*Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.*
A night of spring rain had washed the mountain ridges, barren all winter, into a tender, fresh green. As dawn broke, everything remained half-hidden in the mist.
From afar, a swaying figure emerged from the hazy green.
It was a youth whose frame had not yet fully matured, carrying a disheveled woman on his back. Both were filthy; their half-damp clothes were matted with mud and grass clippings, making them look like two mud balls that had rolled down from the summit.
The mountain path was thick with the mud unique to early spring. After walking for a while, shoes became wet and cold, necessitating a place to rest and warm one's hands and feet.
But the youth never stopped.
He had been walking without rest for a day and a night, not even daring to find a place to light a fire. He dragged two legs that had grown cold and stiff, forcing them to carry him forward, as far as possible from the place behind them.
Finally, the woman on his back lightly squeezed his shoulder, signaling for him to look ahead.
Dazed, he raised his head and saw a Mountain God Temple hidden among the wild grass.
It was unclear which mountain god it belonged to, but the temple was truly a ruin. Half the roof had collapsed. A golden camellia on the mountainside, half-bloomed, shed a rain of petals that drifted through the hole in the roof, dotting the moss-covered old stone tiles inside like scattered stars.
"Go there," the woman commanded briefly.
The youth walked silently to the front of the divine statue and carefully set the woman down. As soon as she sat, the first thing she did was pick up a small fallen flower from the ground and tuck it neatly into her hair.
The youth watched her in silence. Exhaustion had hollowed out his body, and the various absurd behaviors of the person before him filled him with despair.
He thought of the shadow that had been chasing them, of every mistake and possible trail they might have left along the way. He thought of how, after falling into the water earlier, his only fire-starter had been soaked through; they were destined to spend the day in damp cold.
But the woman on his back seemed not to have considered any of this.
She carefully touched the flower on her head, her eyes darting around until they finally landed on the incense altar behind her, which was covered in a thick layer of dust.
On the altar sat some offerings that had clearly been there for some time. The fruits had turned into dried husks, and the pastries had crumbled into gray, dusty heaps.
The woman didn't mind at all. In the blink of an eye, she snatched the offerings down. With practiced ease, she picked out two steamed corn buns that weren't completely desiccated, blew off the dust, and generously handed one to him.
The youth stared at the blackened bun without moving. "That is something from the offering table."
"What about it? The Old Man in the Sky isn't lacking this mouthful of food. What's the point of letting the living starve to death?" Without allowing for argument, the woman stuffed the bun into his hand and began to eat ravenously. As she ate, she imparted the secret techniques of her years wandering the martial world. "In the wild mountains and remote ridges, when water and food are cut off, these ruined temples are the best places to stay. Back when I traveled the world alone, I left dry rations and flint behind the statues in every ruined temple from south to north along the river. This is experience; this is wealth. I wouldn't tell just anyone..."
*Is that so?* he thought. *I wonder who it was yesterday who wouldn't let go of that herder who gave us a few melons, insisting on inviting him to sit in the ruined temple on the back mountain, only stopping once the man was scared off.*
He thought he should have chased the man down and killed him to be safe; it would be better than sitting here in agony...
*Smack.*
He took a heavy blow to the back of his head. The youth remained sitting in that position for a long time before he heard the woman speak hesitantly.
"Not eating even when there's food... you haven't gone stupid from hunger, have you?"
It had only been a day and a night without food; he had endured much longer periods of hunger.
Before leaving the Villa, he ate the rations of the "Jia" Battalion. There was a logic to the distribution of food in the camp: if there were ten people, food for only nine would be provided. One had to fight to eat their fill; the weakest was always eliminated. The food in the lower-tier battalions was even scarcer, and the elimination process even more cruel. But the Villa never lacked people; as the old left, new ones arrived. Everyone seemed to have grown accustomed to it.
As for after leaving the Villa, what he could eat depended entirely on his master's mood. In the rules they taught him, things on an offering table were not to be touched by a filthy person like him.
The woman continued to watch him from all angles. Her gaze was too intense to ignore. After a moment of silence, the youth finally raised his hand and stuffed the bun into his mouth.
The woman nodded in satisfaction, then remembered something and leaned in to ask, "Are you really called Jia Shisan? Do you have no other name?"
A name? What use was a name? It was nothing more than a code for a killer.
He remained silent, so the woman spoke for herself. "It's fine for me to call you that casually, but if you wander the martial world in the future, won't people laugh at you?"
As she spoke, she slapped the incense altar behind her. The sturdy, heavy old altar flew out under her seemingly light touch as if it were made of paper, revealing a stone tablet half-hidden beneath the statue.
The cobwebs and dust on the tablet were completely stripped away by the gust of wind, revealing mottled inscriptions.
These were the names of people who had once supported this temple. They had knelt in pious prayer and carved their names into the hard stone, praying that the gods would hear their wishes and remember their names forever, so as not to forget who they were when the time came to bestow blessings.
The woman made a grand gesture, tracing the tablet from top to bottom. "There are so many names here. Just pick one."
The youth remained silent.
He had thought the woman would condescendingly bestow a name upon him, like the noble clans did. Who would have thought she had no such intention?
Or perhaps she just found it troublesome. After all, aside from fleeing together, there was no deeper sentiment between them.
As if knowing what he was thinking, she scratched her nest-like hair. "It's not that I'm stingy and won't give you a name, it's just that they always say I have no talent for naming. Of course, if you like, what's the harm in me giving you a few? Wang Tie-niu (Iron Bull), Zhu Da-li (Great Strength), Xu Qiu-qiu (Ball-ball)..."
She counted on her fingers, her ideas flowing faster the more she spoke.
The youth abruptly stood up. A hint of life finally appeared on his numb face. His left hand pointed randomly at the stone tablet, firmly escaping the fate of becoming "Iron Bull," "Great Strength," or "Ball-ball."
The woman looked at the expression on his face with some amusement, then followed his finger to look closely, clicking her tongue twice.
"I told you we were fated. Even the Old Man in the Sky thinks we're family."
She chuckled again, raising her face—now smeared with crumbs from the bun—to look at him.
"Li Qiao. From today on, your name is Li Qiao."
***
He stared at the two characters beneath his fingertip. In his ears was the sound of the rain growing thicker outside the ruined temple on the desolate mountain.
*Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.*
Something fell into the water.
Li Qiao's light brown pupils trembled slightly as a bead of blood fell from his eyelashes into the lake.
Perhaps because the effects of the Hidden Infant Incense had not yet dissipated, or perhaps because the blood loss after the great battle had made him lightheaded, he had actually dreamed of the past during his period of unconsciousness.
He used the hand holding his blade to prop up his body, only then realizing his head was hanging halfway off the deck, while the lower half of his body was still stuck within it. The originally smooth deck was now full of large holes, as if a monstrous insect had tunneled through it, leaving the entire ship riddled with wounds. The lingering mist flowed down from the deck, crawling onto the shore along the fine grass.
The Luosha Sect's ship had reached the shore.
Rather than saying someone had brought the ship to shore, it was more accurate to say the lake water had pushed it there.
The entire ship was terrifyingly quiet, stained crimson everywhere. The people on board had vanished, whether turned into severed limbs and remains or having leaped into the lake to escape during the chaos.
In the dead silence, only the youth's figure moved slowly across the deck.
Blood had stained his white clothes into a mottled, vivid red, making it almost impossible to discern their original color. Dressed in those blood-soaked clothes, he quietly checked every corpse on the deck until he stepped over the severed sections of the Chiwei and arrived before Zhu Fuxue. He practicedly checked her breath and pulse; after doing so three times, he finally rose and stepped off the deck. He dragged his feet up the bank, passed the empty three-story stone boat, and stepped onto the overgrown Divine Path.
The Mingde Avenue of early morning was desolate and silent. The damp dew intertwined with the lakeside mist into a grayish-white shroud, making him feel for a moment as if he had traveled through that strange, lingering dream and returned to the muddy path before Ding-weng Village.
He was not a desperate fugitive returning from slaughter; he was merely a villager carrying a yoke of water, gathering a bundle of firewood, or cutting a basket of grass.
As long as he finished this road, he could return to that broken tile-roofed house, pass through that messy little courtyard, and return to her side.
The heat brought by the killing gradually faded, and his wounds began to grow numb. A dull ache diffused from deep within his body, making his steps increasingly heavy. His heart pounded as if it were about to burst, and a ringing in his ears pierced deep into his head, refusing to dissipate.
His body swayed. He reached out to steady himself against a cold stone, then slowly looked up.
The stone-carved divine statue was tall and solemn, possessing a magnificent aura. Though blurred by wind and rain, it appeared even more inscrutable, making one fear to look too closely.
At the foot of the statue, on the pedestal carved from a single piece of mountain rock, many mottled carvings were faintly visible. These were the obsessions carved by people who had passed this way. Some were words of blessing, some were curses, and some were just names.
The curses and blessings were scattered. Only the names mostly appeared in pairs.
Humans are truly foolish sometimes. Foolish enough to believe that by carving characters into stone, they could obtain eternity.
He did not believe in gods; he only believed in himself.
He did not believe in eternity either; he only believed that every extra day he lived had to be fought for by his own hands.
But did the people who carved the stones not understand this?
People went to temples to worship gods and Buddhas not because gods and Buddhas truly existed there, but because they wanted to entrust their difficult-to-realize wishes to that intangible void.
But what if... what if there really was a god who could hear?
The five fingers congealed with blood moved. Li Qiao slowly raised his left hand.
But the moment he raised the blade in his hand, he paused.
He didn't know what to carve.
His name was fake, stolen from a stone tablet in a nameless ruined temple.
To carve a fake name—even if there truly were a god, they would not be able to hear his prayer.
"Instead of asking the gods, you might as well ask me."
A voice rang out from nowhere, sounding both far and near, as if coming from all directions and yet inside his head.
"Your life was written by me. If I let you live, you live. If I let you die, you die."
The hand Li Qiao used to hold his blade began to tremble uncontrollably.
If the flow of blood truly had a sound, he could now hear the sound of the blood in his entire body stagnating.
His poison was acting up again.
It was a poison that could not be seen, touched, or undone. At some point, it had merged with him; unless his bones were scraped and his blood replaced, it could not be eradicated.
It turned out that even if the Qingfeng Powder was neutralized, the poison known as fear had never been uprooted.
Only one word remained in his mind.
*Run.*
Run immediately, run now, run for your life.
The stagnant blood instantly began to flow, rushing like a flood to his limbs. The trembling could not be stopped, so he fled with that trembling.
Li Qiao leaped onto the divine statue. With one more push, he could dive into the woods beside the Divine Path in a few bounds.
Suddenly, something brushed past the hem of his trousers. The ancient stone statue split into two at the neck, revealing a clean, smooth cut.
Losing his footing, he fell from mid-air, returning once more to the center of the ancient Divine Path.
The massive head of the statue shattered with a thunderous crash. A soft hum, wrapped in wind and dust, swirled past.
It was a fishing line—slender, light, looking as fragile as a spiderweb in the wind. Yet it was like an infinitely long sharp blade; one end had severed the head of the stone statue, and the other stopped half an inch from his neck.
Li Qiao slowly turned his head and looked back along the fishing line. He saw that upon the stone boat that had been empty, a person had appeared.
That person sat upright on the stone turtle protruding from the top floor of the lakeside stone boat. Their messy silver hair was haphazardly pinned with a gourd vine, and they wore a tattered straw raincoat. The aura emanating from them was even more silent than the mute stone statues.
No one in the martial world would use an ordinary fishing line as a weapon, but the person before him could not be judged by ordinary standards.
Li Kuquan, the Grandmaster of the Sheyi Sect. Before the age of forty, he had established his own sect alone, admired and worshipped by ten thousand. After forty, his only identity was the Guardian of Cangui Valley in the First Villa under Heaven.
*Sitting cross-legged on the stone boat, holding a bamboo rod.* The Guardian was always ready to sever the heads of intruders and defectors.
It did not matter what weapon he held in his hand, because anything that reached his hands would turn into a lethal tool. It is not terrifying if a person is born with extraordinary talent; what is terrifying is if he decides he can only do one thing in his life, and for that thing, he is willing to imprison himself for decades.
The more a person gives up, the more they gain.
To such a person, killing is as easy as reaching into a bag for an object, because having done it too many times, there is no longer any ripple in their heart.
"What? You seem very surprised to see him."
Di Mo's voice approached slowly from the end of the Divine Path. The shattered head of the former god was crushed beneath his feet, turning into a pile of stone powder.
Li Qiao knew that Li Kuquan would not easily leave the First Villa under Heaven unless the Villa Master, Di Mo, personally went to Cangui Valley to unlock his chains. His ability to board the Luosha Sect's ship and escape Qionghu Island was merely a meticulously laid chess game by the man before him.
After so many years, he thought he had finally broken free of everything, only to find he was still a blade held in the other's hand. Di Mo had eliminated Zhu Fuxue without losing a single soldier. Even if Li Qiao had been no match for Zhu Fuxue and had been killed, Zhu Fuxue, after a fierce battle with him, would not have been a match for Li Kuquan. The result would not have changed.
"You intended to kill Zhu Fuxue from the start."
Di Mo did not deny his deduction; he didn't even intend to hide it.
"Zhu Fuxue commanded a high bounty at the Lotus Market; she naturally required careful handling. However... I brought the Grandmaster out for other reasons as well."
Familiar footsteps drew near, finally stopping three paces in front of Li Qiao.
The other person clearly hadn't made any other move, but Li Qiao's spine involuntarily bent. His lowered eyes dared not look in that person's direction.
It turned out that after so many years, he still hadn't forgotten the obedience carved deep into his blood and bones. He loathed himself for it, yet he could not escape this predicament.
"Since you are silent, I will assume you still remember the events of that year. Back at the Villa, the Sheyi Grandmaster often told me he felt the events of that year were somewhat unfair and wanted an opportunity to spar with you once more. Today is that opportunity. If you win, you may leave on the spot; everything between the two of you will be written off. If you lose..." Di Mo's eyes, cold as a snake's, locked onto the youth's face, his voice like a serpent's hiss, "...then you shall return to the Villa with me for a good long talk about old times. What do you think?"
Li Qiao did not speak, but his gaze secretly observed Li Kuquan's movements.
Years ago, he had been no match for Li Kuquan. It was only with Li Qingdao's assistance and the use of a trick that he had narrowly escaped. Now, six or seven years had passed. Although he had mastered the Qingdao Blade Style and had grown, the Qingfeng Powder had still eroded his internal power. Meanwhile, Li Kuquan had remained at the Villa; given the terrifying speed at which the man absorbed techniques, he was likely on an entirely different level now.
This was not a spar between martial artists; it was a one-sided slaughter.
And for the Master of the First Villa under Heaven, correcting a seven-year-old mistake was imperative. Whether he brought back a person, an incomplete person, or a corpse did not matter to him.
What mattered was that the burial ground for those who defected from the Villa could only be the bottom of the West Sacrificial Tower.
In an instant, the old man sitting on the stone boat leaped down. His figure was as light as a withered leaf, but the wind he brought was like a black sandstorm. His voice closed in instantly.
"To be able to take my eyes... you do have some skill. You became famous in the Villa because of it. Unfortunately, in my eyes, you are but a nameless pawn as insignificant as dust, and I have little interest in taking the life of a nobody. If you beg for mercy and admit defeat, I can spare your life."
When Li Kuquan spoke, he infused his words with profound internal power. Every word was as heavy as a boulder falling into the sea. The wind could not scatter that sound; an ordinary person hearing it would likely be unable to bear it, their ears bleeding.
But the youth did not retreat or flinch in the slightest. He stared at the ugly scar on the other's face, his tone laced with mockery.
"The Grandmaster is merely taking advantage of someone's peril. Why use such excuses? Back then, you prided yourself on being a pillar of the martial world, a stone that anchored the heavens. In a duel, you would even level the ground and consider the wind direction. How is it that now, as your cultivation has grown, your character has become so crude? To take advantage of someone in this state—is this truly the conduct of a Grandmaster?"
As soon as these words left his mouth, Li Kuquan's figure indeed stiffened.
The word "Grandmaster" defined his life's pursuit and his life's burden.
He had spent his entire life pursuing eternal and flawless victory. If there was even a hint of impropriety, lack of candor, or unfairness in his victory, that victory was an insult to him. The youth, who understood this, had seized upon this point to escape his hands once before, and now seemed poised to repeat the feat.
"Li Kuquan, have you forgotten how you fell into a trap and lost your eyes?" Di Mo's voice rang out, easily shattering the trap the youth had woven. "Back then, you were lured off the stone boat by him. Today, he finds himself in the same predicament—it is merely retribution. If you still feel it is improper..."
As Di Mo spoke, he slowly reached his hand into his wide sleeve.
Sensing the movement, Li Qiao's eyes fixed onto the man's hand.
He was too familiar with those hands; he had personally experienced every terrible thing they had ever picked up. However, to his surprise, what the hand held was not a red-hot iron or a thorned lotus stem, but a small, sky-blue porcelain bottle.
His gaze locked onto that bottle, unable to move even a fraction.
Di Mo smiled, his voice hovering above him.
"It seems you are more familiar with this bottle than with me. That's hardly surprising, considering how obsessed you once were with it, and how many people you killed to obtain it." As Di Mo spoke, he couldn't help but cough. He made no effort to hide it, his face showing an indescribable sense of gratification. "As the Grandmaster said, you fought Zhu Fuxue earlier and have inevitably suffered some depletion. Use the Qingfeng Powder to make up for it. If you feel one bottle isn't enough..."
The sound of three porcelain bottles hitting the ground reached the youth's ears, like three terrifying insects nesting in his head.
Past bodily memories surged like a sea of blood, drowning him in an instant.
His soul rejected those bottles filled with sin, but his body gave the most honest reaction.
His hands began to shake again. Every inch of flesh, every strand of hair and pore on his body was urging him to succumb to the contents of those bottles. He could almost feel the burning and euphoria that would come from swallowing three doses of Qingfeng Powder at once.
He remembered that the Villa would only give an extra month's worth of Qingfeng Powder to disciples who consistently over-performed on their missions.
It was ironic that this substance, which eroded a martial artist's will and body, was actually viewed as a blessing in the First Villa under Heaven. Disciples who received the extra reward would involuntarily lift their heads half an inch higher, as if this could distinguish them from the lowly butchers.
And once, he had been one of those blind and foolish people.
"I... no longer need it..."
"Is that so? But your face doesn't seem to be saying that." Di Mo's voice instantly drowned out his resistance, like a devil whispering. "You don't need to put on an act before me. As long as you want them, you can take them all. Not just these—if you return to the Villa with me, you can have as much of this as you desire."
"There are thousands of disciples in the Villa. Why chase after me?"
"Naturally, because I can." Di Mo's answer was absurd, but his tone held not a hint of a joke. "Besides, a piece of firewood that has been split and ruined, even if it cannot be used, cannot be left discarded outside. It must be personally brought back and burned—that is the way of the world."
It wasn't because there was some benefit or some hidden reason; it was simply because as the Master of the First Villa under Heaven, he could decide Li Qiao's fate in a thousand different ways.
Li Qiao had never thought he could one day live without Qingfeng Powder, just as he had never thought he could escape the First Villa under Heaven.
Until she said she could give him the antidote.
She had planted something else invisible deep within his body—something more powerful than Qingfeng Powder, something that could suppress the hunger it brought, yet it had opened a great hole in his chest.
And if he wanted to fill that hole, he could only go to her.
He had to go to her.
Once he touched the things in those bottles, she would never see him again.
Li Qiao took a deep breath and struggled to swing his blade.
Weakness and anxiety had deformed his technique, yet he poured all his strength into this chaotic strike. The Qingwu Blade shattered the porcelain bottles and continued its momentum, piercing straight through his own calf. The moment it was pulled out, it brought a string of blood droplets that splattered onto Di Mo's hem.
He raised his head. Pain made his features twist slightly, but he finally managed to control that trembling hand, making it fulfill the duty it was meant to perform.
"After so much talk, it still comes to this. Come at me."
Di Mo stared at the striking bloodstains on his hem and said softly to Li Kuquan, "Leave him with a breath of life. Do not mar the face."
The air on the lakeshore stagnated for a moment, then was shredded by a surging killing intent.
Invisible blades tore through the air, wrapping the youth in a wall so dense not even the wind could pass. At first, he could still raise his blade to block, but in the end, he could only passively endure. He was like a broken paper kite, pulled this way and that by the one holding the string, unable to escape the fate of being manipulated and toyed with.
Li Kuquan strictly followed Di Mo's order. Every move avoided his face, yet almost shredded his body from the inside out. Blood seeped from his internal organs and flowed from his seven orifices. The foam of blood surging deep in his throat made breathing difficult, and all resistance gradually turned into mere struggling.
After an unknown amount of time, Li Kuquan finally stopped.
He walked to the youth, found the sound of his breathing, and accurately gripped his skull. His fingers tightened, grabbing the youth's hair and forcing him to lift his head.
His world was eternal night, but he still wanted to face that young and ever-changing countenance, as if he could see through the other's schemes this way.
"You took Li Qingdao as your master?"
Li Qiao did not speak, closing his eyes and gasping for air.
He seemed to have foreseen his end; every breath he took smelled of death.
"I am asking you one last time: did you truly take Li Qingdao as your master?"
As Li Kuquan asked the same question again, the youth, his face covered in blood, finally struggled to open his eyes.
His face was pale and fragile from suffering and torture, but those light brown eyes, like a wolf's, had never changed. Though drowned in despair, they still radiated a fierce refusal to submit.
Years ago, when he had stabbed a sharpened bone into the Grandmaster's eyes, his gaze had held the same expression.
"If Master were still alive, she would personally come to take your dog life."
The blind old man's ears twitched, his long brows rose, and killing intent radiated from his entire being, uncontrollable.
"Very well. Since she cannot come, you shall take her place."
Li Kuquan's bony hand instantly covered the back of Li Qiao's head.
The youth's neck was long and lean; it took no effort to find the seventh vertebra. He only needed to move his fingers to instantly turn this young bladesman into a cripple.
*What a pity,* he thought. *Such a nimble and vigorous body—many people practice for a lifetime and never possess it. If he had been born into a clean family, joined a sect, and had a good start, perhaps his fate would have been entirely different.*
Li Kuquan's mind drifted for a moment, and then Di Mo's voice rang out.
"No rush. I have questions for him."
Li Kuquan's hand paused. The youth, whose spine was gripped, finally managed to breathe. The blood surged up from the external force, and he spat out a mouthful of blood.
Di Mo waited patiently for him to finish coughing before calmly asking, "Who helped you neutralize the Qingfeng Powder?"
"I don't know what you're talking about..."
Di Mo smiled. His voice was hoarse and unpleasant, carrying an unmasked mockery.
"You are my hand-carved, most nearly perfect work. No one knows you better than I do. Even if you don't say it, I will naturally find out. But I want to hear you say that name with your own mouth. I want you to personally admit your mistake, personally sever these useless connections, and return to the Villa to continue your service. If you cannot do it, I will have to end this myself..."
Before Di Mo could finish, the youth kneeling on the ground suddenly lunged. Ignoring the fact that his vitals were held, he pointed his blade directly at the man before him.
This move was extremely dangerous, yet it showed a resolve to find life within death. However, whether due to his heavy injuries or that insurmountable fear, he was ultimately a step too slow. Li Kuquan struck him heavily in the wound on his ribs, and he spat out another mouthful of blood.
"You actually dared to swing your blade at me. It seems that in these years apart, you haven't just grown taller, you've grown quite a bit of courage. No matter. We shall talk slowly once we return. I am certain you will eventually be willing to tell me." Di Mo's voice turned completely cold as he began to walk toward the lake. "Bring him onto the ship."
Li Kuquan lowered his head and hesitated for a moment. Seemingly unwilling to touch the blade firmly tied to the youth's hand, he stepped forward and grabbed the youth's head once more.
In his dizziness, Li Qiao only felt the hand on his crown begin to exert force. His blood dragged a long mark across the path. In a daze, he had become a sacrificial beast in an ancient ritual, his throat slit to bleed out as he was dragged toward the altar, toward his final destination.
The last trace of consciousness slowly ebbed away. This time, he could no longer squeeze another ounce of strength from this scarred body.
His struggling gradually ceased. His pupils, filled with blood and filth, became numb and dead, staring unblinkingly at the end of the great road.
At that end, there was the shade of midsummer trees, a gentle evening breeze, the scent of mint, and the light of an oil lamp while sewing.
That was the direction he wanted to go.
But this time, he could only make it this far.
The sun rose behind him, yet he was submerged in shadow.
It was the shadow of Di Mo and Li Kuquan, and the shadow of the First Villa under Heaven.
Li Qiao slowly closed his eyes.
He was willing to sacrifice his body and even his soul, if only a god could hear his tiny wish.
However, even the gods were unwilling to touch his lowly soul. He would vanish silently into this quiet dawn, just as he had when he first came into this world...
*Whoosh.*
A strange sound suddenly tore through the air, heading straight for the blind spot behind Li Kuquan's flank. It seemed to be a hidden weapon.
The person who attacked was very cunning, having hidden downwind the entire time. There hadn't been a sound before the attack, and they had used the previous sounds of fighting to conceal themselves, actually waiting out an opportunity for a sneak attack right under Li Kuquan's nose.
The "hidden weapon" was the size of a chicken coop, its target clear. But the person throwing it had weak strength and not a hint of intimidating power. Li Kuquan's arm jerked, and a fine line flew from his wrist. The object flying toward him was instantly sliced in two and fell to the ground.
He didn't stop, intending to continue forward, but then he heard a dense buzzing sound coming from all directions. His expression darkened, and he swung the line again, striking several small objects. Those things were sliced down by him, making almost no sound.
But in the next moment, the noise in the air grew louder. Something was swarming together, attacking him from all sides.
Li Kuquan finally understood what that object he had split was.
It wasn't a hidden weapon; it was a hornet's nest.
A nest full of angry, large-jawed tiger-head hornets.
His cultivation was extraordinary; with one strike, the nest had been sliced perfectly in half. The swarm poured out, vibrating their wings as they surged forward. For a blind man, he relied on his ears more than others to perceive his environment. At this moment, the dense and inescapable buzzing threw his auditory perception into chaos. The swarm's movement disrupted the airflow around him. The more acute his senses were, the more they suffered. He instantly lost his judgment of the space around him.
"Li Qiao!"
Accompanied by a woman's voice cracking with strain, a rapid sound of hoofbeats rang out beside him.
The youth turned his head. The blood and filth made his vision blurry, but he seemed to see a white horse galloping toward him.
On the back of that white horse was a person whose hair had been blown into a mess by the wind. Two legs with nowhere to go were kicked out on either side of the horse's belly. Person and horse galloped through the morning light as if they had grown wings.
Light lit up the youth's eyes. In a daze, he felt he was seeing that giant white bird from his dream breaking through the darkness once again.
His god had heard his prayer and finally called his name.
Qin Jiuye was clinging for dear life to the horse's neck, her palms having already plucked out several clumps of horsehair. The little white horse was furious at being plucked, but since it couldn't shake her off, it vented its anger into its hooves, running with a momentum that felt like it was about to take flight. In the blink of an eye, it had charged right in front of them.
"Get on! Hurry, get on!"
The woman leaned precariously from the horse's back, reaching out her thin arm toward him.
Li Kuquan identified the position by sound. The fine line flew through the air, striking directly at the horse's legs. This strike carried eighty to ninety percent of his power; it was meant not only to sever the horse's legs but also to throw the intruder to the ground.
Li Qiao's pupils contracted. Breath began to circulate through his meridians again. His body, which he thought could no longer squeeze out any strength, could move once more.
In a flash, he broke free from Li Kuquan's grip, raised his blade, and forcefully intercepted the strike.
He was at the end of his rope, holding on purely by willpower. The webs of both his hands instantly split open, and he staggered back. Just as he was about to fall, that thin arm firmly grabbed his collar.
Qin Jiuye had never imagined that her malnourished, bone-thin body could perform such a high-difficulty maneuver. But she couldn't pull a grown man onto the horse with one hand, so she could only lock her legs firmly into the stirrups. As long as her legs didn't break, she wouldn't be pulled off.
The little white horse clearly sensed the life-or-death crisis. It dared not stop, galloping forward at full speed. Qin Jiuye refused to let go, dragging the youth along as they broke through the encirclement and plunged into the overgrown woods beside Mingde Avenue.
The Grandmaster, besieged by the swarm, let out a roar. The fine line that had turned into a silver net in the air snapped, and the agitated hornets were instantly turned into fine dust, falling silently to the ground.
But his left eye was already swollen shut, and his entire person was in a state of disarray. He had none of the aura of a peerless master he'd had upon his entrance.
"Despicable, shameless, filthy, and low!"
As soon as he spoke, before he could move, Di Mo's voice rang out coldly behind him.
"I thought you wouldn't make the same mistake twice."
Li Kuquan's thin lips pressed together, his clenched knuckles making a terrifying sound from the force.
"I only..." His swollen face hid his embarrassment, but the sense of defeat made his tongue stiffen again, making it almost impossible to speak a complete sentence. "...I can go after them..."
"With those eyes of yours? The Grandmaster missed his chance; he cannot blame others." Di Mo's gaze lingered on the distant water. At some point, the Luosha Sect's ship had vanished into the mist again. "Besides, how do you know this wasn't the Chuanliu Courtyard's tactic to lure the tiger away from the mountain? He is but a pawn that can be discarded at any time, a piece of bait for fishing. The Grandmaster should not forget his duty because of a moment's playfulness. It is better to stay by my side."
Li Kuquan's mottled hair and beard seemed to be bleached white by the morning light in an instant.
The youth's blade style earlier had awakened his sleeping memories, reminding him of the days of washing horses in cold pools and wielding a sword in the high heavens. It also made him briefly forget a fact: he was no longer the Li Kuquan of the past.
He was merely a killing blade, a watchdog, under this name.
And whether a blade or a dog, both could only obey their master.
"Yes."
***
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