It looked as though that bronze fragment had completely fused into his palm.
Xue Mu clenched and unclenched his fist repeatedly, but he couldn’t detect any foreign object sensation, nor was there any kind of energy reaction.
It felt completely inert.
Maybe it requires some form of personal cultivation energy to activate?
Xue Mu mused silently.
Xue Mu had always been a proactive and highly adaptable individual.
From the very moment he forced his eyes open after the transmigration, he had accepted his reality, immediately trying to understand and blend into his new surroundings.
Traveling with a group of violent women who viewed human life as expendable was incredibly dangerous, but it was also a massive opportunity.
As things stood, whether he wanted to decode the secrets of this world or learn martial arts, building a rapport with these women was the fastest shortcut available.
His immediate priority was to earn their trust, secure a foothold, and worry about the rest later.
Peering through the carriage window, he saw a vast, tranquil blue sky.
The air was crystal clear, wild birds glided over lush meadows, and a refreshing, crisp breeze washed over him.
Having lived in a sprawling modern metropolis for over twenty-six years, Xue Mu hadn’t experienced a landscape this pristine in a very long time.
Back home, even visiting the countryside usually meant staring at a bleak, smoggy grey horizon that left a weight on your chest.
Here, everything was bright, open, and vibrant.
For a guy like Xue Mu, who had no family ties keeping him tethered to Earth, this sudden clarity brought a wave of acceptance.
Honestly, transmigration isn’t the end of the world.
It’s just a change in lifestyle, right?
The fortune he had spent years grinding for was gone, and the starlet he’d been chasing was out of reach, but what was there to actually regret?
Facing a completely unknown future in an alien world, what was there to fear?
If he could build a successful life from absolute scratch back then, he could do it again now.
Xue Mu exhaled a long breath of stagnant air, his mindset instantly broadening.
Scanning his surroundings, he noticed they were no longer bumping along a rugged mountain trail; they had transitioned onto a wide, flat highway.
Far ahead on the horizon, the faint silhouette of a massive city wall was beginning to take shape.
It looked like they were approaching their destination.
Yue Xiaochan was gliding along the grass not far from his side, her white sleeves fluttering in the wind.
Watching her bare feet, Xue Mu could see with absolute certainty that she wasn’t actually touching the ground.
She was skimming across the very tips of the grass blades like a butterfly weaving through flowers.
The combat power in this world is absurd…
A thirteen-year-old girl possessed this level of lightness skill, and she was maintaining it with total ease.
If she went all out, would she literally take flight?
Then again, if you guys are this overpowered, what do you even need a carriage for?
As if sensing his gaze, Yue Xiaochan snapped her head toward him.
She flashed a cheeky grin and made a swift stabbing motion toward her own eyes, as if silently reminding him: Keep staring and I’ll gouge them out.
Xue Mu scrambled for a conversation starter, pointing toward the approaching city.
“Miss Yue, what place is that?” “The Imperial Capital.” “Are we heading straight into the capital?” “Does that have anything to do with you?” “Well, I am supposed to be your new accountant.” Yue Xiaochan let out a sharp laugh and glided effortlessly right up to his carriage window, peering inside to study him.
“You look a whole lot better.
You were looking completely dead a moment ago; our sect’s medicine really is top-tier.” Xue Mu rolled his eyes internally and kept fishing for conversation.
“Why aren’t you riding inside the carriage, Miss Yue?” Yue Xiaochan puffed out her cheeks.
“Master is auditing exactly how catastrophic our financial losses in the south are.
Looking at all those numbers gives me a massive headache, so I came out here to blow off some steam.” Xue Mu paused.
When he was changing carriages earlier, he noticed plenty of female guards riding along the convoy.
If she was bored, why couldn’t she just shoot the breeze with them?
Was it really necessary to go running around playing tag with the grass blades all by herself?
As if reading his thoughts, Yue Xiaochan’s eyes crinkled into crescent shapes, finding his confusion highly amusing.
“It seems you truly have no clue who we are.
Do you honestly think just anyone has the guts to casual-chat and laugh with my Master and me the way you do?
I seriously can’t tell if you’ve got a loose screw or if you’re just pure, unadulterated ignorant.” Leaning against the window frame, Xue Mu tilted his head to look at Yue Xiaochan’s doll-like face.
Her flawless complexion featured a pair of faint, adorable dimples when she smiled.
She was undeniably cute.
Shaking his head, he grinned.
“While I am indeed completely ignorant about whatever terrifying heavyweights you two might be, I still think that even if I did know, there’s no logical reason I should be too terrified to speak to such a pretty little sister.” Yue Xiaochan playfully scraped her finger against her cheek to mock his audacity.
“Keep talking tough.
You wouldn’t be saying that if you knew who my Master actually is.” “Then may I ask what your master’s esteemed name is?” Yue Xiaochan blinked.
“Funnily enough, she actually shares your surname.
Her name is Xue Qingqiu.” Xue Qingqiu?
The image of those cold, lethal eyes flashed across Xue Mu’s mind.
He couldn’t quite connect such a poetic name with that terrifying, bloodthirsty powerhouse.
If anything, the three flat tones of the name in Chinese sounded a little soft and rolling to him.
He smiled.
“Oh, so we’re practically family by surname.
That gives me even less reason to be afraid.” Yue Xiaochan’s eyes widened, staring at him as if looking at a complete freak of nature.
Finally, she burst into a helpless laugh.
“You really are something else…
Fine, fine.
It’s better if you aren’t afraid anyway.” It was normal that he hadn’t heard of her, Yue Xiaochan.
After all, she was only thirteen, had yet to make her official debut in the martial world, and possessed no legendary track record to boast about.
But her Master?
Who on earth hadn’t heard of her master?
The stars and moon lose their color; a bloody hand paints the autumn clear.
Xue Qingqiu was a supreme expert of the absolute peak Void-Breaching Realm, the grand patriarch of the most mysterious and unpredictable faction of the Demonic Sect—the Star-Moon Sect.
She was a legendary tyrant who had slaughtered countless legions, and many considered her the absolute strongest person alive.
Even if there was no definitive public consensus on the number one spot, she was universally recognized as one of the ten ultimate powerhouses of the world.
In a world completely consumed by martial dominance where a hundred sects actively preached their doctrines, the mere mention of Xue Qingqiu’s name was enough to stop a crying child dead in their tracks at night.
This guy sitting in the carriage truly had to be from some backwater cave to be this utterly clueless…
In reality, the female escorts traveling with the convoy weren’t mere guards; they were fully initiated disciples of the Demonic Sect.
However, a massive, unbridgeable chasm of status separated them from a core legacy disciple like Yue Xiaochan.
Not a single one of them would ever dare to laugh or joke around with her.
Even if she felt like shooting the breeze, she would only ever receive stiff, excessively respectful responses.
As for outsiders, they generally fell into three categories: self-righteous moralists who immediately tried to purge the “demoness,” drooling simpletons who lost their minds at her beauty, or arrogant fellow cultists trying to scheme against them.
A completely normal, balanced attitude like Xue Mu’s was something Yue Xiaochan had never encountered in her life, and she found it thoroughly refreshing.
She couldn’t help but chuckle.
“Looking at you now, you seem a whole lot more relaxed.
Before, you looked like you were hiding a mind full of stressful secrets, and your face was completely clouded with worry.
Did you suddenly achieve some kind of sudden enlightenment just now?” Xue Mu smiled.
“Since you’re bored, how about I tell you a story?” Yue Xiaochan’s eyes lit up, full of sudden enthusiasm.
“Sure, let’s hear it!” Xue Mu spoke in a casual, rolling tone.
“Once, an old merchant was walking down a road, carrying a shoulder pole balanced with baskets of porcelain bowls.
Suddenly, one of the bowls slipped out, crashed to the ground, and shattered into pieces.
Yet, the old man kept walking forward without even turning his head.
A passerby found this incredibly bizarre and asked, ‘Old man, your bowl just shattered!
Why didn’t you even bother to look back?’ How do you think the old man replied?” Yue Xiaochan eagerly tried to guess.
“The old man was actually secretly loaded, so he didn’t care about a single bowl?” Xue Mu shook his head.
“The old man answered: Since it is already shattered, no matter how many times I look back, it will still be broken.” Yue Xiaochan froze.
The playful, crinkling smile she had been wearing slowly faded, and she sank deep into silent contemplation.
It took a long while before she finally spoke.
“That is a very profound story.
It actually seems to offer a spark of inspiration for my own cultivation path.
Thank you.” In the luxurious carriage not far ahead, Xue Qingqiu sat before several ancient silk scrolls.
Her delicate brows were furrowed as she held a brush, making calculated revisions on a sheet of paper.
Her martial prowess had long since reached a transcendent realm unfathomable to ordinary mortals.
Although the conversation between Yue Xiaochan and Xue Mu wasn’t loud, every single word had reached her ears with absolute clarity.
As Xue Mu finished his story, she experienced the exact same moment of profound realization as her disciple.
Staring down at the messy ledger scrolls in her lap, she suddenly understood a fundamental truth and burst into a hearty laugh.
A spectral blue flame instantly erupted across the silk scrolls.
In the blink of an eye, the catastrophic financial records were reduced to flying ash, scattering into nothingness without a trace.
A female disciple approached outside.
“Sect Master, we have arrived.” The convoy rolled to a slow, steady halt.
Xue Mu clambered down from his horse carriage, lifting his head to read the ancient seal-script characters engraved upon the massive city gates: Tiandu, the Heavenly Capital.
At that exact moment, a violent, suffocating pressure suddenly slammed into his body.
It felt as if he had been abruptly dropped into the crushing depths of the deep ocean, squeezing the air right out of his lungs.
Before he could even open his mouth to ask Yue Xiaochan what was happening, a surge of intense heat erupted from the center of his palm.
The warmth flooded through every single cell in his body in a fraction of a second.
The crushing pressure vanished instantly.
On the contrary, a profound sense of absolute comfort washed over him, accompanied by a strange, deep-rooted familiarity echoing in his heart.
Even the wild weeds growing by the edge of the city gates suddenly looked beautiful and welcoming to him.
It felt exactly like…
he had finally come home.