Chapter 28: Quickly Summon Master, My Name Is Lin Rou
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The two silver-white blades of the sword emitted a pale moonlight. Two streaks of silver radiance shot straight toward Sui An’s face, their rigid sword intent infused with solemn righteousness.
Beneath the moon, the young man held the sword in his right hand. Loose strands of hair veiled his brows and eyes, while one side of his face fell into shadow. His high ponytail rose prominently on the right, and the white ribbons in his white hair fluttered in the wind.
Sui An pulled out the Qiankun Shield and positioned himself in front of Ling Xi, rummaging frantically through the treasures in his storage ring.
The sword aura raised a violent wave of air and struck the Qiankun Shield head-on. An earsplitting metallic clang rang out as sparks burst in a shower, forcing Sui An to retreat again and again.
“I’ll say it one more time. Let her go! I may consider escorting you to the sect to confess your crimes!” Baili Ze shouted coldly, not pausing in the slightest with his attacks.
His swordsmanship was founded on strength and uprightness. Every move was open and aboveboard, clean and decisive, with no wasted motion. It emphasized force and offered relatively few variations.
The higher one’s cultivation, the more powerful the techniques one could unleash.
Looking at the textbook sword forms before her, Ling Xi could not help sighing inwardly.
To train to this level, he probably practiced for several hours every day.
What a promising talent—truly worthy of applause!
What a pity he belonged to the Tianheng Sect.
Thinking of how she had just performed a hoop-jumping dance and slapped her palms for Liu Ruoyun, Ling Xi felt slightly guilty.
Combining this with what Liu Ruoyun and the others had said earlier, Sui An understood Baili Ze’s intention.
He wanted to take his junior sister away and vent Liu Ruoyun’s anger on her behalf.
How could that be allowed?
If he did that, Sui An would become the youngest disciple and be forcibly raised as a junior sister by his master.
Sui An’s silence looked like provocation to Baili Ze, as though he intended to fight to the bitter end.
Immortal sects could not tolerate scum who bullied young girls, and Baili Ze could not abide even the slightest impurity.
With a casual flick of his hand, he threw out a barrier talisman. The talisman hovered in the middle of the room, releasing four streams of spiritual light that poured down from the four corners in turn.
The entire room became a barrier of its own. Nothing inside would affect anything outside.
Sui An’s expression shifted slightly. He had not expected Baili Ze’s position within the sect to be higher than he had imagined.
A barrier talisman was equivalent to the combined power of dozens of ordinary talismans. To ensure that the talisman’s position and spiritual weight were properly balanced, great care had to be taken with the paper, ink, and brush used to draw it.
Its runes were complex as well, containing variations within variations. Most importantly, ordinary talisman cultivators could not draw one at all. At the very least, its creator had to be at the middle stage of the Golden Core Realm.
The Qingchuan region was renowned for its sword cultivators. Finding a talisman cultivator at the middle stage of the Golden Core Realm was harder than reaching the heavens. Asking one to spend time and effort drawing a barrier talisman?
Dream on.
With talisman cultivators so short of money, would they not rather draw something else? Why waste their spiritual power and time on such a thing? They could not even be bothered to glance at it.
Baili Ze raised his sword. A careless gleam spread through his eyes, while spiritual light coiled around the blade. A terrifying aura erupted from both edges of the sword, and every object in the room began to boom and rattle.
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Ling Xi stood behind Sui An, watching the fight, while the waiter leaned against one wall and narrowed his eyes as he studied the two of them.
Crack, crack, crack—
Whenever Sui An threw out a defensive artifact, Baili Ze shattered it with a single slash.
A few minutes later, the floor beneath Sui An was covered with fragments of artifacts, each flashing with a harsh, sinister light.
His eyes flickered. Instead of reaching into his ring for another artifact, he charged straight at Baili Ze with his tall, lanky frame.
“Junior Sister, I’m a body cultivator. I can take a beating for a while. Hurry and use a signal talisman to summon Master!”
Ling Xi’s eyes flickered. “…”
Given Luo Chen’s utter unreliability, a single red marriage thread could serve as both a mobile phone and a tracking device. Would he really have given her a talisman?!
Of course, she had only been bluffing to frighten the people from the Tianheng Sect, so they would not act recklessly and would instead let her do whatever she pleased.
Just as a sword came whistling through the air, aimed directly at the neck of her dim-witted senior brother, Ling Xi clenched her teeth. A flash of violet light passed through her eyes, and the beginning, development, turning point, and conclusion of the sword technique unfolded before her.
At her level, an ordinary person watching Baili Ze draw his sword would see nothing but a sheet of white cloth flapping wildly. She, however, could see the detailed breakdown of every movement.
The spiritual power of the double-edged sword spread outward from both blades. There was a blank space in the middle of the sword, and a brief interval between the two sword rays.
In theory, she could exploit that gap, take Sui An with her, and leap clear between the sword rays.
Ling Xi seized a long bench, gripped one end, and swung it outward. The instant the bench collided with the sword ray, hundreds upon hundreds of splinters exploded into the air.
The first sword ray was neutralized by the bench. Ling Xi dragged her dim-witted senior brother into a leap and flashed behind Baili Ze.
Smack—
The unsteady table crashed to the floor. The candle in the waiter’s hand was extinguished by the surging air, and the room plunged into darkness.
At Baili Ze’s level, even in a small area, he could roughly sense his surroundings despite being unable to see his own hand before his face. After all, he could use spiritual awareness to perceive objects.
Ling Xi replayed in her mind the scene of the talisman forming the barrier, trying to extract the sequence of its patterns so that she could break through the barrier with clever force.
She had just gambled that Baili Ze did not intend to take their lives and had therefore restrained his strength. Only then had she narrowly evaded the attack.
Crack—
The chaotic scene of hacking and slashing she had imagined did not occur.
Baili Ze sheathed his sword and took two steps forward. When he saw Ling Xi and Sui An watching him warily, he stopped where he was.
“Little girl, I mean you no harm. I thought you had been deceived by a villain.” Baili Ze pointed at his own face. “I never expected you two to be members of an immortal sect. My apologies, my apologies.”
Ling Xi patted her chest and let out a sigh of relief. In her mind appeared the image of Sui An grinning foolishly, his face covered in gray mud.
Hiss—
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She could not think about it. No wonder others had misunderstood.
Since Ling Xi had caused the trouble herself, she certainly would not reveal her real name. She would keep wearing this identity for as long as she could.
When one ventured outside, one’s identity was whatever one declared it to be.
“I have long admired the reputation of Tianheng Sect’s Eldest Senior Brother. You truly live up to it. We are merely nameless nobodies from the Dingkun Sect. My name is Lin Rou.” Ling Xi introduced herself with perfect composure.
Baili Ze’s brows twitched as he immediately recalled something. “The peerless genius junior sister who caused such a sensation?!”
Ling Xi merely smiled without confirming or denying it. She enjoyed letting people draw the strangest conclusions.
“And who is that senior brother beside you?” Baili Ze could not remember people unless he considered them worthy opponents, so he did not recognize any of the direct disciples from Tranquil Peak.
Ling Xi spoke before Sui An could, afraid he might give himself away. “Jun Muzhi, my Second Senior Brother.”
Baili Ze glanced at Jun Muzhi, his gaze turning slightly unfriendly. “As a senior brother, how could you leave your junior sister with her face covered in mud? Does your master not discipline you? Does your Eldest Senior Brother not discipline you?”
Sui An: “…”
He imagined himself reporting the matter to Luo Chen.
His master praising him enthusiastically, while his Eldest Senior Brother silently retreated into a corner and pretended to be a mushroom.
Seeing that he said nothing, Baili Ze assumed he felt guilty. Adopting the tone he usually used when lecturing his junior brothers and sisters, he scolded Sui An several times.
Ling Xi tried to change the subject, but Baili Ze instead mistook her silence for being accustomed to Sui An’s reckless behavior and gave him another scolding.
At last, the waiter standing in the corner yawned and raised his hand. “If this continues, you will have to wait until tomorrow before entering the black market.”
The group suddenly remembered their various reasons for entering the black market, and all their gazes turned toward the waiter.
The waiter glanced over the battered, dilapidated room, his eyes curving into crescent moons.
“Finally, I can replace everything with new ones. Heh heh. Do not think that because you are promising disciples of an immortal sect, I will let you off. In my line of work, the greatest taboo is forgetting to collect payment.”
Ling Xi silently shifted her gaze to the other two.
She was not paying.
In the end, Baili Ze contributed one artifact.
The waiter lit the candle again. Where the table had stood, a crack had appeared. The wooden floor sank down one level beneath the boards, revealing a passage layered below the floor.
A flight of bluestone stairs stretched downward, while fiery red lamplight spilled out from the opening.
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