Crack!
The sound of hearts shattering echoed throughout Sword Hall No. 8.
After waiting with such eager anticipation, a woman had finally appeared…and she was an icy fairy of breathtaking beauty!
Some of the male students had already begun fixing their hair, bright, wholesome smiles spreading across their faces. Yet in the end… she already had a Dao companion!
With that single “Xiang Gong” from the fairy, countless dreams were crushed.
(TN: Xiang Gong means husband.)
The male students all turned ashen with despair. Hearing the fairy they had fallen in love with at first sight openly call another man “husband” right in front of them… the feeling was even worse than being killed.
“Sister Saintess, what brings you here?”
Chu Feng asked. First it had been Sister Tiantian, and now it was Sister Saintess. Neither of them had given him any warning before showing up.
Liu Xueyao took out a silver token, unlike the wooden token Chu Feng had just received.
The moment Qian Shao saw the silver token, he immediately bowed respectfully.
“So you’re an Elder. This student begs your pardon for the disrespect.”
Within the Hundred Clans Academy, wooden, bronze, silver, jade, and gold tokens represented one’s seniority and strength.
Students carried wooden tokens. Bronze tokens were for Fifth-Rank cultivators, while silver tokens were for Sixth-Rank cultivators.
Jade tokens belonged to Seventh-Rank cultivators, while gold tokens were reserved for Eighth-Rank cultivators. As for Ninth-Rank cultivators, they carried no token at all. Aside from the Dean and Vice Dean, who appeared in public from time to time, the rest of the Ninth-Rank experts almost never emerged from seclusion.
Suddenly, Liu Xueyao’s indifferent, crystal-clear eyes shifted toward Qian Shao.
At that moment, Qian Shao’s heart surged with excitement. Unlike everyone else, whose hearts had shattered upon hearing the fairy call out “Xiang Gong”, he knew the truth. This kid’s name really was Xiang Gong. It simply meant the fairy happened to know him.
But now…
The fairy was actually looking at him!
Could it be that he had caught the fairy’s eye?
Was this… the arrival of his destined romance?
In that instant, Qian Shao had already started thinking of names for their future children.
Then Liu Xueyao looked at him and said in her cold, emotionless voice,
“Bark.”
The smug smile that had just appeared on Qian Shao’s face instantly froze.
After all, he had just declared that if Chu Feng really had a sparring partner, he would get on all fours and bark like a dog.
“E-Elder, the bet between this kid and me was whether he had a sparring partner. Elder, you…”
Qian Shao had been about to say, “Elder, are you this kid’s sparring partner?”
Before he could finish, an icy aura erupted from Liu Xueyao’s body.
The Sword Hall, which had been buzzing with excitement because of her arrival, fell deathly silent in an instant.
Those standing even slightly too close felt their knees go weak as a bone-chilling cold seeped into their very marrow.
What a terrifying aura!
It was even more overwhelming than that of most of the academy’s Elders!
The students in the Sword Hall were mostly Third- and Fourth-Rank cultivators. How could they possibly withstand Liu Xueyao’s oppressive presence?
At such close range, Qian Shao felt the full force of Liu Xueyao’s icy aura. He nearly soiled himself on the spot. Fortunately, years of training his sphincter muscles with his buddies paid off, and he managed to clench everything shut just in time.
A wise man knows when to yield. Lowering his pride just a little, Qian Shao cleared his throat.
“Woof! Woof woof! Woof! Woof woof!”
.
There was no need to wait until tomorrow. By tonight alone, Qian Shao’s reputation would have spread throughout the entire Sword Academy.
But Qian Shao didn’t care in the slightest. In the cultivation world, staying alive mattered more than anything else. Because of that, he barked with remarkable enthusiasm, terrified that Liu Xueyao might be dissatisfied.
Only after Liu Xueyao withdrew her aura did Qian Shao finally stop, his throat already hoarse from all the barking.
The moment he finished, he didn’t dare remain another second. He turned tail and fled as fast as his legs could carry him.
Chu Feng scratched his head. It seemed Sister Saintess had heard what Qian Shao said earlier.
“Husband, would you like to practice swordsmanship?”
As she looked at Chu Feng, the indifference in Liu Xueyao’s clear eyes quickly melted away.
Feeling the countless gazes fixed upon them, Chu Feng said,
“Let’s do it later. Sister Saintess, we should leave first.”
If they practiced swordsmanship here, they would definitely become the center of everyone’s attention. He’d rather avoid something so embarrassing. Showing off in front of a crowd was one thing….but doing something this embarrassing in public?
No way.
As Chu Feng left with Liu Xueyao, the previously silent Sword Hall instantly exploded into an uproar.
Two earth-shattering pieces of news had emerged today.
The first was that Qian Shao had barked like a dog. He might as well flee the Hundred Clans Academy overnight, sword in hand.
The second was that an ethereally beautiful, ice-cold fairy had suddenly appeared in the Sword Academy.
Moreover, no one had ever seen her before!
***
Practicing the sword depended on two key factors: talent and hard work.
Either you possessed monstrous talent, or you made up for it through relentless effort.
No matter how deeply one studied the sword, if they never crossed blades with others, it would ultimately amount to nothing more than armchair theory…beautiful in form, but useless in practice.
Liu Xueyao was different from Lu Xiyue and Bai Yuyan. When it came to teaching, she was completely serious. There were no accidental moments where her Husband somehow stumbled into her embrace.
Whenever Chu Feng exposed an opening, she never showed the slightest mercy, striking directly at his weakness.
As a result, Chu Feng was beaten so thoroughly that he began to wonder whether he had really defeated Lin Nuo before.
“Husband, too slow.”
Holding a wooden sword in one hand, Liu Xueyao stood with a straight, elegant posture, her expression cold and solemn.
“Hiss…”
Chu Feng sucked in a sharp breath from the pain. Even after drawing upon the power of his Nine-Mark Sword Foundation, he still couldn’t shake Sister Saintess in the slightest.
They were in a peach blossom grove. Chu Feng had chosen this place for sword practice because no one would disturb them.
He circulated his true qi, and brilliant sword light burst forth.
With a single thrust, a sword dragon condensed from sword intent opened its jaws and charged straight toward Liu Xueyao.
Whoosh—
The surrounding peach blossoms danced with the currents of sword qi, swirling around Chu Feng in a graceful vortex.
Even when faced with Chu Feng’s full-powered strike without using his Five-Colored Sword Qi, Liu Xueyao didn’t move a single step.
She remained standing exactly where she was.
Why isn’t Saintess Sister dodging?
Seeing the sword dragon only a breath away while Saintess Sister remained completely still, Chu Feng began to panic, afraid he might actually hurt her.
In that brief instant of hesitation, Liu Xueyao made her move.
A flash of sword light cut through the air.
With a single slash, the sword dragon was shattered.
Chu Feng instantly lost his composure. Before he could even defend himself, he was blasted backward, crashing heavily onto the ground.
Even the Human Emperor Sword flew from his grasp, embedding itself diagonally into the earth.
Liu Xueyao spoke calmly.
“Husband, hesitation… is defeat.”
For a moment, Chu Feng seemed to see a huge red “NOOB” floating before his eyes.
It also reminded him of that Sword Saint who would suddenly pull out a handgun out of nowhere.
That guy had always been a nightmare to fight.
“Cough… cough…”
Chu Feng steadied his breathing and climbed back to his feet.
“Saintess Sister… are you sure your cultivation isn’t on the same level as Aunt Zi’s?”
Sparring with Saintess Sister gave him the exact same feeling he had when facing Aunt Zi. His sword intent seemed to sink into a bottomless swamp, swallowed up completely.
Maintaining her cold expression, Liu Xueyao walked over. Raising her delicate hand, she gently plucked a peach blossom petal from Husband’s hair.
In her previous life, her cultivation had already reached Half-Step Ninth Rank. Although she had been reborn and her cultivation had yet to recover to its former level, her soul and her mastery of the sword were exactly the same as they had been in her previous life.
“Not at all. But Husband… one day, you’ll be the same as me.”
In her previous life, despite the severe lack of cultivation resources, Husband had still stood at the very pinnacle of the cultivation world.
That alone showed just how terrifying his talent for the sword truly was.
“But… Husband, your sword is lost.”
Liu Xueyao pointed out Chu Feng’s greatest shortcoming.
“Lost?”
Chu Feng looked blankly at her, unable to understand. A sword could be… lost?
Liu Xueyao explained,
“Every sword has a reason to be drawn. Husband, your sword lacks a reason to leave its sheath.”
“Uh… defeating my enemies? Doesn’t that count?”
In Chu Feng’s understanding, wasn’t the purpose of drawing his sword simply to defeat his opponents?
Liu Xueyao gently shook her head.
“Some wield the sword to seek the Great Dao. Some wield it to sweep across an era undefeated. Husband… what is your reason?”
She blinked her beautiful eyes and quietly gazed at the young man before her.
The question instantly left Chu Feng speechless.
He didn’t know.
Why did he draw his sword?
Up until now, the only reason he had pursued the sword was to become stronger as quickly as possible and defeat Lin Nuo, the story’s protagonist. The relationship between him and Lin Nuo had already reached the point where only one of them could survive.
If it wasn’t simply to defeat his enemies…
Then…
What was his reason?
In that instant, Chu Feng fell into confusion. A lost expression appeared on his face as he stared at the Human Emperor Sword standing upright in the distance, embedded in the earth.
…The reason to draw my sword?
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