Tianxuang Cliff.
Inside the Fujian Sect.
Today, heavy snow was drifting down, and the grand hall of the sect was packed with over a dozen newly arrived disciples with youthful faces, all of them standing with their heads lowered to receive a reprimand.
At the forefront stood a tall and slender young man, Liu Ziyi.
Unlike the nervous new disciples, Liu Ziyi, the mastermind behind this breach of rules, lifted an exquisite, fair face, his dark, ink-like eyes staring straight up at the Third Elder of the sect, Fuye, who sat on the high seat.
With a smile, two deep dimples instantly formed at the corners of his lips.
“Third Uncle-Master Fuye, it was I who led the junior disciples down the mountain without permission. If you want to punish someone, punish me alone.”
Compared to the new disciples, Liu Ziyi’s sect uniform was far more intricate. The collar was embroidered with flawless sword patterns resembling scattered snow against the azure fabric, and a plain belt around his waist outlined the youth’s slender, athletic waist. Hanging by his side was a sword that gleamed with the lustrous sheen of jade.
Outside the wide-open doors of the hall, bitter mountain winds howled, but inside, aside from him, no one else dared to utter a single word.
The new disciples who had gone gallivanting down the mountain with him were currently sweating on his behalf.
Although they had only recently entered the sect, they knew just how formidable the master of Youning Peak, Elder Fuye, was, as rumor had it that his temper was exceedingly eccentric.
However, the feared Fuye on the high seat spoke shortly after, his tone laced with a helplessness that caught them all off-guard.
“You child, who knows how many times you’ve sneaked off before you finally learned to admit your mistake. Didn’t your senior brother discipline you last time? Why are you leading the new disciples down the mountain to play again?”
Hearing the word senior brother from Fuye’s lips, Liu Ziyi felt a mixture of alienation and displeasure. His good-for-nothing Senior Brother Shen Zhuoqing was so busy day in and day out that he was never anywhere to be seen; when would he ever have the time to discipline him?
A trace of a sneer flashed imperceptibly across his face, and he simply ignored the remark, turning slightly to look at the short junior disciples behind him as he replied:
“The junior disciples are still young and not yet used to life on the mountain, and they were terribly homesick. How could I, as their senior brother, sit by and do nothing?”
Calling them still young made Liu Ziyi sound like a sensible, affectionate senior brother who cared deeply for his peers, leaving Fuye half-amused and half-exasperated.
Following his gaze, Fuye saw the junior disciples trembling so hard they dared not raise their heads or breathe loudly, causing him to sigh even more.
Punishing them was difficult; not punishing them was equally impossible.
The new disciples had entered the sect three months ago, exactly the time when the initial novelty faded and homesickness set in.
“Forget it.”
The Third Elder, whose eccentric temperament was matched by a strikingly handsome face, saw the two hollow bells tied behind his dark hair chime softly as he moved and nodded, bringing the matter to a close.
Fuye had heard about the incident midway and intercepted Liu Ziyi and the flock of new disciples at an inn at the foot of the mountain; strictly speaking, he only had the authority to punish the new disciples.
After all, Liu Ziyi was the prized disciple of his senior brother, Sect Master Shen. If he needed disciplining, only Shen Qing or Eldest Senior Brother Shen Zhuoqing could do so in accordance with the rules.
And coincidentally, both of them were temporarily away from the sect and wouldn’t be back for another half-hour.
“You all go with me to the Administrative Hall to take on half a month of sweeping chores, and copy the sect rules ten times to hand over to the respective peak masters,” Fuye instructed the new disciples before turning his gaze to Liu Ziyi.
“You, Liu Mingxiu.
Stay right here and wait for your master and senior brother to return.”
With that, the uncle-master who had always looked at him with disfavor yet was forced to indulge him flicked his sleeves and left.
The grand sect hall, normally used for hosting external guests and announcing major events, instantly grew quiet, leaving only a faint scent of sandalwood lingering in the air.
Liu Ziyi let out a breath of relief, slumped right down onto the elder’s chair beside him, and executed the fluid motion with a fluency that clearly showed this was not his first offense.
Once seated, he drew his slender Willow Sword from his waist, his porcelain-white, slender fingers gripping the hilt as he cast a glance around the room.
Making sure no one was looking, he lowered his voice and spoke to the silvery, gleaming sword: “Xiliu?”
At his repeated calls, the sword suddenly began to tremble, and the deep red jade embedded in its hilt lit up quietly as a boyish, childlike voice rang out: “I am here!”
“Tsk tsk, you fellow said the new disciples came from Beixuan and should know the situation there. I asked them, and they all said they had never heard of any sword manor. You aren’t tricking me, are you?”
Liu Ziyi stared at the crimson jade, a hint of displeasure showing between his brows.
Yesterday, he had originally planned to go down the mountain to play with his close friend Qin Xiaoyi and pick up some newly released anecdotal pulp fiction or ancient texts along the way.
Yet, on the eve of their departure, his sword Xiliu, which hadn’t produced a sword spirit in all the dozen-plus years he had owned it, abruptly spoke up and told him:
I am the sacred guardian sword of the manor! How did I end up in this desolate, snowy wasteland? Hurry up and send this sword back to the manor!
Half-asleep, Liu Ziyi had his sweet slumber disturbed and almost threw the sword right out of his bedchamber. When he finally came to his senses, he was so startled that he shoved the sword into its scabbard and pulled it out again, over and over.
It wasn’t until the shrill, youthful voice shouted, I am angry!, that Liu Ziyi believed he wasn’t pulling the sword the wrong way, nor was he hallucinating in his sleep.
In short, Liu Ziyi had argued all night with this fellow who claimed to be a sword spirit, and finally found out the truth.
Xiliu’s memories were stuck twenty years in the past. It only remembered that it used to be the guardian sword of a sword manor in Beixuan, home to a master who excelled in swordsmanship and a young master barely five years old.
All the spiritual energy sustaining that sword manor relied on this single spiritual sword; if the sword left, the manor was bound to perish.
Driven by sheer curiosity, Liu Ziyi had brought along the new disciples who claimed to hail from Beixuan, thinking he could use them to sniff out some information, only to be rounded up by Qin Xiaoyi’s master, the Third Elder, all in one net.
“How could I possibly lie to you! They must have been unwilling to tell you the truth; the sword manor I belong to is known to everyone in Beixuan!”
The childish voice shrieked in protest, accompanied by a piercing ring of the blade that nearly echoed out of the grand sect hall.
Startled by the booming voice, Liu Ziyi sucked in a sharp breath and hastily shoved the sword back into its scabbard halfway, feeling that his ears were finally at peace:
“Hmph, if it’s known to everyone, how come you even forgot the first half of the manor’s name?”
It made him unable to even give a full name when asking the junior disciples.
“And you call yourself a sacred guardian sword,” Liu Ziyi put away Xiliu and tossed it in his palm, “This is clearly something Mother left behind, just a middle-grade soft sword.”
Ever since Liu Ziyi could remember, this sword had been by his side. At age six, he had been chopping firewood and carrying water at the handyman peak, where the carrying pole was wider than his shoulders, let alone how exhausting it was to haul a bucket of water as a kid, until he was finally accepted as a disciple under Sect Master Shen Qing at twelve.
For those six years, this sword left behind by his mother had been hidden underneath his bed, and back then it didn’t even have a name like Xiliu.
The chattering Xiliu fell silent the moment it was sheathed, as if a sealing spell had been cast on it, leaving only faint, humming vibrations.
Still, thinking about it, Liu Ziyi had never actually met his biological parents, and this sword was his only keepsake.
If what Xiliu said was true, perhaps this sword was related to his parents.
After entering the sect master’s sect, he had once asked his seemingly omniscient master how he had arrived at the Fujian Sect back then, and how he had managed to enter the handyman peak carrying this sword.
Yet the answer was always “I do not know.”
Ever since then, he stopped dwelling on these matters.
What else could he do? He didn’t remember anything himself, and rather than nursing a heavy heart and having nightmares every day, he might as well cast his worries away and live as willfully and freely as the name his unseen parents had left him.
Fortunately, his master and senior brother were constantly busy with major sect affairs, leaving no one to bother him.
Liu Ziyi was glad for the peace and figured that Fuye’s threat of waiting for your master and senior brother to return was probably just meant to scare him.
As far as he knew, his master had always dotingly indulged him; even if he came back, it would amount to nothing more than harmless groundings, copying texts, or quiet meditation. As for that senior brother of his who would actually draw his sword and teach him a lesson, Shen Zhuoqing…
He had stopped paying him any mind three whole years ago.
At first, Liu Ziyi had wondered if his senior brother was sick of him, thinking he was a piece of rotten wood that couldn’t be carved, and had simply washed his hands of him.
But ever since an interrogation led to a clash between the two, Liu Ziyi had completely stopped speaking to Shen Zhuoqing altogether.
That year, he turned seventeen. Gifted with extraordinary talent, he had risen to fame in Luozhou by winning the martial arts tournament with a single move of his Xiliu Star-Bucket Sword, earning the moniker Sword Gentleman of Liu.
Yet following this turning point, he never practiced sword cultivation properly again.
For three years, the world simply assumed he was comprehending the path to the next realm; no one knew how much fun he was having sleeping in, reading books, teasing beasts, and strolling through the streets.
After all, an unsupervised Liu Ziyi was an absolute hedonist!
Just as Liu Ziyi was stretching lazily, planning to wait another half-quarter of an hour before heading over to Youning Peak to find his close friend Qin Xiaoyi who was confined under house arrest, the tranquility of the hall was abruptly shattered by the sound of two approaching footsteps.
Lifting his gaze, the people who arrived were none other than his long-seen-absent Master Shen Qing, and trailing slightly behind him was a somewhat unfamiliar Senior Brother Shen Zhuoqing.
Liu Ziyi froze for a split second, suddenly realizing he was still sitting in the elder’s exclusive armchair, and sprang up from the seat as he looked toward Shen Qing:
“Master is here?”
The Shen Zhuoqing following close behind him was thoroughly and completely ignored.
Ever since Shen Zhuoqing began inexplicably keeping his distance, Liu Ziyi had made up his mind never to pay attention to this cheap senior brother again!
Shen Qing glanced at the elder’s chair behind him, though he didn’t reprimand him. Instead, his gaze narrowed on Liu Ziyi, who was full of smiles and clearly hadn’t realized that leading new disciples to break the sect rules was a grave matter.
“Mingxiu.”
The young Sect Master Shen Qing still retained the youthful appearance of his Golden Core days, save for a mane of hair that had turned white due to past tribulations cascading down his back. Just a lowering of his voice was enough to make Liu Ziyi straighten up from his smiling posture.
“Master—”
Liu Ziyi wasn’t afraid of him; it was just that times like this usually meant Shen Qing had a lot on his plate and would most likely hand whatever trouble Liu Ziyi had caused over to Shen Zhuoqing to handle.
Normally, he would have begged his master to punish him personally.
Right now, however, since Shen Zhuoqing couldn’t be bothered to discipline him anyway, going to him meant nothing would happen at all. Naturally, he would follow Shen Qing’s wishes and obediently submit to orders.
Sure enough, Shen Qing had only rushed over because his presence was required, and he didn’t offer any scolding.
“You child, going down the mountain on your own is one thing. How could you lead junior disciples who are still young and whose foundation hasn’t even stabilized at the Qi Condensation stage to break the sect rules?”
As Shen Qing spoke, he walked forward, gently patted the top of Liu Ziyi’s head, and sighed half-感慨ly:
“You are twenty now; it’s about time you went down the mountain for real trials. I still have to prepare for next month’s martial arts tournament, so this time I’ll have your senior brother properly instruct you. You just need to follow whatever your senior brother says.”
Deep down, Liu Ziyi felt secretly pleased, though he wore a look of solemn gravity as he nodded.
“This disciple knows his wrong, and will surely reflect earnestly.”
Shen Qing sighed and nodded along. “Your nature is as such, so it can’t strictly be called a fault. It’s just that you shouldn’t have taken the lead in getting the new disciples to break the rules together.”
With that, he turned back to instruct the quiet Shen Zhuoqing behind him: “Lingji, look after and guide your junior brother well.”
With Shen Zhuoqing’s soft acknowledgment, Shen Qing departed from the back of the hall.
Silence descended upon the hall once more.
Only then did Liu Ziyi deign to spare a glance toward Shen Zhuoqing, who had been standing silently all this time.
In the past three years, it had been a game of you hide and I dodge; looking at him now, it felt almost ridiculously estranged.
Yet those upward-slanting eyebrows and eyes still carried their familiar severity.
The dark hair half-tied and half-loose behind him was secured by a dark, withered-wood hairpin that Liu Ziyi had personally carved for him years ago.
He wondered if his senior brother was too poor to afford a hairpin, or if he just found buying a new one too much of a hassle, Liu Ziyi mused to himself.
He met Shen Zhuoqing’s gaze for barely a split second before retracting it, naturally leaving the surging undercurrents hidden within those eyes entirely unacknowledged.
Then, with a casual wave of his hand toward Shen Zhuoqing, he strode past him and out of the hall.
He couldn’t even spare a formal address.
“I’m heading back.”