Chapter 435: Junior Sister, You Held Back.
The bleak cold wind stirred Gu Mingxin’s long black hair, which coiled behind her like serpentine shadows. Her crimson eyes, hidden beneath a messy fringe, reflected an incoming, rapidly approaching ray of ice-blue light.
The already frigid desert seemed to plunge several degrees further, causing Gu Mingxin to involuntarily tense her shoulders.
Judging by the way Ye Anping’s junior sister was charging towards her on her sword, she was clearly not here for a friendly chat.
The first time Gu Mingxin met Ye Anping in Tianan City, this girl had left a far deeper impression on her than Feng Yu Die.
The two sword marks etched onto her shoulders still ached faintly.
It was the first time she had been so thoroughly outmatched by a sword cultivator whose realm was lower than hers, reduced to mere defense with no ability to counter.
Although disciples of the Xing Tian Division and Ye Anping provided support from behind that girl at the time, this girl was not like Feng Yu Die, that foolish white-haired idiot who relied solely on talent to overpower everyone.
Whether among immortal cultivators or demonic cultivators, there was an age-old, immutable truth:
Cultivators with mediocre aptitude who could still stand shoulder-to-shoulder with prodigies through their own efforts were far more formidable than those heavenly spiritual root cultivators who were blessed with destiny.
Ye Anping’s junior sister was precisely one of them.
Although Xue E had mentioned before that her spiritual root seemed a bit special, special aptitude usually meant extremely difficult cultivation. It was nothing compared to the heavenly spiritual root of Feng Yu Die or herself, who could adapt to all heavenly spiritual energies.
Gu Mingxin felt an inexplicable surge of excitement. Now that Ye Anping was absent, she truly wanted to have a duel with this orange-eyed girl, to decide a winner. However…
“Mingxin, I know you really want to duel her, but she seems to be very important to Ye Anping. If you injure her, Ye Anping…”
“… …”
“Also, He Jiming is right here. If anything goes wrong, he’ll be cannon fodder…”
Xue E persuaded Gu Mingxin in her ear.
Gu Mingxin was not letting her emotions get the better of her. This was no longer a situation where she could afford to lose control. Her primary mission now was to return to the Tian Mo Sect alive with He Jiming.
Seeing that Pei Lianxue was now less than two miles away, Gu Mingxin still hadn’t summoned her spirit sword. After taking a deep breath, she solemnly amplified her voice:
“Hiss— Wait!!!”
The sound wave, imbued with blood-killing spiritual energy, spread for dozens of miles.
Pei Lianxue, who was rapidly approaching on her sword, heard this. Recalling what her senior brother had said, she assumed Gu Mingxin was up to something. Her momentum instantly ceased, and she stopped about a hundred zhang away from Gu Mingxin.
Pei Lianxue’s silver spirit sword, held in her right hand, flipped once and rested behind her right shoulder. Simultaneously, she took out her small notebook with her left hand, turning the pages with spiritual energy. She glanced at it out of the corner of her eye:
“What is it?”
Seeing that Pei Lianxue had stopped, Gu Mingxin breathed a sigh of relief. She glanced sideways at He Jiming, who stood frozen in place, silently commanding him not to utter a word. Then she asked:
“We’ve met a few times. I still don’t know your name…”
“Mm… Liang Xiaoxue…”
?
Gu Mingxin was speechless. She paused, finding it rather careless that both Ye Anping and this girl would choose such perfunctory fake names. But she didn’t expose them and replied:
“Then, Miss Liang, could you let us pass? You and I fighting would not yield a quick victory. Why fight me to the death now?”
Pei Lianxue’s expression remained impassive. After a moment of thought, she realized she indeed had no need to fight Gu Mingxin, as her senior brother had not instructed her to do so.
Even coming here with Sect Master Ye to find Second Idiot was her own unilateral decision.
However…
Gu Mingxin had once tried to kill her senior brother. Back in the Northern Region’s Hantian Kingdom, her senior brother had been buried in the earth…
For this reason alone, Gu Mingxin must die!
Her orange eyes, hidden beneath her black, scattered hair, narrowed slightly. She switched her spirit sword, which was resting on her right shoulder, from a reverse grip to a regular grip.
Pei Lianxue glanced at the page she had noted in her small notebook in her left hand. She began to read:
“A Gu, you’ve been alone since you were little. I think you’re so pitiful. No one loves you, no one talks to you. You wholeheartedly want to seek benefits for the Tian Mo Sect, but in the end, you’re framed by the Tian Mo Sect as a criminal cultivator who colluded with immortals. Even the father who raised you never trusted you.”
“… …”
“Ha. Ha. Ha. You are truly pitiful… and pathetic… like a tamed little dog. The Sect Master of the Tian Mo Sect tossed you a few bones, and you started wagging your tail…”
“?”
Although Gu Mingxin could tell that Pei Lianxue was merely reciting from a book, the content of that “book” was every word a sharp arrow. Each word accurately struck the weak points of Gu Mingxin’s inner defenses.
If He Jiming’s previous insults could only annoy her…
Then the speech Pei Lianxue was reciting could ignite a prairie fire of rage in her heart.
Gu Mingxin’s left eye twitched slightly. Her gaze shifted to the small notebook in Pei Lianxue’s hand. The next moment, a bloody spirit energy emanated from her sleeve, condensing into a bloody spirit sword in her right hand.
The residual clouds in the night sky obscured the moon, and also blocked the pale moonlight shining on Gu Mingxin’s face.
Shadows emerged above her crimson eyes.
Gu Mingxin softly uttered a name:
“Ye Anping…”
Pei Lianxue gripped her silver spirit sword tightly at the same moment, rotating the blade by thirty degrees. A hint of wariness flickered in her orange eyes.
Xue E, who was by Gu Mingxin’s ear, sensed something was wrong and quickly continued her persuasion:
“Mingxin! Don’t listen to her nonsense. You’re not pitiful at all, you still have me! Mingxin, don’t be provoked, this is all a trick. Ye Anping knows how to make you feel bad; they conspired together! This girl probably doesn’t even know about the situation with the Golden Idiot and the White Idiot. Just tell her! Tell her you spared that White Idiot’s life…”
Despite Xue E’s earnest pleas, Gu Mingxin could no longer hear her.
“Ye Anping, Ye Anping, Ye Anping…”
“… …”
“Ye—An—”
The residual clouds slowly drifted by, revealing the bright moon behind them once more, casting a frost-like moonlight upon the two confronting figures.
“Ping!!!”
Clang—
A sharp sword cry echoed.
The blood-red light of the crimson spirit sword flashed like a sky-splitting gash above the Gobi Desert. The cold Gobi under the moonlight instantly lost its color.
Pei Lianxue calmly raised her spirit sword.
Ding—
The two spirit swords collided abruptly, stirring up a gale.
Facing Gu Mingxin’s violent close-quarters assault and her incredibly powerful sword strike, Pei Lianxue felt as if her sword-wielding right hand was being pressed by ten thousand jin of force. She immediately felt a sense of unease.
Crack—
With a crisp clang of metal snapping, Pei Lianxue’s spirit sword surrendered before her arm. Under the edge of the bloody spirit sword, it broke into two pieces. A shard of the sword grazed past her cheek, drawing a bloodied gash on her face.
Gu Mingxin’s crimson eyes, filled with killing intent, widened. Seeing that her sword was broken, the corners of her lips curved into a sneer. She immediately twisted the spirit sword in her hand and slashed towards Pei Lianxue’s shoulder.
Gu Mingxin was somewhat surprised. She had thought she would have dispatched this girl with one strike.
It wasn’t until she saw Pei Lianxue’s expressionless face and unwavering eyes…
It seemed Pei Lianxue had anticipated her spirit sword breaking. She had already concealed a dagger, about an arm’s length long, in her left sleeve. Her small notebook contained notes…
Her senior brother had told her that if she encountered Gu Mingxin without the Snow Jade Myriad Spirit Sword, she should be prepared for every sword clash to break her spirit sword.
Although the dagger was shorter than a sword and not as easy to wield, just before Gu Mingxin’s sword could strike her shoulder, she instantly unleashed ten rays of spiritual light, striking a single point on the blade of the bloody spirit sword.
Clang—!
The ten metallic strikes merged into almost a single sound.
Spiritual light exploded, and Gu Mingxin’s right-hand spirit sword was directly flicked away. The dagger held in Pei Lianxue’s left hand, after unleashing this sword art, also disintegrated into fragments, scattering into debris on her left hand.
A hint of disbelief flickered in Gu Mingxin’s eyes.
Before she could comprehend, ten more ice-blue sword qi attacked the point of her neck from different directions.
Seizing the opportunity, Pei Lianxue retrieved another spare spirit sword from her storage bag. She had confiscated many swords from demonic cultivators when killing them, and her senior brother had also prepared many for her, for fear she might run out of swords if she met Gu Mingxin.
The number of spirit swords in her storage bag was ample!
Her orange eyes remained calm. As she wielded her sword, Pei Lianxue’s peripheral vision swept over He Jiming, who stood stunned nearby. She flicked her free left hand.
While attacking Gu Mingxin with the Leaf Shadow Sword Art from her right hand, she infused spiritual energy into another spirit sword and shot it like an arrow towards He Jiming’s neck.
Ding ding ding—
After parrying the attack, Gu Mingxin glimpsed the spirit sword heading towards He Jiming. Her eyes widened instantly, and she quickly twisted her sword and struck the “arrow-like sword”…
Swish—
The spirit sword, originally aimed at He Jiming’s throat, was deflected by Gu Mingxin’s intervention, whizzing past He Jiming’s face and shearing off half of his ear.
However, He Jiming showed no reaction.
To him, the three moves of attack and defense between Gu Mingxin and Pei Lianxue happened in the blink of an eye.
He didn’t even understand that Gu Mingxin had just saved his life…
Dang dang—
In his eyes, the figures of Gu Mingxin and the immortal cultivator woman were reduced to two afterimages, one crimson and one azure. Countless crescent arcs scattered and flew dozens of feet in front of him, making the world flicker between light and darkness.
He Jiming was not the only one stunned. Ye Ao, who was desperately rushing towards them from a distance, also froze.
This was the first time Ye Ao had witnessed Pei Lianxue truly wield her sword, and the first time he had seen a Core Formation Stage sword cultivator fight at this level.
He was also a Core Formation Stage cultivator, a realm higher than Pei Lianxue. How could he not even track a single trace of her movements?
“Hiss…”
Ye Ao took a deep breath. Ahead, about two hundred zhang away, sword light flowed. The sounds of shattering spirit swords, collisions, and sparks filled his vision.
His right hand, which was held aloft, ready to cast a spell, found no target, nowhere to land…
He hesitated for a while, then simply ignored Pei Lianxue and Gu Mingxin. His gaze fell upon the other demonic cultivator standing foolishly in the sword light.
Ye Ao’s lips twitched slightly. He formed a hand seal, and instantly, dark clouds gathered in the sky. A bolt of lightning, transforming into a soaring dragon, roared down towards He Jiming’s forehead.
However, the very next moment, a bloody sword light severed the dragon’s head, causing the lightning spiritual energy to explode in mid-air.
Boom—
“Ah?”
Ye Ao was shocked. His lightning spell had been cut by a sword?
Before he could react, a bloody sword light shot vertically towards the back of his neck.
From below, Pei Lianxue’s voice rang out:
“Sect Master Ye! Retreat!”
Boom—
A spirit sword flew directly towards him, intercepting the bloody sword light three feet in front of his chest. It exploded into spiritual light, sending Ye Ao, who was standing on his flying sword, flying back dozens of feet before he could stabilize himself.
Hearing Pei Lianxue’s shout, Ye Ao was not the only one affected.
Gu Mingxin’s heart clenched slightly. She glanced towards Ye Ao. Ye Anping’s father? Why was his cultivation only at the Core Formation Stage?
Ding ding—
With her own sword art, she continuously blocked each of Pei Lianxue’s sword lights that were aimed at her vital points.
And just as the sword qi she sent towards Ye Ao was blocked, Pei Lianxue’s previously emotionless orange eyes suddenly revealed a chilling killing intent.
At that moment, Gu Mingxin understood. She seemed to have angered this girl.
But she was also puzzled. Had this girl not been using her full strength until now?
A sense of dread surged through her. However, the next moment, it was replaced by a surge of fighting spirit.
This was the first time in her many years of life that Gu Mingxin had encountered such a terrifying sword cultivator, far more interesting than that foolish white idiot Feng Yu Die.
“Hehehehehe—!!! Ye Anping!!!”
Pei Lianxue’s eyes widened slightly. She gripped her spirit sword, gritted her teeth, and took a shallow breath, roaring:
“You’re not allowed to call him!”
A faint azure spiritual light suddenly appeared on the body of her silver spirit sword, which was then instantly covered in ice crystals. She looked silently at Gu Mingxin, and after dodging a sword strike, she turned and unleashed a vertical slash.
Swish—
An ice-blue sword qi swept across the heavens and earth, carving an azure icy line on the Gobi below. It froze the passing residual clouds into lumps of ice, which then plummeted downwards.
Simultaneously, Gu Mingxin’s right hand, holding the bloody spirit sword, appeared before her eyes.
She hadn’t even seen clearly. After a moment of stunned reaction, she realized her hand had been severed by that girl.
“Mingxin!!”
Gu Mingxin took a deep breath, no longer caring about Xue E’s shouts from above. She grabbed her severed right hand with her left and placed the spirit sword in front of her neck.
Ding—
Sparks flew from the sword. Pei Lianxue’s spirit sword, which was aimed at her neck, was blocked. But it didn’t stop. Pei Lianxue grabbed another spirit sword she had prepared by her side, intending to sever her left arm from another direction.
However, at this moment, a colossal black shadow caught her attention.
A massive black python erupted from the yellow sand about a hundred feet below. It opened its fanged maw and charged towards them.
Pei Lianxue’s brows furrowed slightly. She immediately kicked Gu Mingxin in the abdomen, then grabbed another spirit sword, gritted her teeth, and took a breath—
“Hya—!”
The ice-blue sword qi swept downwards like a curved arc towards the python’s head. Upon contact, it instantly encased the slippery black python in a layer of ice, freezing it into a colossal ice sculpture.
Xue E, who was calling out “Ah Mang” in the sky, widened her eyes in disbelief:
“Ah?!”
But within a breath, the ice layer was shattered by the black python within, and it continued to surge towards Pei Lianxue, its mouth agape.
Seeing that she could not block it, Pei Lianxue pouted slightly, swooped down, and dumped all the remaining dozens of spirit swords from her storage bag into the python’s maw. Then, using one of the swords as a stepping stone, she twisted her body and narrowly dodged past the snake’s body.
Hanging upside down in mid-air, Pei Lianxue looked at the black python, formed a hand seal before her chest, and softly uttered:
“Break!”
Almost instantly, countless sword lights erupted from within the black python’s nearly thousand-foot-long body, carving curved arcs through its dark, scaly hide.
The black python writhed and howled weakly, then traced a parabolic arc across the sky before burrowing into the yellow sand, slithering towards the west.
Pei Lianxue watched the waves of sand it created on the surface and suddenly realized it was a diversion. She quickly turned her head to look at Gu Mingxin, whom she had just kicked away.
However, neither Gu Mingxin nor He Jiming were there anymore.
She could only see a bloody spiritual light, its back turned to her, fleeing into the distance…
Seeing Gu Mingxin escape, Pei Lianxue touched her storage bag and found that she had run out of swords. Her cheeks puffed out, and she complained aloud:
“Wuwu…”
Then she suddenly remembered Sect Master Ye, who had been blown away earlier, and quickly turned to look at Ye Ao.
Seeing him protected by spiritual energy, suspended safely about three hundred zhang away, Pei Lianxue breathed a sigh of relief. She flew to Ye Ao, poked her head out to check for injuries, and asked:
“Sect Master Ye, are you injured?”
“…Ah.” Ye Ao came back to his senses, nodded dazedly, then looked at the two massive pits left by the black python in the yellow sand and the icy line Pei Lianxue had carved on the Gobi. He swallowed hard, “I’m fine. It’s you, Pei girl…”
“I’m fine.”
“Oh… Mm, then…”
“Senior brother said, ‘Do not pursue a cornered enemy.’ So I won’t pursue.”
“Oh… oh…”
Ye Ao wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, suddenly feeling a pang of shame. What kind of girl had his precious son raised?
But looking at Pei Lianxue’s dazed face, he calmed down a little.
This was his son’s wife! What was he, an old father, afraid of?
“Hiss—” Ye Ao took a deep breath. He looked back at the eighty-eight thousand circling in the distance, assumed the dignified demeanor of a sect leader, stroked his beard, and said, “Then you should return to the crane’s back and meditate. I’ll take you and continue searching for that Feng girl along the way.”
“Mm… Mm?”
Pei Lianxue nodded, then suddenly her eyes lit up as if she had seen something. She immediately rushed downwards.
“Ah? Pei girl… Where are you going?”
Just as Ye Ao was confused, he saw Pei Lianxue land on a sand dune, dig with her hands in the sand, and dig out a severed hand. She grabbed it and flew back.
“Sect Master Ye, Gu Mingxin’s hand. I cut it off.”
“… …”
“I’ll take it to show Senior brother later…”
Ye Ao looked at Pei Lianxue, who was holding a right hand, nodded as if he had something to say but didn’t, and then led Pei Lianxue back to the back of the distant immortal crane. Riding the crane, they continued along the path Feng Yu Die and the others had taken, flying forward.
… …
