Chapter 64: Help For My Master

The wind howled across the high peaks as our flying platform tore through the twilight sky, but inside my soul, Master’s words echoed with the weight of ancient bronze temple bells.

"A sharp sword is useless if the hand wielding it is blind. In the cultivation world, the greatest killers do not wear blood-soaked rags; they wear golden scholar robes, smile warmly, and offer you cups of poisoned spirit tea."

I stood near the railing of the widened green flying blade, my knuckles white against the cool leather of my scabbard, letting the icy mountain wind lash my face. The lesson chewed at my mind, relentless and unforgiving.

Master was entirely right. When I stood atop that rocky ridge, my eyes had burned with righteous fury, and my heart had screamed to draw steel and butcher the outlaws. Yet, in that single instant of blind, emotional arrogance, I had very nearly slaughtered thirty innocent men who were bleeding out their lives to rescue their stolen kin.

And why? Because of my own impulsive, uncalibrated nature.

Didn’t my own family meet their end because of the exact same blindness?

My father had spent thirty years believing in the benevolence of the Dayun King. He believed that loyalty, upright conduct, and bleeding on frozen borders were an unshakeable shield.

He couldn’t see the envious, rotting malice festering behind the golden throne until the executioners’ poisoned blades were already at our throats.

We died because we were blind.

A bitter resolve crystallized deep within my soul, fusing into the core of my Indomitable Asura Dao Heart. I swore a silent, solemn vow to heaven and to the man who saved my life, I would never repeat that mistake. I would sharpen my eyes, curb my wild impulses, and peel back every deceitful layer of this world before I allowed my steel to sing.

Yet, after hearing Tie Shan recount the horrors of the Iron Valley Principality, the corrupt Governor Yan selling whole villages, the peasant rebellions drowned in blood, and the imperial slavers tearing screaming children from their mothers’ arms, my heart remained firm on one point, I had to help them.

My father’s martial principles had not been wrong, they had simply been wielded without wisdom. A warrior possessed strength not to look down upon the weak as insects, but to act as their shield.

This time, I would apply his teachings properly. I would stand alongside these desperate outlaws, turn my blade against their true oppressor, and butcher Governor Yan’s hounds until this gorge ran red.

Yet, even as my determination solidified, a subtle, lingering unease tugged at the back of my mind.

I stole a quiet glance at Master, who was standing casually at the helm of the flying blade, his white sleeves rustling lazily in the gale.

I couldn’t shake off the persistent, deep-seated conviction that Master was conducting another lesson entirely. From making us ride ordinary warhorses, to demanding I fight without killing, to deliberately flying us directly to this hidden sanctuary... every step felt like a calculated test.

Master possessed unfathomable immortal power, he could have cleared this valley in the blink of an eye, yet he intentionally stepped back, guiding me through the mud of real-world battlefield experience.

What was I doing wrong this time around?

I racked my brain, desperately searching for the hidden flaw in my logic. Wasn’t it the sacred duty of righteous immortal sects to uphold justice and suppress evil? Wasn’t coming to the defense of a besieged mortal village the very definition of righteousness? Where lay the trap?

I couldn’t unravel the answer, but not for a single fraction of a second did I doubt Master.

He was my savior, my husband, and an ancient immortal whose wisdom surpassed the horizon. Every single lesson he had bestowed upon me was something a mortal would have spent centuries failing to comprehend.

If he withheld the truth, it was because he was challenging me to perceive it with my own eyes. He didn’t want a brainless doll who merely parroted his commands, he wanted a woman who could stand beside him with her own cultivated mind.

I had failed his tests time and time again, but I refused to bow to my own ignorance. I would decipher his grand design, even if it took me a lifetime of trials.

When our flying sword descended past the dry waterfall and entered the hidden subterranean basin of Wolf Fang Gorge, the immediate tension of the rebel sentries flared.

But amidst the chaos of Tie Shan’s frantic evacuation warnings, my attention was pulled in a completely different direction.

I watched Master’s face.

To an outsider, Master appeared completely detached, an aloof, transcendent grandmaster observing mortal ants with mild curiosity. Even Bai Ling, with all her sharp border instincts, failed to see beneath that placid, smiling mask.

But I had lived with this man on Lonely Cloud Peak for over a month. I had dedicated every waking hour to observing his minute habits, the subtle tilt of his eyebrows when he was amused, the rhythm of his breathing when he was scheming, and the way his fingers tapped his cuffs when he uncovered something fascinating.

The moment his gaze had fallen upon Bai Ling, a faint, almost imperceptible gleam of predatory excitement had sparked deep within his dark eyes.

When he spoke to her, his voice had carried that familiar, teasing rhythm, a deliberate series of subtle verbal tests meant to draw out her mind, her composure, and the hidden depths of her character.

Master is interested in her.

The realization struck me like a cold drop of spring water.

I felt no jealousy. In a mortal military house, powerful men took dozens of consorts, and in the grand immortal sects, supreme powerhouses held boundless harems. More importantly, after everything Master had done for me, what right did I have to demand his exclusive favor?

Instead, my mind pieced together his true objective, Master sees her as a potential disciple.

I looked at Bai Ling, a woman in her mid-twenties, dressed in battle-worn leather armor, commanding two thousand refugees with iron-willed poise and sharp, analytical intelligence.

On the surface, she was merely a peak Body Strengthening mortal outlaw leading a doomed rebellion. I couldn’t see whatever miraculous trait lingered beneath her flesh, but I didn’t need to. Master’s eyes were divine, they had seen through my supposedly crippled, chaotic five-element waste roots, perceiving the Indomitable Asura Dao Heart buried beneath my blood-soaked rags.

If Master’s gaze lingered on Bai Ling, then she was undeniably an uncut, celestial diamond hidden in the mortal dirt.

A warm, resolute smile curved beneath my sheer veil.

As the First Disciple, this is my sacred duty.

If Master desired to bring this capable woman back to Lonely Cloud Peak, then I would become his greatest vanguard. I would reach out to Bai Ling, forge an unshakeable bond with her, and show her the sheer, peerless benevolence of the man standing before her.

Naturally, the thought of anyone rejecting Master was pure heresy, if any fool dared look down upon his offer, they would become my eternal enemy on the spot. But mortals were blind, trapped in their narrow wells. It was my responsibility to make sure Bai Ling realized just what kind of living celestial was gracing her miserable cave.

Perhaps... I should compile an official chronicle of Master’s deeds, I mused silently, a faint, proud warmth blooming in my chest.

A sacred manual detailing his boundless wisdom, his supreme mercy, and his peerless grace, so that future junior sisters can properly worship him the moment they cross the mountain gate. Perhaps, they were could even serve him together and spread his influence even more. Everyone deserved to know his grace.

Yes, that suited the First Disciple perfectly.

While those thoughts swirled behind my eyes, I forced myself to remain alert, contributing to the tactical discussion before Bai Ling led us through the subterranean tunnels toward the medical chambers.

The heavy wooden doors swung open, and the foul stench of boiled herbs, stagnant blood, and damp straw assaulted my senses.

My breath hitched.

Lying across two dozen rough cots were twenty-four children, their hollow, bruised faces staring blankly at the stone ceiling. Iron shackles had chewed their small ankles down to the bone, their frail ribcages visible through shredded rags.

Master casually stepped forward, his divine sense rippling through the room as he effortlessly exposed the microscopic Blood-Scent Powder hidden beneath their scabs, dissecting Governor Yan’s entire tracking conspiracy in a few calm breaths.

Yet, I barely heard half of what Master said.

A ringing, deafening roar drowned out my ears as a suffocating, violent wave of memories crashed through my sea of consciousness.

Looking at those chained, shivering children, I wasn’t standing in a rebel infirmary anymore. I was looking at myself.

I saw the cold iron cage in the back of an unmarked merchant cart months ago. I remembered the filthy burlap sacks, the coarse ropes cutting into my bruised wrists, and the horrifying, predatory laughter of the slave-catchers who had cornered me in the border alleys.

I remembered the other captive children who had wept beside me in the dark, little girls coughing up blood, little boys starving to death against the wooden slats.

Back then, I had been weak. I had possessed only enough feral desperation to smash an iron lock with a jagged rock and crawl through a ditch into the freezing rain, leaving every single one of those weeping children behind to be sold into hell.

I had been powerless to save them. The guilt had festered like gangrene in my soul.

Crack.

The stone beneath my boots fractured under the sudden, unconscious surge of my physical force.

Beneath my veil, my obsidian eyes burned with an abyss of unyielding, suffocating malice.

Not this time.

Today, I was no longer that shivering, starving beggar girl crying in a ditch. Today, I held a body tempered to the peak of mortal limits, an indestructible sword art, and an untouchable immortal master standing at my back.

I would save these children. I would slaughter every imperial dog who marched on this gorge, tear down their iron cages, and give these helpless souls the exact same miraculous salvation that Master had gifted to me.

Is this the lesson Master wanted me to grasp? I wondered, my chest heaving with righteous fire. To become the protector? To extend his benevolence to those drowning in the dark?

Yet, as I looked back at Master’s relaxed, unreadable smile, an intuitive whisper brushed against my soul.

No. That was still too simple. There was a deeper, far more elusive truth waiting behind his eyes and I would cut through more than eight hundred men tomorrow morning just to find it.