Sword Arrives

As he sighed, he casually raised his hand and whispered, "Imperial command!"

Two blinding beams of light shot out from the "Vitality Soaring Like a Bull" plaque.

With a flick of his sleeve, the scholar struck twice, sending the light into the sword.

The characters "Like" and "Bull" from the plaque retained their imposing energy.

But the characters "Vitality" and "Soaring" seemed like an old, frail man on his deathbed, having lost their vigor and energy after a fleeting moment of revival.

The scholar absent-mindedly flicked his wrist, and the long sword instantly returned to its scabbard. Since it had already been sheathed, no one could tell that there were two distinct energies swirling inside the sword like coiling dragons.

The next moment, even the seasoned scholar, Qi Jingchun, was shocked.

The girl slowly removed the sword from its scabbard. With a casual flick of her wrist, she drove the sword into the yellow earth, her eyes behind the veil, filled with resolve, meet his gaze. "This is not the swordsmanship I pursue."

The scholar glanced at the discarded sword with a deep, forgotten weight in his heart, and despite the breach of propriety, he couldn't help but ask, "Do you know who I am?"

The girl nodded, then shook her head. "I've heard that every cycle of sixty years, a sage from one of the three religions comes here to oversee a great formation, which has been running for thousands of years. From time to time, someone who leaves here either carries a rare treasure or experiences a breakthrough in cultivation, so I wanted to come and see for myself. When I saw you, I knew who you were. Otherwise, when I struck earlier, I wouldn't have been so straightforward."

Qi Jingchun asked again, "Do you know what you just gave up?"

The girl fell silent.

The sword in the scabbard on the ground trembled incessantly, as if a beauty lamented in sorrow, begging for her lover's heart to return.

The young man had long since secretly turned his head, cautiously glancing at the girl in the distance.

The scholar, despite his vast knowledge, could not understand what had just happened. He didn't want to force the sword, which held immense power, into the girl's hands. After some contemplation, he finally spoke, "Girl, you'd better put away that sword. Things in this town will soon become… unsettled. Having an extra means of defense is never a bad thing."

The girl did not respond, but turned and walked away.

She still refused to take the sword with her.

Qi Jingchun sighed in frustration, waving his sleeve and driving the sword into the top of a stone pillar of the archway. If anyone tried to take it, it would disturb his position at the town's core. Much like the "storyteller" from before, who had made two attempts—both of which had failed to escape his distant attention.

After personally escorting Zhao Yao from the school to the Zhao family's mansion on Fortune Street, the middle-aged scholar walked slowly. With each step he took, the grand mansions on either side of the street, with their towering gates and hidden courtyards, revealed fleeting sparks of light in concealed places, barely perceptible to the eye.

Qi Jingchun murmured to himself, "Strange, where did that girl come from? Could she be a disciple from beyond this continent?"

When he returned to the school, he sat at his desk, placing a jade tablet roughly twelve inches long in front of him. The four corners were carved with the four mountains, symbolizing peace in all directions. The front was inscribed with dense small seal script, over a hundred characters in total. 

According to Confucian rites, only the emperor of a nation would hold such a tablet.

This showed how important the town was.

Turning it over, the back of the jade tablet only had two simple characters.

The script was meticulously formed, both vigorous and graceful.

The strokes were strong, the spirit of the words long-lasting.

On the desk, there was also a recently received letter, sealed with care.

The scholar, his temples graying, had tears welling in his eyes as he muttered, "Master, your disciple is incompetent. I can only watch as you suffer this humiliation…"

The scholar gazed out the window, his expression not showing much joy or sorrow, but there was a deep sense of loneliness. "I has failed my master. I've lived a hundred years, but still owe one last thing—death."

————

When Song Jixin brought something out of the inner room and placed it on the table, Fu Nanhua couldn't hide his ecstatic joy, no matter how much he tried to conceal it.

It was an unassuming little teapot, with the inscription "Mountain Demon" carved at the bottom.

Song Jixin folded his hands on the table, leaned forward, and asked with a smile, "How much is this teapot worth?"

The young lord of Old Dragon City, after finally tearing his gaze away from the small teapot, looked up and frankly replied, "If sold in a mundane kingdom, it wouldn't even fetch a single tael of silver. But if I were to sell it, I could buy back a city."

Song Jixin inquired, "How many people?"

Fu Nanhua raised three fingers.

Song Jixin smirked, "Oh, so it's three hundred thousand."

Fu Nanhua blinked in surprise, then burst out laughing.

He had expected Song Jixin to say thirty thousand.

————

In Apricot Alley, an awkward middle-aged man squatted beside the Iron-Chained Well, staring at the iron chain tied to the bottom of windlass, as if struggling with how to move it.

———— 

The girl wearing a veiled hat, wandered aimlessly through the town, her movements casual. At that moment, she only wore the green-sheathed dagger at her waist, her hands crudely bound with cloth strips. 

When she entered an unknown alley, whoosh — something shot through the air, and then obediently hovered behind her, buzzing.

The girl frowned, but without turning her head, spat out a word through clenched teeth: "Scram!"

Another whoosh,

The flying sword, which had just unsheathed itself, swiftly returned to its scabbard at the girl's command.

The proud girl.

The obedient flying sword.