Chang Songzhu was filled with worry. On one hand, she felt that with the style of Wanyi Sect, they shouldn’t let outsiders in so easily. On the other hand, she was really afraid that Yuan Lian had sneaked in. If she got caught, the consequences would be unimaginable.
It’s not that she was heartless and didn’t care about the sect’s interests. It’s just that Chang Songzhu had only joined Wanyi Sect for less than a month and hadn’t formed any deep bonds yet. Even if she had, it wouldn’t compare to her fondness and admiration for Yuan Lian.
In her eyes, Yuan Lian had a pretty and aloof face, but somehow, Chang Songzhu could always see a straightforward and innocent side in her actions. This was why she always felt Yuan Lian wasn’t very old.
To her, Yuan Lian was a girl who was cold on the outside but warm on the inside, very kind-hearted. Even if she had some reason to sneak into Wanyi Sect, she definitely wouldn’t want to harm anyone. If she did, Chang Songzhu would do everything to stop her.
Just as she was thinking about how to deal with various situations in the future, Yuan Lian raised her hand and placed it in front of her. In Chang Songzhu’s puzzled and surprised gaze, a jade token appeared in that white palm.
This is… the highest authority white jade token of Wanyi Sect?
“I’m not a member of Wanyi Sect, but I have some connections with you. This was given by your Sect Leader, allowing me to move freely within Wanyi Sect.”
To her, having this token or not was the same, but for Chang Songzhu, it was a relief, and she relaxed completely. “You should have said so earlier. You scared me so much I couldn’t sleep… By the way, are you a relative of the Sect Leader? Or a blood relative of some elder, to be given this? Even the inner sect’s direct disciples might not have one.”
If it were before, Yuan Lian would have honestly revealed her identity, thinking there was no need to hide it.
Yuan Lian remembered that one of her split souls had a husband who had a mischievous streak, particularly enjoying pretending to be a commoner. He claimed it was to understand the people’s sentiments, but as his wife, she saw that he simply loved tricking people and relished the shocked and fearful expressions when the truth was revealed.
Honestly, she couldn’t understand it before and thought it was utterly boring and pointless.
But now, facing Chang Songzhu, who dared to look her in the eye and genuinely wanted to be friends, she swallowed back the denial she was about to utter.
Under Chang Songzhu’s curious gaze, Yuan Lian nodded, “My family has dealings with Yan Hang… the Sect Leader.”
“I knew it,” Chang Songzhu didn’t ask further, smiling, “I guess I’ve made a big connection—these seventy spirit pearls were really worth it.”
The ring on her hand was a storage artifact, and she immediately poured out the spirit pearls inside, which was actually just a small bag, and handed them all to Yuan Lian.
Excluding the experiences of her split soul, this was Yuan Lian’s first time receiving spirit pearls. She didn’t refuse, directly accepting them and pouring one out to take a look.
These were the hard currency of the Divine Realm. It took the spiritual energy of dozens of top-grade spirit stones to condense and refine into one spirit pearl. In the lower realms, these were extremely rare, but in the Divine Realm, where spiritual energy was abundant, top-grade spirit stones were hard to sell, and only spirit pearls were in demand.
For Yuan Lian, it was just a novelty, and she soon put the spirit pearls away.
At this moment, Chang Songzhu suddenly remembered to ask something. She was a bit embarrassed but spoke frankly, “Did you come specifically to see me this time?”
“…You still have my spirit pearls here.”
Chang Songzhu was about to feel disappointed when she suddenly realized that such a wealthy young lady probably wouldn’t even pick up a handful of spirit pearls if they fell to the ground. It was impossible for her to travel a long way to collect a debt for less than a hundred spirit pearls.
She carefully observed Yuan Lian’s indifferent expression, and after a while, suddenly grabbed her hand, smiling, “Xiao Lian, you’re really nice.”
Yuan Lian was startled, then furrowed her delicate brows, trying to pull her hand away while dodging, “If you have something to say, just say it, don’t touch me.”
But in the end, she was afraid that pulling too hard would hurt the other person, so she didn’t seriously refuse and instead felt the roughness in the other’s hand.
Yuan Lian said, “You’re not a sword cultivator.”
“Of course not,” Chang Songzhu replied, “Otherwise, I would have gone to Sword Mountain.”
“Your swordsmanship is so poor, yet you managed to develop calluses…”
“Huh?”
Of course, not only sword cultivators can practice swordsmanship. In fact, most cultivators carry swords with them, especially those with low cultivation levels. Compared to other various magical artifacts, the greatest advantage of a sword is that it is a powerful weapon. Once a battle reaches a stalemate and both sides exhaust their spiritual power, a sword is definitely more useful than a ribbon or a jade flute.
But the sword moves Chang Songzhu had just demonstrated were so unbearable that Yuan Lian couldn’t help but comment.
“…It’s not that bad, right?” Chang Songzhu blushed a bit. She had been relying on her own exploration to get to where she was now. Without a master, trying to develop a proper sword technique was a fool’s dream. Now that she had just entered the outer sect of Wanyi Sect, everything she was learning was to make up for the lack of foundation before, and swordsmanship was one of them.
She mumbled, “I just don’t have a talent for sword practice…”
Yuan Lian snorted, “Take out your sword.”
“…”
When Yuan Lian found out that Chang Songzhu, a late-stage Qi Condensation cultivator in the Divine Realm, was so poor that she had to rely on her fingers to practice swordsmanship, she fell silent.
Seeing her expression, Chang Songzhu tentatively asked, “If not… can you lend me ten or so spirit pearls to buy one?”
And then she got a glare.
Yuan Lian looked around, and a straight bamboo nearby broke off and floated in front of her.
She reached out her right hand to hold the bamboo horizontally in front of her, and her left hand slowly traced along the bamboo.
Chang Songzhu was dumbfounded, watching as the slender finger traced along, emitting a brilliant green light. When the light faded, it revealed a sharp sword edge beneath.
Yuan Lian flicked it slightly, and the bamboo sword transformed into a treasure sword, flipping once and hovering with its tip down between the two of them.
“Make do with this for now,” Yuan Lian said nonchalantly.
Chang Songzhu wasn’t sure if she was seeing things, but she felt that after Yuan Lian said this, the sword seemed to twist its body.
“This, is this for me?”
“Give it a name.”
Chang Songzhu carefully held it with both hands, seeing its slender and long form, very nimble, with a sword body that shone with a bamboo-like green, thin enough to almost show through her fingers. She was extremely fond of it, “This… looks very valuable, I can’t accept it.”
“What’s so valuable about it?” Yuan Lian didn’t care, “You saw it, it’s just a sword made of bamboo, nothing special. If you don’t like it, just toss it aside. In a few years, without spiritual energy nourishment, it’ll revert to its original form.”
As soon as she said this, the sword vibrated intensely, and this time Chang Songzhu was sure it wasn’t an illusion.
The sword actually had a sword spirit!
This made Chang Songzhu even more reluctant to part with it. She looked up at Yuan Lian, “I love it so much, Xiao Lian, thank you so much. I’ll never part with it.”
The sword emitted a warm temperature, and Chang Songzhu said, “But, you should name it.”
Yuan Lian nodded indifferently, and following the habit of naming Dong Dong, she casually said, “Let’s call it Xiao Lu…”
“Wait!” Chang Songzhu hurriedly interrupted, thinking for a moment, “I’ll name it, let’s call it—Changqing, how about that?”
Changqing Sword, sharing her surname, and symbolizing the evergreen nature of bamboo, was perfect.
Yuan Lian didn’t think it was bad either. She said, “Hold your sword and demonstrate the sword moves from earlier again.”
At this point, Chang Songzhu didn’t dare to treat her as a kind and cute little girl anymore. She clumsily followed through, and indeed received a rather disapproving look.
“You… didn’t do a single thing right.”
“A cultivator’s sword is different from a mortal’s weapon. Mortals wield swords to leverage the weapon’s sharpness, but for you, the sword is a weapon and a magical artifact, used to channel the spiritual energy of heaven and earth. The sword technique Wanyi Sect gave you may not be great, but it has its basic uses. What were you doing? Not touching any spiritual energy, just posing for me?”
It was the first time Chang Songzhu saw Yuan Lian so stern. Just as she was too intimidated to speak, she felt a gentle force lift her arm, positioning it into a standard starting stance.
“I’ll move, you just remember this action. Next time, if you dare to get it wrong…”
“I won’t, I won’t, I’m not that dumb…”
Not just her body, she felt as if a hand reached into her qi sea, guiding her spiritual energy to transform into true essence, flowing through her limbs and bones, then striking out with the Changqing Sword. Accompanied by the sound of breaking air, it seemed to tear a hole in the air in front of her.
After a set of sword techniques, the sound of the sword and spiritual energy clashing almost drowned out the sound of the wind blowing through the bamboo forest. It wasn’t until Chang Songzhu felt she could control her body again that she stopped.
“Remembered?”
“Remembered, remembered!” Chang Songzhu said excitedly, “So that’s how it is. No wonder when I saw others practicing swordsmanship, the spiritual energy fluctuations were always intense. I thought it was because I didn’t have a matching sword.”
“Intense fluctuations?” Although Yuan Lian said Chang Songzhu’s swordsmanship was unbearable, hearing her say someone was much stronger than her made her unhappy, “Those who entered with you shouldn’t be much different.”
After all, those with good family backgrounds and solid foundations would have entered the inner sect long ago.
Chang Songzhu was enamored with the treasure sword in her hand, stroking it up and down, saying, “They’re disciples who just came up from the Great Thousand World, temporarily placed in the outer sect.”
As she spoke, she became a bit melancholic, even the frizzy hair on her head seemed to droop, “The ones at the Nascent Soul and Void Return stages are understandable, being older and having higher cultivation levels, it’s not comparable. But that Qi Condensation one is even younger than me… I was born in the Divine Realm for nothing, can’t even compare to people from the lower realms…”
I don’t know why, but writing about the young lady makes me feel much better than writing about Feng Yunqing… Thanks to the little angels who voted for me or watered me with nutrient solution between 20220822 08:35:45~20220835 19:32:55~