Chapter 186 (1): Guard the Night
After Chen Ping'an lost consciousness, the little boy in azure finally let go of the little girl in pink's elbow as they stood on the stairs to the second floor. The little girl sprinted upstairs, and her face was already drenched with tears. She cried uncontrollably, and as she checked Chen Ping'an's pulse and observed his soul, she turned around and sobbed, "Why did you stop me? You ungrateful and cold-blooded person... If Master dies, I'll fight you to the death..."
The little boy in azure appeared cold and expressionless, and he said, "I call you silly girl, yet you're still unwilling to admit it. If you recklessly interrupted Chen Ping'an's Qi circulation just then, you would have been categorized as an enemy by that burst of sword qi. At that time, not only would you have been beaten half dead, but you would have detrimentally affected Chen Ping'an's Dao attainment catalyst as well. In fact, you might even have killed him. This is a positive fated opportunity, yet you somehow almost turned it into a tragic calamity."
The little girl in pink choked with broken-hearted sobs, and she whimpered, "Master is drenched in blood, and Master is almost about to die! Are you happy now? I'm not silly! I know that you're coveting Master's snake gall pebbles. Master should never have brought you home. You're far too ungrateful and unconscionable. Master is so good to us, and yet..."
With a light jump, the little boy in azure landed on the green bamboo railing where he then squatted down and snapped, "It's not up to you to say whether Chen Ping'an's dead or not. With your measly cultivation, what the hell do you know?"
The little girl's sobs became quieter and quieter, and this was because she discovered the changing state of the two bursts of Qi inside Chen Ping'an's body. They had initially been chaotic and wild, yet they were now gradually becoming orderly and calm. This was much like a meeting between mountains and water.
Even though the two would collide in the beginning and give rise to tumultuous and towering waves, this fearsome nature would gradually subside and transform into calm and tranquility. Similarly, Chen Ping'an's soul which was violently trembling in agonizing pain also started to settle down, with its painful wails eventually turning into quiet whimpers.
Chen Ping'an was in deep slumber, and the twisted expression on his tanned face slowly loosened and returned to normal. In the end, the young boy surprisingly looked like an infant who was enjoying a comfortable nap while being swaddled in someone's arms.
The little girl in pink was overjoyed, and her face was filled with tear stains as she turned to the little boy in azure and said in a low voice, "Master is okay, it's just that he's truly fallen asleep."
The little boy in azure rolled his eyes. He stood up, and he treated the railing as a path as he started to take a stroll.
After Chen Ping'an fell unconscious, it was as if the little girl in pink completely lost all direction. She could only turn to the little boy in azure and ask, "What should we do now?"
The little boy in azure remained silent as he paced back and forth along the railing. In reality, he only had a fuzzy understanding of the situation as well. Thus, he genuinely didn't dare to make any conclusions about what they should do. He did indeed covet Chen Ping'an's snake gall pebbles, but to say that he would take advantage of someone's misfortune and kick them while they were down? This was an insult to him, the good brother of the Imperial River's great river god. He would rather punch Chen Ping'an to death fair and square and openly take his small mountain of snake gall pebbles than sneakily snatch them away while he was unconscious.
In the cultivation world, one needed to have a sense of morality and justice.
This was the principle that he had always abided by.
After becoming drunk, the great river god of the Imperial River had once made a very knowledgeable remark. "One can't uphold too much morality and justice in the cultivation world, but one needs to uphold these to at least some degree. If one completely abandons these things, then one will suffer a fate no different from the final True Dragon. Such people will eventually drown to death in the cultivation world."
The little boy's heart jolted, and a shadow suddenly fell across him. Looking up, he discovered that a white-robed god was standing beside him with a smile that was asking for a beating. The god was looking down at him.
Wei Bo smiled at the little boy in azure and said, "Little water snake, I'm very surprised that you didn't think about killing your master."
The little boy in azure couldn't stand this person's handsome appearance, and it was as if the two of them were destined to clash with each other. This was especially the case now that Wei Bo was peering down at him and speaking with a mocking tone. The little boy couldn't help but curse, "I regret the fact that I didn't do your mother back then!"
Wei Bo's large sleeve fluttered gently as he gracefully jumped down from the railing. While doing so, he lightly patted the little boy's head and chuckled, "How naughty."
This looked like an ordinary pat, yet the little boy's legs were pushed apart, causing him to fall on his bum on the railing. He grimaced and clasped his behind in pain.
If this were somewhere else, even a mountain of copper or steel might have been crushed by the little boy's fall. However, this small bamboo building was truly very sturdy.
Wei Bo sat down beside Chen Ping'an and placed a hand on the young boy's wrist. His pulse was stable and calm, and this was a good sign.
"Esteemed Immortal Wei, it's quite cold outside, so should I carry Master inside?" the little girl in pink asked in a soft voice.
Wei Bo smiled and replied, "You're a fire python who's related to flood dragons, so you have a powerful innate ability to resist searing heat and freezing cold. Because of this, you might not be able to fully sense the peculiar benefit of this bamboo building. That is, this building is warm in winter and cool in summer. In fact, even an ordinary person won't suffer frostbite if they strip naked in the bamboo building during a heavy snowstorm. So, you can let your master sleep here. Not moving him is the most suitable choice."
The little girl in pink breathed a sigh of relief. She hurriedly bowed in gratitude to Wei Bo.
Wei Bo didn't think much about this, and he asked with a smile, "Did Chen Ping'an bring a new change of clothes?"
The little girl in pink shook her head and replied, "Master most likely didn't plan to stay here for a long time, so there aren't any clothes in his bamboo basket."
Wei Bo frowned and looked at Chen Ping'an's clothes which seemed as if they had been submerged in blood. When the young boy woke up, he naturally couldn't keep wearing this set of clothes. "You two can either go to the small town to buy some clothes, or you can go to Clay Vase Alley to collect some clothes. Make haste and return as soon as possible. Chen Ping'an is most likely going to wake up soon," Wei Bo suggested.
"Oh, okay," the little girl in pink replied. She was just about to leave.
However, the little boy in azure had a dark look in his eyes as he stared at Wei Bo. "I don't trust you."
Wei Bo thought for a moment before saying, "Then you can stay."
The little boy in azure tossed the little girl in pink a gold ingot and said, "Apart from buying Master some new clothes, buy the two of us some new clothes as well."
"I don't need any," the little girl in pink replied with a smile.
"I was only saying that to be polite," the little boy in azure said with a stern expression.
The little girl in pink felt a little sad. With a whoosh, she ran out of the bamboo building and sprinted down the mountain.
After she left, the little boy in azure sat down on the railing with his back facing the sleeping Chen Ping'an and the sitting Wei Bo. He was lost in a myriad of thoughts.
Chen Ping'an slept for an entire day and night before finally waking up. After cleaning himself and changing into new clothes, he felt completely reinvigorated and refreshed. He didn't put on his straw sandals, and he stood barefoot in the corridor on the second floor. The bottom of his feet were filled with calluses that were as thick as stone and steel. When Chen Ping'an was still little, his calluses had been caused by the friction between his feet and the coarse straw sandals. Afterward, these calluses were slowly hardened and thickened by the mountain stones and thorny vegetation.
There was a white jade hairpin in Chen Ping'an's hair, and this was the one on which he had personally engraved eight small characters.
He hugged the locust wood sword against his chest and stared blankly toward the south.
Wei Bo returned after leaving for a while, and he brought with him some medicinal ingredients which he told the little girl in pink to help him cook. This medicine could be used to help Chen Ping'an replenish his vital energy. However, the young boy was used to doing everything by himself, so he wanted to go over to cook the medicine himself. The little girl in pink didn't let him help no matter what, and there was a deep frown on her small and bright red face. Her expression was pitiful, and it was as if she were about to cry. Chen Ping'an couldn't endure this, so he could only huff and let her be.
The little boy in azure had run out to wander around, and it was as if he were the ruler of a nation traveling around to patrol his territory. He walked up the mountain today, and there was a mountain god temple at the peak of the mountain. Here, there was a strange mountain god with a golden head being worshipped. The temple was still undergoing construction, and there were still some bits and pieces that needed to be finished up. Thus, there were all kinds of people in the area — officials from the Ministry of Works, cultivators who took orders from the imperial court and were responsible for helping out, and workers from the small town as well as prisoners and refugees from the Lu Empire.
Wei Bo stood beside Chen Ping'an and said with a smile, "After all that chaos in your body, it's fortunate that you didn't suffer for nothing. You're finally about to advance to the third tier."
Chen Ping'an nodded and replied, "It's much quicker than I imagined. I initially thought that it would take at least three to five years."
"What a difficult person to talk to. Boring. See you later."
Wei Bo couldn't help but chuckle as he bobbed his head and walked away. He didn't fly around this time, and he instead swaggered down the staircase one step at a time.
After Wei Bo left, Chen Ping'an patted his chest and murmured, "I know that you're still unwilling to accept this. You don't really want to stay together with me, right?"
The young boy's voice was low as he continued, "That swordsman Cao Jun definitely has some outstanding features. Otherwise, you wouldn't have been so excited in his presence. However, this is only normal. He's a swordsman at the eighth or ninth tier, so such a powerful immortal is naturally far more powerful than me. But what can I do about this? The Scholarly Sage gifted you to me, so before I die, you're not allowed to go anywhere else..."
A piercing pain traveled over from Chen Ping'an's chest. His throat shuddered slightly, and he was just about to cough a mouthful of blood.
However, Chen Ping'an gritted his teeth and forcefully swallowed the mouthful of blood. His voice was muffled as he said, "Even though I don't know the truth of the matter, I can roughly guess that you can kill me with ease. However, for one reason or another, you're not able to kill me. Because of this, you're stuck in an extremely awkward situation. Am I correct?"
After pausing for a moment, Chen Ping'an raised his hand and wiped the two trails of blood flowing from his nose. "This doesn't worry me. I still have a few changes of clean clothes here, and my small maidservant is also a fire python. After I wash my clothes, she can immediately dry them for me. If you're so capable, then you're free to continue crashing around between my acupoints. This kind of pain... Heh, I'm not bragging or anything, but it's truly nothing in my eyes. I experienced greater pain than this when I was only five years old."
A burst of intense pain struck his abdomen. It was as if a tumultuous sea were churning in his stomach.
Standing barefoot in the corridor, there was an unwavering look in Chen Ping'an's eyes as he continued to hug the locust wood sword against his chest. However, he couldn't prevent his voice from trembling as he said, "If I shout in pain, then I'll honor you as my ancestor in the future."
Among the 18 acupoints — the 18 checkpoints — it was as if there existed two insurmountable obstacles. One existed between the 6th and the 7th, and one existed between the 12th and the 13th.
When channeling his Qi before, Chen Ping'an could only channel it past six acupoints in a single breath. Even though his Qi was yet to reach its limit, it was as if there was already nowhere else for it to go. As such, it could only crash into a wall and fail to advance. After mysteriously fusing the silver sword billet into his hand, however, it was as if the barrier between the sixth and seventh acupoint had loosened a little, even though he was still unable to reach the checkpoint to the seventh acupoint.
This could be compared to a person tirelessly building a bridge, causing the scenery on the opposite bank to become vaguely visible. As time went on, this scenery would also become clearer and clearer.
Moreover, compared to practicing his fist technique and walking meditation to temper his physique, the effect of the sword qi wantonly crashing around inside his body was even more evident. It was seemingly forcing Chen Ping'an to cultivate both the inside and outside of his body.
This was analogous to having a large mountain that Chen Ping'an had continuously tried to walk through and construct a path on. However, there had been no efficient way to do so, and he could only hack away at the trees and shrubs and make incredibly slow progress.
After the sword billet entered his body, however, it was as if the little boy in azure had assumed his true form and started to swim through the mountain. Thus, an extremely rough "path" was naturally carved into the mountain. Afterward, Chen Ping'an simply needed to follow the water snake and smooth out the path.
Chen Ping'an wasn't afraid of hardship. However, this didn't mean that he enjoyed it. After all, how many people in the world genuinely enjoyed hardship?
If enduring hardship could bring him benefits, however, then Chen Ping'an would actively look for hardships without a shred of hesitation.
After living alone for so many years, and after enduring so much pain and hardship, Chen Ping'an came to understand a principle. Living in this world, there were many people who did many things. For a significant number of them, hardship was nothing more than just that, hardship.
Enduring hardship to ultimately reap a reward? One had to ask the napping heavens whether they agreed or not.
Chen Ping'an decided that he still needed to leave the majority of his possessions in Ruan Xiu's blacksmith shop. There were too many people in Downtrodden Mountain, and Chen Ping'an didn't feel safe leaving his things here.
If it weren't for Li Xisheng that day, Chen Ping'an would have suffered a great loss even though he was standing outside his own house in Clay Vase Alley.
No wonder the little boy in azure always muttered those words. The cultivation world was indeed filled with dangers.
Chen Ping'an's head tilted to the side, and he suddenly raised a hand to cover his mouth. Blood seeped out from between his fingers.
Chen Ping'an took deep breaths, and he spread his palm to reveal a puddle of blood.
"I'm going to leave the mountain and construct a tomb for my parents afterward. Can we call a temporary truce first?" Chen Ping'an asked angrily.
The sword billet was about to charge at an acupoint, but it slowly calmed down after hearing this. It had seemingly agreed to Chen Ping'an's request.
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