The Azure Mountain

Chapter 134: Hack Him

The grassy, fishy stench of ox dung permeated the dirt road of the official highway. An endless stream of woodcutters carrying dry firewood made their way into the city, alongside a ceaseless flow of ox carts selling charcoal.

Wang Daosheng spoke to Chen Ji and the others, "Everyone, get on the cart. Chen Ji, you did the work for everyone else just now while distributing porridge. That can be considered a disguised punishment. You don't need to walk anymore."

Chen Ji didn't ask too many questions. He simply offered his thanks before finding an empty spot to sit down on the cart.

Zhang Xia vaulted onto her horse. Riding Zaozao next to the ox cart, she asked curiously, "Sir, my father often says you are heretical and deviate from the orthodox path. Why is that?"

Sitting on the cart, Wang Daosheng casually asked in return, "The Analects says, 'A gentleman is not an implement.' How do you interpret this?"

Chen Wenzong thought for a moment. "Zhu Xi annotated it thusly: 'Implements are suited for their own specific uses but cannot be interchanged. A man of perfected virtue possesses every capacity; therefore, his usefulness is all-encompassing, not limited to a single talent or art.' Zhu Xi said that the Ultimate Sage's meaning was that those who govern need not specialize in any single art, but must be generalists."

"But I think Zhu Xi is wrong," Wang Daosheng said indifferently. "The Ultimate Sage once commented that Guan Zhong was 'small in implement,' which meant that he lacked tolerance and open-mindedness. Therefore, I believe that when the Ultimate Sage said 'a gentleman is not an implement,' he meant that a gentleman should embrace the world and encompass all things like the ocean receiving hundreds of rivers."

Chen Wenzong opened his mouth, trying to think of how to refute him.

Riding her horse, Zhang Xia chimed in, "Both interpretations seem to make some sense, but I prefer your explanation, Sir. I think a gentleman doesn't necessarily have to know astronomy above and geography below, but he absolutely must have tolerance!"

Wang Daosheng smiled. "So-called heresy is merely my differing understanding of the sages compared to theirs. What I want to teach you is not for you to completely accept my thoughts, but to look at the world for yourselves and form your own thoughts."Sitting at the front of the cart, Prince Jing laughed heartily without turning around. "That is the significance of traveling ten thousand miles! The civil officials of our Ning Dynasty today love to debate doctrine behind closed doors. They debate back and forth, but in reality, they only want to find evidence in the words of the sages to support their own views."

"Your Highness, please speak cautiously," Chen Wenzong said sternly.

Prince Jing barked a laugh. "You truly are the spitting image of your father!"

At this point, Zhang Xia suddenly changed the subject. "Chen Ji, how do you interpret 'a gentleman is not an implement'... Chen Ji?!"

After waiting a long time without receiving an answer, she turned to look, only to find Chen Ji sitting in the ox cart with his head bowed. He had fallen asleep at some unknown point.

Zhang Xia raised an eyebrow. "Chen Ji! Sir is right in the middle of teaching a lesson. How can you be sleeping?!"

Bai Li hurriedly stopped her. "Why are you yelling? He must have stayed up all night yesterday to be this exhausted. Let him sleep a little longer!"

Zhang Xia curled her lip and silently mouthed her mockery: 'Let~ him~ sleep~ a~ lit~tle~ long~er~'

Bai Li rolled her eyes. "I won't stoop to your level!"

Standing to the side, Chen Wenzong cupped his hands to Wang Daosheng. "Please forgive him, Sir. My Third Brother is still young, and he hasn't been to school in recent years, so he doesn't understand the rules. I will wake him up right now."

However, Wang Daosheng raised a hand to stop him. "It's fine. Let him sleep a little longer. I had no intention of teaching anyway; I only offered a few passing thoughts because Zhang Xia asked."

The Prince Heir's face distorted in indignation. "Sir! That's not how you treat me!"

Prince Jing chortled. "That was a specific request I made to Mr. Wang! I can't control the others, but you must be strictly disciplined. It saves certain people from thinking they can do whatever they please just because they're past the age of twenty!"

"Exactly, exactly!" Bai Li chimed in.

The Prince Heir: "..."

Staring blankly at Prince Jing, Bai Li, and the Prince Heir on the cart, Chen Wenzong realized something. As it turned out, a father didn't always have to keep a stern face in front of his children, and children didn't always have to be utterly respectful and reverent in front of their father.

He slowly looked at Chen Ji, thinking to himself that perhaps... this was exactly why Chen Ji was so determined never to return to the Chen Estate?

...

...

Inside the dream world.

The black Sea of Clouds was perfectly serene and still.

Plummeting through the long-unseen black Sea of Clouds, Chen Ji landed on the mountain peak, bringing trails of black cloud vapor swirling down with him.

Outside of Green Mountain, the white Sea of Clouds was dense.

Like an immense blanket spread out across the mountainside, it surged and flowed violently.

Dressed in a black royal robe, Xuanyuan sat cross-legged on a massive boulder. He stared silently at the Sea of Clouds, looking as though he were gazing at something else entirely, entirely lost in unknown thoughts.

Chen Ji coughed once to alert him. Only then did Xuanyuan slowly rise to his feet. Leaning on the royal banner with one hand, he turned and looked down at Chen Ji. "You have grown lax."

Chen Ji shook his head. "I haven't."

Xuanyuan sneered. "Your visits here are becoming fewer and farther between. Do you really not want to take 'Whale Blade' away with you?"

Even as he spoke, the long-handled blade materialized from the void, hovering right in front of Chen Ji.

The long blade body curved like a narrow crescent moon—cold, stark, yet domineering.

Gripping the hilt with his right hand, Chen Ji brought the blade horizontally in front of him and gently ran his left hand across the metal. "Of course I want to take it away. It's just that it's been one thing after another lately, leaving me with less chances to even sleep. But from here on out, I should have more time."

Xuanyuan waved a hand toward the distance. "Feng Huai, Hack Him!"

"Hold on," Chen Ji said, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. "I came today because I have a lot of things I want to ask you."

Xuanyuan lifted his chin slightly. "What do you want to ask?"

Chen Ji asked curiously, "I recently acquired a Pathway. According to it, as long as I repeatedly recite a specific text, I can manifest a wisp of purple Sword Qi within my meridians. But every time the purple Sword Qi is just about to form, my Sword Seed chops it away. Why is that?"

Xuanyuan sat cross-legged on the boulder, looking disdainful. "Since you have learned my Sword Seed Path, why would you cultivate any other Way of the Sword? Handing you a flute when you already have a drum—entirely unnecessary."

Chen Ji hurriedly explained, "I just happened to stumble upon a new Pathway for free. And since I've got free time anyway..."

Xuanyuan demanded, "If you've already started learning someone else's Way of the Sword, why are you coming to ask me?"

Chen Ji thought for a second before answering, "You must be the most powerful person in the world when it comes to the Way of the Sword. Naturally, if I have any questions regarding the Way of the Sword, I should come and ask you."

Xuanyuan was speechless for a long moment. "How are you able to say things like that so easily and naturally these days?"

"Just speaking the truth," Chen Ji said sincerely.

Xuanyuan was silent for several seconds. "What did you ask earlier?"

Chen Ji repeated, "Why do other types of Sword Qi get chopped down by the Sword Seed?"

Xuanyuan sneered. "The sword is the sovereign of all weapons. Have you ever seen a nation with two sovereigns? When two sovereigns meet, one naturally becomes the king and the other the defeated rebel. The strong remain, and the weak dissipate. Didn't you ask before how an easily broken, formless Sword Seed can take on physical form?"

"Yes." It was precisely because Chen Ji had asked that question earlier that he had suffered a savage beating at the hands of the halberdier and Feng Huai. Xuanyuan still hadn't answered it until now.

Xuanyuan said calmly, "Snatch swords."

"Snatch swords?"

"The Sword Seed Pathway was born to ascend the throne by trampling over all other Ways of the Sword," Xuanyuan proclaimed. "If you want your Sword Seed to take form, you must seize your opponents' swords time and time again to nourish your own."

"How do I do that?"

"You will know once you snatch a sword for the first time."

Hearing this, Chen Ji instantly extinguished any thoughts of cultivating Cloud Obscuring. The Sword Seed Cultivation Path and Cloud Obscuring undeniably could not coexist.

However, Cloud Obscuring was, at the very least, a Pathway from the Forty-Nine Heavens. To just waste it in his hands like this seemed rather unfortunate.

At this moment, Xuanyuan shot him a sidelong glance. "The path of cultivation demands Single-Minded Concentration and courageous, unyielding progress. Only the weak need to learn all those flashy, useless tricks. Feng Huai, Hack Him! Teach him a lesson he won't forget."

"Hold on, hold on," Chen Ji said, raising a hand toward Feng Huai between tears and laughter to halt the other man's advance. "Don't be so eager to start fighting and killing. I still have so many doubts... Right, have you really never heard of the Forty-Nine Heavens before?"

Xuanyuan's expression was passive. "Would I lie to you?"

"But I have already confirmed the existence of the Forty-Nine Heavens," Chen Ji said in puzzlement. "They say that many divine beings live there, and some even reincarnate and descend to the mortal realm... How could you not know about it?"

His interest piqued, Xuanyuan asked, "Many divine beings live there? Who?"

Recalling the divine beings he had heard about from the Prince Heir, Chen Ji listed them off, "The Twenty-Eight Mansions, Lord Wenchang, the Lords of the Five Dippers, the Six Lords of the Southern Dipper, Dipankara Buddha..."

Xuanyuan hesitated. "Who are they?"

Chen Ji was equally hesitant. "Have you really never heard of a single one of them?"

Xuanyuan frowned. "Never."

Chen Ji asked again, "Have you ever heard of Taiji Mountain, Wuji Mountain, Jade Capital Mountain, Mount Sumeru, or Kushinagar?"

Xuanyuan shook his head. "Never heard of them."

"Then in the world you used to live in, what places were there?"

"Qingqiu, Guixu, Mount Qiwu, Mount Wangqiu, Yuyuan, Lutai, Kunlun Mountain..."

This completely baffled Chen Ji. Just what kind of existence was the Forty-Nine Heavens that even a monumental figure like Xuanyuan had never heard of it?

He already knew that Xuanyuan was a primordial figure from sixteen thousand years ago. Even if his cultivation realm wasn't higher than that of the divine beings in the Forty-Nine Heavens, it absolutely couldn't be lower.

Did a place that even a figure like him had never heard of truly exist?

Chen Ji cast his gaze far across the Green Mountain Dream World...

Wait...

Could it be that the Forty-Nine Heavens was a place that only appeared after Xuanyuan was sealed away in this world? That would be why Xuanyuan had never heard of them.

For a split second, Chen Ji even felt that the very birth of the Forty-Nine Heavens was intimately connected to Xuanyuan's seal.

He looked up at Xuanyuan. "Why were you trapped here back then?"

Xuanyuan gazed down at him, his eyes completely unreadable. "Feng Huai, Hack Him."

This time, Feng Huai didn't hesitate, swinging his blade down in a vicious chop.

"If you don't want to say it, then don't say it! What are you attacking me for?!" Chen Ji raised Whale Blade to block. Sparks flew in every direction, dazzlingly brilliant like midnight fireworks bursting into the sky.

Feng Huai's attacks were overwhelmingly heavy, but despite exchanging hundreds of Wide and Sweeping blows, he couldn't find a single opening in Chen Ji's defense. In his sheer desperation to die less, Chen Ji had actually polished his defensive combat to pure perfection.

Seeing this, Xuanyuan mocked, "Is playing defense all you know how to do? You're never going to get your blade back just playing defense."

Chen Ji didn't respond.

Then, Xuanyuan's voice boomed outward: "Feng Lie, you come Hack Him too."

Chen Ji jumped in shock. He whipped his head around to see a hulking warrior wielding a giant axe march out of the military formation at the base of the mountain. "Understood," the warrior replied with a muffled voice.

With that, Feng Lie gripped his great axe and charged toward Green Mountain with massive strides. As he sprinted, his footfalls thundered across the earth like beating war drums.

"Two against one is an unfair fight! I suspect you're just using this opportunity to settle a personal grudge!" Chen Ji yelled urgently.

Xuanyuan sneered. "This time, you are permitted to run."

Chen Ji spun on his heel and sprinted toward the craggy mountain path, desperately trying to avoid being cornered and slaughtered on the peak by Feng Huai and Feng Lie.

However, just before he descended the mountain, he abruptly whipped around, the blade spinning with his body to force Feng Huai back.

Using this tiny window of opportunity, he gazed at Xuanyuan from afar and shouted a final question: "If I ignite all my Furnace Fires and they burn pure white... what will happen?"

Xuanyuan's fingers instantly constricted around the royal banner, yet he didn't answer.

Watching Feng Lie draw closer and closer as Feng Huai swung his blade at him once again, Chen Ji urgently yelled, "What will happen?!"

"Immortal and Indestructible," Xuanyuan proclaimed meaningfully.

Having received his answer, Chen Ji parried Feng Huai's Long-Handled Broadsword once more before turning around and running for his life down the rugged mountain path.