Chapter 170

Qing Zhouxue turned and flew toward the foot of the mountain. Now that the Taichu Sect's spiritual energy had finally recovered to its former state, it was enough for her to fly on her sword.

She swept past the immortal peaks of the Taichu Sect and cast her gaze toward the market towns at the edge.

Sure enough, they were deserted.

The farmland had long since stopped yielding crops; a great famine had befallen the land.

The parched yellow earth was cracked with deep, crisscrossing fissures, spreading like a spiderweb across the entire ground. Low shrubs and grass had withered completely, leaving only bare, dead trees standing starkly in the fields.

Bark, grass roots—everything that could fill a stomach had been stripped and devoured.

Yet corpses still lay strewn across the land.

The famine that lingered in her childhood memories replayed itself with ease before her eyes.

Qing Zhouxue had not realized it back then, but now she saw it with a jolt of horror—a layer of deathly aura hung over the fields, and beneath it, the sun-scorched corpses by the roadside lay scattered like withered leaves, broken and decaying.

She turned her gaze once more to the setting sun in the west. At that moment, fire suddenly blazed, nearly burning half the sky crimson.

Amid the raging flames, Qing Zhouxue realized something. She slowly closed her eyes and let herself be consumed.

When she opened them again, she was back in the peach blossom grove where Taishang Wangqing stood.

"That was not a dream," Taishang Wangqing said coldly. "What you saw is the future."

"If one could foresee so clearly, then that person's lifespan would have long since burned out," Qing Zhouxue replied with indifference, half in doubt. "The ancestor would never stand here speaking with me."

"This is not foresight either," Taishang Wangqing said. "The opportunity lies within the Sword Tomb. I have witnessed this ending with my own eyes—countless times, using every means at my disposal, yet still unable to prevent the fall of the Nine Provinces."

"But you are different." She gazed quietly at Qing Zhouxue. "Through the years Starfire has brought me back, I have killed my present self time and again, preserving these memories. I can recall things from very long ago, many people—but only you are not of the Five Elements or Six Paths. You are the sole variable in this world."

"Why the Emotionless Dao?"

"The Emotionless Dao is closest to the Heavenly Dao."

Taishang Wangqing pressed closer, her fingers brushing against the edge of the Qingshuang Sword. "The karmic sins I bear are already deep enough. When the tribulation comes, the tribulation clouds will be fully exposed. You could easily strike down the weakened Heavenly Dao and take its place—"

Qing Zhouxue shook her head, deliberately cutting her off with cold hardness: "Life in this world is like the morning dew—merely a fleeting moment."

"Even for cultivators, death comes to most eventually. What difference does it make whether it is early or late?"

"I am but a Sword Soul, born without heart or awareness. I do not possess such compassion for all living beings."

Taishang Wangqing frowned, as if about to say more.

But at that moment, Qing Zhouxue had already resolved the matter in her mind and woke from the dream.

The unpleasant peach grove before her dissolved away.

She opened her eyes to a cold, empty room. A thin ray of light slanted in through the window, as if dawn had quietly broken without her noticing.

She had not slept well.

Frowning, Qing Zhouxue turned over and instinctively reached out to the side.

It was empty.

She froze for a moment, her palm pressing against the bed where not even residual warmth remained.

Master was gone.

* * *

"Little Qing'er, this is an order personally given by the Sect Leader."

Yue Changge tilted her head, looking at her with some difficulty. "Everyone knows by now that you are a Sword Soul. You cannot simply go out."

"But..."

"As you said yourself, if she does not wish to see you, going to find her will be of no use."

"If you learn all this at once," Yue Changge sighed, "anyone would find it hard to accept. Let her have some time to calm down."

Even Yue Changge, the most accommodating of her senior uncles, said as much. Qing Zhouxue observed her expression and, seeing no room for flexibility, asked, "I am currently at the Void Refinement stage. If one day I can break through to the Mahayana stage, will I be free to leave as I please?"

"That would, of course, be allowed."

Yue Changge smiled. "But you are certainly ambitious. Even if you are a natural-born cultivator, it is absolutely impossible in a short time."

Yue Changge dreaded refusing the requests of the younger generation most of all—they were often not rational, and after suffering a blow, they would always be swept away by a surge of hot-blooded passion.

Fortunately, her disciple Qing never disappointed. At least she was nothing like the petty disciples on Yue Changge's own peak, who would only stubbornly act spoiled, throw tantrums, and play shameless tricks.

She turned quietly and told her senior uncle that she was going to cultivate.

She left in silence.

Even if she could not break through in a short time, Qing Zhouxue believed she would eventually achieve it.

Or rather, since she had already set foot on this path, she must succeed—otherwise, she would be controlled by others for the rest of her life.

After Yun Shuchen left, Heyi Peak sank into utter silence.

Occasionally, only a few plum-blossom-shaped footprints would appear abruptly in the snow, making the place seem as though something still lived there.

Qing Zhouxue had not gone into seclusion. She thought that if her master ever came to her senses and returned to check on her, she would not miss it.

But she had grown increasingly silent, like a young cicada burying itself deep in the earth, enduring years of darkness, quietly waiting for the summer to come many years later.

One day.

Qing Zhouxue opened her eyes from meditation.

Something was wrong.

Frowning, she carefully sensed it again, confirming that she was not hallucinating from excessive cultivation.

Spiritual energy was dissipating, drifting away from her surroundings little by little.

And as it did, her cultivation speed gradually slowed.

Just as her heart tightened, a sound like a copper gong vibrating against her ear rang out.

The bell from the direction of the Main Peak suddenly tolled, each peal louder than the last. Qing Zhouxue counted—nine rings, without pause.

This was not a good omen.

Nine bell rings meant either an elder had died or the sect was under attack.

The Qingshuang Sword hummed as it unsheathed itself at that moment. Qing Zhouxue quickly pushed open the door and flew into the cold wind, heading toward the Main Peak to see—

A dark, oppressive mass of people was gathered there, like an ink-dyed sea.

Cultivators from the Liuyun Sect were gathered on the clouds. This time, the few remaining elders, the new Sect Leader Du Ren, and those disciples who had not yet gone to the Sword Tomb and had narrowly escaped with their lives—all now stood waiting behind Taishang Wangqing. Compared to the former glory of the Liuyun Sect, the remaining force was not large, but it was still formidable against ordinary sects.

With such a grand display, they had mobilized the entire sect.

The Sect Leader's brows knitted tightly at the sight of that woman. "Ignoring our Taichu Sect's barrier and barging in like this seems hardly appropriate."

"Indeed, it is not appropriate," Taishang Wangqing's voice came from the heavens, clear and ethereal, audible to every cultivator present. "But it hardly matters."

That pale hand rose with seeming negligence, yet in that instant, it seemed to encompass the entire universe.

The spiritual energy of the entire Taichu Sect was being slowly drawn away by her.

Qing Zhouxue's pupils shrank. The premonition of danger grew ever stronger.

She is utterly mad.

She flew on her sword straight toward Taishang Wangqing, but just as she was about to touch the hem of her robe, she was knocked back by a force, nearly falling to the ground.

"Since you claim to fear nothing, if all of this were to happen right before your eyes, I am curious—would you remain unmoved?"

This message was transmitted through mental sound, heard only by Qing Zhouxue, clear and distinct.

Taishang Wangqing seemed to be sighing, or perhaps asking her.

Qing Zhouxue gripped her sword tightly, standing frozen like a statue.

The cold sensation, like icy water, slowly submerged her mouth and nose, flooded into her lungs, and froze her blood until it nearly stagnated.

She looked up at the blue sky. In the endless expanse above, disciples of the Taichu Sect leaped up from the ground, while cultivators of the Liuyun Sect folded their wings and swooped down like falcons—like two black clouds colliding, bursting with the terrifying flash of a single lightning strike.

The battle between the two sides was on the verge of erupting.

* * *

Far away, thousands of miles off.

The Demon Realm had been recovering recently. A while ago, they had broken through several major immortal sects, including the Liuyun Sect, depleting much of their own strength, but at the same time, they had reaped considerable benefits.

At the very least, they had pilfered many immortal treasures from the storehouses of those cultivators—those they could use, they kept; those that clashed with demonic arts, Fan Yin had ordered to be catalogued and sold to the Penglai Pavilion.

This was no small sum.

But the Penglai Pavilion was willing to take them, confident they could sell them at an even higher price—the immortal sects would surely not tolerate such humiliation, and even if they had to put on a facade, they would stop at nothing to reclaim these sacred treasures.

At first, when Yun Shuchen had ordered her to attack the immortal sects, Fan Yin, as a demon lord, had been reluctant to waste her forces for no reason. But now that she had gained the advantage, she could not help but wonder—where did Yun Shuchen's heart truly lie?

Yun Shuchen had traveled all the way back, dusty and weary, having spent these past days without distinguishing day from night. At the thought, Fan Yin shifted her gaze to the woman sleeping on the soft couch—her hair, unbound, was slightly disheveled, her cheeks flushed with a thin layer of color, and a wine flask hung loosely from her fingertips.

Her eyes were half-closed, either dazed from drink or lazily dozing.

It had been like this for the past few days—even more unusual than before.

Yun Shuchen's usual pressure was too overwhelming; Fan Yin dared not look at her openly. Only in those moments between waking and sleeping did she dare to speculate openly about this woman's thoughts.

These past days, she had watched Yun Shuchen drink without pause, seemingly to drown her sorrows, but she did not actually sleep much. On the rare occasions when she did close her eyes completely, the corners of her eyes would inexplicably grow moist.

She had been leaning all along on the soft couch set up beside the Jialuo Palace, never once returning to her own chambers.

Yu Li was in counsel with the young sovereign, but she kept glancing over at Yun Shuchen. Fan Yin noticed her gaze and, distracted, followed it.

A clatter sounded on the floor—another empty wine flask had fallen.

That hand was already unsteady, trembling faintly, yet it still reached for the next flask on the table.

Yu Li finally could not hold back. She stood up and snatched the flask away. "If you drink any more, you will drink yourself to death."