made even more money.”

Bai Xi was very relieved to hear this. This was indeed a safer approach.

He had been concerned that this senior would rely solely on his Ascension Tier cultivation base and do everything by brute force.

”That young Hidden Official is even more cunning than you think,” Bian Jing said with a smile. ”Right now, there’s an Unpolished Jade Tier sword cultivator hiding on the Rainbow Raiment, and it’s most likely that lackey of his that you mentioned, Mi Yu. In any case, I’m in no hurry at all, and I’m content to play their little game. Let me see just how much patience those conceited sword immortals possess. Eventually, their patience is going to run out, and that’ll be my time to strike.”

All of a sudden, Bian Jing’s smile faded as he rose to his feet, and Bai Xi slowly levitated into the air as if he were being lifted by the throat.

A voice that was very familiar to Bai Xi then rang out from outside the cabin.

”You’ve been caught because you’re a fool; don’t vent your frustration on others.”

”You came here to personally confront me, Chen Ping’an?” Bian Jing sneered. ”I never saw you as the type to have a death wish!”

Outside the cabin, a young man tore away the female facade on his face, and standing next to him was Lu Zhi, who was wearing a male facade.

In addition to their facades, the old great sword immortal had personally cast illusions onto both of them.

”How did you know?” Bian Jing asked.

”I didn’t,” Chen Ping’an replied with a smile. ”I was just learning from the Mountain and Water Cave and taking a high-risk, high-reward approach.”

Bian Jing was just about to spring into action when his entire body abruptly stiffened.

An old man had just appeared in the room.

”You felt the need to call upon Chen Chun’an on top of all of these sword immortals? I must say, this is quite an honor!” Bian Jing chuckled.

”Keep my name out of your mouth,” the old man said in an indifferent voice.