Volume 2, Chapter 64 – Contrast

That question left everyone present stunned.

Both Wang Ran and Xiang Xian froze. Even the blue-skirted girl behind the woman lowered her head at those words, pressing her fingers to the center of her brow.

“I would like to thank Dao Lord Li for her kindness.” Bai Xiang glanced at Xiang Xian, then met the woman’s razor-sharp gaze head-on as she spoke. “But I already have a master. I can only apologize for letting Dao Lord Li down.”

Just two short sentences—neither servile nor overbearing, unhurried yet measured, with a natural cadence and pause. An old-fashioned grace flowed through her words. All three Dao Lords felt a spark in their eyes as they listened, and the blue-skirted girl’s head snapped up, studying Bai Xiang with open surprise.

“Li Sheng—” Wang Ran slightly raised his voice as he strode over, then lowered it again to address the woman. “Don’t do this.”

“I already told you, Dao Lord Xiang has taken her as a disciple. How could you try to poach her right to her face!”

Wang Ran was, after all, the host. If he let two visiting sects cause a scene here, the shame would ultimately be on him when word spread.

“Hmph!” The woman was having none of it. She snapped her sleeve and lifted her chin proudly. “Do I need to report everything I do to you in advance?”

Then she turned to look at Xiang Xian. “Dao Lord Xiang, be honest: with a disciple like this in your hands, aren’t you holding her back?”

It was practically a verbal slap to the face. Xiang Xian’s eyes narrowed slightly at first, then the corners of her lips curved into a smile. “Abbess, don’t tell me you think Yuming has craft but no sword?”

That’s it.

The moment that “Abbess” came out, Wang Ran was inwardly wailing.

Sure, everyone called her that in private. But to say it to her face… the conflict was guaranteed to escalate!

“Isn’t that the case?” Sure enough, the woman’s eyes bulged at once. “You only rode early gains to barely be listed among us! Have you started hallucinating, Dao Lord Xiang?”

“Everyone under heaven knows Yuming’s weapons are rooted in the Mingxin line.” Xiang Xian shook her head lazily. “Shangqing disciples have come to us for swords before. Abbess shouldn’t be that forgetful.”

“I’m the forgetful one?” The muscles in the woman’s jaw twitched, her temper clearly on the verge of breaking loose.

“Xiang Xian, think about it. If Yuming truly rivaled Qingping and Suzhen, would Yujing—the Imperial House—really sit back and let you nap peacefully at their side?”

“And this isn’t the first time you’ve ruined a child’s future.” She slanted a glance past Bai Xiang, suddenly reaching out to point into the distance.

“Seventeen years ago, wasn’t Bai Nianchan’s foolishness the result of your teachings?”

“You don’t know how to teach the sword at all. You’d be better off going back to take in a few more ‘Yusuanzi’!”

“You…” Xiang Xian’s expression finally shifted.

Reаԁ оո KаtRеaⅾіոɡCаfe

“Li Sheng!” Wang Ran’s face also darkened with anger.

The Nine Daos were indeed far from one big happy family—there were even grudges between some of them.

But they were all still Nine Daos, and still under Great Yu. The most basic propriety had to be observed. How could you just rip open someone’s scars in public like this?

It was like she didn’t put him, the host, in her eyes at all.

Clang—

Before he could say anything more, a metallic sword cry rang out of nowhere.

Bai Xiang’s hand had found the hilt on her back. Feixiang Heaven flashed from its sheath in an instant, its blade turning into a streak of white light. Before anyone could even react, the tip had already reached the woman’s brow.

Zheng!

The woman’s right hand shot up, fingers extended in a sword-hand to block in front of her. Her knuckles collided with the blade, bursting into a clash of steel. She herself, shocked, was jolted back a step.

Once she’d stopped retreating, she stared wide-eyed at Bai Xiang, lips slightly parted, hardly able to believe what she had just experienced.

“Bai Nianchan is my younger aunt.” Bai Xiang held her sword in her right hand, her gaze on the woman icy cold.

“She ran into an Aberration on the road and killed it. I don’t consider that a ‘foolish act.’”

Wang Ran went blank.

Xiang Xian’s mouth fell open.

The blue-skirted girl covered her face with both hands, but left her fingers parted just enough for two eyes to peek between them, staring at Bai Xiang without blinking.

“…Fine. Fine!” The woman was furious enough to laugh. “I didn’t consider your feelings. That was my oversight.”

“But!” Her brows knotted, her eyes bulging again. “There was never any proof that what she killed was an Aberration!”

“That case alarmed the Central Court and the Nine Daos. They investigated it together!”

“Are you saying the entire Great Yu wronged her?”

“Enough.”

Xiang Xian stepped forward, face frosty. As her violet gauze skirt flared, a streak of cold light slid from its sheath.

Reаd оո ΚаtRеαԁіոgСαfe

At the same time, an invisible ripple spread outward from her sword, sweeping in an instant down the long stairway and across the campus. Countless Sword-Track Students all over the university suddenly looked up, each forced to press a hand to the sword at their waist or back to steady its agitation.

“Hm?”

A group of visitors was just being escorted in through the eastern gate. Many of the younger ones failed to react in time; their swords leapt from their scabbards as if given life, crashing to the ground in a chorus of clangs and drawing cries of surprise.

“Grandpa?”

Among those who dropped their swords was Zhou Ji. Flustered, he turned to look at his grandfather—the old man who was also the Zhou family’s pillar.

“It’s a Divine Fetus drawing the sword.”

Zhou Jing’an rested a light hand on his restless blade, eyes half closed as he felt that immense presence.

“This is a sword of craft and calculus, a sword of engineering. Every forging method under heaven traces back to its source.”

“It’s paying homage…”

He snorted, desire flickering in his gaze as he looked into the distance.

“Paying homage to its own ancestor of craft!”

Zheng—!

Over the earthen hill, the sea of clouds tumbled.

Xiang Xian stepped out on a slant. Her blade slid from its sheath, the hilt engraved in tiny ancient seal-script with the two characters for “Yuming.” Both sword edge and eyes shone with elongated divine light. As her edge emerged, the cloud sea scattered, and the slanting sword light swept toward Li Sheng.

Facing the strike of a Dao Lord, Li Sheng didn’t dare be careless either.

The moment that “Enough” left Xiang Xian’s lips, she had already raised a hand to grasp her sword’s hilt. As it left the scabbard, the seal-script below the guard was revealed as well—the two ancient characters for “Shangqing.”

The sky suddenly darkened.

As the Shangqing Sword cleared its sheath, the clouds that had been blown apart by the Yuming Sword surged back together, rolling into a churning mass of black.

When Li Sheng brought the Shangqing Sword down and its edge met the Yuming Sword, a thin bolt of lightning with a dazzling white core and violet-blue outline suddenly split from the clouds above, striking straight down onto the Shangqing Sword. Its sword momentum and power surged in an instant.

“ Shangqing Lightning-Drawing Sword Formula .”

Zhou Jing’an looked up at the pitch-black sky.

Rеaԁ on KаtRеaԁіngCаfe

“So she is fighting Li Sheng…”

In terms of raw destructive power, the Yuming Sword couldn’t match the Shangqing Sword.

But the Shangqing Sword itself had been forged with the Yuming method as a model; before its ancestor, it was inherently a step lower. And with the Jade Phoenix Sword protecting the Yuming Dao Lord besides, when it came to the outcome…

Zheng—!

Lightning flashed. As Li Sheng, backed by the thunder’s might, bore down with her sword, she suddenly felt that Xiang Xian’s blade was entirely unaffected.

There was no numbness, no slowing—on the contrary, the moment she pressed down, Xiang Xian in her eyes suddenly split into six overlapping afterimages. Six figures, six swords, struck the Shangqing Sword all at once. Her fingers went numb, and she couldn’t hold it; in an instant her weapon was knocked free. The Shangqing Sword spun up into the air, then with a sharp thunk plunged into the ground at an angle!

“Xiang Xian—”

“Li Sheng, that’s enough!”

Wang Ran swept his black robe as he quickly stepped between them. The aura of a Divine Fetus spread from him, placing him squarely in the middle as he tried to reconcile the two raging fields of force.

“You’ve come from afar as a guest. And since this time we’re facing a foreign threat together, I won’t haggle over past grudges with you!”

“But you mustn’t go too far!”

“Did you think this was Qinglong Dao?”

“Hmph!” Li Sheng snorted through pursed lips, but she knew she was in the wrong here. It wasn’t convenient to keep trading barbs with two fellow cultivators of the same realm at once.

She flicked her sleeve, and the Shangqing Sword flew free of the ground, snapped back into the air, and dropped straight into the scabbard on her back. Then she strode past the others without a word and headed down the hill alone.

Uh…

The blue-skirted girl blanked out again. She hastily bowed to Wang Ran and Xiang Xian in turn (she hesitated a moment when she caught sight of Bai Xiang in the middle, but still dipped her head to her as well), then hurried off after her master.

“Master.”

Bai Xiang moved closer to Xiang Xian.

“I’ve got Huang’er to protect me. No need to worry.”

Xiang Xian raised a hand and gave her a fond smile.

“When my disciple dares draw her sword at a Nine-Dao Dao Lord, how could I, as her master, show fear?”

Rеаԁ оո KatReaⅾіոɡСafе

“Well?”

“How did your master do?”

“Very impressive.” Bai Xiang met Xiang Xian’s gaze with utter seriousness, and that attitude set Xiang Xian laughing again.

As for Wang Ran, Dao Lord of Benling, who’d spent half the time as a spectator—when he saw this scene, his brows drew together slightly.

He knew very well what the gap between Li Sheng and Xiang Xian’s strength was. Even with various factors tilting things so the Shangqing Sword should be at a slight disadvantage, it shouldn’t have been disarmed that quickly.

Had Xiang Xian’s strength improved again?

He first let his gaze sweep over Xiang Xian, then frowned deeper as his focus shifted to Bai Xiang.

Or was it that that sword just now…

“Master!”

“Master!”

Meanwhile, the blue-skirted girl had caught up to Li Sheng. She’d meant to offer some comforting words, but then she saw her master standing alone in the middle of the steps, her right hand raised in a sword-hand, held aloft, eyes unmoving as she stared and observed.

“Master, you’re bleeding?”

The girl stepped closer, startled to see a thin trickle of blood running down from Li Sheng’s sword fingers. She grew even more anxious. “…Master, maybe we should bandage that first?”

“Bandage?”

Li Sheng repeated the word slowly, as if waking from a long dream. She quickly lowered her hand and shot the girl a fierce glare.

“Master?”

The blue-skirted girl—Leng Qiu—was utterly baffled.

She could feel clearly that the resentment in her master’s eyes was aimed at her .

But why her master would blame her for losing a sword exchange, she truly had no idea.