IS Chapter 80

Chapter 80

Xuanwu was awake.

Clearly awake, yet he seemed more like an empty shell. He merely opened his eyes, the moonlight reflecting within them.

Ling Ming reached out and gently removed his mask.

He was a handsome man, with faint streaks of azure mixed within his hair, as if he possessed foreign blood.

Reaching out, she stroked his cheek, Ling Ming remaining silent, not uttering a word.

“Sect Master, why is he like this?” Sanqi asked.

“Because your cultivation isn’t high enough, you haven’t learned the Divine Soul Chapter,” Lin Zhu said, “Tonight, these nineteen assassins from the Guanhua Cave each had a singlepò missing.”

“A human’s three hun and seven po are interconnected. Losing any single pò will result in this.”

“Then their assassination attempt on Palace Master Ye…”

Lin Zhu: “Removing a pò makes it easier to control the divine soul and use them as a puppet.”

“Being an assassin, driven by others, is better than simply ending it,” Ling Ming said, drawing the plum blossom dagger from her waist, its blade gleaming like snow.

“…Wait!” Lin Zhu said, “Miss Ling Ming, is Bei Si Xuanwu an old acquaintance of yours?”

“Yes.”

“Then protect me,” Lin Zhu said, “I once comprehended a Soul Weaving technique that can find traces from the remaining three hun and six pò to replenish his missing pò. However, it can only last for a moment.”

The disciples were filled with awe.

What is a true medical cultivator? Their Sect Master was the true medical cultivator, capable of weaving and mending even a human immortal’s divine soul.

Ling Ming: “Sect Leader Lin, aren’t you afraid of getting burned?”

“The fire has already consumed me,” Lin Zhu sighed softly, “Adding another flame is meaningless.”

“Alright, I will protect you.”

Lin Zhu flicked his sleeve, and forty-nine semi-transparent soul needles that seemed real yet illusory floated before him. He began to insert the needles into Xuanwu.

As the forty-ninth soul needle entered Xuanwu’s body, a surge of dark light emerged, and he opened his eyes once more.

It was as if his entire being had come alive, the ink-like eyes finally showing the radiance they should possess.

Ling Ming helped him up. He looked at Ling Ming, a thoughtful expression appearing on his face, finally uttering hesitantly, “…A-Yan?”

Ling Ming’s voice was hoarse: “Brother.”

She had thought she would never see him again in this lifetime.

Xuanwu wasn’t her blood-related brother.

She had entered the Guanhua Cave, taken a master, and gained brothers and sisters. The Guanhua Cave was her first home. She also became an assassin of the Guanhua Cave, serving under Xuanwu’s jurisdiction in the North Division.

Later, she received her own designation, Wei Yue Yan.

In her first year as Wei Yue Yan, according to custom, she was supposed to leave the mountain to complete her first mission, to kill her first person.

Naturally, she was waiting for that day.

But what she received was an order from Xuanwu to expel her from the Guanhua Cave.

–He said that she was naturally foolish, repeatedly violated the rules, and was not fit to be a disciple of the Guanhua Cave. She was now removed from the rolls and would leave immediately.

But Xuanwu was the one who had picked her up and brought her back to the Guanhua Cave, the one who had raised her from an abandoned infant to the present day. He was the one who had clearly already achieved Bigu, yet little by little learned to cook in order to be able to feed her.

She wanted to see Xuanwu, but Xuanwu refused to see her. She threatened to kill herself, and Xuanwu ordered people to drag her out.

In the end, Liu Tuzhang sent her out of Guanhua Cave.

“From now on, seek your own path,” Liu Tuzhang said.

Ling Ming had thought many times about what she had done wrong.

Until the third year after she was expelled from the Guanhua Cave, the Guanhua Cave suddenly disappeared from the jianghu.

She also walked into the mountain gate of the Guanhua Cave again.

Assassins are not an above-board profession, and the location of the Guanhua Cave was secret, unknown to outsiders.

She walked in, with no one guarding it, and the Sect Protecting Array wasn’t activated.

The buildings of the sect were still there, the blood bats raised by the people of the South Division were still hanging upside down from the rafters, the armored figures in the target range were still covered in arrows, and the mission board that was supposed to be updated daily had stopped three months prior.

But there wasn’t a single person there. The Guanhua Cave had been emptied overnight.

The winding Netherworld Fire Vein had gone out.

From then on, she never saw anyone from the Guanhua Cave again.

In the fourth year, she concealed all of her past and entered the Baiwen Pavilion, which could find out news from all over the world, from the lowest menial worker to the Jack-of-all-trades who sold information in the market district, and then to the closed-door disciple of the Pavilion Master of the Baiwen Pavilion.

Later, a particularly mysterious small sect appeared in the Green Mountains of the southwest, called the Micro-Snow Palace. Someone entrusted the Baiwen Pavilion to inquire about the Micro-Snow Palace, and she took on the task.

One snowy night, she sneaked into the Green Mountains.

Concealing and hiding were also the skills that the Baiwen Pavilion relied on to survive. She was originally an assassin, so she was even better at it.

However, after taking the third breath within the territory of the Micro-Snow Palace, a sword light like ice and snow pierced through the air in front of her.

She hadn’t seen such a decisive and clean sword in a long time.

It just so happened that the blade she had learned for killing people hadn’t been unsheathed in a long time either.

So they fought.

The fight ended when dawn was approaching, covered in blood, but very happy. Possibly about to die, the Second Palace Master Ye’s sword pointed at her coldly.

“Finished fighting? Tired?” The Palace Master of the Micro-Snow Palace stood smilingly with his hands in his sleeves under the eaves of the main hall.

“Hoo, it’s so cold outside. This Daoist has cooked some noodles, girl, would you like to come in and eat before you leave?”

It was a very simple bowl of noodles, thin slices of noodles, steaming soup, with the flavors of salt and pepper just right.

She drank three bowls.

Later, she became the Sixth Palace Master of the Micro-Snow Palace. Being a Palace Master in the Micro-Snow Palace was very simple, all you had to do was reach for the chopsticks when the Grand Palace Master made something to eat.

The first piece of news about the Micro-Snow Palace was brought out by her, so later in the Baiwen Pavilion, she was in charge of all news and information related to the Micro-Snow Palace.

The Palace Master Wei Sheng’s skills were very good.

Xuanwu’s skills were very bad. He always found some things that looked edible at random, and after cooking them, he thought that others could eat them.

Now Xuanwu was looking at her.

A hundred years had passed in a flash. Many people, many things, she thought she had forgotten, but she hadn’t.

Ling Ming: “So I wasn’t expelled from the Guanhua Cave, right?”

“Yes,” Xuanwu said, “At that time, you had not yet left the mountain, nor had you killed anyone. Your spirit soul hadn’t been branded on the Guanhua Token. There are some things that we may not be able to escape, but you can.”

“You had already noticed it?”

“The Supreme Purity Mountain wanted to seize the Netherworld Fire Vein, we knew that. We made ten preparations over the course of ten years, but in the end, we still failed. A-Yan, they have methods higher than human immortals.”

“Taking the spiritual vein wasn’t enough, they even wanted your knives as well, right?”

“After all, assassins are still useful,” Xuanwu said, “There are some things they can’t do, but assassins can do without leaving a trace. Even if evidence is seen by others, it will only be that the Guanhua Cave killed someone. Four human immortals, fifteen Transcending Tribulation cultivators, refining us into puppets, that’s the trump card they would only use when they were cornered. How long has it been?”

“One hundred and thirty-seven years.”

“So it’s already been that long,” Xuanwu said, “Now that the Guanhua Token has been abandoned, they won’t care if there are any disciples left. A-Yan, the Guanhua Cave secretly left a branch in secret, ordering them to sever all ties with the Guanhua Cave and change to practicing swordsmanship.”

“It should be called the One Sword Sect, I wonder how it is now?” Xuanwu said.

“…”

Ye Zhuo had just walked over when he heard such words.

As soon as these words came out, even Ling Ming was silent.

One Sword Sect? What a familiar name. Li Yuan thought about it and quickly remembered that this was one of Second Palace Master Ye’s brilliant achievements, something the Baiwen Pavilion had always talked about with great interest.

The One Sword Sect, hiding their edge and building their momentum, proclaimed that they would only unleash one world-shattering sword in their entire life.

–And then the entire lineage was broken by Second Palace Master Ye.