Chapter 115 – Practice the Sword?

The work of demons?

Zhan Changfeng naturally thought of that Wolf King, and also of Yu Sheng.

On the day of the archery ceremony examination, she had noticed a trace of demonic energy clinging to Yu Sheng. It was faint and hard to detect, but highly malignant. Since her own residence happened to be under renovation, she had taken the opportunity to suggest staying at Yu Sheng’s place. Unfortunately, after the incident at Medicine Mountain, she simply hadn’t had time to see Yu Sheng.

Thinking of this, Zhan Changfeng turned on her heel and went to Yu Sheng’s to mooch a place to stay.

“You should know, even though it’s been over twenty days, that carpenter I hired stopped showing up the day after I disappeared. The house is still in shambles.”

Yu Sheng looked speechlessly at this person who said it all with a perfectly straight face. It wasn’t as if she’d said she couldn’t stay.

“I’ve noticed you’ve not only grown taller, but your skin’s gotten thicker too.” Yu Sheng couldn’t hold back and fired right back at her.

Zhan Changfeng didn’t mind in the least. Seeing that Yu Sheng was perfectly fine with no trace of demonic energy on her, she brought up another topic. “If you don’t mind my asking, what did you see when you entered the fog?”

She gave a rough account of the scene of devastation she had witnessed.

Yu Sheng didn’t even know how many times she’d be shocked today. “How is that possible? Although I couldn’t identify all the herbs inside, I can say with certainty that it was a medicinal garden.”

“An immortal’s medicinal garden, at that. The vast and magnificent scenery within was unlike anything seen in this world,” Yu Sheng emphasized.

“Did you see anything else besides the medicinal garden?”

Yu Sheng thought back. “No. There were only celestial herbs, and you could only bring out a single stalk.”

Zhan Changfeng mulled it over and arrived at a rough guess: this immortal’s medicinal garden had been ransacked, and the one who ransacked it was trapped within the fog, fighting that toad.

If that were the case, then the reports of someone seeing a man collecting an entire field of Beacon Flame Lure might well be true.

Perhaps that man was the very one who had looted the garden.

But none of this was something she could concern herself with.

She had already handed the Shennong Codex over to the Shennong Sect. Whatever karmic consequences arose wouldn’t touch her.

The affairs of Medicine Mountain could wait. The matter of the wolf pack on Bijia Mountain, however, was far from over.

During the days Zhan Changfeng stayed at the Community School, she went to secluded spots on the mountain to practice her sword.

Three years ago, after her physical body had been damaged, she had devoted herself to studying her Pure Yin Bones and comprehending soul arts, rarely practicing the sword with any focus.

If she was going to practice the sword, she would practice the fundamentals—swinging the blade.

How does one swing a sword?

You fix an imaginary point somewhere in your line of sight and make every single swing land precisely on that point, without the slightest deviation. This was painstaking work, a craft honed through endless repetition, where not even a hair’s breadth of error was permitted.

When she first began, she was too small and the sword too heavy—she could barely lift it.

Gradually she moved from a wooden sword, to an iron sword, to an eighty-six-jin black iron sword.

Her swing count progressed from one hundred swings with forty-five misses and arms too sore to lift, to one thousand swings with one hundred and one misses and fingers nearly too weak to grip the hilt.

Then there were the fundamental sword techniques: thrust, cleave, hook, flick, cloud, draw, twist, block, lift, point, snap, intercept, embrace, guide, pierce, raise, slash, sweep, wrist cut-flower, and wrist flick-flower. Each technique had numerous variations—for instance, the thrust could be subdivided into level thrust, upward thrust, downward thrust, low thrust, reverse thrust, and probing thrust. The cleave could be divided into left spinning cleave, right spinning cleave, and rear spinning cleave. The hook could be split into upward hook, downward hook, and wheeling hook.

To refine each form to perfection, to practice until not a single hair’s breadth was off—that was not something achievable through the simple addition of time and effort.

As Zhan Changfeng swung her sword, she was simultaneously calculating the angle of each stroke, the magnitude of force, and the range of her body’s movements. She treated herself as a machine to be calibrated, all for the sake of achieving a satisfactory result.

Mind, body, and sword gradually reached unity—where the mind directed, the body followed, and the sword moved as an extension of her arm. Her endurance for consecutive swings climbed higher while her error rate dropped lower.

At last, after a full four years of training, she could swing ten thousand times in one shichen with a one hundred percent accuracy rate. Her body had formed instinct; without deliberate calculation, every stroke landed precisely without the slightest deviation.

But now she discovered that her sword had begun to stray.

The instinct built through countless hours could be undone by a single period of neglect.

Zhan Changfeng leaned on her sword, sweat trickling down her cheeks. Ji Guang had spoken those four words—Return-to-One Sword Sect—and the only person she could think of was the Long-bearded Daoist.

The only thing in her life connected to the “sword” was the sword art the Long-bearded Daoist had taught her.

The way of the sword?

She didn’t know. She was one who wielded a sword, yet she had never thought of becoming a swordswoman.

But setting aside the Long-bearded Daoist and the way of the sword, she still hadn’t found anything among the known sects and figures that resembled the Nine-Cycle Rebirth Art.

The unique nature of the Nine-Cycle Rebirth Art meant she couldn’t afford to expose it too much at this stage, which made the Martial Arts Academy the best choice for her.

She also hoped that within the word “martial,” she would find her own reason for studying the way of the sword.

Feet treading the Astral Step, she thrust, hooked upward, and flicked in reverse—her momentum like rolling thunder, wild and unrestrained. The direction of the wind, the sway of grass blades—everything seemed drawn along by the sword in her hand, forming a strange rhythm. In this moment she seemed to merge with all things in nature, yet also to tower above all living beings. Surging true qi battered against her meridians, its force compounding layer upon layer.

“Ha!” Her bones rang out in a clear chime. The torrential true qi broke free of her body’s confines and, riding a sweeping horizontal slash, released a tremendous wave of power. Before her, a towering tree so thick that three people couldn’t wrap their arms around it shook violently, its branches and leaves thrashing as though struck by a hurricane.

Two figures stepped out from behind the tree. That sword stroke had essentially been aimed indirectly at them, and the heart-stopping force of it was enough to make anyone shudder. They hadn’t expected that someone who, just months ago, had left them with the impression of being “delicate and frail” had already grown terrifyingly powerful—her depths impossible to fathom.

These two were none other than the Leng siblings, Leng Yi’an and Leng Yuzi, whom she had encountered on Bijia Mountain. Leng Yi’an’s eyes blazed bright with fighting spirit as he said in a deep voice, “Fine sword.”

Leng Yuzi studied the sword-wielding figure, and couldn’t help but feel a jolt of surprise. This person seemed even colder than before.

Previously, though her expression had been sharp and cool, there had still been a trace of warmth beneath it. Now, as she looked at them, her expression was perfectly normal—but that was precisely the problem. It was too normal. No sorrow, no joy, no anger, no grief. As if she had reined in every last emotion.

That coldness wasn’t directed at anyone. It was cold simply because she stood so high above—like an immortal playing a qin atop a snow-capped peak, a wanderer beyond the mortal world brewing wine and dancing with a sword in the depths of moonlight. She stood there in flowing wide sleeves and long robes, carrying the refined nobility of an old aristocratic house and the ethereal detachment of one who dwelt beyond the world, occasionally casting a glance downward and noticing the mortals below.

She said nothing, only watched them, and her gaze alone was enough to make them feel self-conscious. Leng Yuzi steeled herself and explained, “We didn’t come to spy on your training. We just happened to pass by and didn’t have time to announce ourselves.”

Zhan Changfeng sheathed her sword and casually hooked a water gourd from nearby. “What brings you here?”

Leng Yuzi relaxed slightly. “We came because of the man-eating incidents.”

By her count, it had been a month since she came down from Medicine Mountain. In the meantime, it seemed two more people had died. The killer left no trace whatsoever. She didn’t pay much attention to the matter—she only caught bits and pieces when people discussed it in passing.

Leng Yi’an cut straight to the point. “Thirteen people. Now only you, us, Cheng Zhigao, and Xiao Shaobai remain. We can’t just sit around waiting to die.”

Relying on others for protection indefinitely was no solution either. Besides, they were martial practitioners—having to tiptoe around every time they went out was galling.

That thing would come for them eventually. Better to set a trap and lure it out.

Zhan Changfeng’s mind turned quickly, and she grasped the gist of their plan. “You’re that certain it’s the Wolf King taking revenge?”

“There’s no other possibility,” said Leng Yuzi. “The most recent man-eating case has already confirmed it.”

“The most recent?”

Leng Yuzi looked at her quizzically. “Don’t tell me you haven’t heard about it?”

“Haven’t had the time.”

“…”

The siblings couldn’t help but exchange a glance. Was she simply not worried, or had she become so obsessed with training that she’d lost touch with everything else?

Leng Yi’an spoke with firm conviction. “When the most recent man-eating case occurred, the Militia found a tuft of wolf fur beside the remains.”

“We suspect it’s that Wolf King. Something capable of entering and leaving villages undetected, and of overpowering martial practitioners—nothing but that Wolf King could manage it.”