Chapter Eighty-Eight: One Blow After Another

A crisp voice rang out. Lingyu turned her head and saw a young woman walking toward her, a gigantic sword slung over one shoulder.

The blade was five feet long, almost as tall as the girl herself, yet she carried it with effortless ease, her bearing relaxed and untroubled. Lingyu looked at her slight frame, then at the monstrous sword on her shoulder, and the corner of her mouth twitched.

“In reply to your senior, junior has nowhere to go, so I have been crouching here, waiting to be rescued.”

“Oh?” The girl eyed her with interest. “Which sect’s assembly did you attend?”

“Taiwhite Sect.”

At the answer, the girl let out a disappointed sigh. “What a pity. Your roots are decent, your body is strong, and yet you are still…”

Lingyu thought to herself: she was a sword cultivator, after all. If she were to go anywhere, it ought to be the Purple Firmament Sword Sect, shouldn’t it?

Bah. At the thought of the faces of those men from the Purple Firmament Sword Sect, she quietly spat. From now on, no matter where she went, she would never set foot in that sect.

But then she recalled Xu Zheng’s conduct from earlier and, without realizing it, reached up to touch her cheek. The scar there was gone, completely unmarred, not a trace left behind. It must have been Xu Zheng who had dispelled the sword qi lingering in her wound.

That man truly was strange. He had shown her nothing but cold indifference, yet before leaving he had remembered to erase the scar from her face, even saying something about how it would be a pity for a girl to be disfigured. And not long before that, he had even mocked her for not being a proper female cultivator.

In any case, he had scarred her face and then removed the mark again; that might count as even. As for the mockery, she would simply pretend she had not heard it. He was a Foundation Establishment cultivator, while she was a rootless loose cultivator. Harboring resentment would accomplish nothing. If they ever met again, he would likely not even remember her. Better not waste the effort and simply act as though nothing had happened.

Having thought this through, Lingyu looked up to find the girl already standing before her, her giant sword planted tip-first on the ground.

“Why didn’t you answer when I asked you?”

Lingyu blinked and apologized sincerely. “I am sorry, senior. What did you ask?”

“I asked whether you saw a Foundation Establishment cultivator from the Purple Firmament Sword Sect—one wearing purple robes.” She scratched her nose and muttered to herself, “Eight sect formations, all linked together. Only this place is the strangest. It should be here without a doubt.”

Lingyu wondered if that was some subtle warning not to take her for a fool. Rest assured, she had not promised anything anyway. She said, “The one senior speaks of—was he perhaps surnamed Xu?”

“Yes, yes!” The girl was overjoyed. “Did he come here?”

“Yes. I saw that senior and another Foundation Establishment senior fighting here. Then another female Foundation Establishment cultivator arrived and laid a restriction outside. I heard Senior Xu address her as Miss Yan.”

“Miss Yan?” A man’s voice sounded abruptly, and then footsteps approached. A scholar from the Hall of Myriad Demons appeared before them, folding fan in hand. He looked at Lingyu and asked, “Could it be Miss Yan of the Flying Heaven Pavilion?”

Lingyu glanced at Fu Changchun and nodded. “From what I heard them say, it seemed to be.”

“Fellow Daoist Gou, who is this Miss Yan?” came the raspy voice of Granny Jueyin.

“A dancer from the Flying Heaven Pavilion, one of the most famous brothels in Feilian City,” said the scholar surnamed Gou, snapping his fan shut and tapping it against his palm. “It is said this Miss Yan is breathtakingly beautiful, and that she has murky relations with many high-level cultivators. She is something of a figure of note in Feilian City.”

“Hmph. So she is merely a courtesan.” Granny Jueyin sneered. Though advanced in years, she was still a woman and instinctively despised such women.

“A female Foundation Establishment cultivator, reduced to a dancer?” Fu Changchun’s concern took a different turn from Granny Jueyin’s. He found it absurd. “As a Foundation Establishment cultivator, she would have many ways to earn spirit stones. Failing that, she could simply attach herself to a Core Formation cultivator. Why take up the life of a dancer?”

“This Miss Yan is already at Foundation Establishment?” The scholar raised his brows and murmured to himself. “How odd. I had heard that Miss Yan failed to establish her foundation several times, and that she only went to the Flying Heaven Pavilion to work as a dancer in hopes of obtaining a Foundation Establishment Pill. Could she already have gathered enough spirit stones and succeeded in forming her foundation?”

“However she succeeded, it is none of my concern,” Granny Jueyin said bluntly, unable to hide her disdain. Turning to Lingyu, she barked, “Where are they now?”

Lingyu pointed toward the stone passage. “They all went inside.”

She did not need to say it. The three of them had already noticed the passage and, seeing the bloodstains on the ground, could more or less infer where the others had gone. Hearing Lingyu’s words, they had no reason to doubt her.

“Fellow Daoist Fu, shall we enter?”

Fu Changchun did not answer at once, instead looking to the scholar surnamed Gou.

The scholar clicked his tongue. “If the two of you go in, I will naturally follow. Since the eight sect formations have been linked together, this matter is best handled in concert.”

Fu Changchun gave a slight nod. “Fellow Daoist Gou speaks reasonably. Only, I wonder where the other fellow Daoists are at present. Should we wait for them?”

“Amitabha.”

No sooner had he spoken than a Buddhist invocation sounded. A monk in kasaya, wearing an expression of compassion, walked slowly in. “Have all the fellow Daoists arrived? This poor monk is willing to travel with you.”

“Fellow Daoist Yuanbei!” Fu Changchun’s face brightened. “Now only one remains. I wonder when Fellow Daoist Pei will arrive.”

Only one remains? Lingyu thought of the girl who had gone in earlier and, a little cautiously, raised her hand. “Um… honored seniors.”

The gazes of the four Foundation Establishment cultivators all fell upon her. Lingyu felt slightly nervous, swallowed, and said, “Before the seniors arrived, that senior from the Heavenly Punishment Gate had already gone inside. I do not know whether the one you are waiting for is her…”

“So Fellow Daoist Pei has already gone in? She is quick indeed!” the scholar snorted. “In that case, shall we go in as well?”

Everyone nodded. After a brief look around and finding nothing unusual, they entered one after another, with Granny Jueyin leading the way.

Fu Changchun walked last. After some thought, he stopped before Lingyu and advised her, “Cheng Lingyu, though you are not yet a disciple of my Taiwhite Sect, you did come to attend the Taiwhite Sect assembly. This old man does not wish to see anything happen to you. Your cultivation is too low; it is best that you do not get involved. You must understand: greed invites calamity.”

With that, he did not wait for Lingyu’s reply and followed the others into the passage.

Lingyu watched them leave and sighed, still choosing a safe place to crouch.

She understood Fu Changchun’s meaning. Several Foundation Establishment cultivators had started fighting here and then gone into the passage. The greatest possibility was that something inside had drawn them there. For cultivators, the greatest lure of all was treasure. Fu Changchun’s words were a warning not to covet what she was not meant to have. Without strength, even if she went in, she would only be cannon fodder.

Lingyu understood this principle well. Had not the matter of Whitewater Temple been a living example? No matter how fine a treasure was, one must first have the life to enjoy it. She had only just set foot on the path of immortality, and reality had already taught her this lesson. So she had no intention of entering at all. Let the Foundation Establishment cultivators fight and snatch as they pleased; she would simply watch the excitement as a small fish.

Come to think of it, the affair was rather interesting.

First, Fu Yuanqing—no, he called himself Yuan Fu, which must have been an assumed name—had originally been a disciple of the Purple Firmament Sword Sect and apparently highly valued by his sect, yet for some reason he had betrayed it. Second, he had obtained a treasure map from Xu Zheng, then hooked up with Miss Yan. He had probably used her connections, or something of the sort, to secretly alter the eight sect formations, before the two of them disguised themselves as low-level cultivators attending the assembly in order to enter the hidden site. Third, Xu Zheng had already sensed something was amiss. He had once gone to the Flying Heaven Pavilion and even followed Miss Yan. That was the night she had become entangled in the matter by accident, along with the immortal stone.

Just those three points alone were already thought-provoking, and there were many more details besides, each more worthy of scrutiny.

For example, the sword lord they spoke of must have been the foremost figure of the Purple Firmament Sword Sect, the late-Void-Infant grand cultivator Sword Lord Brightness. Yuan Fu had said he was merely a puppet, a tool, one prepared by Sword Lord Brightness specifically to shield Xu Zheng from disaster. That seemed to involve some secret of the Purple Firmament Sword Sect.

Lingyu shivered and felt she could not think further. Once the hidden affairs of a major sect were known, would one even remain alive? Setting aside everything else, there was only one thing she needed to care about: what exactly was the relationship between this Miss Yan and Luo Yun?

That night, why had she gone to see Luo Yun in the dead of night? Luo Yun wanted to enter the Purple Firmament Sword Sect. If Xu Zheng learned that he had a connection to Miss Yan, could he still get what he wanted?

She suddenly felt a bit of a headache.

She believed that in this matter, Luo Yun was only a minor figure. Leaving aside his character, even his cultivation was far too low for him to be a true collaborator of Miss Yan and Yuan Fu. At most, he had merely helped Miss Yan handle a few small matters. If he were to lose his chance with the Purple Firmament Sword Sect because of this, that would be a terrible pity.