Volume 4, Chapter 170 – Encirclement

Narrowing her eyes slightly, Bai Xiang switched pages on her phone and checked the settled sales figures for Yuming Workshop’s free-shipping plan.

The sales were good.

Good enough to be a little excessive.

In two months, they had sold a total of more than 286 million swords. That was no longer just a matter of dominating the domestic market in Great Yu. They had even managed to export overseas.

Ordinarily, there was no way they should have sold that many. But the influence of the Dao-Void tournament was unprecedentedly great, and it had in fact stirred up the desire in quite a lot of people to practice swordsmanship and martial arts. Once that impulse arose, naturally they had to buy swords.

Then there was the matter of production capacity.

Yuming Workshop’s production capacity had originally been seriously insufficient. Even with orders in hand, there was no way they could have shipped so much at their initial efficiency.

The only reason they had managed to do this was because Guo Rongzhi had changed the smelting process. He had carefully asked Bai Xiang about her requirements, and after learning that “this batch of swords doesn’t actually need that much practical value,” he chose to cooperate with Starwater Company and switch from “fully manual” smelting to an “industrial assembly line.” Their shipping efficiency immediately rose by hundreds, even thousands, of times.

There was only one problem, and that was cost.

In theory, it was a strategy of small profits and large sales, but because of the free-shipping plan, the workshop did not actually make much money.

Outside there was the impact of Loss of Order. Inside there was political upheaval.

And internationally, refined iron ore was not cheap either.

Guo Rongzhi had complained to her about this more than once, saying that if not for her, that living advertisement whose recent performances had been so eye-catching and had driven a great many sword orders, the final accounting might well have left the workshop operating at a loss.

That was not really a problem.

There were only two matches left in the Tongyun competition zone worth paying attention to: one against the Qianyuan Sect and one against Qingping Dao. Only after those would the finals begin.

So there was still time.

She had to spread it even wider before that day arrived.

Just as she was planning out what to do next, Bai Xiang suddenly looked up and gazed outside through the wall.

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She felt an extremely strong sense of being watched, and the feeling was even faintly familiar.

Taking up her sword, she went out and first found the old beggar, who was lazily sleeping in his room.

“I’m going out for a while.” Bai Xiang poked him awake with her scabbard and instructed him, “Stay here. If any riffraff try to make a move, tear them apart.”

“You’re allowing me to kill people?”

A moment ago, the old beggar had still looked full of grievance. The instant he heard that, he perked up at once and thumped his chest loudly.

“Don’t worry! However many stinking people come, I’ll kill that many! I absolutely won’t let them defile us!”

His cultivation…

Bai Xiang inspected him with her golden pupils and discovered that, without her noticing when, this fellow had already stepped onto the Golden Core Great Dao.

His cultivation had risen far too quickly. Just who had he been before?

Still a little uneasy, Bai Xiang said, “I taught you a new method. Doesn’t that make me your master?”

Hm?

The old beggar’s eyes had been darting around, clearly plotting something. At those words, they widened at once.

Ha. A mere little girl of eighteen wants to be my master!?

But the little girl really did teach me a new method…

Eh, then if she says she’s my master, I suppose that works too…

“Let’s make a deal. Lend me a bit of your true spirit for now.” Bai Xiang continued to coax him. “It isn’t to control you. It’s so I can sense if you’re in danger. If anything changes on your side, I’ll return immediately.”

“Fine!”

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The old beggar nodded and immediately pinched out a thread of true-spirit light from between his brows.

Bai Xiang was taken aback.

She had expected to spend much more effort persuading him, but instead it had gone so smoothly.

If this was an act, then his acting was terrifyingly good.

“I’ll return it to you.”

She put away the true spirit, gave the old beggar a long look, hung her sword properly at her side, and went out.

The moment she jumped down from the terrace and exposed herself to visible range, Bai Xiang immediately felt that sense of surveillance intensify several times over.

Some of it came from ordinary scouts, but she could tell that one strand among them held intense hostility toward her, with killing intent so strong it was almost overflowing.

Someone who believes he has a grievance with me…

Bai Xiang frowned and ran through names like Cui Yuanhao, whom she had defeated and disarmed, Zhang Dai, the top figure of Tianfu Mountain, Daoist Luo Ying of the Qianyuan Sect, and Ten-Extremes Daoist of Zhengtian Dao. Yet she still could not tell exactly which one it was.

Just then, the other party began moving toward the outskirts.

She glanced at the group of idlers gathered below the building, accelerated her movement technique, and followed.

Flying as she gave chase, the two sides quickly left the urban district and entered the wild mountains at Tongyun’s outer edge.

By then Bai Xiang could already make out the other party’s figure. Seeing that the man was slowing down and descending toward a hilltop, she landed as well and faced him from several dozen paces away.

Looking more closely, the newcomer was actually a monk.

He had kind eyebrows and kind eyes, with burn scars on his shaved head. He wore a standard dark orange kasaya, beneath which could be seen a blue-gray monk’s robe. His dress was utterly orthodox.

How did I end up provoking these bald monks?

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Wasn’t Mingyuan Temple supposed to have no intention of getting involved in these matters?

Puzzled inwardly, Bai Xiang spoke directly in challenge. “Who are you?”

“Amitabha.” The old monk pressed his palms together and gave a Buddhist invocation before answering, “Female patron, please do not ask me. This matter is secret, and it would not be convenient to tell you.”

Bai Xiang frowned. “Even after leaving the world behind, you still hide yourself like this. Then you’re definitely not from any temple with a proper name. You’re either from Blood Soul Heaven or some remnant of an outlawed heresy. The moment your real name is revealed, people will hunt you down.”

The old monk’s expression changed slightly. The killing intent around his body could no longer be concealed and immediately poured through his eyes toward Bai Xiang.

He had intended to test Bai Xiang’s depth that way. But instead, the moment he glared, he met a pair of eerie golden pupils. His consciousness was instantly dragged into a cosmic illusion, and he was just about to be ground to pieces by a pair of golden stellar vortices.

“Moo!”

Realizing something was wrong, he let out a low shout and broke the illusion. Yet in the next instant, Bai Xiang was already close at hand, her right arm raised as Feixiang Heaven slashed downward.

Such tricks…

Disdain appeared on the old monk’s face. A layer of golden light instantly spread over all his exposed skin. Grimacing fiercely, he bared his teeth and threw a punch. He was actually planning to rely on his fleshly body to take Bai Xiang’s sword head-on.

Clang-scrape!

At the instant the two collided, the old monk’s expression changed beyond all measure.

Under his disbelieving stare, Feixiang Heaven’s blade scraped through the gaps between his fingers, cut along the spaces between the joints of his right hand into the bones of his forearm, and with a flick of the sword, chopped most of his arm off from the shoulder.

What kind of sword was this?

Combined with her sword qi, its strength had actually approached that of a higher-grade sacred weapon?

The old monk was shocked and enraged, unable to understand how such a weapon could possibly appear in Bai Xiang’s hands.

“Jinguang Temple?”

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Bai Xiang pressed the advantage without relenting. As she closed in and swung her sword, she spat out the name of a faction.

She had been watching the old monk’s expression the whole time. When she saw his face change yet again, she knew this was Zhengtian Dao’s, or more precisely, old Ten-Extremes Daoist’s backup move.

This man should be a legitimate inheritor of Jinguang Temple.

Jinguang Temple’s origins were extremely mysterious and ancient, even involving ancient great demons. A power like that could not possibly have left inheritance only in the main world. There should also still be some inheritance in the Void Realm.

If she had guessed correctly, Ten-Extremes Daoist had used Zhou Yi’s connection to draw this group in.

After all, Zhou Yi’s talent, judged on its own, truly was extraordinary beyond compare: dual Origin Realms. Even Chang Hongyuan, Zhengtian Dao’s senior brother disciple, could not achieve that.

Zhou Yi had probably been cherished by these people as some kind of “Buddhist heir” or “living Buddha,” and Jinguang Temple’s supreme art, the Great Hand Seal of Golden Light, had likewise been learned through that channel.

Bai Xiang had killed Zhou Yi. Naturally, they had come to trouble her.

Fweeeet!

Having fallen into a disadvantage in close combat, the old monk could only seize an opening and blow a whistle, sending ripples through the void.

Calling for reinforcements?

Bai Xiang cast a sidelong glance at the ripples, shook her sword, and sent an invisible wave spreading outward. All sound was sealed away.

Yet joy appeared on the old monk’s face as he looked up toward the sky above.

Bai Xiang first smashed him down into the mountainside with a sword strike. In the next moment, she suddenly raised her sword crosswise to block and felt an enormous force slam into it, so great that the mountain rock beneath her feet collapsed and shattered under the impact.

Through the smoke and dust, she raised her head into the distance and saw a handsome Daoist in white robes seated in the sky.

“Zhang Dai?”

Then she looked again at Cui Yuanhao beside him, and at the monk soldiers who had somehow appeared around them at some unknown moment, and finally bared her teeth in a faintly amused curve.