Chapter 24: The Morning After

I slowly left the tent, and after about a stick of incense, I heard a strange sound coming from behind me.

"Get lost!"

Lin Shuying’s cold voice rang out. I turned and saw Bai Feizhang, who had not yet regained his composure, walking out dazed.

"Qin... Young Friend Qin," Bai Feizhang said when he saw me by the campfire. He suddenly felt a wave of emptiness. He knew my relationship with Lin Shuying was far from ordinary, and he had spent the night with her. If Young Friend Qin knew...

I naturally understood exactly what he was thinking, and I was watching him from the side with a knowing smile.

"Where is Fairy Lin?" I asked casually.

"In... in the tent," Bai Feizhang answered quickly, not daring to look up.

"What did you just do?" I asked, deliberately making my tone sharp.

"Little..." Bai Feizhang racked his brain and said, "Fairy Lin said it was unclear last time..."

"Oh?" I pretended to suddenly understand. "Can we explain it clearly this time?"

"Clearly! Clearly!" Bai Feizhang nodded vigorously, like he was pounding garlic. "I’ve explained everything!"

I didn’t ask any more questions. I simply walked back into the tent, with Bai Feizhang watching my every move.

Lin Shuying had already dressed again and had returned to her usual cool, elegant beauty. If not for the faint blush still on her pretty face, I might have believed the whole night was a dream.

"Thank you for your hard work, Lady," I teased with a smile. I knew Fairy Lin had also enjoyed it very much, which made me feel a little less guilty, but I still dared to joke.

"Get lost!" Lin Shuying’s pretty face instantly turned bright red.

Ignoring her protest, I pulled her into my arms.

"Will the crossing go smoothly?" Lin Shuying nestled against me, and I could feel her delicate body trembling slightly.

I nodded. "I won’t die in a moment anyway."

"What about the exact day?" She looked up at me.

"Woman, this is..." I smirked. "Can’t wait?"

"You!" Lin Shuying pouted, embarrassed and anxious. "I’m just afraid he’ll die. There’s no way to check your prescription."

I hugged her even tighter and said with a smile, "It can be as short as three or five days, or as long as seven or eight days."

"Three or five days?" Lin Shuying looked surprised.

This journey would take at least a month. If we could only support three or five days at a time, that didn’t make sense.

Seeing my playful eyes, Lin Shuying instantly buried her face in my arms, too shy to look up.

Bai Feizhang, still outside the tent, finally came to his senses long after I entered. He had grown so accustomed to slumping on the ground that he suddenly realized his strength had fully recovered.

Re-lighting?!

Bai Feizhang was shocked, but he didn’t dare disturb the two people inside the tent.

Young Friend Qin said I won’t die, I won’t die...

Bai Feizhang comforted himself with lingering fear and stayed right next to the tent, not taking even one step away.

...

For the next few days we traveled at almost full speed. Lin Shuying was familiar with the road and knew the best stopping points, so we saved a great deal of time.

After that night we unloaded the carriage and gave the remaining horse to Bai Feizhang. Without the heavy cage, we could now cover more than three hundred miles a day under good road conditions.

Occasionally we ran into rough patches and had to dismount and walk.

The journey was long, but having such a beautiful companion made it far from boring. Watching Lin Shuying’s dashing, heroic figure ride in front of me all day, I didn’t feel the slightest weariness.

On the Loess Road, Lin Shuying rode in front and Bai Feizhang behind. Looking at Lin Shuying’s round, upturned buttocks as she sat on her horse, Bai Feizhang’s mind drifted again.

After the initial panic, Bai Feizhang, who had regained his strength, gradually felt that the nights on the road were different. Sometimes he even wondered if he had mastered those two great cultivation techniques. But every time he saw my eyes, he felt a chill run down his spine. The knowledge that his life was in someone else’s hands made him dare not think of escaping.

"We’ve already passed Jeju, and Tongju is ahead."

At the edge of a deep mountain stream, Lin Shuying turned over and dismounted.

Jeju...

I felt a pang in my heart. This was the next stop my mother had arranged for me. I didn’t know if she had planted a hidden stake there, but I couldn’t find out.

Zhao Qingshi and the other two followed closely but stayed extremely cautious. In the past few days they had never let Lin Shuying notice them.

"What are you thinking about?" Lin Shuying walked over and sat beside me on a large rock, watching with interest as Bai Feizhang led the three horses to drink at the stream.

"By the way," I suddenly asked, "what weapon does your sect use?"

My eyes fell on the long knife at her waist. Lin Shuying noticed my gaze, drew the blade, and handed it to me.

The knife was surprisingly heavy. The handle was extremely long, and the straight blade, with only a slight oblique edge, was almost identical to a long sword.

"The Yanling Sword was modified," Lin Shuying explained. "Almost all the catchers in the Siming Pavilion use this now. My master calls it the Horizontal Sword."

"Did you change it?" I asked, noticing the smug look in her eyes.

"Of course!" Lin Shuying pulled out the sword and swung it a few times, sending up gusts of wind.

I was completely captivated. The woman wielding the blade was surprisingly graceful.

"Young Friend Qin, need some advice?" Lin Shuying shifted her position and struck toward the tip of my sword.

This was the standard courtesy before two swordsmen fought. On a whim I drew the dead branches, but I didn’t dare use my true energy. I simply used the Baiyun Sword Technique my mother had taught me and sparred with her a few times.

Sparks flew when our blades clashed. The sound startled Bai Feizhang.

"What knife technique?" he asked.

"Dead Branch Sword!" I replied, sweeping across her blade and taking her sword.

"The Ning family’s ancestral swordsmanship," Lin Shuying said. She dodged the dead branch, pressed the blade directly against my chest, and said, "This is the Flying Swallow."

A strong wind whistled past my back. I ducked, and the blade sliced through the air right above my hair.

"This is the Current."

The blade instantly curved in a beautiful arc and flew toward my feet.

I leaped into the air, using each step to deflect her ferocious attack.

"This is the Moonlit Sword."

Seeing sweat and fragrance rise on her forehead, I stopped dodging and thrust straight forward. Lin Shuying stood frozen, as if she had forgotten to move.

The sword stopped three inches from her chest, and Lin Shuying’s beautiful eyes were filled with admiration.

"Is this the White Cloud Sword Technique?" she asked.

"No." I sheathed the dead branches with a smile. "This is the Autumn Sound I realized that night, but I didn’t use real energy."

I wanted her to learn more, so I simply used the Autumn Sound.

"What a mysterious sword technique..." Lin Shuying murmured. "I could have hidden it in the past, but I felt like there was nowhere to hide."

"Hehe." I laughed softly. "Wait until you improve your cultivation a little more, and you’ll find there’s no point in hiding."

"Are you laughing at me?" Lin Shuying’s pretty face flushed.

"How dare I." I put away my smile and said firmly, "I would never laugh at you."

"Then why is there no point in hiding?" Lin Shuying wiped the sweat from her forehead and sat down beside me.

With a long sigh I said, "You haven’t refined your Qi yet, so you can only see one sword. When you reach the first level, you’ll see the second sword, the third sword..."

"The man in black in that temple..." Lin Shuying suddenly remembered. "How many swords did he see?"

"One hundred and sixty-eight." I smiled. "Because there are only 168 swords, he has cultivated them above me, so I should have seen them all clearly."

"Can’t avoid it even if you see them all?" Lin Shuying looked surprised.

"It’s because I can see them clearly that I can’t avoid them." I reached out and touched her head. "What kind of sword technique is this? If you can’t see or avoid, and you can see then avoid, doesn’t that mean you win by taking the sword?"

"It’s not about hiding," I said, smiling again. "It’s about attacking."

"If you block those 168 swords, I will be the one who dies that night."

Lin Shuying nodded as if she still didn’t understand. I sighed for a long time, unsure whether this conversation would help her understand anything.

The man in black that night had indeed seen the 168 swords clearly, but it was precisely because of his profound cultivation that he realized he could not block so many swords.

It was also because of this conversation that I suddenly remembered my father’s Six Views.

For fifteen years, countless swordsmen had flocked to the Six Views, but no one had ever truly observed them.

How many swords was that?

Looking at the sky gradually darkening, I fell into a daze.

Perhaps only that demon master could know.