Chapter 534: The Sword Sovereign Invites a Sword Trial

Fish?!

Chi Jiuyu's eyes lit up.

"Raising them for so long, you're finally planning to eat those spirit fish Master gave you!"

Isn't raising fish exactly so you can eat them!

Not easy at all.

Little Yunlu has finally seen the light!

Jiuyu Hehuan Hehuan Laozu was deeply gratified.

But Zhang Yunlu's next sentence shattered her beautiful fantasy on the spot.

"No, but this fish, Ye Shijie, you can give it a try—the flavor's really good."

She set the lunchbox in her hand on the table beside the reclining chair and lifted the lid.

The lunchbox had several layers; the first layer was fish meat sliced thin, with some ice chunks laid underneath.

The fish slices were crystalline and translucent, laced with faint golden veins, and carried a strange, exotic fragrance.

Hm?

She, Jiuyu Hehuan Hehuan Laozu, had eaten countless fish in her life—even fish personally prepared by Lingzu Senior had she tasted—but this batch of fish…

She truly had never seen the like!

"Where did you buy this spirit fish?"

"Xuanxuan sent it over yesterday. She said she'd been raising it for ages before finally cultivating it successfully, and she's planning to use the fish meat to research a new type of pill."

"So that's how it is." Chi Jiuyu scratched her head.

In her old impression, pill-refining meant refining flowers and grasses, and at most extracting a few stellar essences or the like.

It wasn't until the Xian Sect Grand Competition, when she spent some time studying under Ye Zhiwei,

that she learned the meat and bones of some exotic beasts could also be used for pill-refining.

Then she saw Zhang Yunlu take out a pair of chopsticks.

"Would Ye Shijie like to try some?"

The fish meat had excellent texture, and the environment it was raised in was painstakingly created by Lin Xuanxuan, so eating it raw was perfectly fine.

The flavor was also quite good.

"No, no, I don't like eating raw things." Chi Jiuyu waved her hand in refusal.

When it came to meat, she still preferred it cooked!

Saying so, she picked up a three-tenths sugar, iced premium-grade Clear Spirit Marrow Fluid:

"Here, you try this too—this stuff is delicious!"

"…" Zhang Yunlu glanced at it. "This is the auxiliary spirit fluid for the eighth layer of *Sword Bone*. I haven't refined to that step yet."

Huh?

How come you're also practicing this f**king secret art?

Chi Jiuyu very much wanted to say that, but in the end forcibly held it back.

Then, with great generosity, she stuffed a premium-grade Clear Spirit Marrow Fluid into Zhang Yunlu's hand.

"No worries, as long as it tastes good, today's my treat!"

Uncle-Master pays the bill!

Hehe.

Afterward, she activated the sound-transmitting array on the nearby fruit tree.

"Send over ten premium-grade Clear Spirit Marrow Fluids, three-tenths sugar, iced." After a pause, she added, "And send another ten to the room next door—put it on my tab."

"…" The other side seemed a bit caught off guard too, and only after several seconds came the reply, "Okay."

Zhang Yunlu: "…"

"Senior Brother probably won't accept it, will he?"

Earlier than Ye Shijie, she had already gone to visit that Senior Brother.

Not knowing what would be best to bring, she had taken two fish along, just for the novelty of it.

But the result was that Senior Brother Cheng said that as a Senior Brother, how could he accept something from his little Junior Sister!

Just two measly fish, and he stubbornly refused them…

"Ah, no worries! This time Uncle-Master is reimbursing me, so just consider it Uncle-Master's treat. Since it's Uncle-Master treating, Senior Brother has no reason to refuse, right!"

…

…

A little over ten minutes later.

Zhang Yunlu sat across from Chi Jiuyu, staring blankly as the cyan-gold longsword before her lowered the fish slices into the pot.

Then it fished out several fruits from the bag using sword-silk.

Swoosh!

A flash of cold light, and uniformly sized fruit chunks fell from midair, neatly arranged on a white porcelain plate.

The sword body remained as clean as new, not stained in the slightest.

After completing all this, the cyan-gold longsword transformed into a streak of sword-light and vanished into Chi Jiuyu's brow.

This was Yu Yu-zhushang's Junior Sister—rounding up, also her Junior Sister—of course she had to show off a little!

Seeing Zhang Yunlu still sitting in a daze, Chi Jiuyu felt a bit smug inside.

"Eat, eat! If we wait too long the fish slices will fall apart cooking." "Ye Shijie, your Natal Sword…"

"You've seen it before, haven't you? I used to train her all the time, and on top of that she's very smart herself."

Just like her master.

"…" After a two-second pause, Zhang Yunlu sincerely sighed, "Ye Shijie is really amazing, and so is her sword."

Before, she had thought Ye Shijie was just trying to slack off on her own; now it seemed she had been jumping to conclusions.

"No worries, I'll summarize my training plan later and send it to you."

"My sword… it's still too early; even if Ye Shijie gave it to me, it wouldn't help."

Her realm hadn't even reached Nascent Soul yet, and how long it would take for the sword spirit to fully form was still unknown.

"Fair enough." Chi Jiuyu picked up a big chopstickful of fish slices and stuffed them into her mouth, mumbling, "Then I'll give it to you when the time comes!"

After chewing vigorously a few times and swallowing the fish in her mouth, she picked up another chopstickful.

"The taste isn't bad, but the fish Master raises are still the best!"

Even the fish personally prepared by Senior Elder Lingzu couldn't compare.

"Anyway, Master gave you so many of them—let's pick a few to eat."

She tempted again.

Zhang Yunlu shook her head slightly: "If we eat them, how will you, Ye Shijie, look at them and think of the person in the future?"

Earlier, Master and Uncle Master had vanished without a trace.

Whenever Ye Shijie had free time, she'd run over there to feed the fish.

Chi Jiuyu froze for a moment, then said with a stiff neck:

"W-who's looking at things to think of people! I'm just feeding them fatter so I can eat them later!"

Her current expression, paired with her words, vividly illustrated the two characters 'stubbornly defiant'.

…

…

The mountain peak where the Sword Venerable's main hall stood.

Halfway up the mountain, in front of a small bamboo hut.

Xu Xing leaned back in a bamboo chair with his eyes closed, a fishing rod resting beside him, as if dozing.

Yet the fishing line kept swaying, and the bait in the pool before him kept swimming through the water, dodging the school of fish chasing after it.

Soon, those chasing fish seemed to tire and gradually came to a stop.

Xu Xing opened his eyes as well, sat up, and looked at the fish in the pool.

"Giving up already."

Compared to their predecessors, their perseverance was lacking by more than a little.

"With junior brothers coming to feed them often, naturally so."

Bie Xuening walked out from a bamboo house nearby, dressed in moon-white plain clothes, draped in a light gauze patterned with bamboo, graceful and otherworldly, untainted by a speck of dust.

Just looking at her like this, it was hard to believe she was actually an immortal sword cultivator who wielded the power of life and death.

Walking over and sitting beside Xu Xing, she also glanced at the fish in the pool.

"Often… I wouldn't quite say that."

Xu Xing reeled in his fishing rod and scattered a handful of fish food into the pool.

"Compared to me, it's often."

Bie Xuening took the fishing rod from his hand and set it aside.

"That's true."

This point was irrefutable.

Xu Xing rested his hands behind his head, gazing through the gaps between the bamboo leaves at the sky, lost in thought.

Everything here had been arranged by Ye Shijie exactly as it was back when she followed Master in her training.

Back then, when sword practice was grueling, he would lie on the ground like this and gaze at the sky to rest.

But usually, he couldn't rest long before Ye Shijie would spot him and drag him back up to continue practicing.

His past self couldn't be called lazy, but he wasn't exactly worthy of the word 'diligent' either.

Fortune was right before him, yet he hadn't cherished it; the bitter fruit that followed left him with endless regret.

Sigh~

In the blink of an eye, many years had passed—the scenery remained, but the people were gone…

"Junior Brother, how about a sparring match with me?" (End of Chapter)