Chapter 607: How Many Fiancées Do You Have, Exactly?

Amid the wind and snow, Qing Ji stood with his back to Lu Yibei, sword in hand. His black hair and white robes whipped in the wind, his posture ramrod straight. A murderous aura radiated from him, making him resemble a bloodstained spear.

An opening!

Convinced that Qing Ji was teaching her a new technique, Lu Yibei caught the tiny opening and charged without hesitation.

The Broken Sword thrust forward. As it cut through the air, flames suddenly lit along its blade. The instant the fire illuminated the weapon, its faintly rusted edge became exceptionally sharp, and the rust burned like brilliant starlight.

The shrill howl of air being sliced apart erupted.

And then…

Lu Yibei was sent flying.

“Aaaah—!”

Hearing the scream behind him, Qing Ji—still facing away from Lu Yibei—curled his lips into a sly smile.

Did your prediction fail, wicked creature?

Feeling stupid now?

You can’t predict this Body Beyond the Body, a physical form condensed from psychic energy after it leaves my body and invisible to the naked eye! Qing Ji thought smugly.

————

Flying backward, Lu Yibei stared at Qing Ji, who had not moved at all, her eyes filled with disbelief.

She had approached him almost as a sneak attack. It was only when she thrust her sword that she unavoidably made a sound.

Yet the instant she closed in and swung, there had been no intense psychic energy fluctuation, no visible movement from Qing Ji, not even a flash from her premonitory thoughts. She had simply been knocked away without warning.

Is this the new technique? An attack even my premonitory thoughts can’t detect…

While Lu Yibei remained stunned, Qing Ji suddenly moved.

His joints ground together with a low rumble like thunder. Every muscle in his body surged, stirring his robes.

Lu Yibei had already witnessed such control, which drew out every last measure of strength from the body. When Qing Ji closed in, she reacted instinctively, swinging her sword forward to seal off his path.

It was completely useless!

Qing Ji leaned backward. Then, as if pulled by an invisible rope, his body slid strangely to one side. Using the tip of one foot as a pivot, he swept through half an arc with effortless grace.

The Broken Sword’s horizontal slash skimmed past the tip of his nose. The instant he regained his footing and straightened, he took a powerful step forward and arrived beside Lu Yibei.

Her attack missing, Lu Yibei’s heart tightened. She hurriedly pulled back her sword and steadied herself. Just as she turned toward the figure entering the corner of her vision, her premonitory thoughts caught Qing Ji’s movement.

【His right hand clenched, and he threw a punch.】

The intense sense of danger stabbed into her body like a steel needle, setting every nerve alight.

The next instant, Qing Ji’s fist roared toward her, silver light bursting across it.

Lu Yibei caught his trajectory and slammed both feet against the ground, intending to retreat and dodge. Instead, a terrifying force dragged her toward Qing Ji. Like drifting catkins caught in the wind, she flew uncontrollably toward the ice-cold sword.

Just when she thought the lesson was about to end, the blade stopped before her chest.

Less than a millimeter separated its tip from her body.

“Impressive?” Qing Ji suddenly asked.

“Huh?” Lu Yibei froze, then came to her senses and nodded hurriedly. “Very impressive!”

The Ancestor truly had grown stronger. This was probably the result of resonance between the Broken Sword and the ferule, Lu Yibei thought.

“Want to learn it?” Qing Ji asked again.

“I do!” Lu Yibei answered without hesitation.

As soon as the words left her mouth, she heard thunder.

“BOOM—!”

Sword light pierced through her. Amid the crackling sound of bones shattering, she exploded…

————

In deathly silence, Lu Yibei tumbled through a vortex of darkness, sinking and rising…

After adjusting to the discomfort of death, she steadied herself and immediately entered the classic post-battle reflection phase.

The Ancestor had still been using techniques from The Diagram of the Gentleman Sword of Taihe, but they seemed far more refined now.

The force that made her body explode at the end was the Hundred-Armed Giant’s power simulated through psychic energy.

The new technique had to be what helped Qing Ji’s body slide sideways so strangely while dodging, as well as the inexplicable force that pulled her in when she tried to evade.

Her premonitory thoughts could not detect it at all. She would have to pay close attention next time!

Lost in thought, Lu Yibei once again felt the bone-chilling wind.

She opened her eyes and scanned the surroundings. The instant she found Qing Ji, she charged with her sword without hesitation, looking utterly fearless of death.

It was not as though she could truly die in this damned place.

And so, after exchanging three moves with Qing Ji, she got her wish and was killed again.

Before killing Lu Yibei this time, Qing Ji silently cast another forbidden spell formation, amplifying the pain of her death by more than tenfold!

This special forbidden spell formation, the Inverse-Form Evil Blossom Gu, was something Qing Ji had learned from a Gu Mistress in Miao territory on a snowy night a century ago. He had remembered it only recently. Once applied to a target, it could influence all of their senses to a certain degree.

As for which of Qing Ji’s senses the Gu Mistress had influenced back then… one could only say it was a certain kind of touch. Anything more explicit would be content you could not see even after paying.

————

Drifting through the darkness, Lu Yibei opened her eyes and stared blankly. Even now, she seemed able to feel the terrible pain capable of crushing a person’s mind.

Yet she did not retreat. Instead, her fighting spirit burned even hotter.

She had lasted only three moves against Qing Ji before dying, which felt rather humiliating. But just before her consciousness fell into darkness, she had sensed that she was beginning to see the pattern.

Almost. Just a little more. If she could endure for another moment, she would successfully memorize the Ancestor’s new technique!

No problem. Help me up—I can feed another kill!

Excited, Lu Yibei opened her eyes on the rooftop again and charged eagerly at Qing Ji. She exchanged seven moves with him before successfully donating another kill.

This time, Qing Ji thoughtfully added another Inverse-Form Evil Blossom Gu. Along with intensifying pain, the spell formation interfered with Lu Yibei’s perception of time.

It could not truly alter the passage of time, but it could make the victim feel as though a particular moment had slowed and stretched slightly.

In other words, from Lu Yibei’s sensory perspective, the agony of death lasted longer.

The Gu Mistress had once used this spell formation to send Qing Ji into “ecstasy.” Now he used the same technique to send Lu Yibei into an “ecstasy” of her own. Perfectly reasonable!

At that instant, Lu Yibei’s eyes widened until the whites filled with blood vessels. Her mouth opened, and a long, heartrending scream erupted…

————

Seven moves. Twelve moves… Three hundred and seventy-eight moves…

Lu Yibei died again and again, then charged forward every single time, using every means at her disposal.

After each death, she lasted longer against Qing Ji. Yet whenever she lost, she remained just a fraction away from understanding his new techniques.

Only a fraction—as though she could grasp it merely by extending her hand, yet it remained as unreachable as a flower in a mirror or the moon reflected on water.

Like a mirage in the desert, it drove a lost traveler onward until they died of thirst amid endless yellow sand.

Lu Yibei had long since grown accustomed to death during her past sword training with Qing Ji.

At first, she thought she could imitate Doctor Strange bargaining through repeated deaths and eventually learn the new techniques.

But as her deaths continued to mount, Lu Yibei—nearly “broken”—gradually realized something was wrong. It seemed she had become Dormammu instead!

The multiplied pain and despair at each death under the spell formation, combined with the frustration of techniques that forever remained just out of reach, accumulated steadily. Her negative emotions gathered into an ocean, gradually sketching a gray and silent world before her eyes.

If each resurrection had not restored her body to peak condition, her face might already have begun making some extremely strange expressions.

Someone once said, “The end of life is merely death. The meaning of death lies only in rebirth or eternal sleep. Death is not the loss of life, but stepping outside time.”

Lu Yibei, however, felt trapped inside time—trapped forever in the second before she could see Qing Ji’s new technique clearly. Immortality itself had become torture.

That day, Lu Yibei recovered the proper reverence and fear one ought to hold toward death.

“…”

How is this teaching?

The Ancestor doesn’t seem to be trying to teach me anything. He’s just torturing me!

Dying the instant she revived felt like being maliciously spawn-camped by some deranged player from the enemy faction in an MMORPG. The experience was freaking awful… Lu Yibei thought.

And then…

Once again, she felt her consciousness rise and awoke from the darkness.

————

On the ruined, collapsing rooftop.

Qing Ji held his sword and gazed thoughtfully at the pool of blood on the ground.

He had always known Lu Yibei possessed excellent talent, yet the speed of her progress still surprised him.

After recovering some memories from his later years, both his swordsmanship and movement techniques had become slightly more refined.

The improvement was small only because his pure technical skill had already reached the highest level when he was young, leaving almost no room to advance.

It was the same principle by which improvement became harder the closer one came to a perfect score.

Yet throughout their repeated exchanges, Lu Yibei had still adapted to his offensive rhythm at an astonishing speed.

Just now, she had truly come close to glimpsing the mysteries of the Inverse-Form Evil Blossom Gu and Body Beyond the Body.

Indeed, after noticing Lu Yibei’s intentions, Qing Ji had deliberately maintained a state in which she felt she could learn something if she tried just a little harder—yet never actually learned anything.

Like a carrot dangling forever beyond a mule’s reach.

The frustration created by “almost” succeeding inflicted far greater torment than a complete rout!

“Perhaps… it is about time to stop?” Qing Ji murmured. “She has received the punishment she deserves. It is time to have a proper discussion with her.”

As he spoke to himself, Lu Yibei’s figure appeared in an open space nearby.

Qing Ji was about to charge when Lu Yibei dropped into a sliding kneel, shot across the ground, and wrapped both arms around his leg. She looked up with tear-filled eyes and blinked pitifully at him.

“Stop hitting me! Please stop! If you keep hitting me, you’ll beat me stupid! Ancestor, I know I was wrong!”

Lu Yibei still did not know why Qing Ji had attacked her so mercilessly, but regardless of the reason, apologizing first could not hurt.

She truly could not endure any more. She was about to be played into ruin…

Looking at Lu Yibei’s miserable state, Qing Ji’s heart softened. He opened his mouth to speak, only for his expression to suddenly darken.

“Ancestor, for the sake of my husband Lu Yibei, please forgive me this once. I’ll behave and listen from now on! Except for carrying on the family line, I’ll do anything!”

“…” Qing Ji’s mouth twitched. “Wicked creature, you still dare bring that up?”

Lu Yibei: “…”

I understand. I was flattering myself. The Ancestor really was simply torturing me…

But… what did I bring up? Carrying on the family line?

I really can’t do that!

As Lu Yibei struggled inwardly, Qing Ji lowered his eyes and swept a cold glance over her. “Someone told me that my great-grandson, Lu Yibei, is still alive…”

I will give you one more chance. Confession earns leniency!

“…” Lu Yibei froze, then hurriedly said, “Who’s spreading nonsense? Ancestor, you can’t listen to an outsider’s slander! Are my words somehow less trustworthy than an outsider’s?”

Still refusing to admit it! Qing Ji frowned and snorted. “Hmph. She is hardly an outsider. The person who told me was Lu Yibei’s fiancée!”

Lu Yibei: “???”

What the heck? What’s going on? Is Gu Qianqian causing trouble behind my back again?

How did she contact the Ancestor?

Damn it! How many times has that woman done this now?

In an instant, the faint guilt Lu Yibei had felt about committing crimes under Gu Qianqian’s name vanished without a trace. She even felt like doing it more aggressively.

After pondering briefly, she looked up at Qing Ji and decided to make one last struggle. “Ancestor, Gu Qianqian must have told you, right? You can’t trust that girl!”

“She might have been engaged to my husband, but she failed to become his lawful wife and has resented him ever since. This isn’t the first time she’s made trouble…”

After hearing Lu Yibei’s explanation, the confusion instantly shifted to Qing Ji.

Hiss! Where did this Gu Qianqian come from?

Wasn’t your fiancée Miss Huá Sāng?

How many fiancées do you have, exactly?

Qing Ji swept a cold gaze over Lu Yibei and said darkly, “Did I ever say Gu Qianqian was the one who told me? That counts as confessing without being beaten, doesn’t it?”

Lu Yibei: “…”

Without being beaten? You nearly beat something wrong with me…

But if it wasn’t Gu Qianqian, then who was it?

How did I not know I had another fiancée?

Gathering her courage, Lu Yibei asked weakly, “Ancestor, may I ask who told you?”

“Miss Huá Sāng…” Qing Ji replied flatly.

“Fuck!” Lu Yibei blurted out.

What an unexpected yet perfectly logical stab in the back!

The whole act had fallen apart now…

Lu Yibei knelt before Qing Ji and silently knocked her head against the ground three times.

“Everything that has happened is the result of my momentary foolishness. I brought it upon myself. I know no amount of explanation will help, and it’s perfectly reasonable for you to be angry. So… go ahead!”

“You said it yourself!”

“Wait, you’re not even going to think about it? Hey, hold—Aaargh—!”

The purest form of physical torment descended. Lu Yibei died.