Chapter 869: You’ve Fallen for It (3)

The next day.

The road to Diancang Sect’s Broken-Sword Cliff was—how should she put it—uh, it suddenly had the vibe of a... no, not a picnic. What do you call it? A hiking club? No, not even that. Just... something.

“Yesterday I went out to the reservoir up ahead and ended up hauling in a salted fish—got to be a full hundred years old, I swear. No jokes, it had to be a spirit creature at least a full palm long.”

“Oh, so we’re having a bowl of catfish soup? Lately my joints have been aching—if we boil it down until the broth turns milky, I bet it’ll fix me right up.”

“Ahem. How could I butcher a spirit creature like that? I got my fight out of it, so I let it go. It got a proper lesson too—now it’ll know to fear bait, won’t it?”

“There he goes again. Every time he ‘goes fishing’ he makes a scene about catching some monster haul. And yet not a single person’s ever actually seen the ‘monster.’”

“Hah, don’t talk like you know anything. Fishing is skill. I already reached enlightenment in fishing, so I’ve plainly entered the Natural Realm—what, you think I can’t just haul up even the spirits that guard the waters, one after another?”

“Senior Disciple, they say people get shameless when they get old—last time I followed you, you couldn’t even catch a single trash fish right next to me. Maybe it’s not the Natural Realm—maybe it’s time for you to go back to nature.”

“That’s because you had no fishing luck. You know how you get smacked for standing next to the wrong bastard? I stood next to a luckless bastard and got dragged into the same blank day.”

Mm. Yeah. This vibe.

Qing found the perfect expression.

It felt like a bunch of grandpas from a senior center had come out on a group tour... that kind of vibe......

And it wasn’t even wrong. Diancang’s “observers” were all white-haired elders—Supreme Elders.

If anyone was going to gain insight from Qing’s demonstration, it would be elder masters with skill, experience, and the eye for it. And if they gained insight, they would willingly pass it on to the sect.

So having the Supreme Elders come observe was better than sending half-baked disciples—

That was Diancang Sect’s leader’s judgment.

While they were ambling up the mountain path like that—

All of a sudden, some strange trees caught her eye.

She didn’t know what kind of trees they were, but they were young ones, not very tall.

The odd part was that around waist height, their circumference suddenly narrowed, as if someone had stuck a thin sapling into a thick stump.

What? Can a tree even grow like that?

And among them, a crooked-leaning old man was standing there before she knew it.

Up ahead, the Martial-Heaven Great Emperor.

“Ah. Elder. When did you come out?”

“Whenever I feel like it. What, do I need permission from some green little lump of blood before I step out?”

There’s always someone who has to say that.

Qing scratched her cheek, and then—oh.

Seeing how the Martial-Heaven Great Emperor—or was it the Martial-Qing Great Emperor?—had popped out of nowhere like this, it meant he’d already seen the traces of the Solitary Nine Swords form with his own eyes.

Then this place was...?

Once she thought that, she realized the trees didn’t naturally grow that way.

They’d been cut once, and new shoots had risen from the cut trunks and stretched upward again.

And since those trees were packed everywhere, they’d all been chopped at exactly the same height—like someone had measured it with a ruler.

Qing looked around.

Everything she could see was trees that had been cut once and then grown back.

Only far in the distance did fully grown trees rise up like a wall—

A truly vast site where an entire forest had been cut down with a single sword.

“Oh, so you didn’t carve it into a cliff at Diancang Sect. This form is a horizontal cut, then?”

“Can’t you tell just by looking? If you’ve got eyes, you should know. Acting like you ‘realized’ it all on your own—tsk, tsk.”

“Mm. Why are you so prickly today?”

“Your mind is prickly. I’m the Martial-Heaven Great Emperor your mental image made, so—tsk, tsk. Your cultivation is lacking, that’s why.”

The Martial-Heaven Great Emperor dragged out the Martial-Qing Great Emperor theory.

He claimed he wasn’t the Martial-Heaven Great Emperor himself—just a modified copy Qing had produced after seeing the sword trace, a mental image.

Qing’s eyes narrowed.

“Is that really true? I don’t think so.”

“If it’s not, then what? You think the Martial-Heaven Great Emperor secretly slipped out? Or that I ascended and then quietly came down from the Immortal Realm?”

“Whoa. You were an immortal?”

The Martial-Heaven Great Emperor snorted.

“Hah. Where in the world are there immortals?”

“Huh? Why wouldn’t there be? This is a world where people gather energy and shoot starlight, and fly around riding swords—why wouldn’t there be immortals?”

From Qing’s perspective, she still couldn’t understand energy itself—this cosmic mystery, this all-purpose ingredient that made every impossible thing possible.

Energy existed, and people spewed sword-energy, and saber aura.

And that wasn’t even the end of it.

Even I have a status window, and a martial-arts window, and I learn martial arts through brain-injection-style study. My master flies around on a sword. Eon Yeonyeong makes Corpse Zombies. And those Heavenly-Maiden Temple monks from Tianzhu—whatever ritual they use, they drag back even souls from the other side.

In a place like this, how could it make sense that immortals didn’t exist?

But that was only Qing’s standard.

The Martial-Heaven Great Emperor’s brows sank.

He looked at Qing like she was the most pathetic creature on earth, then clicked his tongue.

“Tsk, tsk. How are those the same? Energy circulating through heaven and earth is as natural as breathing. ‘Immortals’ are stories people made up. What does energy have to do with that?”

To a Central Plains person, “immortals” were like unicorns back in Qing’s world.

A long-necked creature existed. A long-nosed creature existed. There was even a creature that, if you cut it in half, regenerated into two creatures.

But a horned horse didn’t exist?

It was absurd and made no sense, but if it truly didn’t exist, what could you do?

To a Central Plains person, an immortal was that kind of thing.

But Qing wasn’t a Central Plains person.

And more than anything, this was suspicious as hell.

Is it really the Martial-Qing Great Emperor? Isn’t it the Martial-Heaven Great Emperor?

“Hmmm.”

“Enough. Fourth Form—Sever Bonds, Cut Love.”

Fourth Form confirmed.

Bad news for Diancang Sect, but—

“Sever Bonds, Cut Love.”

Sever Bonds was a term used in Buddhism: cutting off bonds.

The bonds being cut here meant worldly ties—sometimes it referred to leaving the secular world.

Or it could mean afflictions, or attachment—an attitude of mind for a practitioner devoted to cultivation.

Cut Love was similar.

Also a Buddhist term. In Buddhism, “love” meant craving and attachment—greedy clinging.

That craving was the cause of reincarnation, and by cutting it off, they sought the state of nirvana—again, one of the attitudes of mind for a practitioner.

“To be honest, aren’t those Diancang bastards too embarrassing to even call Daoists? I can’t tell whether they’re Daoists or servants of the Dali royal palace.”

Diancang Sect was the most worldly of the Daoist sects.

Since ancient times it had been the foremost temple of the Dali Kingdom, firmly guarding the roots of the Bai people.

Of course, that didn’t mean Diancang Sect rejected other peoples or discriminated against them.

But the cities and villages around Mount Diancang—nine times out of ten, they were all originally Bai cities of the old Dali Kingdom.

So the disciples almost had to be mostly Bai.

It got to the point where if someone from another people—the Han or the Miao, for example—entered Diancang, they’d get soaked in it and start thinking of themselves as honorary Bai.

“Back in the Dali Kingdom days, Diancang Sect being half inside the Dali military was unavoidable. But you can’t keep binding yourselves to that tie forever, can you?”

“Mm. Isn’t it fine? I don’t see the problem.”

“How is there no problem? The Dali royal palace uses Diancang Sect almost like government troops. When they should be focusing on training, they’re constantly descending the mountain and running around. Do they still do that even now?”

Mm, so Diancang Sect had that kind of story.

Well, even now Diancang Sect felt thinly staffed—she’d heard the disciples who came because of the Bai smallpox issue were roaming all over Yunnan.

She’d been told it was to protect the innocent victims who’d be harmed by rumors of a plague—

Like Jong Munun and Jong Munyeok.

But... isn’t that allowed?

That kind of work is what makes a righteous sect a righteous sect.

“And you. You’re the same.”

“Huh? Me?”

“You’re young—no, you’re not even young, you’re a child—and you already entered the Transformation Realm. So martial arts feel easy to you, is that it? You think you’re still young and you’ve got time, so if you train slowly you’ll climb to the Manifest Realm someday? You don’t even have training on your mind, do you?”

Qing’s chest jumped.

“Why are you saying it like that? I’m desperate too, you know.”

“Hmph. Desperate. When I was your age, I built a thatched hut in the mountains and trained all day. I did Energy Circulation and Breath Regulation for three two-hour watches, got up again, and swung the sword.”

Energy Circulation and Breath Regulation could replace sleep to a degree, but it was never sleep.

In other words: he meant he trained without sleeping.

If anyone else said it, you’d just nod and pretend to believe them.

But somehow, it felt like the Martial-Heaven Great Emperor really had done it.

“That’s why it’s Sever Bonds. That’s why it’s Cut Love. Even to perfect a single martial art, a person’s time is far too short—so why, in the time you most need to work, do you cling to pointless ties and waste your time fooling around?”

“I’m not wasting my time.”

“Then what is it? No matter how close your friend is, are they going to train martial arts for you? I’m telling you again—no matter how long a person lives, it’s a hundred years. Even if you reach late Manifest Realm and return to youth, it’s only a hundred and fifty years.”

“No, but a hundred and fifty years—”

“My god. Listen to this.”

The Martial-Heaven Great Emperor let out a long, heavy sigh, like he was suffocating in frustration.

“You. It’s only a hundred and fifty years. Only. Barely. That’s all you get. It was a thousand years ago that Bodhidharma returned from the Western Regions, realized how good martial arts could be, and spread them in the Central Plains.”

After that, it took three hundred years for the first Transformation Realm martial artist to be born—Daoist Master Wang Chongyang, founder of the Complete-Truth Sect.

A direct disciple of Wang Chongyang broke off and founded MOUNT HUA SECT. His descendants founded WUDANG SECT. After the Complete-Truth Sect fell, those who remained founded Zhongnan Sect.

In other words, the first Transformation Realm martial artist laid the foundations for three of the nine great sects.

And only after another four hundred years did the first Transcendent Demon appear—the Heavenly Demon—

Power enough to face the Central Plains alone.

Luckily, while resisting him, the righteous sects barely managed to produce the first Manifest Realm martial artist and stopped the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult from unifying the martial world—

“So it took seven hundred years from martial arts being passed down to reaching the Manifest Realm. Seven hundred years—seven hundred years. And when you reach the Manifest Realm, only then do you realize it: the end of martial arts is still so distant you can’t even see it. And yet a human life, no matter how long, is only a hundred and fifty years. Only. Barely. That’s all you get.”

“Mm.”

“And yet you’re hungry for affection, thirsty for ties, and you waste your precious time. Sever Bonds. Cut Love. Your time is too valuable to spend on memories that will be forgotten once they pass.”

Since “training martial arts” was basically study, and “study” read in Central Plains fashion became kung fu—

It was just nagging: stop playing around and study.

And wasn’t that how nagging always worked?

Once you heard it, your blood rose and you wanted to snap back.

Qing too—suddenly, her chest flared.