Qingshan

Chapter 69 : Chapter 69

Chapter 69: Whale

Inside the Taiping Clinic, the farce caused by Golden Pig’s arrival left everyone silent and reserved.

In the apprentice bedroom, it was just me and the cat.

Dark Cloud recounted his findings in a low voice: “We followed him all the way south. This person is very vigilant. The slightest thing amiss, and he would immediately stop to observe his surroundings, then set up feints to lure out anyone tailing him.”

“After going back and forth like that four times, he finally let his guard down. He drove a carriage out of the woods near Tuoluo Temple in the south and waited at the temple entrance. After a short while, I saw Liu Mingxian come out of the temple and get into the carriage…”

I was astonished: “He’s actually Liu Mingxian’s carriage driver? He was also the one who picked up Master from the clinic to treat Old Master Liu…”

I pondered for a moment before saying: “I’m guessing Liu Mingxian doesn’t know either that a person from the Jing Dynasty’s Military Intelligence Division is hidden right by his side. Otherwise, why would the Military Intelligence Division still need me to liaise with Consort Yun?”

The position this carriage driver Division Officer was hiding in was too good. Not only could he keep track of Liu Mingxian’s movements at all times, but he could also eavesdrop on Liu Mingxian’s conversations.

The Liu family’s carriage drivers all lived together. If the other drivers were not on their guard, this carriage driver Division Officer could even find out where the other members of the Liu family went, what they did, and who they met.

But, why would such an intelligent and cautious Division Officer risk exposure to come to the Taiping Clinic this morning… Was he here to kill me?

I recalled the conversation between the two Division Officers. Shopkeeper Yuan had said: “What are you doing here?”

The carriage driver Division Officer had replied: “And what are you doing here?”

Then, Shopkeeper Yuan had said: “Luocheng is under my command now. You need to know your place.”

I muttered to myself: “‘You need to know your place,’ in what context would someone say something like that?”

Dark Cloud raised a paw: “I know this one! The day before yesterday, after I recruited a leading tabby cat, it still wouldn’t obey my orders, so I beat it up again and then said, ‘Know your place’!”

I was stunned, a spark igniting in my mind: “So that’s how it is. The power in the Luocheng Military Intelligence Division has changed hands. It used to be that carriage driver Division Officer who was in charge of Luocheng, but now it’s the newcomer, Shopkeeper Yuan, who is in charge, and the carriage driver Division Officer has been pushed aside.”

A power shift in the Military Intelligence Division. After my uncle stepped down, his power had fallen into other hands.

And that carriage driver Division Officer had mentioned several times that my uncle had asked him to take care of me. He must have been close to my uncle, so naturally, he became a target of exclusion.

I was puzzled: “But what was he doing at the Taiping Clinic this morning? Was he here to kill me?”

Dark Cloud’s expression turned solemn: “He wants to kill you?!”

“Not necessarily,” I shook my head.

Previously, Wu Hongbiao had said it was this carriage driver Division Officer who wanted to kill them as a pledge of loyalty, but I always had a doubt:

That carriage driver Division Officer seemed extremely fierce, but…

When the Jing Dynasty’s Military Intelligence Division suspected I had betrayed Zhou Chengyi, no matter how my subordinates accused me, the carriage driver Division Officer never laid a fatal hand on me.

He did indeed hang me upside down for interrogation, but after the interrogation, I didn’t even have a single scratch.

I don’t care what others say, I only look at what they do. Based on these two suspicious points alone, that carriage driver Division Officer had never actually had any intention of killing me.

Even if the carriage driver Division Officer had changed his mind and wanted to kill me to pledge his loyalty, the timing was wrong.

Last night, I was in the East Market with Liu Mingxian. The carriage driver Division Officer must have been there too and must have noticed me.

If he wanted to kill me, there were plenty of opportunities last night. Why wait until this early morning to come to the clinic?

So, he wasn’t here to kill me.

This made me even more puzzled: “Then what was he doing at the Taiping Clinic this morning? What reason would cause a naturally cautious person to have to secretly come to the clinic while his employer was away burning incense and praying to Buddha? Was there some unforeseen variable?”

Wait, it was because Shopkeeper Yuan had come.

The carriage driver Division Officer wasn’t here to kill me; he was here to protect me!

I had to laugh at my own deduction: “Why would he protect me… But, either Wu Hongbiao got things wrong, or he’s lying. This I must figure out. Dark Cloud, did Wu Hongbiao go out yesterday?”

Dark Cloud replied: “No. You didn’t send him food yesterday, so I went back to the clinic and got two coarse-grain pancakes from Uncle Crow and brought them to him. Don’t worry, I left them at his door while he was asleep. He didn’t see me.”

“Drinking really messes things up…”

Just then, Liang Mao’er’s voice came from outside the window: “Brother, why didn’t you act just now?”

Liang Gou’er pursed his lips. While fiddling with the bamboo broom, he said with his head down: “I told you, there are three things I won’t help with, have you forgotten? I won’t help the eunuch faction, and I won’t help those who oppose the eunuch faction.”

“But we are friends,” Liang Mao’er’s face was flushed with anxiety. “We just went to the Drum Tower to watch the sunrise together this morning.”

Liang Gou’er scoffed: “Plenty of people have watched the sunset with me. Should I help every one of them? Don’t take words spoken while drinking seriously. That’s the rule of the drinking table!”

Liang Mao’er was so angry he snatched the broom from him: “How did you become like this? You weren’t like this before!”

Liang Gou’er grumbled: “Before was before, now is now.”

Inside the room, Dark Cloud looked at me: “What just happened?”

I was silent for a moment before asking: “Dark Cloud, if your friend hid many things from you, would you be angry?”

Dark Cloud thought for a long time: “I don’t know. You’re my first friend, and my only one. I don’t have any experience in this… But I think I would be angry.”

I sighed inwardly. Just now, Princess Baili had left in a huff, perhaps angry because: we had all been scolded together, drank together, and watched the sunrise together. In her heart, she already considered everyone friends. But why were there still people who were unwilling to help a friend in need? Why were there still people hiding so many secrets?

But I had no choice. Some secrets I could only let rot in my heart.

Dark Cloud patted the back of my hand: “I’m leaving now. There’s still a fight I haven’t finished. My men are waiting for me.”

Me: “…Alright. Don’t get any blood on you.”

……

……

After Dark Cloud left, I slowly closed my eyes and thought about the clues I had just gathered.

If the carriage driver Division Officer really never thought of killing me, then was Wu Hongbiao lying or not? What role did the carriage driver Division Officer play in this matter? I would have to wait until night to test him.

I gathered the sixteen furnace fires and let myself pass through the sea of black clouds, landing on the Green Mountain.

Once, I had loathed this dreamscape. The sounds of killing night after night were like a nightmare from which I couldn't wake, couldn't sleep soundly.

But now I liked it here, not just because of the exquisite killing techniques, but also because here I didn’t have to think about complex interpersonal relationships.

No Military Intelligence Division, no Secret Spy Division, no parents, and no uncle.

Here, I only needed to kill again and again, learn one technique after another, and think of nothing else.

I turned around and saw Xuanyuan, clad in a black king’s robe, leaning on his royal banner and sitting at the edge of a cliff, gazing into the distance.

Beyond the cliff, the battlefield was frozen. In the sky, clouds rolled and unfurled. Even my own mood calmed down.

I sat down silently beside Xuanyuan: “Have you been watching all this alone all these years?”

Xuanyuan ignored me.

I asked again: “Why are you in my dreamscape?”

Xuanyuan glanced at me: “I’m in your dreamscape… You are worthy? This is my world.”

Me: “…”

So this wasn’t a dreamscape, but a real place?

I suddenly asked: “Have you heard of the Forty-nine Heavens?”

Xuanyuan was puzzled: “What place is that? I’ve never been there.”

Now I was also confused. It was one thing for the people around me not to know about the Forty-nine Heavens, but even an “immortal” like Xuanyuan didn’t know of its existence? Was Li Qingniao just talking nonsense?

“Beijuluzhou?”

“Never heard of it.”

“Then have you heard of a person named Li Qingniao?” I asked.

“Never heard of him,” Xuanyuan shook his head. “I’ve seen a ‘Qingniao’ (blue bird), but I’ve never heard of anyone with that name… What nonsense are you talking about?”

I was confused. Did no one know of the existence of the Forty-nine Heavens?

Xuanyuan stood up: “Don’t waste time. Fenghuai, give him a blade, and practice well with him.”

The Simple Saber Soldier named Fenghuai nodded: “As you command.”

“Wait, wait,” I raised my hand and said, “but someone told me that I shouldn’t practice with a blade.”

Xuanyuan looked as if he had heard the biggest joke in the world: “Did you come here specifically to tell me jokes? You shouldn’t practice with a blade? Someone said you shouldn’t practice with a blade?! Hahahahaha.”

Xuanyuan’s laughter rolled out like a great bell, even scattering the clouds.

I said with a grim face: “Is it that funny?”

Xuanyuan pointed at me from a distance, puzzled: “You used a blade before!”

Me: “…There’s that too?”

“The sword is the king of a hundred weapons, the blade is the courage of a hundred weapons. The blade is the most suitable for you. If you don’t practice with a blade, what will you practice with?!”

“Perhaps the blade was suitable for the old me, but now I want to practice with a sword. The person who taught me said that my current personality is not suitable for using a blade, and it would ruin my foundation.”

“Your current personality… what he said is not entirely without reason,” Xuanyuan said with a sneer. “But with that little foundation of yours, what is there to ‘ruin’? After you’ve finished practicing with the blade, next will be the sword, axe, spear, staff, hammer… you must practice every single one. If you cannot master every one, how will you know what means the enemy will use to fight you? When you have practiced them all, you will know that all paths under heaven lead to the same destination.”

Liang Gou’er said not to practice, Xuanyuan said to practice. Who should I listen to?

I chose to listen to Xuanyuan, because Xuanyuan’s realm seemed to be much higher than Liang Gou’er’s…

I looked at Xuanyuan: “If… I mean if I really am the person you knew back then, what kind of blade did I use back then?”

Xuanyuan stared at me for a long time, then suddenly raised his hand and pulled a great blade as tall as a person from the void: “Try this one.”

I saw that the handle was about two-thirds of its length, and the blade was about one-third. There were golden dragon patterns on the handle, and the blade was as white as snow.

Xuanyuan threw it over from a distance. When I caught the blade, I was almost pulled to the ground by its weight.

I held the great blade with both hands and swung it a few times, then immediately shook my head: “No, I’m not used to it.”

Xuanyuan pulled another two-foot-long waist blade from the void and threw it to me: “Try this one again.”

The body of this blade was crimson, as if it had just been pulled from lava.

I swung it a few more times: “No, I’m not used to this one either. It feels a bit awkward.”

This awkwardness was like someone who was used to using a particular pen suddenly switching to a new one. They could use it and were proficient with it, but they still wanted to switch back to their old one.

Xuanyuan glanced at me and summoned dozens of blades from the void, which stood erect in the air: “Choose. Choose until you find one you like.”

I walked before each blade, taking each one down and trying to hold it in my hand to slash. There were sleeve knives and daggers, crescent-moon great blades, straight-handled blades, and scimitars.

I carefully and meticulously compared the differences between each blade. Time passed minute by minute, but Xuanyuan did not rush me at all.

This time, Xuanyuan was exceptionally patient.

Finally, I stopped in front of a snow-bright, narrow long blade. The blade was three feet three inches long, the handle two feet two inches. When propped on the ground, the blade was level with my eyebrows.

I held this blade in my hand and asked curiously: “What is this blade’s name?”

“You don’t recognize it anymore?”

“Should I recognize it?”

“Of course you should recognize it, because it is your blade,” Xuanyuan said calmly. “Its name is Whale.”

“Did I give it that name?”

“No, I did.”

I was silent. So Xuanyuan had been waiting patiently without a word, just to see if I could choose this particular blade.

And on the peak of this Green Mountain, there were clearly more than fifty blades suspended in the air. I didn’t choose a longer one, nor a shorter one, but precisely this one.

Holding this “Whale,” I felt a strange sense of familiarity, as if I had found a long-lost friend.

For a moment, I seriously wondered if I might really be the person Xuanyuan spoke of, that he hadn't mistaken me for someone else.

This impact came very suddenly. Before this, although I had apologized on behalf of my "former self" and had tacitly accepted Xuanyuan's speculation, deep down I didn't believe it. I only wanted to learn more techniques in this battlefield, learn how to fight, learn the path of the Sword Seed.

And now…

I looked up at Xuanyuan: “Why is my blade in your hands? Did you kill me?”

Xuanyuan fell silent.

I suddenly laughed: “Haha, why the long face? Even if you did kill me, aren’t I alive again now! By the way, can you give me this blade? Since you say this is your world, then this blade must be real, right?”

Xuanyuan glanced at me: “If you can defeat Fenghuai within three days, this blade will be returned to you.”

I casually twirled the blade: “Then what are we waiting for? Let’s get to it!”

Xuanyuan looked at me and said seriously: “Don’t think that defeating the giant halberdier in one day is so impressive. The bronze halberd is used on the battlefield to deal with charging warhorses. It has few variations and is not flexible enough, making it easy to find its weaknesses. The blade is different. Only by defeating Fenghuai can you be considered qualified to fight on the battlefield.”

I asked curiously: “I see that the giant halberdier and the simple saber soldier you chose are dressed differently from the others. They aren't ordinary soldiers, are they?”

Xuanyuan glanced at me: “They are both my Huben, the elite of the army, instructors for all kinds of weapons.”

I was helpless. So I was fighting against the most skilled person, using the weapon they were best at. “I get the feeling… you really want to teach me all the skills of battlefield combat?”

Xuanyuan sneered: “Fenghuai, chop him.”