Since he had already promised to teach Rong Nianxue sword-riding, he naturally would not hesitate any further.
After lying down for a little while longer, Ye Xingchen put the rocking chair back into his Qiankun bag, grabbed a gaudily decorated sword, and headed toward Yuxu Palace.
However, he encountered many fellow disciples along the way. For some reason, the looks they directed at him were incredibly peculiar.
He raised an eyebrow, not particularly taking it to heart.
It was only after he had walked far away that the crowd behind him began whispering in discussion.
“Does Ye Xingchen still think he is the proud son of heaven? I wonder what he is putting on an act for every single day,” a sharp-chinned, monkey-faced disciple said resentfully.
“He is nothing more than a piece of trash who has not even reached the Golden Core stage,” the leading disciple said, frowning. With a cold glimmer in his eyes, he crossed his arms and sneered.
“So what if he reached the Great Circle of the Foundation Establishment stage at sixteen? Is he not still at Foundation Establishment at eighteen? If you ask me, Senior Brother Liu Wen, your aptitude is more than just a little bit better than Ye Xingchen’s,” that disciple flattered.
When a tree falls, everyone pushes it down; Ye Xingchen’s luck could only last until now.
A look of contempt appeared on Liu Wen’s face as he asked, “The disciple my master took in today, his name is Xie Si’an, right?”
Clutching his sword, he let out a mocking laugh: “There is going to be a good show to watch now.”
After all, one mountain cannot accommodate two tigers. One was a genius drawing the gaze of tens of thousands, while the other was a piece of trash who was about to fall.
Yuxu Palace
Rong Nianfeng originally wanted to go down the mountain to the Library Pavilion to find some mental cultivation methods of the Corpse Puppet Pavilion to understand them a little, but he had not expected his body to suddenly become extraordinarily heavy.
The sunlight was bright and beautiful outside the courtyard, yet his limbs felt as though they were soaked in freezing ice, causing even his teeth to chatter slightly.
He tried piling every heat-retaining item in the room onto his body, but it still did not provide any relief.
Thus, when Ye Xingchen pushed open the door, this was the scene that greeted him: Rong Nianfeng’s picture-perfect face was so pale that it lacked any hint of color, and he was curled up on the bed, wrapping himself tightly. With his eyes drooping, he said weakly, “Is something the matter?”
As soon as he finished speaking, he began to cough.
Ye Xingchen stared at him blankly.
Wow.
He stepped back over the threshold, slowly closed the door, opened it again, and looked completely bewildered: “Are you about to kick the bucket?”
Weren’t you alive and kicking last night? How did you end up in a worse state than me after finishing the trial?
Rong Nianfeng paused, then replied crossly, “You are the one kicking the bucket.”
After last night, a subtle change had occurred in the relationship between the two.
Ye Xingchen was not stupid either. After carefully straightening out the events of the past few days, he realized that Rong Nianfeng simply wanted to force him to leave Yuxu Palace, and did not genuinely admire him.
Coincidentally, he thought the exact same way; he absolutely did not want to stay in the same room as Rong Nianfeng.
Knowing he could not keep up the act any longer, Rong Nianfeng completely let himself go. Either way, he did not have many scenes. Once he finished the plot he was supposed to go through, the sky would be high and the earth wide; he would walk his single-log bridge, and Ye Xingchen could cross his broad avenue.
With each harboring their own thoughts, the room fell into silence for a moment.
“Cough, cough, cough,” Rong Nianfeng finally succumbed, saying sickly, “You have experience with this. Why don’t you check for me and see if my life is coming to an end?”
Ye Xingchen felt a bit of schadenfreude: “It will not be long before I go down to the Yellow Springs myself. It is quite nice to find someone to keep me company on the road.”
As he spoke, he pulled a white handkerchief from his robes and, with practiced familiarity, wiped away the blood overflowing from the corner of his mouth.
Then, Rong Nianfeng watched as he stained the entire white handkerchief red.
Rong Nianfeng thought to himself, “Actually, I still quite want to live.”
No matter how weak, a protagonist is still a protagonist.
Meanwhile, he was just a minor piece of cannon fodder; if he died, it probably would not even cause a ripple.
Since the other was being heartless, he could not be blamed for being unjust. Rong Nianfeng pinched his throat and whined, “Brother Xingchen, save me.”
He had noticed last time that every time he deliberately disgusted Ye Xingchen, Ye Xingchen would be scared out of his wits.
It was all about hurting each other, after all.
Sure enough, Ye Xingchen felt entirely unwell and said, utterly spent, “I will save you. I will save you right away.”
Hearing this, Rong Nianfeng smiled triumphantly as his scheme succeeded. He slowly extended a hand, trembling like a butterfly flapping its wings, out from under the blanket.
A long illness makes a patient a doctor. Ye Xingchen channeled a bit of spiritual energy into him along his meridians. After a long while, he let out a lazy yawn: “Don’t worry, you will not die. There is just an extra, strange spiritual energy inside your body. It looks like it belongs to the Corpse Puppet Pavilion. Just refine it, and you will be fine.”
The Corpse Puppet Pavilion?
Rong Nianfeng suddenly remembered his cheap master, whose contact information he had not even had time to ask for.
He thought to himself, “Heh, what a joke. We have not even formally established the master-disciple relationship yet, and he already wants to kill his own disciple.”
But where did this spiritual energy come from?
He did not recall having any contact with Qiu Nian.
It would be more believable to say that the petty Xie Yueqiu had poisoned him.
Knowing that there was nothing seriously wrong with his body, Rong Nianfeng waved his hand quite ruthlessly: “If I am going to cultivate, how about you head back to the Blood Moon Pavilion first?”
Ye Xingchen grew lazy and did not want to move. With a rustle, he pulled a daybed out from his Qiankun bag, which was even covered in Night Luminous Pearls, looking exceedingly luxurious.
Curled up in his nest, Rong Nianfeng sized up his own incredibly plain bed and fell into a rare silence. After a good while, he clicked his tongue and said gloomily, “Marital property is jointly owned.”
Ye Xingchen played dead.
“One for you, one for me, and our feelings will never fade.”
Ye Xingchen pretended to sleep.
“Brother Xingchen!”
In the next instant, with a dark face, Ye Xingchen scooped up a few Night Luminous Pearls from the daybed and threw them onto Rong Nianfeng’s bed.
Rong Nianfeng raised an eyebrow, thinking to himself, As if I cannot handle you.
Taking advantage of Ye Xingchen turning around, he hurriedly and stealthily hoarded the Night Luminous Pearls under his blanket.
Not knowing where this fierce spiritual energy in his body originated from, the cultivation process was truly far from easy. Only a quarter of an hour had passed, yet he was already drenched in sweat.
His meridians were at times as scorching as a raging fire, and at other times as cold as freezing ice.
If it weren’t for Ye Xingchen speaking to him from time to time nearby, he would probably have lost consciousness long ago.
As Rong Nianfeng completely entered a meditative state, he suddenly thought, “Ye Xingchen did not stay in the room on purpose, did he?”
When he woke up again, it was already the second day.
Countless small streams of spiritual energy flooded into his spiritual root like flowing water. He felt the accumulated spiritual energy in his sea of consciousness with a face full of shock; there was already a faint sign of an impending breakthrough.
He could feel that he was not far from the Foundation Establishment stage.
Suddenly remembering that if Ye Xingchen had not provoked him from time to time yesterday, he would not have achieved this.
With a face full of awkwardness, he was just about to open his mouth to express his gratitude when he heard Ye Xingchen say, “Brother is just a legend, do not fall in love with Brother.”
Rong Nianfeng thought to himself, “…”
He had better stay far away from Ye Xingchen.
After each swallowed a Fasting Pill, they grabbed their respective swords and walked outside.
If he truly learned how to ride a sword, wouldn’t he be able to stroll around everywhere every day?
Perhaps due to refining that strand of spiritual energy, Rong Nianfeng now felt an endless surge of strength throughout his body, and he was even more eager to try sword-riding.
He had learned a little bit back when he was at the Shuiyun Sect, but his cultivation had not been sufficient at that time. Now, however, he was already at the fifth layer of the Qi Refining stage. Combined with the strong spiritual energy of the Xuantian Sword Sect, he refused to believe he could not learn it.
Ye Xingchen made his sword levitate beside him and said, “Guide the Qi into your Dantian.”
Rong Nianfeng asked, “And then?”
“Do you know how to guide Qi into the Dantian?”
“No.”
“…”
Thus, Ye Xingchen dragged his sickly body to explain to him how to guide the Qi, scaring Rong Nianfeng several times into thinking he was about to lose his breath.
Once the basics were learned, Ye Xingchen spoke again: “The sky attains oneness to become clear; the earth attains oneness to become tranquil.”
After roughly memorizing the mnemonic formula, Rong Nianfeng silently recited it in his heart according to what he had been taught.
The surrounding spiritual energy slowly surged toward his side. The sword in his hand, as if completely out of his control, vibrated slightly before flying out from his embrace and floating in mid-air.
His comprehension was decent. It did not take long for him to roughly learn how to fly, and he spent half an hour riding the sword to do a lap around the Xuantian Sword Sect.
By the time he returned, Ye Xingchen had already fallen asleep.
Seemingly finding the posture uncomfortable, he shifted to another position and continued to lie there.
Rong Nianfeng shook his head, thinking to himself that Ye Xingchen’s character design in the book did not seem to be like this.
Shouldn’t he be practicing diligently and bitterly in order to restore his cultivation?
Moreover, if he remembered correctly, there was still another plot point.
It said that Ye Xingchen refused to accept his fate, practicing bitterly every day from 6 AM to 10 PM, yet in the end, he still failed to break through.
A few disciples in the Xuantian Sword Sect courted death by mocking him, saying that the proud son of heaven from the past was now just a piece of Foundation Establishment trash.
But observing the scene before his eyes, he doubted the text.
Six AM to 10 PM?
Practicing bitterly day in and day out?
It would be more realistic to say he slept from morning until night.
When Ye Xingchen woke up, Rong Nianfeng had already completely mastered sword-riding, and he quite kindly carried Ye Xingchen back to Lingyun Peak.
As a novice on the road, it was inevitable to wobble for a long time, but fortunately, they returned to Yuxu Palace without any mishaps.
After arranging the time to go to the Sword Cemetery on the day of sword selection, the two finally parted ways.
Three Days Later, The Sword Cemetery
Because of his previous experience, Ye Xingchen refused to let Rong Nianfeng carry him on a sword even if it killed him.
Rong Nianfeng had an impatient temper; he zoomed over in a flash, then zoomed back in another flash.
Looking at the slow-moving Ye Xingchen, he was exasperated: “Are you incompetent?”
Today, the newly recruited disciples were selecting swords. Aside from them, the rest of the disciples within the Sword Sect could also enter.
However, the swords in the Sword Cemetery favored cultivators with strong primordial Yang, which was exactly why a disciple from the Corpse Puppet Pavilion had drugged Ye Xingchen last time.
Speaking of that Corpse Puppet Pavilion disciple, he was quite pitiful too. Rong Nianfeng originally thought he just found Ye Xingchen eyesore, but he had not expected it was because a little ghost he had raised for a year went missing, ran to Lingyun Peak, and was mistaken by Ye Xingchen for a spy from the Ghost Realm, who then slashed it to pieces with a single strike.
What difference was there between this and eating an agricultural student’s graduation thesis!
The Corpse Puppet Pavilion disciple swore to avenge this bitter grievance, and after thinking back and forth, he came up with such a method.
Lingyun Peak could not do without swords, just like the Corpse Puppet Pavilion could not do without little ghosts.
Since Ye Xingchen had slashed his little ghost, he would make it impossible for Ye Xingchen to select a good sword.
But no matter how much he calculated, he failed to calculate that Rong Nianfeng would also be there. Armed with the script of the book, Rong Nianfeng had not even reported it to the Discipline Hall before directly capturing him.
Rong Nianfeng clicked his tongue, silently sympathizing with that disciple.
By the time the two arrived, there were already many people outside the Sword Cemetery.
The looks the people around directed at him were very peculiar; no, rather, the looks they directed at Ye Xingchen were very peculiar.
Was the plotline beginning to unfold?
Ye Xingchen would experience being humiliated, verbally abused, and betrayed. He would even be pushed out by his fellow disciples to serve as a sacrificial offering in the Mermaid Ruins of Jiuyuan, all just to secure a sliver of hope for their own survival.
By the time the world forgot him, he would crawl back out from purgatory, except that high-spirited youth would have already become powerful and restrained.
Rong Nianfeng looked at Ye Xingchen’s expression and shook his head.
Right now, he must feel terrible inside.
He was slowly falling, while Xie Si’an would possess everything he once had: talent, ability, and resources.