Chapter 235 - 127: If 1 Day I Achieve a Title, I Shall Crown the Celestial Blade Lineage the ’True Sect

Chapter 235: Chapter 127: If 1 Day I Achieve a Title, I Shall Crown the Celestial Blade Lineage the ’True Sect

But here in Shuyu Pavilion, they filled the entire Cold Pool.

At the edge of the pool.

The wheels of her chair crunched over a fine path paved with Profound Crystal Stone. The Ice Soul Pearl Chain on Xiao Mingli’s wrist chimed softly.

She lowered her gaze and untied the palace ribbon at her waist. As the hem of her silk skirt slid down, it revealed a pair of long legs—ice-cold, lifeless, and covered in hideous scars.

Beside her,

a female attendant named Li Xuanyi held a jar of Cold Marrow Jade Ointment. It was a Fifth Grade Qi Dao Spirit Medicine refined from the Earth Treasure, Jade Marrow Cold Lotus. Her heart aching, she began applying it to Xiao Mingli’s legs, saying:

"If it weren’t for that Calamity back then..."

"With your Treasure Body, Senior Sister, and your skill in Qi Cultivation at age twenty, you might have been nominated at Cangdu’s Fenghua Tower by now. You could even be ranked on the Juvenile Dragon Stele, no less than the old Marquis himself."

"How could it have come to this..."

In response, a smile touched Xiao Mingli’s amber, glass-like eyes.

"I’m lucky just to be alive."

"Why ask for so much? Besides..."

"it’s not as if things can’t change."

Hearing the words from the sole heir to the Marquis’s Mansion, Li Xuanyi bristled with indignation.

"That just makes me furious!"

"Think about who you are! A successor of a True Sect, the Marquis’s own daughter!"

"We already had Qin Gaogong use a Daoist Skill to find out what happened with that Han Ying from the County who stole the Mountain and Sea Search Daoist Talisman, and his disciple."

"They gave that Divine Technique... to some poor kid from a county, who then inherited it!"

"And what’s worse, that kid used the Earth Treasure he got from the Divine Technique, the Jade Marrow Cold Lotus, to make an offering to the Marquis’s Mansion! Now Great Pill Master Xu Li from the Medicine Shop and all of us are in his debt. He basically freeloaded his way into our good graces."

"The nerve of him, Senior Sister!"

"And despite all that, you still told that old man Huang that if the boy named Ji Xiu joins the Mansion someday, you’ll give him a Heaven-Reaching Road..."

"The more I think about it, the angrier I get!"

"That Talisman was a treasure Luo Daocheng acquired with great difficulty on the Marquis’s orders! It was meant for you, to find a destined person to explore the East Canghai, to seek out Cold-Attribute Spiritual Materials and Earth Treasures to sustain your life, and to find Celestial Materials to restore your foundation!"

"And now it’s just..."

Xiao Mingli listened to the endless chatter, her gaze fixed on the silver-finned fish in the pool. The faint smile on her face faded slightly.

"That’s enough."

"Do you think I don’t understand what you’re saying?"

She turned to look at her junior sister, who had followed her down from the mountain. Her expression was as calm as a clear spring, her face as pale and perfect as a porcelain doll’s.

"But finding the destined person for an Outer Dao Divine Technique Talisman is never that easy."

"How many people did Luo Daocheng test? It all came to nothing, didn’t it? Not a single person was qualified to receive the opportunity. And in the end, his own disciple stole it."

"Even if the Talisman were returned and I, Xiao Mingli, held a Flower-Pinning Banquet here in Jiangyin Prefecture, do you really think a destined person would appear among the so-called geniuses of the One Mansion?"

"You might not even find one in Cangdu."

Xiao Mingli shook her head.

"A Skill has no master; it belongs to the one destined to find it."

Sitting in her wheelchair, she unfurled a scroll. It depicted a handsome youth dressed in black, his eyes sharp and bright. She read the description written on it...

"Rather than let it go to waste, I might as well make an investment."

"We’ve already investigated the full story behind Huang Xuan’s offering of the Jade Marrow Cold Lotus."

"That has already proven what kind of character the young man has."

"In that case, I might as well..."

Before she could finish, an Attendant from the Marquis’s Mansion arrived to report.

"Marquis Daughter, that young man you’ve been watching..."

"He’s entered the Prefecture riding a Flood Dragon."

Xiao Mingli’s hand froze, her expression surprised.

"I thought he wasn’t planning on coming to Jiangyin Prefecture yet."

"I haven’t even sent the matron to Anning County..."

Hearing this, the Attendant’s expression grew complicated.

"He’s come to Jiangyin Prefecture... to collect a debt."

’Collect a debt?’

She reviewed the full account of events detailed on the Talisman.

Xiao Mingli raised an eyebrow and suddenly laughed for no apparent reason.

"What a personality."

"He’s just like Father in his youth."

"For someone from a small county to have such courage and integrity is rare indeed. No wonder Bai Shuo of the Water Monarch’s Mansion holds him in high regard."

"Perhaps even without the Cause and Effect from the Mountain and Sea Search."

"If I were to meet a young man like that, I would be inclined to offer some help myself."

...

Jiangyin Ferry, on the docks!

「An hour later.」

A Flood Dragon stood proudly upon the vast sea.

The sight made every onlooker tremble...

As time ticked by, second by second.

At long last—

Gu Qix, the Ferry Leader of the Fishing Trade, approached Duan Chenzhou and his disciple with a grim expression, holding out a box.

"The Lineage Masters of the Three Professions and the Hall Masters of the Two Halls are not in the prefecture, but the main family branches conferred and have decided to present this Earth Treasure, the Thunderstruck Tribulation Wood, to you, Grandmaster Duan."

Looking at the dense Qi of an Earth Treasure wafting from the box...

Duan Chenzhou raised an eyebrow.

"So busy, those few, yet they still found time to leave Jiangyin Prefecture?"

"But what a clever gift, this Earth Treasure. It has no branches or Spirit Leaves, so it isn’t an inexhaustible resource. It can only be used once as an ingredient in a pill."

"No wonder you’re willing to trade it for these wastes of space."

He opened the box. Inside lay a small piece of Thunderstruck Tribulation Wood. It was once a wild Spiritual Material that had been struck by calamitous lightning, causing it to transform and now teem with a vibrant, undying life force. A smile spread across his face.

Hearing this, Gu Qix’s mouth twitched.

"Then we won’t trouble you to worry about it, Grandmaster."

"But if I may be so bold as to ask one more question, as an outsider..."

"By doing this, Grandmaster Duan, aren’t you afraid that the various Daoist Schools will ask their main Schools to make trouble for the Celestial Blade Style again?"

Duan Chenzhou shook his head, his eyes filled with disdain.

"I said it over a decade ago."

"Sect Leader Chen Hex compromised for the sake of peace, scattering the legacy the old master left behind. He even returned the Daoist School Plaque that I personally won back in the day."

"I turned my back on my Master’s Sect long ago."

"This time, I’ve returned..."

"for one more reason: to go to the Celestial Blade Style and have my name, Duan Chenzhou, struck from the rolls. From this day forward, I am a man with no home and no name!"

"If the Grand Lineage Schools of Jiangyin Prefecture are this petty..."

"then when they eventually fall into decline, they’ll just be making the same mistakes all over again."

A cold wind swept across the vast sea.

With a swift kick for each, Duan Chenzhou sent the Grand Lineage Members tumbling off the Flood Dragon, then casually tossed the box to Ji Xiu beside him.

Ji Xiu watched Duan Chenzhou’s back. His black hair whipped in the wind, and though he had only one arm, his majestic figure seemed capable of holding up the mountains and seas... yet it emanated an air of profound loneliness and desolation.

Ji Xiu pressed his lips together.

At this moment, he finally understood why his Master had said his relationship with the Celestial Blade Style was poor.

’If he isn’t a Disciple of the Celestial Blade Style,’

’then he can shoulder all the enmity himself.’

’But if they’re bound together, they rise and fall as one...’

’then perhaps that Senior Master he’d never met, and the rest of his Ancestral Master’s lineage, would be in an even more difficult position.’

He thought of Qin Zhuo’s description of his Senior Master.

And he thought of Master Duan, with his imposing air...

As for their Ancestral Master, Wang Xuanyang...

Gripping the Thunderstruck Tribulation Wood, which could help him molt his Jade Skin, Ji Xiu felt a deep sense of yearning.

’To have taught such disciples... The Ancestral Master who broke through the Six Great Limits of the Human Body Secret Treasure...’

’What a magnificent figure he must have been.’

’I really wish I could have met him.’

At the same time, a thought took root in Ji Xiu’s mind.

’If I can do it...’

’I must revive the School of these three generations of masters and disciples!’

’And even elevate it to the status of a True Sect!’