The turmoil at Xuande Ward, after Gu Chengming returned to the Night-Watch Bureau, was reduced to a thin scroll of case files.
Unlike the Court of State Ceremonial's roundabout maneuvering that still had to spare a thought for the face of foreign relations, Gu Chengming's brushwork in the closing statement could be called blunt and direct.
[At the mouth of the Xuande Ward marketplace, an untamed demon beast went berserk and injured people, causing one death and one injury, and damaging several civilian dwellings. Night-Patrol Guard Gu Chengming, patrolling to this spot, slew it on the scene in accordance with the law of the Great Qian.]
There was not a single embellishment regarding any "East Sea auspicious beast," nor any euphemistic avoidance regarding the identity of the envoy delegation.
As that vivid crimson "Approved" seal was stamped down, this diplomatic dispute that should have shaken the entire court was, within the archives of the Night-Watch Bureau, thus classified as an utterly ordinary "demon-slaying" assignment.
Vice-Commander Liu looked at that case file, merely smacked his lips, and in the end gave a thumbs-up, then without another word had someone file it away.
As for whether the Court of State Ceremonial and the Ministry of Justice would come bickering afterward—that was a matter of the great personages above jockeying for position, and had nothing to do with these saber-wielding rough soldiers.
Having handled the official business, Gu Chengming made another trip to the charnel house in the western part of the city.
That youth was kneeling before the freshly prepared mourning hall, dressed all in plain white, his frame so thin it seemed a single gust of wind could topple him.
Seeing Gu Chengming enter, the dullness in the youth's eyes finally stirred with a flicker of motion.
He opened his mouth, as if wishing to say something, but because his throat had long since gone hoarse from weeping, he couldn't make the slightest sound.
Gu Chengming said nothing more, only set a heavy storage pouch upon the offering table.
"There are a thousand spirit stones inside." Gu Chengming said, looking at the youth: "Since you didn't take the compensation the Court of State Ceremonial offered you, then consider this money as given personally by me. Though it can't buy back your grandfather's life, those who go on living still have to keep living."
The youth looked at that storage pouch, his body trembling violently.
He knew that this was the justice this benefactor before him had reclaimed on his behalf—it was the "blood-money" for that jiao beast's life.
He did not decline, nor did he say any mawkish words; he only silently picked up the storage pouch, then turned around and knelt down heavily toward Gu Chengming.
"Thud."
The sound of his forehead striking the ground was muffled yet resounding.
He did not rise, but simply lay prostrate on the ground like that, and in a voice so hoarse it was nearly inaudible, said word by word:
"Such great kindness, I will surely repay in this life."
In the days that followed, the Capital seemed to once again return to its former calm.
Gu Chengming's life became exceedingly regular.
Each day, apart from going to the Night-Watch Bureau to report for duty, he would run off to the Imperial Academy.
Although the Imperial Academy's library was primarily focused on the Classics, Histories, Philosophies, and Collections, it was after all the place where the Great Qian's cultural lineage converged. The miscellaneous works it housed—such as the «Records of Mountains and Seas Anomalies» and the «Illustrated Records of the Four Seas»—were far more detailed than those available on the market.
The distribution of the East Sea's water-veins, the bloodline weaknesses of the jiao clan, and even the secret affairs of the great aristocratic families—clues to all of these could be found within those dust-covered stacks of old papers.
Only, these days at the Imperial Academy were not entirely the dry turning of pages.
From some unknown day onward, Gu Chengming discovered that the frequency with which he ran into a certain Harmonious Joy Sect Elder at the Imperial Academy was preposterously high.
"Oh? What a coincidence?"
In the corridor outside the Heart Sutra Hall, Fu Xiaoxiao, in a red dress with her hands behind her back, feigning nonchalance, sauntered out from around a corner, wearing a "I'm just passing by" expression on her face:
"I just went to get some medicine from Li Suizhuang—didn't expect you to be here too?"
Gu Chengming looked at her pair of brand-new, dust-free shoes that had clearly been changed on purpose, and the faint scent of peach blossoms about her, and found it amusing inside, yet on the surface he obligingly cupped his hands and said:
"Indeed a coincidence. Has Senior Sister Fu come to read as well?"
"Read? Where would this seat find such idle time?"
Fu Xiaoxiao pursed her lips, then her gaze swept once over Gu Chengming, as if she'd suddenly remembered something, and her eyes lit up:
"But since we've run into each other, I might as well take the chance to test your studies. That Red Dust Art I taught you last time—how's your practice coming along?"
Before Gu Chengming could even answer, she had already crowded in close, putting on a posture of "testing" that was in truth a fondness for playing the teacher.
And so, amid the solemn, dignified atmosphere of the Imperial Academy, there came to be a strange pairing.
A young man in azure robes with a sword at his hip holding an ancient tome about East Sea demon beasts, while beside him a red-clad girl who looked to be only fifteen or sixteen stood with her hands behind her back, prattling away in his ear with an air of pompous maturity about karma and red dust and the like.
"No, no! This thread of red dust qi is too scattered!"
Fu Xiaoxiao extended that tender, pale finger and lectured: "You have to imagine it as a needle, not a net. You must precisely pierce into the other party's karmic line, not flail about uselessly over there!"
"Try again, this time aiming at that tree!"
"Aiyah, you're hopelessly dense!"
Through all this back-and-forth, the two of them grew increasingly familiar with each other.
Although Fu Xiaoxiao verbally disdained Gu Chengming's insufficient comprehension, in her heart she was actually worried that Gu Chengming would learn too fast and there'd be nothing left to teach him afterward.
Even so, when it came to teaching, she held nothing back.
Under this Harmonious Joy Sect Elder's hands-on guidance, Gu Chengming's command of the Red Dust Art within the «Yin-Yang Creation Strategy» could be said to have advanced a thousand li in a single day.
Half a month's time passed in the blink of an eye.
When Gu Chengming once again condensed the red dust qi within his sea of consciousness, that pink spiritual power, originally thin as mist, had now been refined into a thread that seemed almost substantial, exceedingly nimble under the control of his divine sense, faintly carrying a profound, mind-stirring ripple.
Though he was still far from Fu Xiaoxiao's realm of "rewriting reality," using it to nudge the thoughts of mortals or low-ranking cultivators a little, or to lend himself a touch of affinity, was already more than enough.
Looking at that strand of obediently drifting red dust qi at his fingertip, Gu Chengming felt a slight settling in his heart.
Sword arts to slay the body, red dust to confound the mind.
This Yin-Yang Creation Strategy—he could now be said to have thoroughly crossed its threshold.
A few days later.
The Imperial Academy, the Heart Sutra Hall.
The rain outside the window had stopped at some unknown point; a few faint threads of sunlight slanted through the window lattice, casting mottled light and shadow among that row of dust-covered bookshelves.
Gu Chengming stood in the corner, holding in his hands a yellowed old volume titled «Miscellaneous Records of the East Sea».
The person recorded in the book had not left behind a full name; he was referred to only as the "Reef Stone Daoist."
He was born in a remote fishing village called Reef Stone Village on the shores of the East Sea. Though that place belonged to the territory of the Great Qian, because it bordered the sea it was often harassed by demon beasts; the villagers mostly made their living by fishing, struggling to survive in the cracks.
For the first half of his life, this man was an utterly ordinary fisherman—he married and had children, working at sunrise and resting at sunset, eking out a living amid the wind and waves. His greatest wish was nothing more than for his family to be able to eat a full meal in peace and safety.
Until the year he turned forty, when a passing Wenjian Sect Elder happened to discover the "sword bone" latent within his body. Amid his astonishment, the Elder asked whether he would be willing to enter the immortal gate.
At that time he was already the pillar of his household, with elders above and children below, but he knew that even if he stayed in Reef Stone Village and was ever so careful, there was no guarantee that one day he wouldn't end up buried in a fish's belly or a demon's maw.
And so, in order to secure a true path of survival for his wife and children, he agreed.
He made a promise with his wife: once he had settled down in the sect and registered, he would immediately come back to bring them to enjoy good fortune in that legendary Wenjian Sect, where there were no demon beasts, only immortals.
Carrying this longing, he followed the Elder through the mountain gate.
Within the Wenjian Sect there was none of the scheming and intrigue he had imagined; his senior brothers and sisters held no discrimination toward him for his mortal origins, which made him believe all the more firmly that he had made the right decision.
Having completed the entry procedures and received his disciple token, before he had even had the chance to cultivate for a single day, he impatiently requested leave from the Elder and traveled day and night to hurry back to Reef Stone Village.
He brought the sect's spirit rice, brought a pearl hairpin for his wife, brought a wooden sword for his child.
However, when, gasping for breath, he pushed open that familiar firewood gate, what greeted him was not the smiling faces of his wife and children, but a vision of hell on earth.
Reef Stone Village—gone.
All one hundred thirty-six souls of the village, not one survived.
Though the words on the page were terse, Gu Chengming found them shocking to read—
[Corpses strewn everywhere, every bone shattered. Regardless of man or woman, old or young, all had their eyes gouged out and were arranged in kneeling postures, facing the sea, as if in atonement.]
His wife's pearl hairpin lay shattered in the mud; the child's wooden sword, never yet delivered, had already lost its owner.
He searched through that heap of corpses like a madman, and at last, among the kneeling bodies facing the sea, found his own wife and child, already mangled beyond human shape.
He returned to the Wenjian Sect in a daze, his soul scattered, but that hellish scene became a nightmare he could not shake off.
Whenever the night grew deep and still, or his cultivation reached a critical juncture, the image of that whole village of kneeling corpses would surface, breeding inner demons within him until he nearly fell into qi deviation.
He forced himself to forget, forced himself to press that heaven-spanning hatred and grief down into the deepest depths of his heart.
Combining it with the sect's heart-method, through those countless nights tormented by inner demons, he painstakingly and against all odds created a technique meant to forcibly suppress the spirit-soul and sweep away distracting thoughts.
He named it—the «Qingxin Formula».
Reading to this point, Gu Chengming's fingers abruptly froze.
At last, found it...
He drew a deep breath and continued reading down.
Relying on the «Qingxin Formula», that Reef Stone Daoist broke through the first and second realms step by step. He became taciturn, became free of desire and pure of heart, as if he had truly become a sword cultivator who had severed all worldly ties.
But he never once forgot to investigate the truth of that year.
While cultivating, he had people make inquiries far and wide and gathered clues.
Finally, on the very day he broke through to the third realm, the truth came to light.
The one who had slaughtered the entire Reef Stone Village was not some roving demon beast, but an offspring of the East Sea's Fubai Dragon Lord.
The cause was simply that, as this Dragon Lord's offspring passed by the seashore, it felt that the village's position blocked its "feng shui," and that some fisherman had inadvertently offended its procession.
The reason was absurd to the point of being laughable.
In that instant, all that talk of purity and freedom from desire, all that talk of supreme detachment from emotion—in that instant it all became a joke.
He took up his sword and charged toward the East Sea, murderous intent surging.
Relying on the terrifying strength of a third-realm sword cultivator, on an island he intercepted that jiao-dragon, which was carrying on in pleasure with a flock of water-clan creatures.
That jiao-dragon was only at the late second realm; accustomed to throwing its weight around in its daily life, where had it ever seen such a confrontation?
That was a single sword-stroke from the first realm's Sheathed Edge all the way to the third realm—a single stroke holding decades of wrath that the third-realm sword cultivator had suppressed.
The jiao-dragon knew that once this sword came down, it would surely die.
Trembling, it roared: "I am the son of the Fubai Dragon Lord! I am the offspring of a fifth-realm great demon!!"
"If you kill me! My royal father will surely hunt you to the ends of the earth! You'll have no way out! Not even the Wenjian Sect can protect you!!"
The sword—stopped.
The hand gripping the sword trembled violently; his eyes were bloodshot, yet he found that he simply did not have the courage to bring that sword down.
Through long suppression and reason, he had long grown accustomed to weighing gains and losses.
He discovered that his hatred did not run deep enough for him to throw away even his own life, and that he had never truly achieved purity of heart and freedom from desire—
he feared death, he could not bear to give up that third-realm cultivation he had so painstakingly attained, he could not bear to give up that hope of the great Dao of longevity.
Before the menace of a fifth-realm great demon, before the choice between life and death.
That heaven-spanning hatred actually shrank back.
In the end, he withdrew his sword.
The last few lines recorded in the book pierced the heart, word by word.
[Thereafter, the Reef Stone Daoist never again set foot in the East Sea. After returning to the sect he entered death-seclusion, and relying on that lingering, undissipated obsession, he actually advanced with unstoppable momentum, broke through the fourth realm, and became a sect Elder, basking in boundless glory.]
[However, in his later years, when he assaulted the fifth realm, his inner demon arose anew. On that day, he seemed to return once more to the seashore of Reef Stone Village, seeing that whole village of kneeling corpses, seeing the mocking gaze of that jiao-dragon.]
[Within the illusion, he swung out that single sword-stroke he had not swung back then—but it severed his own Dao foundation.]
[In the end, his body perished and his Dao was extinguished.]
"Snap."
Gu Chengming closed the book and stood where he was in silence for a long while.
By the time he returned to the Night-Watch Bureau, it was already a quarter past the hour of wei.
Within the Hidden Dragon Court it was as busy as ever; Night-Patrol Guards came and went, some wiping down their weapons, some sorting through case files.
The air was suffused with a faint smell of iron rust and the aroma of stale tea. This atmosphere full of mundane human vitality and a killing edge actually made Gu Chengming feel more grounded than the bookish air of the Imperial Academy.
The moment he stepped through the gate of the office corridor, he saw Vice-Commander Liu knitting his brows, holding in his hand a freshly delivered urgent document, instructing a senior, long-serving Night-Patrol Guard at his side about something.
"...Though this case can't be counted as major, the location is remote and it involves waterways, so it's rather troublesome to handle."
Vice-Commander Liu made a clicking sound and, somewhat irritably, rubbed the space between his brows:
"That place isn't far from the East Sea. Though it isn't within the core territory of that pack of loaches, lately, because of that business at Xuande Ward, the East Sea side is seething with pent-up anger. If we send some hot-headed greenhorn, who knows what trouble it'll stir up again."
"Old Zhang, you'd best make the trip. Your temperament is steady, and you're an old hand—you've got the most experience handling this kind of 'water-bandit' disturbance case."
That Night-Patrol Guard addressed as Old Zhang nodded and was about to reach out to take the case file.
"Water bandits?"
Gu Chengming stepped forward and asked offhandedly: "Commander, water bandits from where?"
Seeing that it was Gu Chengming who had returned, Vice-Commander Liu immediately switched to a smiling expression and waved his hand: "Aiyo, Chengming, you're back? It's nothing, nothing—just a small case. There's a remote fishing village over by the East Sea; word recently came up reporting that a gang of water bandits has been plundering goods. This kind of job—just let Old Zhang handle it. You've just rendered great merit and just collected your reward; it's the perfect time to rest a bit more in the Capital."
Gu Chengming did not pick up the thread; his gaze inadvertently swept over a corner of the case file that the wind had blown open.
Within those somewhat sloppy strokes of writing, an extremely familiar place-name—one that even made his pupils contract slightly—came crashing into his line of sight without any warning.
[Site of incident: East Sea Commandery, Linhai County, Reef Stone Village.]
Reef Stone Village.
Gu Chengming's breathing stalled for a moment.
Could there truly be such a coincidence in this world?
That place which, in the old book at the Imperial Academy, had long since turned to dust—the burial ground of one hundred thirty-six wronged souls; that sorrowful land that had become the lifelong nightmare of the "Reef Stone Daoist" and ultimately led to his body perishing and his Dao being extinguished.
And now, it had once again appeared upon a case file of the Night-Watch Bureau?
"Reef Stone Village..."
Gu Chengming reached out and, under the astonished gazes of Vice-Commander Liu and Old Zhang, pressed his hand directly down upon that case file.
"Commander."
Gu Chengming raised his head: "This case—let me take it."
"You'll go?"
Vice-Commander Liu was stunned for a moment, then shook his head again and again: "That place is a godforsaken backwater, and besides, these are water bandits—desperadoes who make their living on the sea year-round, slippery as anything. You, a sword cultivator, going to that kind of place, you won't be able to bring your strengths to bear; it'll be far too much of an ordeal."
"What's more, you're now the favored man of our Bureau, a heaven-blessed talent on the Hidden Dragon Ranking—going to catch a few water bandits? That's far too much of a waste of talent!"
"It's not a waste of talent."
Gu Chengming did not release his hand; on the contrary, he took the case file over, his tone carrying an indisputable decisiveness:
"This subordinate has been cultivating the sword Dao lately and has gained some small insight—I precisely need to borrow these East Sea waves to temper my sword intent."
Though Vice-Commander Liu did not know what this lad was up to, seeing Gu Chengming like this, he felt he couldn't stop him either.
"All right, all right."
Vice-Commander Liu sighed helplessly and waved his hand to dismiss Old Zhang:
"Since you're set on going, then go. But I'll say the unpleasant part first: the situation over at the East Sea is delicate right now. When you get there, just catch the water bandits—don't be too rash, and try your best not to stir up any more diplomatic disputes."
"This subordinate understands."
Gu Chengming put away the case file and gripped tight the sword in his hand.
Within the small courtyard at Jishan Ward, the midday sun was just right.
When Gu Chengming returned from outside, Yu Wenqiu was sprawled utterly without dignity on the swing-chair, basking in the sun.
Upon learning that Gu Chengming had accepted a field assignment to go suppress bandits at the East Sea, this perennially indolent Elder rarely sat up straight.
She said little, only, as always, voicing the most protective words in the most casual tone—if the sword couldn't reason things through, remember to call for backup; at worst, she'd make the trip herself.
Gu Chengming understood her meaning, and so set out on the journey to the East Sea.
Once out of the Capital's towering city gate, Gu Chengming no longer suppressed his travel speed.
The Wave-Listening Sword transformed into a streak like a startled swan, carrying him as it tore through the air.
From the splendid, flourishing environs of the Great Qian's capital region, heading east all the way, the scenery beneath his feet kept shifting.
At first it was crisscrossing fields of fertile farmland and villages with cooking smoke curling up; as the distance to the East Sea grew shorter, the terrain gradually became rugged, and the moisture in the air kept climbing.
About a day later.
The clouds at the horizon began to grow low and heavy, taking on a leaden-gray hue.
What was mixed into the wind was no longer the fragrance of earth, but a thick, salty, fishy stench carrying a smell of decay.
Gu Chengming pressed down his sword-light and alighted upon a cliff face overlooking the sea.
Gazing out, that legendary, vast and boundless East Sea did not, at this moment, resemble the rolling jade-blue expanse depicted in poetry.
Turbid waves lashed again and again at the black reefs, rolling up yellowed foam. In the distance, the fishing village loomed faint and indistinct within the gray, hazy mist, exuding an indescribable deathly stillness.
So this was the East Sea...
The shores of the East Sea, Reef Stone Village.
The sea wind carried a salty, damp, fishy reek that lingered and would not disperse, as though scraped out from a heap of rotting seaweed. It blew the few tattered banners on the docks flapping noisily, producing an irritating "fwap-fwap" sound.
Gu Chengming did not directly reveal his Night-Watch Bureau identity.
He had changed into an ordinary, washed-pale azure robe, with only a common white jade pendant hanging at his waist, suppressing that bitingly cold sword intent about him, so that he looked just like an impoverished scholar wandering the four directions, naive to the ways of the world.
The moment he stepped onto those moss-covered stone steps, Gu Chengming sensed something was off.
This fishing village was too quiet.
Though it was plainly a place that lived off the sea, there were hardly any fishermen drying their nets on the docks; every household had its doors and windows tightly shut, and hanging beneath the eaves were not dried fish, but strings upon strings of wind chimes made of unidentifiable beast bones.
The incense at the earth-god shrine at the village entrance was, however, quite flourishing—only, regrettably, what was enshrined there was not the Earth God, but a ferocious-faced, entirely blue-black dragon-head clay idol.
"Young man, halt."
Just as Gu Chengming was about to walk inside, an old man with a hunched frame and skin wrinkled like old tree bark emerged from who-knows-where, leaning on a cane, blocking the middle of the path.
This was the village's headman.
His pair of turbid eyes sized Gu Chengming up and down; in his gaze there was no simple, honest hospitality, only thick wariness and rejection.
"There's nothing worth seeing here, and no lodging either."
The headman's voice was hoarse, carrying a tone of driving him off: "Lately the Dragon King's temper has been foul, the sea's not at peace. If you don't want to die, then hurry and leave—don't go courting bad luck for yourself."
Gu Chengming cupped his hands and said with a smile: "Old sir, this humble one is merely passing through. I heard the sea views here are distinctive and wanted to beg a cup of water and rest my feet a while before going."
"No water! And no place to rest!"
The headman's face darkened, and he instinctively glanced back at the sea, his tone turning hurried and agitated:
"Leave, leave! If you offend something, then never mind just your one life—our whole village will suffer the calamity along with you!"
Having said this, he seemed not to dare linger outside any longer; after warily glancing all around, he hurriedly turned and went off to check whether the doors and windows of each household were shut tight, muttering "no offense, no offense" under his breath in an eerie, superstitious way.
Once that headman had gone far off, Gu Chengming's gaze fell upon the drying racks hanging before a few nearby households.
Several strings of dusty, salted dried fish swayed feebly in the salty, damp sea wind. The fish bodies were withered and shriveled, their scales dull and lusterless, as if all their essence-qi had been drained away.
Even more bizarrely, these dried fish not only lacked the fresh, lively fishy smell of ordinary catches, but faintly carried an unsettling, sweetish smell of decay. Their eye-sockets were hollow and empty, as though staring fixedly at the strangers passing by.
"Don't eat the dried fish over there—they were dried from fish that died and floated belly-up; eat them and you'll get a bad stomach."
A crisp yet deliberately lowered voice came, extremely abruptly, from behind a nearby mooring post, appearing especially vivid in this dead, listless fishing village.
Gu Chengming halted his steps and turned his head to look.
He saw a little boy of about seven or eight, laboriously dragging a tattered fishing net larger than himself, hiding over there.
His skin was tanned dark by the sea wind, and there were a few fine cuts on his hands and feet, but his eyes were astonishingly bright, carrying a cleverness rarely seen in seaside children, as he secretly sized Gu Chengming up.
Gu Chengming's interest was piqued; he crouched down so his line of sight was level with the boy's and said with a smile: "How do you know those are dead fish?"
The boy did not answer directly. First he looked left and right to make sure that fierce headman wasn't nearby, then deftly pulled out from his bosom a clean white cloth—washed pale, picked up from who-knows-where.
He first carefully wiped the moss-covered stone stool beside Gu Chengming until it was spotlessly clean, then gestured for Gu Chengming to sit.
Having done all this, he patted the dust off his hands and said with an air of pompous maturity: "It's the clouds, see. These past couple of days the qi in the sea is wrong—all turbid, like it's brewing something nasty. The fish down below are all dizzy and disoriented. This kind of fish that floats up on its own, its flesh is sour, not good to eat."
Gu Chengming's heart stirred slightly.
In his eyes, at the spirit-platform of this raggedly dressed little boy, there was actually a faint yet exceedingly pure water-blue spiritual light pulsing—utterly out of place in this fishing village where even the very air carried a salty, fishy turbidity.
"You understand these things?" Gu Chengming asked without revealing anything.
The boy scratched his head a little bashfully, then from the very bottom of that tattered fishing net, as if presenting a treasure, drew out a copy of the «Basic Qi-Guiding Formula», its pages already dog-eared from much handling and yellowed.
"The teacher at the village school secretly taught me."
The boy hugged the book to his chest and lowered his voice, as if sharing an earth-shattering secret:
"Teacher says I'm clever and learn things fast. He says that as long as I can sense the qi, in the future I'll be able to go to a great sect, and I'll be able to become an immortal!"
At this point, the boy's gaze suddenly grew somewhat downcast.
He glanced at those tightly shut doors and windows in the distance, then looked at that incense-thronged Dragon King temple, his little hand gripping that tattered book tightly:
"When I become an immortal, I'll come back and help my pa drive the fish. My pa, in order to pay that whatever-tribute, soaked his legs in the cold water until they went bad... If I become powerful, then my pa won't have to kowtow to those monsters in the water, and everyone won't have to be so afraid anymore."
Looking at the boy's gaze, a few measures more of goodwill arose in Gu Chengming's heart.
"You really are very clever."
Gu Chengming fished a few Qi-Gathering Pills from his sleeve and gently placed them in the boy's palm.
"Take these. If your pa asks, just say a passing schoolteacher gave them to you."
The boy looked at those fragrant pills, his eyes going round as saucers. Though he didn't know what they were, he instinctively knew this was a good thing.
He did not take them right away, but instead pulled out from his pocket a handful of colorful seashells, picking and picking, and at last selected the prettiest one, a pale-purple conch, and solemnly held it out to Gu Chengming:
"Mister, I won't take it for nothing... This is for you—this is a Tide-Listening Conch. Put your ear to it, and it can make a person's heart grow calm."
Saying this, he tilted his head up, his tender young face full of longing:
"Mister, you're a good person. When I've cultivated into a great sword-immortal in the future, I'll go to the Capital to find you and repay your kindness!"
However, just at this moment.
On the distant sea surface, an abnormal mass of dark clouds suddenly rolled up, and the originally calm waves instantly grew frenzied.
"Ah Ji!"
A terror-stricken, panicked roar that had cracked out of pitch came.
That headman from before had at some point doubled back. When he saw Ah Ji still talking with that stranger—and especially when he saw the qi-guiding formula in Ah Ji's hands brazenly exposed in the open—his old face instantly went pale as paper with fright, even his lips quivering.
"You little brat! Tired of living?!"
The headman practically came scrambling over on all fours, snatched away that tattered book as if it were a scalding-hot branding iron, and forcefully stuffed it into Ah Ji's bosom, covering it tightly with the boy's lapel.
He glanced in terror at that discolored sea surface and lowered his voice:
"Didn't I tell you?! Hide it! Hide it! Don't let it show that you can cultivate! Do you want to get the whole village killed?!"
"If that young lord sees it, our whole village will suffer! Come back with me! Hurry!!"
The headman did not dare so much as glance at Gu Chengming; grabbing Ah Ji's arm, he dragged him toward the village, his movements so rough it was as if he meant to wrench Ah Ji's arm off.
Ah Ji was scared dumb, stumbling as he was dragged along, but he still turned his head back, looking toward Gu Chengming standing on the docks.
Gu Chengming stood where he was, quietly watching the old man and the boy vanish behind the tottering earthen wall.
The sea wind grew ever more biting, carrying a nauseating fishy sweetness.
Gazing into the far distance, the originally azure seawater now seemed as though thick ink had been splashed into it, faintly shimmering with an ominous dark-red glow, the surging tide lashing at the reefs.
"Hide the matter of cultivating..."
Gu Chengming's brow furrowed slightly.
In this remote fishing village, the spiritual energy was so thin as to be nearly exhausted.
That an eight-year-old child could, without a teacher, step through the gate of cultivation on his own should have been a stroke of great fortune—as though the ancestral graves had begun smoking auspiciously. Yet in this headman's eyes, it was something that needed to be "hidden."
Putting away his thoughts, Gu Chengming lingered no longer.
After leaving the docks, Gu Chengming did not head directly to the site of the incident, but first went to the county yamen.
Contrary to Gu Chengming's expectations, the one who greeted him was not the corrupt, buck-passing official he had imagined, but a gaunt old man in an official robe washed pale, his temples streaked with gray and his face careworn.
This was the local County Magistrate Li.
The moment he saw Gu Chengming, he did not put on any official airs; on the contrary, he grabbed hold of Gu Chengming's sleeve, his pair of withered, bony hands trembling slightly, his whole face filled with a "pleading on behalf of the people" sort of sincerity and anxiety.
"Lord Gu, ah, you've finally come."
County Magistrate Li, while leading Gu Chengming toward the inner hall, lowered his voice and earnestly counseled:
"This lowly official knows the rules of the Night-Watch Bureau, but this time the situation... is truly special. Those 'water bandits' come and go without a trace. If we investigate with great fanfare and that pack of desperadoes panics, and they really do cut off our shipping route here..."
He stopped his steps and let out a heavy sigh, as though the very creases of his face were laden with worry for the common folk:
"Lord Gu, you are a distinguished personage come from the Capital; there's much you don't know. This small county of ours relies entirely on the spirit-pearl trade with the East Sea side to get by. If this trade falls through, the court's reproach is a small matter—but the whole county's people losing their livelihood, that means people will starve to death!"
"In this lowly official's view, it would be better to simply report it as roving water bandits, hand out some compensation silver, and settle the matter. If we pursue it too closely, we'd instead be doing harm out of good intentions."
Gu Chengming stopped his steps, brushed off County Magistrate Li's hand, straightened his sleeve-cuffs, his tone betraying neither joy nor anger:
"Water bandits or demonic evil—it makes no difference. Since the Night-Watch Bureau has taken on the case, there's no reason to close it in a murky, half-clear manner."
"As for the court's reproach..." Gu Chengming gave him a sidelong glance: "If the sky falls, I can bear it. Lead the way."
The careworn look on County Magistrate Li's face stiffened for an instant. Looking at this young man before him who was impervious to all persuasion, he opened his mouth, and in the end could only dejectedly let out a sigh, as though his backbone had bent a few degrees further.
"So be it, so be it... Since the lord insists on it so, then follow this lowly official."
...
The site of the incident was at a remote fishing village thirty li outside the county town.
This place had already been sealed off by yamen runners. The air did not hold the thick smell of blood one might have imagined; instead, there drifted a bizarre mingled scent of tea fragrance and sea-fishiness.
"They're all here."
County Magistrate Li stood at the edge of the threshing ground at the village entrance, unable to bear it and turning his head away, as though he truly could not stand the sight of this human tragedy.
Gu Chengming stepped into the grounds.
Indeed, as the case file had said, if one looked only at the surface, it seemed no brutal massacre had taken place here.
Twenty-odd corpses, whether man or woman, old or young, all had their clothing intact, without even a single proper blade-wound on their bodies.
No severed limbs, no slit-open bellies—they looked just as if they had fallen asleep.
But their postures were too strange.
All the corpses faced the direction of the sea—some kneeling on the ground, some with foreheads touching the earth—arranged into an extremely contorted yet precise posture of "prostration" or "submission."
——This discovery made Gu Chengming's heart lurch.
Kneeling and prostrating toward the sea...
Surely it couldn't be such a coincidence?
He walked up to one corpse, reached out, and lightly pressed the corpse's shoulder. Where his hand met it, it was soft and yielding, without the slightest resistance.
Then, he activated his Piercing Insight.
In his field of vision, beneath this seemingly intact husk of skin, every single bone, from the cervical vertebrae to the toes—every inch of bone—had been shattered into powder by a hidden force.
They had, while fully conscious, been kneaded like clay figures, their entire skeletons crushed bit by bit, and then forcibly arranged into this humiliating kneeling posture.
Gu Chengming's heart jolted, and he immediately gave a cold sneer.
What gang of water bandits goes to such trouble when killing people? And to arrange this kind of ritual?
That premonition in his heart—both uneasy and subtle—grew a few degrees heavier.
"Heh heh... heh heh heh—"
A burst of crazed, deranged laughter came from a nearby haystack. Gu Chengming looked toward the sound and saw an old man in ragged clothes with disheveled hair, curled up in the corner, clutching a fistful of bloodstained mud in his hand, his gaze vacant.
"This is the old licentiate of the village." The yamen runner beside him explained in a low voice: "He was already mad when he was found. He's the only one left alive."
Gu Chengming walked over, and before he could even open his mouth, that old licentiate curled into a ball like a startled rabbit, his whole body trembling violently.
"Don't kill me, I'll kowtow, I'll kowtow..."
The old licentiate, trembling all the while, banged his head against the ground, muttering indistinctly:
"It's laughing, it's not a monster, it turned into the form of a person, wearing azure clothes..."
Gu Chengming crouched down, his gaze falling upon that fistful of mud the old licentiate was clutching.
"Azure clothes..."
Gu Chengming murmured to himself.
In his mind surfaced the terror-stricken face of the dock headman, and that line: "If that young lord sees it."
"Take him away and settle him somewhere proper."
The last trace of the setting sun's afterglow was swallowed by the surging black waves, and the entire county town fell into a bizarre, deathly stillness.
The streets were utterly empty of people; only a few tattered lanterns swayed in the wind, casting twisted, elongated shadows.
The two walked the whole way without a word, the atmosphere so oppressive it was suffocating.
County Magistrate Li walked in front, his already hunched figure looking all the more wretched in the night, as though it bore some unspeakable, crushing weight and might snap at any moment.
Back in the side hall of the county yamen, only a single solitary lamp flickered.
Gu Chengming dismissed those around them, leaving only County Magistrate Li. He did not employ his cultivation to apply pressure, nor put on the airs of a superior official; he merely calmly regarded this hunch-backed old man before him and came straight to the point:
"Magistrate Li, that old licentiate is mad; his words can't be taken as fact. But I trust that you, sir, are not mad."
Gu Chengming lightly rapped his knuckle against the table, producing a tapping sound:
"That manner of death is absolutely not the work of water bandits... Just what exactly is the thing behind this?"
County Magistrate Li's hand, which had been pouring tea, suddenly jerked; scalding tea spilled onto the back of his hand, yet he seemed not to notice at all.
"Lord Gu, you're overthinking it."
County Magistrate Li lowered his eyelids: "They are simply water bandits. In these coastal regions, the wind and waves are fierce, and there are a thousand strange and bizarre ways to die—nothing worth marveling at."
"You won't speak?" Gu Chengming narrowed his eyes.
"There's nothing to speak of."
County Magistrate Li dropped to his knees with a thud, kowtowing heavily toward Gu Chengming, his forehead pressed against the cold green brick:
"Lord Gu, this lowly official can see it—you are a good official, but precisely because of that... this lowly official begs you, stop investigating."
"You are a distinguished personage come from the Capital, with a bright future ahead. There's no need to throw yourself away for the sake of a few worthless lives in this poor, remote backwater."
"That thing—we can't afford to provoke it, and neither can you... truly. If you really are acting for the good of the people, then hand out the compensation silver and return to the Capital as soon as you can."
In his view, Gu Chengming was nothing more than a young second-realm cultivator.
Even if he had some background, even if he had some methods, before that jiao-demon with its sky-reaching backing and its cruel, brutal nature, he was no more than another slightly stronger ant.
Rather than let this young man go to his death, it was better to let him leave.
This was the only thing he, as a powerless, incompetent official, could do.
Gu Chengming looked at the old man kneeling on the ground, silent for a long while.
He read the meaning in that gaze—it was the instinctive rejection of any and all hope by one whose backbone had been broken by reality.
Rise.
Gu Chengming stood up and pressed no further.
Since the government's case file could not be trusted, then he would put his faith in those traces that had not yet been wiped away.
...
Over the next two days, Gu Chengming did not again alarm the local authorities.
He changed into a set of coarse hempen clothes, concealed his aura, and—like a traveling merchant who bought up sea-goods—roamed alone among the several fishing villages nearby.
Though he had braced himself mentally, the results of his investigation still left him shaken.
Reef Stone Village was not an isolated case.
At Reef Head Village, fifty li from the county town, half a month ago an entire fisherman's household had gone missing. The authorities said they had met with wind and waves, but behind their abandoned house Gu Chengming dug up several corpses, their bones likewise crushed to powder, arranged in postures of kneeling prostration.
At White Sand Bay, seven days ago a group of children playing by the seashore had suddenly dropped dead. The cause was officially classified as the accidental eating of sea-poison, but when Gu Chengming opened his Piercing Insight, he saw, hovering above those grave-mounds, the not-yet-fully-dissipated remnants of demonic aura.
Case after case, each one shocking to behold.
In the county yamen's records, these cases had, without a single exception, all been attributed to "water-bandit plundering," "wind-and-wave accidents," or "sea-beast harassment."
Gu Chengming sat in a crude tea-shed, a not-very-detailed map of the East Sea spread out before him.
Holding a brush dipped in cinnabar, he circled, one by one, each of these villages where incidents had occurred.
Reef Stone Village, Reef Head Village, White Sand Bay, Black Stone Cliff...
"Strange."
Gu Chengming gazed at those few bright-red circles on the map, his brow knit tight.
These villages were not adjacent to one another—indeed, one could say they were far apart.
If that jiao-demon was killing in order to eat people, or to vent its beastly cravings, it could just as easily have struck somewhere close at hand, or fixed upon a single place to wreak its havoc.
Why go at it haphazardly, a blow here and a blow there, traveling such long distances to kill?
"Is there some pattern to it..."
Gu Chengming closed his eyes, connecting these locations into lines within his mind.
Suddenly, a flash of inspiration struck. His eyes snapped open, and his finger drew a heavy stroke across the map.
An invisible line linked these seemingly unrelated villages together in perfect succession.
It was not a geographical connection. It was a shipping route.
To be precise, it was the official sea-lane agreed upon between the Great Qian and the East Sea Whale-Shark Family, used to transport spirit-pearl tribute and conduct trade.
These villages, without exception, were all nodes along this trade route responsible for resupply, for mooring, or for gathering the raw materials of spirit-pearls.
Gu Chengming looked at that red line he had drawn, the chill in his eyes growing ever deeper.
"So that's how it is."
This jiao-demon was not killing at random. It was killing people along this route that represented the "pact between the Great Qian and the East Sea."
Every single one of its crimes was committed under the umbrella of this route's protection.
Because it knew that, so long as the matter touched upon this route, touched upon the trade between the two races, the officials of the Great Qian would be too afraid to act—hesitant to throw the rat for fear of breaking the vase—and, for the sake of the "greater situation," would frantically help it conceal the truth.
Within his sea of consciousness, the system interface popped up.
[The «Zhouli Heavenly Harmony Righteous Heart Method» looked at that map, so furious it laughed.]
[It declared: Diplomacy was meant to be for mutual benefit, yet now it has become a place to harbor filth and conceal evil. Using the way of commerce to mask the way of slaughter, using a pact to shield demonic evil—this is the utmost collapse of ritual and the ruin of music!]
According to the records of the official shipping, that "Whale Boat" tasked with transporting the tribute would pass through these waters at the hour of zi this very night, and would moor here briefly to resupply.
And that beast which took slaughter as its pastime, hiding beneath the umbrella of the pact, was at this moment surely trailing behind that enormous treasure-ship, its fang-filled maw gaping wide, waiting to feast upon the "blood-food" that Reef Stone Village offered up.
"Tonight."
Gu Chengming abruptly clenched his fist, and the cinnabar brush in his hand snapped in two with a "crack."
At that very moment, a sound of stumbling footsteps mingled with stifled wails of grief abruptly tore through the deathly stillness of the village.
Gu Chengming's heart jolted, and his figure vanished from where he stood in an instant.
The sound came from a dilapidated courtyard at the western end of the village—and that was precisely Ah Ji's home.
When Gu Chengming arrived, that headman who was ordinarily so fierce-faced and so deeply guarded against him was now slumped on the muddy ground, his face like old tree-bark smeared all over with snot and tears, his whole body trembling as if sifting through a sieve.
And inside that drafty thatched hut, a thick reek of blood came rushing at him.
Gu Chengming's steps, as he crossed the threshold, abruptly halted.
On the room's only plank bed lay that boy who, just yesterday, had spoken of cultivating into a sword-immortal and going to the Capital to repay a kindness.
Ah Ji was unconscious, his dark little face pale as paper, his breath so faint it was nearly imperceptible.
Those eyes of his, once so astonishingly bright, brimming with cleverness, were now gone.
All that remained were two pitch-black, bloody hollows of mangled flesh.
Blood flowed down from his eye-sockets, soaking the pillow, staining red the copy of the «Basic Qi-Guiding Formula» he clutched tightly to his chest.
And beside the bed lay scattered several empty vials of the Qi-Gathering Pills Gu Chengming had given him yesterday, along with that pretty pale-purple Tide-Listening Conch.
"What happened?"
The headman raised his head, trembling all over, and pointed toward the pitch-black sea in the distance, his voice hoarse as a broken bellows:
"He wouldn't listen..."
"He said the cloud-qi over the sea was wrong, he said he wanted to go tell his teacher..."
"He ran off to the seashore... and then... and then it turned out like this..."
Gu Chengming said nothing.
He walked to the bedside, reached out, and condensed at his fingertip a thread of exceedingly pure and gentle true essence, lightly pressing it against the space between Ah Ji's brows, guarding the boy's last breath of vital spirit.
[The Hundred Bones Resonance flew into a towering rage, and said only a single word.]
["Kill."]
Gu Chengming slowly withdrew his hand and tucked the quilt-corner snugly around Ah Ji.
He turned around and looked toward the sea beyond the door—pitch-black as ink, from which came faint rolls of thunder and the roars of beasts.
"Indeed."
Gu Chengming said softly, his palm slowly settling upon the sword-hilt at his waist.
"Kill."
The night was so thick it would not dissolve, yet aboard this enormous treasure-ship named the "Whale Boat," it was a scene of blazing lamplight and boundless extravagance.
Upon the opera stage, a famous performer was warbling out the Great Qian's renowned tune, «Sea Calm, River Clear».
The lyrics were all auspicious words extolling peace across the four seas and the joint rule of men and demons; the pitch was raised exceedingly high, melting the very bones of those who heard it.
And in the grand armchair directly facing the stage sat a young lord clad in azure robes.
He was endowed with a fine appearance, his face like polished jade—only, within those narrow, long-cornered eyes, there flickered now and then a trace of inhuman vertical-pupil shadow.
In his hand he held an exquisite white jade plate. Upon it there were no melons, fruits, pears, or peaches, but rather several things, peeled spotlessly clean and still faintly quivering—those were the "walnuts" that had just been gouged from the eye-sockets of that child called Ah Ji.
"Crisp, tender, carrying that detestable whiff of spiritual energy."
Lord Ao—or rather, the seventh son of the East Sea's Fubai Dragon Lord, Ao Qing.
Unhurried, he pinched up a single "walnut" and placed it in his mouth as though savoring a peerless delicacy.
With a soft "squelch"—the sound of an eyeball bursting between his teeth. Ao Qing closed his eyes, an expression of intoxicated yet twisted rapture appearing on his face.
He hated humans most of all.
Clearly they were ants whose lifespans did not exceed a hundred years; clearly their bodies were frail as straws that a single gust of wind could topple—yet some of these "mongrels" were born, infuriatingly, with enviable spirit-roots.
He, Ao Qing, as a noble bloodline of the Dragon Lord, had spent a full two hundred years cultivating to the early third realm. And these humans? They could achieve it in a few decades—a mere ten-odd years, even.
By what right?
So he loved to eat people—especially loved to eat those human seedlings who had only just stepped over the threshold of cultivation, who had not yet had the chance to grow.
He wanted to utterly chew to pieces, in their budding state, these "possibilities" that might one day surpass him.
"What a fine show, what a fine show."
Ao Qing swallowed the fishy sweetness in his mouth, his gaze sweeping over the stage, yet his thoughts drifted toward that deathly-still Reef Stone Village not far off.
He loved this place far too much.
More than a hundred years ago, it was right here that that lowly third-realm sword cultivator had held a sword against his neck. In that instant, he had truly believed he was about to die; that chill of death made him shudder even now—and made him feel, even now... excited.
That sword cultivator could clearly have killed him, clearly hated him to the bone.
But in the end?
The moment he heard the four words "Fubai Dragon Lord," that sword stopped.
That worthless life—even having attained third-realm cultivation—was, at the bone, still the same fisherman kneeling on the ground begging the Dragon King for mercy.
"Hahaha..."
Ao Qing couldn't help but chuckle low. The terror of that day had now all become his reason to torture and slaughter humans with ever greater ferocity.
He loved to crush those people's bones inch by inch, and arrange them into kneeling postures facing the sea.
Don't you like to kneel? Then kneel to your heart's content!
I'll make you kneel even in death, for all eternity, forever repenting to me—this "noble demon race"—for your short lives and your lowliness!
At that moment, an accompanying official of the Court of State Ceremonial sidled over, his face wreathed in fawning smiles.
Holding a cup of wine in his hand, his waist bent exceedingly low, not even daring to lift his head and look at the things on Ao Qing's plate, he said ingratiatingly:
"Lord Ao, what fine refinement."
"That business at Reef Head Village last time—this humble official has already settled it properly. The yamen has filed a case, saying that people were swept away in an accident of the sea-tides. For this we even specially silenced a few of the ringleaders who had been stirring up trouble; absolutely no one will go wagging their tongue over on the East Sea side and tarnish the lord's good name."
The official paused, his tone growing even more humble, carrying a few notes of ingratiating negotiation:
"It's only that... this is, after all, the heartland of the Great Qian. This official hopes that next time the lord wishes to 'play,' he might... might go to a slightly more remote place? Or perhaps do it... a little more discreetly?"
"After all, if it gets too big, it isn't easy for our side to keep covering it up all the time. Should it ever reach the ears of Director Zhou up in the Capital..."
The official had not yet finished speaking.
"Splash——"
A cup of cold wine, without the slightest warning, was poured down over the top of his head.
The wine ran down the official's cap, streaming across his face—astonished and terrified—and dripped down onto the costly carpet.
At some point the gongs and drums on the stage had stopped; the entire ship cabin was deathly silent.
Ao Qing still held that empty wine-cup. He didn't even stand up, merely leaning aslant in the grand armchair, regarding the trembling Great Qian official before him with the kind of contemptuous gaze one casts upon garbage.
"More discreetly?"
Ao Qing sneered, his voice sinuous and grating:
"Have you gotten something confused?"
He casually flung the wine-cup to the floor, where it shattered to pieces:
"The lives of you humans—were they not born precisely to serve as my amusement?"
"Just like the leeks in these fields, just like the wild grass by the roadside. A crop of weeds that die off in a few decades—when I, in my great mercy, deign to help you with the harvest, do I still need to pick a day? Do I still need to pick a place?"
Ao Qing rose to his feet, those vertical pupils brimming with savagery and mockery.
He reached out and lightly patted the official's face, already gone pale with fright, the blood smeared on his fingertips wiping across the official's face:
"Remember this."
"Here, I am the master, and you are the food."
"I eat wherever I want to eat. I eat however I want to eat."
"Get out."
And it was just then.
"Creak——"
The carved wooden door of the Whale Boat was pushed open from the outside, without the slightest warning.
The night wind, laced with cold, damp threads of rain, poured into the warm chamber, scattering the curling ambergris incense within, and stirring the ink-black brocade garb of the one who had come.
Gu Chengming stepped over the threshold, the Night-Patrol Token at his waist swaying gently with his movements, giving off a muffled clashing sound.
Ao Qing, who was leaning against the soft couch, lazily lifted his eyelids.
After making out the attire of the newcomer, the sinister smile at the corner of his mouth did not fade; on the contrary, it took on a touch of habitual impatience.
"From the Night-Watch Bureau?"
Ao Qing showed no intention of rising—he didn't even change his seated posture, merely sweeping his gaze once over Gu Chengming's empty hands, his brow arching slightly:
"What, are the Great Qian's officials so ignorant of the rules this time? You've come empty-handed?"
According to past "custom," every time he played too far on shore, whether it was the Court of State Ceremonial or the Night-Watch Bureau, they would always send some sensible person.
Either they would present several chests of spirit stones, or compensate him with a few beauties, and then, with gentle words, invite him back into the sea to lie low for a while.
He assumed this time would be no exception.
However, what answered him was not flattery, but a sword-cry that split the heavens.
"Zheng——!!!"
Without any nonsense whatsoever, the instant Gu Chengming stepped through the door, his divine sense erupted with a roar.
Four streaks of flowing light shrieked out from behind him without the slightest warning.
Wave-Listening, Light-Splitter, Stone-Render, Night-Quelling!
The four Dharma Swords took up the four quarters, and in an instant carved out a domain of killing-intent within this cramped warm chamber—
——the Four Symbols Sword Formation, rise!
Ao Qing's expression changed abruptly, that lazy air vanishing in an instant. Almost reflexively, he flung himself backward, his whole body bursting forth with a dazzling azure glow.
But still, he was a moment too slow.
The most spiritually attuned Wave-Listening Sword seemed to have anticipated his movement; its blade-edge swept past, grazing his cheek.
"Hiss——"
A thin, slender trail of blood appeared on Ao Qing's pale, sinister face.
A few drops of blood, shimmering with a faint golden hue, seeped out and slid down his cheek, dripping onto his spotless azure brocade robe.
Ao Qing froze.
He reached up and felt his cheek, and as he looked at the glaring crimson on his fingertips, the astonishment in his eyes swiftly transformed into incredulous fury.
"You dare wound me?!"
A terrifying demonic aura exploded in an instant, directly shattering the soft couch beneath him and the tables and chairs all around.
"Good, good, good! Very good indeed!"
Ao Qing was so furious he laughed; his originally human pupils instantly elongated, transforming into beast-savage dark-golden vertical pupils:
"This lord, out of regard for the pact between our two races, does not kill those of official rank. But since it was you, this ant, who struck first... then even if I tear you to shreds to feed the fish, the Great Qian Emperor won't be able to utter half a word about it!"
"Come and die!!"
Accompanied by a roar that was draconic yet not quite, Ao Qing curled his five fingers into claws. Blue-black scales instantly covered his arm, and with a piercing shriek that tore through the air, he struck straight for Gu Chengming's throat.
This claw, mighty and ponderous in force, could have shredded even a shield forged of refined iron to powder.
He meant to make this second-realm ant, who knew not the height of heaven nor the depth of earth, understand the consequences of offending a dragon's majesty!
However.
Gu Chengming stood where he was, not shifting his stance by even half an inch. The four flying swords droned loudly, and as the formation revolved, a sword intent sticky as glue arose out of thin air.
Ao Qing felt the once-weightless air instantly turn heavy as quicksilver; his earth-shattering claw, three inches from Gu Chengming's throat, seemed as though mired in a quagmire, slowing to an unbearable crawl.
"What kind of sword intent is this?!"
Ao Qing's heart lurched with alarm. Before he could even change his move, the formation had already shifted.
The two swords chiefly given to attack—[Wave-Listening] and [Light-Splitter]—transformed into two streaks of flowing light, weaving and slaughtering frantically around him like butterflies flitting through flowers.
"Cling-clang, cling-clang——"
Sparks flew in all directions.
Ao Qing was forced to pull back his offensive, his arms shielding his vitals, those iron-hard dragon scales colliding with the flying swords and producing a dense clamor of metal striking metal.
"A mere second realm—how could you possibly break through my defense?!"
The longer Ao Qing fought, the more his heart quailed.
He was a member of the jiao clan, possessed of a true dragon bloodline, his physical body incomparably powerful. The flying swords of an ordinary second-realm cultivator couldn't so much as leave a mark on his scales.
Yet the sword-qi of this young man before him carried a bizarre "boring" force.
Every sword that struck his scales sent a yin, sinuous force penetrating into his body, jolting his meridians into a dull, aching pain.
Especially that ever-present "Clinging" sword intent—like an invisible great net, it left him with all his brute strength and nowhere to unleash it. Every time he exerted force, it was like striking cotton, an agony so maddening he wanted to vomit blood.
"Get away from me!!"
Ao Qing let out a furious roar, the demon-core within him spinning madly, and a vast and mighty water spiritual power erupted forth, transforming into several water-dragon spouts that sought to forcibly pry open the sword formation.
Gu Chengming's sword-fingers abruptly pressed downward.
The heavy, archaic [Stone-Render] sword and the ink-black, steady [Night-Quelling] sword instantly blazed with greatly amplified light, like two mountain peaks descending from the heavens, smashing down hard upon those water-dragon spouts.
"Boom!!"
The pleasure-barge shuddered violently, the floorboards splitting apart.
Ao Qing felt his shoulders sink, as though he bore a burden of ten thousand jun; the water-dragon spouts he had only just condensed were forcibly crushed and dispersed!
His whole body was pressed down by this colossal force until his legs buckled, and with a "crack," his knees struck heavily against the floor, smashing two deep pits into the hard aloeswood planks.
As the dust and smoke cleared.
Gu Chengming still stood at the doorway, his garments fluttering, strands of his hair drifting upward—and beyond that, not a hair of him harmed.
Whereas that loftily superior "Lord Ao" now knelt on one knee, gasping for breath in considerable disarray, that magnificent azure robe of his already cut to tatters by the sword-qi, the exposed scales likewise covered all over with white scars.
The searing pain brought a measure of reason back to Ao Qing. He looked toward Gu Chengming.
That young man stood at the center of the sword formation, his eyes devoid of any emotion. He had not come to make an arrest, nor to spar.
He had truly come... to slay the demon!
A chill shot up from Ao Qing's tailbone straight to the crown of his skull. This feeling was far too familiar—just like more than a hundred years ago, when he had faced that third-realm sword cultivator!
But that sword cultivator had still held reservations. The man before him had none.
A thought of retreat arose in Ao Qing's heart. Although he could not even count his current state as a minor injury, he did not dare to gamble.
Moreover, out on this sea, so long as he entered the water, his opponent could not catch up to him, and he could also bring in reinforcements from the East Sea.
There was no need for him to fight this madman with the bizarre sword formation to the death aboard the ship!
"Roar!!!"
Ao Qing let out an earth-shaking roar, his whole body flaring with azure light.
"Bang!"
That azure robe instantly burst apart. His body began to swell rapidly, blue-black scales covering his entire form, horns sprouting from the top of his head, his four limbs turning to claws. In the blink of an eye, a blue-black jiao-dragon a full ten-some zhang in length revealed its true form, coiling upon the shattered ship-tower, radiating a suffocating, terrifying demonic might.
The jiao-dragon's massive tail swept out abruptly, forcing back the encroaching sword-edges, and then its enormous body twisted violently, about to crash through the roof and plunge into the vast sea.
Once it entered the sea, the sky would be wide and the bird free to fly!
Gu Chengming did not give chase.
He stood amid the shattered ship-tower, letting the sky-filling wind and rain soak his garments. Facing this colossal creature that was about to escape with its life, he slowly closed his eyes, brought two fingers together, and pointed them at the space between his brows.
In the depths of his sea of consciousness, that mass of pink "red dust qi"—accumulated drop by drop over this half-month at the Imperial Academy, in the marketplace, amid the boundless mortal world—at this moment poured forth like a river bursting its dikes, holding nothing back.
"Hummm——"
In that instant, heaven and earth seemed to come to a standstill.
The Red Dust Art: inverting effect into cause.
Gu Chengming's divine thought, following that mighty red dust qi, spread in an instant across the entire Whale Boat.
He felt it.
This ship, this sea, this enemy.
All the elements, in this moment, overlapped perfectly with that strand of karma from a hundred years ago.
Time seemed in this instant to fall into disorder and flow backward.
Gu Chengming saw it.
He saw, more than a hundred years ago, upon this very deck, that middle-aged sword cultivator, his eyes bloodshot, despairing and enraged; he saw that iron sword, trembling, suspended at the jiao-dragon's neck, unable for so long to fall; he saw the wailing of those one hundred and thirty-six wronged souls; he saw the sound of that sword cultivator's spine snapping in the instant he sheathed his sword.
It was a long-cherished wish spanning a full cycle of sixty years—one whose eyes could not close even in death.
That sword should have come down.
That was the "cause."
But because of weakness, because of power and influence, because of so-called reason, the "effect" had been lost.
"Since you dared not cut it down..."
Gu Chengming's eyes snapped open. His two fingers formed a sword, and he pointed, from afar, toward that enormous jiao-dragon soaring into the air.
All of the red dust qi burned away to nothing in this instant, transforming into a bridge of karma—invisible, yet truly existing—that forcibly "borrowed" that unreleased strand of sword intent across the span of more than a hundred years of space and time!
"Today, I cut it down in your stead!"
The enormous jiao-dragon, just about to charge into the clouds, abruptly stiffened.
Those dark-golden vertical pupils instantly contracted to the extreme. A shudder arising from the depths of his soul—long-absent, the kind that still jolted him awake from midnight dreams even now—drowned him like a rising tide.
He felt that killing intent.
That killing intent carrying the reek of the sea, carrying despair, carrying sky-spanning hatred—the killing intent that wished to grind him to mincemeat!
That was... the Reef Stone Daoist?!
Impossible! That coward died long ago! But why...
Ao Qing turned his head back in terror.
Within his field of vision, that young figure standing amid the ruins of the ship-tower had, in this moment, actually grown somewhat blurred.
In a trance, the young man's figure seemed to overlap with the figure of that middle-aged sword cultivator from more than a hundred years ago.
No—it was not an overlap.
It was a continuation.
That young man had taken up the unfinished sword-momentum of that middle-aged man, had taken up that severed strand of karma.
"Shaa——!!!"
A sword-light that crossed a hundred years was born out of the void.
It was an obsession, pure to the utmost extreme, that this single head must be severed.
This was that very sword of all those years ago.
That sword, congealed in the air for decades, pent up and stifled for decades amid the dust of history.
At last, this very night, drawn by the karma of the red dust, it fell.
——Now that your sword art is accomplished, take it and go; wherever there be jiao-dragons, slay the jiao-dragon!
The sword-light came down.
Were it any ordinary time, Ao Qing would have had ten thousand ways to evade it. But in this moment, locked by the karma of the red dust, he felt as though all of heaven and earth were rejecting him, every avenue of retreat sealed off by that resentment from more than a hundred years ago.
It was the "effect" he must repay.
That huge, ferocious jiao-dragon head, still roaring toward the firmament, in this instant parted utterly from its enormous body.
"Splash——"
Scalding dragon-blood gushed forth like a waterfall, instantly dyeing these waters red, and drenching Gu Chengming's garments.
The enormous headless dragon-corpse crashed down heavily upon the deck with a teeth-grinding, muffled thud, then slid down along the broken ship's railing and plunged into the churning, furious sea, kicking up a thousand layers of waves.
Wanted to enter the sea?
Now, its wish was truly granted—it had gone to be buried in a fish's belly.
Gu Chengming stood amid the rain of blood, the Wave-Listening Sword in his hand giving off a clear, resonant tremor.
At the same time, in the depths of his sea of consciousness.
[The Qingxin Formula finally laughed—laughed without restraint—yet its tears flowed down unceasingly.]
[A hundred years ago, it was born of hatred and persisted out of fear; named the Qingxin—"Clear Heart"—it was in truth a heart-lock.]
[Today, you borrowed the red dust as a sword, severing the past—not only cutting down that demon, but moreover shattering the cage in which it had drawn a circle on the ground and made its own prison.]
[From this day forth, there is no longer that craven Reef Stone Daoist in the world.]
[There is only your sword, which is my heart.]
[Qingxin Formula favorability: 100 / Bound by Life and Death]
[Bond mission complete.]
[CG unlocked.]
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