Chapter 3: Qieyun

Though Yi Xuefeng’s face betrayed nothing and the corners of his eyes still held a trace of amusement, the hand hidden in his wide sleeve was clenched tight.

Lord Linfan was the first person in the Three Realms to ascend in hundreds upon hundreds of years—and ascension meant becoming one with the Heavenly Dao. Now his son’s body had been replaced by a wandering lonely ghost. Perhaps something of it could be sensed.

Yi Xuefeng couldn’t tell whether Lord Linfan had summoned that Heavenly Lightning to stand up for his son and intimidate everyone—or whether he had detected the Body Seizure and, in thunderous fury, meant to strike Yi Xuefeng dead.

If it was the former, why had that bolt been aimed directly at the crown of Yi Xuefeng’s head?

If it was the latter, why had that lightning dissolved the instant it touched him?

No matter how he turned it over, Yi Xuefeng couldn’t figure it out. But Lord Linfan was clearly lending him grandeur right now, so he couldn’t be bothered to think harder. He put on a show of composure, borrowing the tiger’s might like a fox, and left the whole crowd gaping.

Nanzong frowned up at the hole in the roof, and when he looked at Yi Xuefeng again, there was a trace of wariness in his eyes.

In Yi Xuefeng’s view, that Heavenly Lightning had been deeply strange. But in everyone else’s eyes, it was plainly Lord Linfan intimidating anyone who dared disrespect the Little Immortal Lord.

Hearts full of differing thoughts, no one spoke for a long moment.

It was already raining outside, and the cold wind drove the rain down in sheets, soaking half of Yi Xuefeng’s body where he stood in the center of the ruined hall. He bowed his head slightly, his ink-dark hair plastered wet against his cheek—until he hooked a hand and pushed it aside.

The silence was absolute. Song Jingsheng and Nanzong both seemed to be carefully weighing their words, afraid that opening their mouths rashly might offend someone—and bring the next lightning bolt down on their own heads.

“What a fine show this is.”

Just then, a light laugh drifted in from the window.

Everyone turned toward the sound. At some point, the Devil Cultivator from the corridor had draped himself lazily over the window lattice, chin propped on one hand, smiling in a way that sent chills down the spine.

“I heard that before Immortal Lord Linfan ascended, he had all his Spirit Artifacts bound to the Little Immortal Lord’s Spirit Blood in recognition of their master. Since the searching technique is useless, why not have the Little Immortal Lord sense it with his Divine Sense? Perhaps it might just turn up?”

Everyone froze, then belatedly came to their senses.

Meanwhile, Yi Xuefeng thought, Oh. So that’s what that was—a searching technique.

Lightning still crackled faintly around Nanzong’s fingers. With an ugly expression, he flicked his sleeve. “The affairs of the Cold Huai River need not concern Lord Qingchuan.”

Lord Qingchuan said “Oh” as though he hadn’t caught the dismissal in Nanzong’s tone at all. Feigning puzzlement, he tapped his lips with a fingertip and said offhandedly, “Since the searching technique is useless, how does Sect Master Nan plan to find the Spirit Sword instead?”

Nanzong shot him a resentful glare.

“Lord Linfan’s Spirit Sword has been lost, and for a matter of such gravity you so carelessly tried a mere searching technique. Could it be that…”

He tilted his head, Devil Eyes seeming about to drip blood, and said in a feather-light voice, “…the sword was never lost at all, and you intend to pocket it for yourself?”

At these words, the hot-tempered Nanzong slammed the table and surged to his feet. “Lord Qingchuan! This is not the Savage Wilds. Watch your words!”

Yi Xuefeng regarded him with a few extra glances of surprise.

Back in the Savage Wilds, he didn’t recall ever having heard of this Lord Qingchuan.

Qingchuan burst out laughing and straightened up with a shrug. “Fine, fine. You all keep searching with your useless technique. Let’s see whether you find that Spirit Sword before the Immortal Grand Assembly ends, shall we?”

With that, ignoring everyone’s sour faces, he sauntered off without a backward glance.

Nanzong had fire in his throat with nowhere to vent it, and could only direct a vicious glare at the true culprit—Yi Xuefeng.

Yi Xuefeng, small, weak, pitiful, and innocent, could only smile obediently.

Song Jingsheng frowned. “Little Immortal Lord, then we must trouble you to sense the Spirit Sword’s location with your Divine Sense.”

Yi Xuefeng nodded. Divine Sense probing, at least, he understood.

Before everyone’s eyes, he lowered his gaze slightly and let his Divine Sense sink slowly into his Sea of Consciousness. The Spiritual Power in his Dantian threaded finely and densely through his meridians.

This body of Lin Fuyu’s had only just reached Foundation Establishment; the Sea of Consciousness was not vast. Once Yi Xuefeng spread his Divine Sense, it felt as if he could see its far edge at a single glance.

And within that sea, dense clusters of fine lines descended from the void, landing on the water’s surface like drifting duckweed—these were the countless Magical Artifacts Lord Linfan had left him.

A sudden doubt struck Yi Xuefeng. The artifacts Lord Linfan left behind were things the outside world couldn’t obtain for a thousand gold pieces; any single one could blast a horde of vicious beasts to powder. So how had this body died so easily under the jaws of a single beast?

Thinking this, he raised a hand and sent a thread of Divine Sense into those lines—then opened his eyes.

The instant his eyes opened, the flat plains around them suddenly heaved as if in an earthquake. It stopped within a blink.

While everyone was still bewildered, an overwhelming tide of Spiritual Power came howling from the distance. That force felt as heavy as a thousand pounds—so heavy it scattered the very clouds at the horizon, carving a broad swath across the sky.

On pure instinct, Yi Xuefeng opened his hand.

The next instant, a sword streaming with brilliant light came hurtling from the distant void and slammed into his palm—and the wind of its arrival tore the entire roof clean off the front hall.

With a thunderous crash, the hall collapsed into ruins.

Everyone had already evacuated the moment something felt wrong. Only when the dust settled did they peer, alarmed and uncertain, toward the center of the rubble.

Yi Xuefeng stood exactly as before, tall and slender in the ruins—except that at some point, a long sword had appeared between his slender fingers.

Song Jingsheng suddenly cried out, “Qieyun?”

Nanzong’s expression turned rather ugly.

Yi Xuefeng gripped the sword in his hand and studied the patterns along its blade with a strange look on his face.

The Qieyun Sword?

Song Jingsheng froze, a flicker of joy crossing her face. They say the Qieyun Sword is proud and aloof, that it has never drawn close to anyone but Lord Linfan. To summon itself back at a mere touch of Divine Sense—it must be by Lord Linfan’s design.

The Spirit Sword restored so abruptly, everyone was stunned for a moment, as if they hadn’t expected it to be so easy.

Yi Xuefeng clutched the hilt with all his strength. The sword’s Spiritual Power slammed against his Spirit Veins in waves of agony that nearly buckled his knees, but he forced himself upright and flashed Nanzong a smile.

He had always greeted people with a smile—he was long practiced at it. But in Nanzong’s eyes, this smile was pure provocation and flaunting.

Song Jingsheng began, “Lord Linfan watches from beyond the—”

She caught herself after a few words, nearly led astray by Yi Xuefeng.

She coughed dryly. “The Qieyun Sword’s return is what matters. The Heavenly Dao stands above—surely it is Lord Linfan’s protection.”

Nanzong gave him one cold look, said not a word, abandoned the ruined hall entirely, and turned to leave.

The disciples who had watched the whole spectacle stood dumbfounded, staring in astonishment at Yi Xuefeng clutching his divine weapon, at a complete loss for how to react.

Song Jingsheng coughed. “Everyone, dismissed.”

The crowd froze for a beat, then scattered like startled birds—not a few sneaking glances back at the young man as they went.

Yi Xuefeng smiled at Song Jingsheng and lifted the Qieyun Sword with both hands. “About this sword…”

Song Jingsheng said, “Lord Linfan left it expressly for you, Little Immortal Lord. Your sixteenth birthday passed just last month, and with the Immortal Grand Assembly only days away, it’s time you had a Natal Sword of your own.”

Lin Fuyu is going to the Immortal Grand Assembly too?

The Immortal Grand Assembly was a grand event of the Four Regions, held once every forty years. “Grand Assembly” was a lofty name for what was, in truth, an arena where young cultivators under a hundred years old competed and sparred.

Anyone who outshone the field and claimed the Champion’s seat would win countless heavenly treasures, techniques, and Spirit Artifacts from every sect—calling it “ascending to heaven in a single step” would hardly be an exaggeration.

For youths, it was the perfect proving ground.

Yi Xuefeng froze, looking at her with a touch of bewilderment.

Since the injury to his Spirit Veins, he had never held a sword again. Now, cradling one heavy in his hands, a strange sense of unreality washed over him.

Lin Fuyu’s face was extraordinarily fine—only, all these years his temperament had been too gloomy and unlovable. Now, wearing such a childlike expression, he was unexpectedly endearing.

Song Jingsheng’s restless maternal instincts, with nowhere to go, were thoroughly pierced.

She patted his shoulder. “Summoning Qieyun just now must have drained a great deal of your Spiritual Power—you look dreadful. Go back and rest properly. Huaichen, help the Little Immortal Lord back.”

Though trembling all over with fear, Huaichen still hurried over, shakily steadying Yi Xuefeng’s arm.

Yi Xuefeng could barely stand anyway, so he didn’t refuse. He gave Song Jingsheng a slight bow of his head before letting Huaichen lead him away.

After he had gone, Lord Qingchuan stepped out from the bamboo grove nearby, cast a glance at the ruins before him, and seemed to chuckle softly.

He turned—and his body dissolved into a wisp of black mist that vanished from the void in an instant.

The next moment, the black mist came shrieking down on the wind, landing atop a Snow Mountain Peak.

As far as the eye could see stretched nothing but blinding white snow. The glare was piercing, and icy wind sliced past inch by inch, carrying a frigid breath of frost and ice.

Qingchuan took human form and walked slowly toward the cliff’s edge nearby, laughing as he went. “Guess who I saw today?”

At the cliff’s edge, a man in black robes sat cross-legged. In wind and snow this fierce, he didn’t even use his Spiritual Power to block the cold, letting the snow fall freely upon him.

His lips were pale, his shoulders already blanketed in snow, a head of white hair spilling to the ground, whipped into disarray by the freezing wind. A few strands were frozen outright to the earth amid the frost.

At Qingchuan’s voice, the man’s eyes opened slightly. His scarlet Devil Eyes were so eerie they seemed about to drip blood.

“Who?”

The man’s voice was colder than the stones of the mountain peak, but Qingchuan seemed used to it. He answered with a smile, “Lin Fuyu.”

The man closed his eyes again, sparing each syllable like coin: “Scram.”

As if he hadn’t heard, Qingchuan seated himself cross-legged beside the man, gazing out at the mountains below—tiny as anthills and molehills.

He didn’t imitate the man’s self-torture; only after walling off the cold with his Spiritual Power did he continue, “It’s been ten years since Linfan ascended. The rumored son he left behind was said to be of thoroughly mediocre talent, idle and unaccomplished besides—arrogant and self-important, too. But what I saw today rather contradicts the rumors.”

The man didn’t so much as furrow his brow. “Not interested. Scram.”

Qingchuan chuckled. “No wonder the Sovereign is always telling you to scram, ah, Senior Martial Brother. You really do love that word.”

At that word “Sovereign,” the man—who until now had been without the slightest ripple—abruptly opened his eyes. His Devil Eyes brimmed with murderous malice. Centered on him, a ring of razor-sharp Devil Aura rippled violently outward, sending the accumulated snow on the ground whirling up anew.

With one cold lift of his hand, he seized Qingchuan by the throat and said icily, “Do you have a death wish?”

Though the hand had closed on his Vital Gate, Qingchuan was still smiling. “Fine, fine, we won’t mention him. No need to get physical about it, is there?”

The man looked at him with cold eyes, the killing intent on him undiminished.

Qingchuan spread his hands, helpless. “Can’t mention him, can’t not mention him. Sword Venerable Ning, your temperament is truly impossible to read. I can’t imagine what our Sovereign ever saw in y—urg.”

Ning Yu’s grip clamped down hard, and Qingchuan could make no further sound.

But quickly, as if something occurred to him, Ning Yu abruptly released his hold and flung Qingchuan aside.

He said coldly, “If you don’t want to die, then… go.”

…Forcefully swallowing back the “scram” that had been about to leave his tongue.

Qingchuan, half-strangled to within an inch of his life, nearly burst out laughing—if he hadn’t known full well that Ning Yu really would kill him.

He rubbed his throat and smiled. “Fine, I won’t mention him. Let’s talk business.”

Ning Yu said, “Three sentences.”

“This is important business! You want me to finish in three sentences? That’s asking the impossible.”

Ning Yu said coldly, “Two left.”

Qingchuan: “…”

He drew a deep breath. “The Cold Huai River’s Immortal Grand Assembly is nearly here. The Savage Wilds has only just managed to stand its ground in the Three Realms these past few years—for an event like this, we ought to send at least one representative. I have urgent business back in the Savage Wilds, and you’re here freezing yourself through your memories of hardship every day, idle as can be…”

Ning Yu gave him one cold look.

Qingchuan said, “…So go join the spectacle this time. You might even run into old friends from Returning Swan Mountain for a catch-up or something. And that was all one breath, so it only counts as one sentence.”

Ning Yu: “…”

Ning Yu exhaled a plume of cold air and lifted his gaze to the round sun sinking slowly in the distance. “What were you doing at the Cold Huai River just now?”

Qingchuan said, “Delivering something.”

Ning Yu said, “Three sentences. Scram.”

Qingchuan: “…”

Perhaps thoroughly defeated, Qingchuan left behind only a single “Don’t forget to go tomorrow”—and dissolved into black mist and vanished before Ning Yu’s temper could rise.