Jiang Xiechen immediately gripped her sword hilt. Despite being covered in wounds, she remained silent, her hawk like eyes warily scanning the surroundings, quickly sweeping over every corner while she strained her ears to listen.
However, aside from the sound of her own breathing, there wasn’t a single other noise in the room.
Jiang Xiechen opened her mouth slightly and asked in a cold voice, “Who is it? Since Your Excellency has already spoken, there is no need to hide anymore.”
She glanced down slightly, speaking with an unusually arrogant air that seemed entirely different from her previous demeanor. Her lips curled into a sneer: “If you continue to hide, wouldn’t it be far too boring?”
If Jiang Xiechen were truly some ethereal immortal untainted by the world, she wouldn’t have drawn her sword intending to kill Xiao Hongyu the moment they met.
Yet, after waiting a long time, Jiang Xiechen received no reply, as if the previous voice had merely been a hallucination.
Her injuries were too severe, she didn’t have the physical strength to maintain such high alert for long. She simply sheathed her sword, smoothed her skirt, and sat back down.
She placed one hand on her knee and began to close her eyes to rest. Her hands were beautiful, not looking like the hands of a killer; yet upon closer inspection, one could see tiny wounds on her fingertips, not deep, but numerous and dense, a sight that made the heart tremble.
Jiang Xiechen casually placed the blade at her waist onto the floor. She looked as though she could no longer hold on, forced to release all her strength and lean powerlessly against the wall to keep from collapsing onto the ground.
However, one of her fingers was inconspicuously pressed against the sword hilt.
Her wide sleeves concealed her movements.
When the hand on her knee lifted, the sleeve slid back, revealing an extremely deep scar on her wrist. The wound was old. As a cultivator, her wounds usually healed quickly for a scar this severe to remain, there was only one possibility.
It happened in her youth, before she had fully stepped onto the path of immortality. Someone had attempted to hack off her hands, and though she narrowly escaped with her life, she was left with an indelible mark.
Jiang Xiechen gave a soft, mocking laugh and asked slowly, “Could it be that Your Excellency is afraid of a crippled person like me?”
After waiting a while longer, just as Jiang Xiechen was about to give up, she suddenly heard a faint sound.
“You… don’t talk about yourself like that.” The voice’s timbre should have been cold and clear, but the speaker carried a sense of trepidation, making it sound cautious. After a brief pause, as if gathering courage, the person said. “You are very strong.”
Jiang Xiechen: ?
Is this person an idiot?
The voice only seemed audible when speaking, once the words stopped, even the sound of breathing vanished along with it.
This person spoke erratically, yet their ability to hide their presence was so superb. Jiang Xiechen’s eyes darkened. Following the person’s words, she mocked herself with a smile. “What use is that? I’m still covered in wounds, trapped here, unable to move.”
The voice continued, “Hmm? You can leave through the window. There’s surveillance on the barrier at the door, but they forgot to put it on the window. They probably think your cultivation has dissipated and you can’t break through.”
She paused here, her voice carrying a hint of pride: “Fortunately, they were completely wrong.”
Something was wrong.
This person knew her situation perfectly, as if…
As if they had been peeping from a corner since before she even entered the room.
If someone was hiding in the room, even if she hadn’t noticed, how could the Master of Yuehua Pavilion have missed them?
Jiang Xiechen showed nothing on her face, but her golden eyes flashed with a different emotion. She suddenly smiled and murmured, “You certainly know me well.”
At the same moment, her hand gripped the sword hilt tightly.
“Aiyah!” The voice cried out in surprise. Jiang Xiechen was startled; her sword, which was about to clear the scabbard, faltered and fell back against the floor.
Fortunately, she hadn’t fully lifted it, so it only made a soft clinking sound as it hit the ground.
Jiang Xiechen sighed in her heart. In the end, I am too injured. I can’t even hold my sword steady. If my Master came back to life and saw this, he’d probably climb out of his coffin in rage.
Of course, she didn’t actually know her Master’s personality, but as a sword cultivator, being unable to hold one’s sword was naturally unacceptable.
Just as Jiang Xiechen was about to pick up the sword again inconspicuously…
The voice let out another “Aiyah.” Jiang Xiechen even detected a hint of grievance in it. The voice asked, “Can you not even hold your sword anymore?”
Jiang Xiechen suddenly scrambled up from the ground, ignoring her injuries. Her sharp blade swept out, creating a gust of wind that smashed the furniture in the room to pieces, yet she still found no one hiding.
Jiang Xiechen took a small step back, holding the sword vertically in front of her, leaning down slightly in a defensive posture.
This sudden movement came without warning, yet the person still didn’t show themselves. This could only mean two things:
The person’s strength far exceeded her own.
The person was not in the room at all.
Jiang Xiechen couldn’t determine which it was, or if it was both. She only knew one thing for certain, she didn’t want to die.
Back against the wall, Jiang Xiechen asked, “Is Senior unwilling or unable to come out?”
“Senior?” The female voice cheered happily, “Are you calling me?”
Jiang Xiechen’s movements paused slightly.
It seems this is a Senior whose brain doesn’t work very well.
Jiang Xiechen gave a low “Mm.”
The female voice explained dejectedly, “I don’t know where I am either. It’s so dark here, but I can see everything around you.”
“Around me? Where are you?”
“I don’t know. I can’t touch anything, I can’t feel anything, I… I can’t see anything [of myself].”
“Who exactly are you?” Seeing that this person intended no harm, Jiang Xiechen began to sheath her sword, performing a sword flower flourish as she prepared to return it to its scabbard.
The female voice laughed, “I know this one! I am your sword!”
Clatter.
Once again, Jiang Xiechen’s grip failed. As the sword was about to fall, she hurriedly lunged to grab the hilt, but the blade struck the wall with a sharp “thud.”
Her sword was already on the verge of shattering, seeing this, her heart ached with distress.
Jiang Xiechen pursed her lips, stroking the blade and sighing, “Senior, please stop playing jokes on me.”
At the same time, the female voice cried out, “Ouch! It hurts!”
Jiang Xiechen looked at the sword in her hand with uncertainty, her skin crawling. She was stuck in a state of dilemma.
Thinking carefully, this explanation was absurd yet carried a strange logic. The voice was clearly right in her ear, yet there was no shadow to be found. No matter how she asked, she couldn’t get any real information.
It was possible the person was hiding perfectly, or perhaps they truly knew nothing of their surroundings.
Jiang Xiechen bit the tip of her tongue. The taste of blood and the sting of pain brought her reason back to her. After a moment of silence, she asked, “What is your name?”
The female voice replied crisply, “Autumn Frost Sword (Qiu Shuang Jian).”
“That is the name of the sword, not your name.”
“I know! I am the sword, and the sword is me.” The voice was exceptionally excited when saying this, but then, realizing something, her tone shifted to one of grievance. “Master, do you not want me anymore?”
Jiang Xiechen choked, coughing for a long time.
“Water, water, water!” the voice said. “Master, is there water around you? You… there’s water on the table in front of you!”
Just as Jiang Xiechen’s eyes landed on the water, the voice spoke up to remind her.
Jiang Xiechen waved her hand, then remembered that “Autumn Frost” couldn’t see her movements. She lowered her hand, suppressed her ragged breathing, and asked in a heavy voice, “…Are you a Sword Spirit?”
After a sword cultivator binds a life-bond sword, through trials, heavenly lightning, or rare encounters, there is a tiny chance a Sword Spirit will be born. However, swords capable of birthing a spirit are usually forged from heavenly treasures and infused with the spirit of heaven and earth.
This Autumn Frost sword looked pitch black and mundane. From what her Master had left behind, he was just a poor rogue sword cultivator. No matter how she looked at it, Autumn Frost didn’t seem like the kind of blade to birth a spirit.
Jiang Xiechen tightened her grip on the sword. She let out an “Oh,” lifted her eyelids to look out the window, and added, “Do Sword Spirits not have names?”
The female voice let out a long “Hmm,” seemingly deep in thought.
She asked tentatively, “Then how about… Jiang Qiushuang?”
Presumably, she thought Jiang Xiechen was dissatisfied with her using the sword’s name, hence the question.
Jiang Xiechen chuckled softly. “It doesn’t matter. Autumn Frost or Jiang Qiushuang, as long as you like it, you can be called anything.”
If it really is my Sword Spirit, Jiang Xiechen thought, I will never mistreat her from now on.
But if it’s a fake spirit, some demon or ghost possessing my blade. I will absolutely not show mercy.
Jiang Xiechen couldn’t help but cough heavily twice more. Her vision blurred, and she nearly collapsed.
“The table is to your left!”
Jiang Xiechen leaned against the table and slowly sat down.
The female voice hesitated for a moment, then gritted her teeth and said, “If you don’t like those, call me Wen Chiyue.”
Wen Chiyue.
It sounded familiar, yet she couldn’t quite place it.
Jiang Xiechen whispered the name syllable by syllable, “Wen… Chi… Yue.”
Even though Wen Chiyue had no physical body, hearing Jiang Xiechen call her name like that made her feel as if she were catching fire.
She didn’t know why she felt this way, so she quickly changed the subject, speaking with righteous indignation. “Those two people are so annoying! One is your fiancé and the other is your father, yet they treat you like this, locking you up here without even calling a doctor.”
Jiang Xiechen gave a soft “Mm.”
Wen Chiyue continued her tirade, “They even shattered your life-bond sword! Don’t they know how important a life-bond sword is to a cultivator? These people deserve to die. I’ve never seen such hateful people. How did they grow up to be so old without being assassinated?”
Jiang Xiechen preferred quiet and had a cold personality, which was why she didn’t have many close friends. It wasn’t that others didn’t want to befriend her.
In fact, with such high cultivation at a young age and no backing, she was the perfect target for recruitment.
But those who approached to scout her out would always be scared away the moment Jiang Xiechen looked up with those lazy, detached eyes.
In those eyes, there was nothing.
No sorrow, no joy, no anger, not even the common folk.
Just one glance was enough for those cultivators to realize that Jiang Xiechen would never let anyone get close.
Later, though a few who weren’t afraid of her became friendly, none of them dared to chatter incessantly in her ear.
Only this Sword Spirit, who couldn’t read the room, would do so.
Jiang Xiechen lowered her eyes, stroking the patterns on the blade. “Yes.”
Suddenly, the rambling Wen Chiyue went silent.
Jiang Xiechen lifted an eyelid. “Hmm?”
Wen Chiyue stammered, “Ma… Master, the five senses are shared between a Sword Spirit and its sword.”