novelraw Chapter 14 : Chapter 14
Chapter 14 : Chapter 14
Chapter 14
Wei Jia’s mouth fell open in shock. Remembering the nonsense he had spouted earlier, he instantly regretted it to the core.
But… Sword Pavilion was also a famed and formidable orthodox sect. Surely they would not simply stand by and watch fellow orthodox cultivators lose their lives, would they? If he held this secret, he should still be able to preserve his life—though he feared he would have to suffer a bit more…
No sooner had he reached that thought than his body suddenly went rigid. He toppled to the ground, lifeless, his eyes still wide open.
He did not understand why this sword cultivator would kill him so cleanly. Did he not care about the lives of other orthodox cultivators?
Shuang Wenlü withdrew his sword.
If he wanted to know the secret Wei Jia had been hiding, why would he need to hear it from Wei Jia’s mouth? How could a Guardian of the Dao within a region be defined only by unmatched battle strength?
Shuang Wenlü spread his divine sense and had already captured where Suizhou’s aura was abnormal. Quite a few Demonic Cultivators had indeed become involved for the sake of the Blood-Rust Blade. Even one of the Seventeen Great Demons was stirring the waters.
The so-called Seventeen Great Demons referred to the seventeen Demonic Cultivators with the highest cultivation in all under heaven and earth. Every one of them had cultivation above the Eighth Layer of the Tianxuan Realm.
The “secret” Wei Jia claimed concerned the lives of many orthodox cultivators was precisely this: for the sake of obtaining the Blood-Rust Blade, those Demonic Cultivators had temporarily formed an alliance in Suizhou, preparing to kick the orthodox cultivators out of the game first.
Blood-Rust Blade. Unsurpassed Dao Canon.
The moment he heard those two terms, the divination slip Ning Xianmian had given him began to glow faintly. The Blood-Rust Blade was also connected to the previous-life body he had lost when he first entered the Dao.
Meng Zhensheng was still unconscious. Lang Qingyun had already examined him. He was not seriously harmed—he had merely been strangled into fainting. In a little while, he would recover on his own. With medicine applied to the bruising on his neck, it would fade in a few days.
With no other sounds in the room, the stiff atmosphere between Lang Qingyun and Shao Si became all the more obvious.
Shao Si still sat on the floor, using the medicine Lang Qingyun had given him to rub his burned hands, keeping his head down in silence. Lang Qingyun also said nothing. Squatting beside Shao Si, he reached out to pull at Shao Si’s left foot. Startled, Shao Si instinctively drew his leg back and looked up at Lang Qingyun.
Lang Qingyun’s voice was stiff. “You sprained it. You need medicine.”
Only then did Shao Si feel the fierce pain in his left leg. Earlier, when he had struggled at the ring of fire, his left leg had been difficult to use. He had braced it forcefully against the ground, and it had already been injured. Now it had swollen.
Lang Qingyun lifted his trouser leg and applied medicine.
Shao Si stared at him, his expression complicated. He did not understand. If Lang Qingyun was already impatient with them, why had he come to save him? Why would he still help him like this, rubbing medicine on him? But if Lang Qingyun was still the Second Brother from before, why had he been so cold and indifferent earlier?
“The opportunity for cultivation is indeed not difficult to come by,” Shuang Wenlü said. With a flick of his sword sheath, he hooked a jade slip off Wei Jia and tossed it down beside Shao Si. “This is the cultivation technique he practiced.”
Shao Si glanced between them. “I will not cultivate something that harms people.”
Shuang Wenlü chuckled. “Things that are easy to obtain are naturally often things with problems.”
Shao Si felt he was merely speaking grand principles, yet unease rose in him anyway. He looked at Lang Qingyun, who was rubbing his ankle, and his heart suddenly clenched. He snapped his gaze back to Shuang Wenlü. “Is Second Brother’s cultivation technique problematic too?!”
Shuang Wenlü did not need to answer. Shao Si had already turned to Lang Qingyun. “Second Brother! Is your cultivation method problematic? Say something!”
Lang Qingyun sighed inwardly. How could he explain it? Should he say that, every moment of every day, there was a voice inside him urging him to kill them?
At first, he had distanced himself from them because he agreed with the Dao Seed’s demand that he let go of fetters. Later, it was because he realized the Dao Seed wanted him to kill his kin to prove the Dao, and he feared he would lose control and commit a grave wrong. That was why he avoided them.
The Dao Seed was inside his body. He could not remove it, and he did not want to remove it.
All his cultivation was built upon the Dao Seed as its foundation. If he lost the Dao Seed, he would become an ordinary man again—the ordinary man who had been powerless when the Eldest Sister died, the ordinary man who had been forced to lead the whole family into the perilous wilderness.
If he could not take out the Dao Seed, then even if he wanted to stop, the Dao Seed would not allow him to stop. Shuang Wenlü’s guidance had broken the killing intent accumulated in his chest, but as long as the Dao Seed remained, and as long as he refused to follow the path it pointed to, the Dao Seed would continue to give rise to new killing intent within him.
“It is not that serious. I can still control it,” Lang Qingyun said.
Shao Si wanted to ask more, but the clamor outside the house cut him off.
The ones who burst in were Meng Zhensheng’s family.
This had been a secluded courtyard Meng Zhensheng had specifically sought out, where no one was allowed to disturb them. But Lang Qingyun’s sword had caused no small commotion, and the Meng family had come searching.
Meng Zhensheng slowly woke. The moment he opened his eyes, he saw seventeen or eighteen members of his household rush forward, wailing as they surrounded him.
His wife threw herself into his arms. His mother tugged at his left arm. His father on the right pounded his cane furiously. His son clung to his leg. His older sister crowded close. His older brother was still on the way…
Meng Zhensheng’s head started to ache.
“Immortality, immortality! All day you think about immortality! You do not care about the household, you do not care about your wife and child—do you still have me and your mother in your eyes?!” his father cursed him.
“Does it hurt? Look at you—you got tricked again! If they cheated you out of money, that would be one thing, but if you had lost your life in there, how would I go on living?!” his mother cried, staring at the bruises on his neck.
“Husband, stop seeking immortality, all right? Let us just live properly…” his wife said in a trembling voice.
“Father…” his son bawled at the top of his lungs.
…
Meng Zhensheng rubbed his forehead, irritated. “Enough, enough! Stop shouting. You are giving me a headache. Seeking immortality and asking about the Dao is not a bad thing. Why do you keep trying to stop me?”
“Seeking immortality and asking about the Dao! Seeking immortality and asking about the Dao! After all these years of torment, what have you even gained?!” his father continued to curse.
Meng Zhensheng remained stubbornly obsessed. “These are all trials on my path to immortality.”
“Then are you going to take care of the household or not?! You do not come to fulfill filial duty before your parents, you do not look after your wife and child, you do not care about your brothers and sisters—is this the immortal Dao you are seeking?!” his father snapped, furious.
“Cultivation is supposed to be about letting go. After a hundred years, who will not end up as a mound in the wilderness?” Meng Zhensheng argued self-righteously. His father was so angered he nearly toppled over, pointing at him with a trembling hand, unable to form words beyond, “You, you, you…”
Meng Zhensheng’s obsession with seeking immortality and asking about the Dao was nothing new. The Meng family had tried to persuade him, scold him, even lock him up. The result was that the fool remained calm and began experimenting with fasting in the room, nearly starving himself to death.
The Meng family had no way to deal with him. Meanwhile, Meng Zhensheng believed he had already compromised greatly—if he were not still thinking of his family, he would have packed his bag long ago and gone to famous mountains and great rivers to seek a sect and beg for immortality.
Meng Zhensheng had always kept his family and his fellow “Dao-seeking friends” strictly separate. It was only today that Shao Si saw this scene, and he was stunned speechless.
Shuang Wenlü said leisurely, “Since you yearn so deeply to seek immortality and ask about the Dao, how about I give you an opportunity to cultivate immortality?”
Meng Zhensheng did not yet understand what was going on. After Shao Si explained, his eyes lit up instantly.
In all under heaven and earth, who had not heard of Sword Pavilion? Three thousand li of Sword Pavilion guard the world, and one sword startles and shatters the Heaven Beyond Heaven! It was a foremost sword-cultivation sect!
An opportunity from Sword Pavilion—how could that be anything but rare?
He nodded repeatedly. “Yes, yes, yes! Thank you, Immortal Elder!”
Shuang Wenlü said, “An opportunity is also an obstacle. If you can cross the obstacle, you may enter the gates of Sword Pavilion. If you cannot cross it, you will not be able to cultivate any other method again. Do you still want it?”
The Meng family were still teary-eyed, but they had no way to stop Meng Zhensheng. They only thought that if he was going to cultivate, he might as well obtain a proper inheritance. At least then he would not be tricked by villains again and lose his life.
Meng Zhensheng nodded hard again.
Shuang Wenlü extended a finger. Two streams of light shot out, each sinking into the foreheads of Meng Zhensheng and Shao Si.
Meng Zhensheng rubbed his forehead, staring at Shuang Wenlü in confusion. “Immortal Elder, why do I not feel anything at all?”
“Go back and sleep. You will naturally understand,” Shuang Wenlü said.
Hearing this, Meng Zhensheng could not wait. He hurriedly greeted Lang Qingyun and Shao Si, then left in a great surge with the Meng family, a whole crowd sweeping out together.
With matters here concluded, Shuang Wenlü prepared to leave. But Shao Si suddenly said, “Wait!”
“This…” He hesitated, not knowing how to address Shuang Wenlü. “Immortal Elder, I do not want the immortal opportunity. Can you give it to my Second Brother instead? Let him stop cultivating that problematic immortal method.”
Shuang Wenlü looked at him, then suddenly laughed. “A person cannot walk two paths at once.”
Shuang Wenlü drifted away, leaving behind only a fading trace. Yet Shao Si felt a chill in his heart. What did that sentence mean just now? Did it mean Second Brother no longer had a chance?
Lang Qingyun did not truly have no chance. But one’s Dao could only be walked by oneself. The Dao Seed had already become his obstacle. Cultivation was cultivation of the heart. If someone removed the Dao Seed for him at this moment, the tangible obstacle would be gone, yet the heart’s obstruction would remain. After that, it would only be harder to cross the heart’s obstruction.
Shuang Wenlü was in no hurry to take the Rule Fragment within Lang Qingyun. He still intended to use this Dao Seed—one that faintly carried the shadow of another world—to bait the fish and see who was plotting behind the scenes against the world. It was better to leave the Dao Seed within Lang Qingyun for now.
And when Shuang Wenlü said that the opportunities he gave Meng Zhensheng and Shao Si were also obstacles, he was not joking.
It was only a pity that Meng Zhensheng, caught up in his joy at the time, seemed not to have cared.
…
The Meng household.
Before night had even fallen, Meng Zhensheng could not wait to lie down on the bed. If his wife had not pulled him back to apply medicine, he would not even have bothered with the strangulation bruises on his neck. It was remarkable that he could endure the pain at all.
Once the medicine was applied, Meng Zhensheng lay down and prepared to sleep. He successfully ignored his parents’ sighs and his wife and child’s worried faces. In less than a quarter of an hour, he began to snore.
Less than half an hour later, Meng Zhensheng suddenly sprang up from the bed, screaming in terror.
Already far from Gannan City, Shuang Wenlü let out a low chuckle.
Sword Pavilion opened wide the road of cultivation. At its entrance was One-Thought Peak, the test for admission. Regardless of origin or background, whether human or beast, as long as one could climb One-Thought Peak, one could enter Sword Pavilion.
He had projected One-Thought Peak into the minds of Meng Zhensheng and Shao Si. The test still had to be taken; he had merely spared them the journey to Sword Pavilion.
On One-Thought Peak were restrictions. The admission test took only one character: “steadfast.” For mortals, this trial manifested as climbing a mountain. Nine thousand steps along a sheer cliff, with slanted tooth-like footholds carved to form steps. In some places there were only a few shallow pits carved into the cliff face, requiring one to cling tight to the rock in order to climb.
No time limit, no limit on attempts. As long as one ultimately reached the summit, regardless of aptitude, even if one were a witless fool, one could still bow and enter Sword Pavilion.
Cultivation required letting go. Letting go of others was easy; letting go of oneself was hard.
These people could fail and then return home.
But Meng Zhensheng had already lost that chance.
Every time he fell asleep, he dreamed that he appeared upon One-Thought Peak. Worse still, beneath his feet was only a small platform that was vanishing away. Below that platform was a ten-thousand-zhang abyss hidden by clouds and mist. The only road was the nine thousand tiers of steps above his head.
After several days like this, his wife quietly asked him, “Do you still want to cultivate immortality?”
Meng Zhensheng wept bitterly. “No! I will not cultivate! Never again!”
From that day on, One-Thought Peak vanished from his dreams, and Meng Zhensheng could finally sleep in peace. But the moment he so much as stirred a thought of seeking immortality and asking about the Dao again, that “opportunity” would respond, and the dream would reappear on its own.