"There certainly are a lot of people heading to Yunjing."
Starting from Fengcheng and following the main road, Jiang Qingyu had already spotted several traveling groups, consisting of both aristocratic immortal sect disciples and wandering rogue cultivators.
"Oddly enough, I haven't seen anyone from the Wanjian Sect," Baixin remarked out of nowhere.
As the head of all the sects, the Wanjian Sect's strength went without saying. Yet they had stayed in Fengcheng for three days without hearing a single whisper about the Wanjian Sect. Could it be that they had set off for Yunjing long ago?
Jiang Qingyu said half-jokingly, "Perhaps it's because we sword cultivators are all stubborn and dislike using external objects to boost our cultivation."
The shark pearl Mei Niang had given her was still tucked away untouched in her storage bracelet. In her past life, she had relied too heavily on cultivation, stopping at nothing to advance, which left her impatient for quick success and with a hollow foundation.
Reliving her life, no matter what, she would never fall into the same pit twice.
Baixin pressed his pale pink lips together, a mysterious smile playing on his face. "Who knows?"
This particular main road was restricted; flying was forbidden in mid-air, and flying boats were not allowed either. Therefore, all traveling cultivators had to walk, save for a few wealthy families riding horses or in carriages.
The two walked a bit further before spotting a pair of rogue cultivators—a man and a woman who looked inseparable and appeared to be a daoist couple.
The female cultivator was slightly plump, dressed in a fiery red sheer gauze that exposed both her arms and legs. She hardly looked like a righteous cultivator, and with her spoiled temperament, she was throwing a tantrum at the male cultivator, seemingly from walking for too long.
"Why are you so useless?! If there's no carriage, couldn't you have just bought a horse?! Look at my feet! They're swollen!"
"We're going to an auction this trip, and we didn't bring much money to begin with, plus we have to buy this and that along the way. Do you still want your beauty pill or not?" the male cultivator retorted reflexively.
"And whose fault is that if not your low cultivation and poverty?! I really don't know what I ever saw in you!"
The male cultivator's words fanned the flames of the female cultivator's fury. How dare a piece of trash talk back to her? She kicked the male cultivator right in the shin while unleashing a nonstop stream of complaints.
The kicked male cultivator's face darkened by another shade, but he didn't dare talk back again.
The female cultivator was quite satisfied with this. Shifting her gaze sideways, she happened to spot Jiang Qingyu and Baixin in the distance, whose attire clearly wasn't ordinary.
Two youngsters whose cultivation she couldn't see through—their cultivation probably hadn't even reached the Golden Core stage, and judging by their looks, their family must be quite wealthy.
Standing quite far off, Jiang Qingyu rubbed her arm. "Senior Brother, why do I feel like someone is plotting against us?"
Baixin blinked his foxy eyes and took a step back. "Save me!"
"..."
Upon seeing Baixin back away, the female cultivator laughed audaciously. "Hah, so he's just a pretty boy. Since you're not bad-looking, why don't you come with me instead?"
The corners of Jiang Qingyu's mouth twitched. She pulled out a notched iron sword she had picked up at a street stall for twenty low-grade spirit stones and silently stepped in front of Baixin, blocking the female cultivator's line of sight.
The female cultivator looked on with contempt and let out a sneer.
She cast a flippant glance at Jiang Qingyu's chest and backside. "Ha? Just this? A snot-nosed yellow-haired girl who hasn't even grown her hair yet—can she satisfy you?"
Jiang Qingyu lowered her gaze to look at her own chest. She was only sixteen years old; did she really need to stuff a pair of basketballs in like her?
Ignoring her Eldest Senior Brother's stifled chuckles, her expression sank, turning as dark as a plot of land.
Damn it, she was actually being insulted!
Channeling her spiritual power, she raised her sword and slashed forward.
The iron sword tore through the wind, hurtling toward the center of the female cultivator's face with piercing momentum!
The female cultivator dropped into a desperate limbo bend to dodge the strike, seemingly caught off guard by how fierce Jiang Qingyu's swordplay was—that even a broken sword could unleash such formidable imposing aura.
Composing herself slightly, she released the pressure of her Golden Core Peak cultivation and provoked smugly, "Without a sword that suits your hand, what good is it even if you're strong?"
The suppression of a major realm.
Jiang Qingyu let out a muffled groan, half-kneeling on the grassy ground as a thread of bright red blood spilled from the corner of her lips.
Truly, she was suffering immensely.
Her very first trial combat, and she had to challenge someone three minor realms higher.
Releasing her Divine Sense, she found that Eldest Senior Brother had already found himself a viewing platform with an incomparably wide field of vision. Feeling her spiritual probe, he even smiled faintly and gave her an encouraging thumbs-up.
A mouthful of old blood stuck firmly in Jiang Qingyu's throat.
"If Elder Sister has taken a liking to the senior brother behind me, you are entirely welcome to take him away. Why resort to this?" She massaged the web of her hand, which had been jolted numb, and with a snap, discarded the iron sword in her grasp.
"Don't play tricks in front of me, or I'll finish you off!" The female cultivator warily drew her spiritual weapon—a golden dagger stained with poison. The blade gleamed an ominous, toxic green, clearly a lethal poison that kills upon drawing blood.
Jiang Qingyu raised both hands in a gesture of surrender. "Hey! Don't, don't, don't! Elder Sister! Don't! My cultivation isn't as high as yours, I can't beat you, I really can't beat you!"
She waved her hands repeatedly to signal her defeat and desire for a truce. True to form, the female cultivator's expression softened. Jiang Qingyu pressed on, "I originally thought Elder Sister was around my age and that your cultivation was probably hovering around Foundation Establishment just like mine, so I figured I'd take a gamble—turn a bicycle into a motorcycle. Who would have guessed that Elder Sister is this formidable, reaching the Golden Core Peak at such a tender age? It really was this ignorant junior failing to recognize a pearl and causing offense to Elder Sister!"
The female cultivator beamed with conceit, basking completely in Jiang Qingyu's flattering praise. Though she had no idea what "turning a bicycle into a motorcycle" meant, it was definitely praise admiring her cultivation!
"You little girl, your cultivation may not be high, but your mouth sure is pleasant to hear. How about Elder Sister takes you to enjoy the pleasures of the mortal world? Seeing that you're still a maiden and haven't tasted a man yet, Elder Sister will show mercy and teach you a couple of tricks!" She feigned putting away her dagger and beckoned to Jiang Qingyu, signaling her to come over.
Joy burst within Jiang Qingyu's eyes as she trotted over eagerly. "Really?!"
Seeing Jiang Qingyu run over in trust, the female cultivator sneered inwardly—what an idiot. A flash of green light cut across her sleeve in the blink of an eye.
The next moment, a sharp pain spread across her lower abdomen.
The dagger in her hand lost its strength and dropped to the ground.
The female cultivator clutched her lower dantian with her right hand, her fingers stained entirely with blood.
She couldn't believe that her dantian had been pulverized by a single sword strike.
"You... you... tricked me?"
Jiang Qingyu raised an eyebrow, retracting Jinglan from the female cultivator's dantian. Not a single trace of blood remained on the smooth blade, yet she still leisurely produced a sword-cleaning cloth to gently wipe the weapon. "But... didn't Elder Sister trick me as well?"
Her gaze fell upon the dagger on the ground.
Jiang Qingyu put away Jinglan, picked up the dagger, and ignoring the female cultivator's distorted visage, muttered to herself, "My, it's even made of dark gold iron. It's worth quite a bit!"
The female cultivator closed her eyes in bitter resentment.
Until the moment she died, she could not fathom how Jiang Qingyu had delivered that fatal sword strike.
"Xiaoyu, your sword is quite nice!"
Baixin drifted down lightly from a tree, dusting the dirt off his hands, and said to Jiang Qingyu with a beaming smile, "Eldest Senior Brother knew Xiaoyu would definitely protect me!"
Jiang Qingyu put on a professional smile. "Pay up for the protection fee, please. Thank you."
"..."
Baixin looked up and down, pretending he hadn't heard a word Jiang Qingyu said. His gaze then locked onto the collarbone of the female cultivator's corpse, where a blood-red orchid tattoo with four petals and upturned flower-brow corners caught his eye. "An evil cultivator from Lansha Hall?"
"Mhm, four petals." Jiang Qingyu had noticed this four-petaled orchid the moment she thrust her first sword strike.
She didn't know much about the affairs of the Cultivation World, but evil cultivators happened to be one of the targets she once focused on heavily.
Among evil cultivators, there was an organization called Lansha Hall, and all members within the hall bore a tattoo of a blood-red orchid on their bodies.
The more petals the orchid had, the more heinous deeds they had committed.
It was said that the master of Lansha Hall possessed a total of nine orchid petals.
This female evil cultivator could already be considered an inner-disciple of Lansha Hall.
She deserved to die.
Some cultivators said that the blood-red orchid was a flower blooming in the Underworld and hell, symbolizing slaughter and evil.
Regarding every topic concerning evil cultivators, Jiang Qingyu summed it up in a single sentence: Lansha Hall, much like the blood-red orchid, played the role of villains in the Cultivation World, committing murder, arson, looting, and every imaginable evil.
She irritably scratched her double hair buns.
Lansha Hall had always carried the moniker of "mad dogs." Having accidentally killed one of their inner disciples today, there was no guarantee she wouldn't face retaliation.
She had only just stepped out of the novice village.
"Senior Brother, what do we do about this mess?"
"Rest assured, we have Master to back us up, no need to panic!" Baixin remained as steady as an old hound.
...
Lord Wuling, who was currently refining Barrier-Breaking Pills in the Wuya Sword Sect, let out a sneeze out of nowhere. "Is Little Bai missing me?"
...
While Jiang Qingyu and Baixin were muttering to themselves, the male cultivator who had been traveling with the female evil cultivator quietly squatted down beside her corpse, his expression looking as though he were both smiling and crying.
Baixin propped his chin on one hand, as if he had spotted something immensely amusing, and asked casually, "Did you love her?"
The male cultivator's expression froze before he glared angrily at Baixin. "No! How could I possibly love her?! I hate her more than anything!"
"Then why are you crying?"
Baixin's words pierced into the male cultivator's heart like a knife.
The male cultivator sat paralyzed in the pool of blood like a lost child, his limbs weak, tears flowing unconsciously from the corners of his eyes to drench his collar as he mumbled to himself, "That's right, why am I crying? Why..."
He had clearly been forced, and now that the female evil cultivator was dead, he was free!
Why was he still crying?
Why...
Baixin spread his hands innocently toward Jiang Qingyu: I didn't do anything at all! You saw it!
Jiang Qingyu couldn't be bothered to entertain this three-hundred-year-old husky.
"Rustle... rustles..."
Hm!
Someone there?
She whipped her head around to look, only to see a ball of snowy white darting back and forth through the bushes.
It turned out to be just a white lop-eared rabbit. Jiang Qingyu had been startled, thinking the female evil cultivator's accomplices had arrived.
"Senior Brother, let's get moving."
"Coming right up!" As he spoke, while Jiang Qingyu was straightening her clothes, Baixin cast a subtle glance toward the bushes from where the rabbit had emerged, flicking a trace of spiritual Qi from his fingertips.
In Jiang Qingyu's blind spot, accompanied by a muffled gasp, a corner of pink robes behind the bushes was swiftly yanked back by a hand.