Chapter 70: The Swordsman of Qingfeng Mountain

"Finally found you! Those black-skinned… those Captains really don't treat jianghu martial men as people at all."

Butcher Zhang hooked an arm around Shen Yi's shoulder and exhaled in relief: "Not bad, not bad, as long as nothing happened, that's good."

Seeing the rough fellow covered head to toe in mud and ash, every slap he landed left a palm print on his own clean long shirt…

Shen Yi truly suspected the other man had run off somewhere to cozy up with an old flame.

Playing it that wild?

"Oh! Promoted already?"

Butcher Zhang swept a sidelong glance, and upon noticing the cloud pattern on the youth's sleeve, his face immediately showed shock.

Shen Yi glanced at his big belly and said flatly: "You look like you're about to give birth."

"Hehe, that's how body tempering is, you wouldn't get it if you haven't tempered."

The rough fellow scratched the back of his head and said hesitantly: "I know your strength is formidable, but it's still better to keep a low profile lately."

He finally got to the reason for his visit.

Shen Yi led him inside the room, poured two cups of well water that had been boiled earlier and left to cool, and handed one over: "What is it?"

Butcher Zhang took the cup, didn't stand on ceremony, and gulped it down his throat: "You don't know yet? Something big happened in Linjiang Prefecture!"

Shen Yi sat leaning against the bed's edge, took a sip of the cooled boiled water, and glanced sideways.

If he remembered correctly, he had just returned from Linjiang Prefecture.

Fortunately, the butcher's next words dispelled his doubt: "The swordsman from Qingfeng Mountain I told you about last time, do you remember?"

"The one with a family of twenty-some, chivalrous and tender-hearted toward every one of his concubines?" A complicated look flashed through Shen Yi's eyes.

"That's the one."

Butcher Zhang wiped his mouth with his sleeve: "You should know what kind of force Qingfeng Mountain is…"

"I don't." Shen Yi honestly shook his head.

Hearing this, Butcher Zhang twitched the corners of his mouth, feeling rather like someone gossiping about the neighbor's wife, only for the other party to ask, "What's a wife?"—utterly speechless.

"You're a Captain of the Demon Suppression Bureau after all, and you don't even know your own turf… First-rate forces of Outside Qingzhou, the Six Sects and Four Great Families, all have venerable Nascent Core Realm experts stationed. Zhao, Qian, Sun, Li—the swords of Qingfeng Mountain, the bandits of Pingsha Valley, the Daoist Priests of White Cloud Monastery."

Five fingers weren't enough, so Butcher Zhang stuck out the other hand: "And then there's Xiafeng Mountain Manor with its godlike blade arts… anyway, you just need to know that in Outside Qingzhou, they're second only to the Demon Suppression Bureau."

"What about Vajra Gate?" Shen Yi said casually.

Butcher Zhang smacked his lips: "No Nascent Core internal art, so it should count as third-rate, but it has half a body-tempering method. The abbot relies on this thing, his physical body transcending Jade Liquid. Though weaker than a true Nascent Core Realm expert, handling a perfected Jade Liquid Realm cultivator is still a cinch for him, so it barely squeezes into second-rate."

Hearing this, Shen Yi grew a bit interested: "What body-tempering method?"

"How would I know." Butcher Zhang sighed: "It requires not only peerless talent, but also fifty years of chanting Buddha and fifty years of preaching the dharma before one even has a chance to receive this method."

He was already over forty and still hadn't entered the Jade Liquid Realm.

A touch of desolation inevitably flickered across his expression.

"Enough about that, let's talk about you."

Butcher Zhang took a deep breath and said: "That swordsman from Qingfeng Mountain is the most talented disciple on the mountain. Young in years, not even a hundred and fifty, yet he already shows signs of faintly touching the Nascent Core Realm."

Shen Yi listened in silence, not knowing what this had to do with him.

"A few months ago, he left Linjiang Prefecture on some matter. One of his concubines, who was pregnant, secretly crawled to the government office, and under everyone's eyes, gave birth to…"

Butcher Zhang's whole body tensed, his gaze turns solemn: "A flood dragon."

The cup in Shen Yi's hand suddenly wobbled.

"The evil dragon was born premature and backlashed against its mother, devouring her in a few bites until not even bone fragments remained."

"What's even more chilling is that this swordsman has already stayed at Qingfeng Mountain for over a hundred years. His wives and concubines were often abducted by demons and yokai, vanishing without a trace. God knows how many he's sired!"

"When that swordsman returned, the Zhen Mo General of Linjiang Prefecture went straight and brought men to surround Qingfeng Mountain, striking down many disciples on the spot—all of them his own offspring."

Butcher Zhang guessed: "After all, Qingfeng Mountain is a prominent major sect. The Zhen Mo Si only surrounded but didn't exterminate, probably waiting for your Regional Commander to come back and take charge. Recently, the jianghu says the people on the mountain actually want to secretly send that swordsman away."

He sighed: "Tch, aside from those guarding Outside Qingzhou, all the remaining inner-camp Captains have been reassigned, garrisoning a hundred li around the mountain's base. This time they're getting serious. The city guards say plenty of Gold-Brocade Wolves have also been deployed there. Hide if you can—after all, you've just arrived in Outside Qingzhou, and these matters have nothing to do with you. You haven't even gotten the benefits yet, don't go and get yourself planted first."

Shen Yi set down the water cup, his expression calm.

He finally knew what those two people had been talking about earlier.

"Looks like things are going to be chaotic around here for a while again..." Butcher Zhang, with a throbbing headache, drew out his butcher's blade and repeatedly stroked it, trying to draw some confidence from it.

"What chivalrous genius swordsman—he's probably just an old flood dragon of the Nascent Core Realm, left Yangchun River and came up from his kin to have some fun, took human form, and gradually revealed his cultivation bit by bit."

"Though the Zhen Mo General is fierce, if he faces several Nascent Core Realm experts at once, he can probably only win a pyrrhic victory; wiping them all out isn't really possible."

"If that evil dragon escapes, along with its litter of brats of unknown identity, the first thing they'd probably do is take revenge on the Zhen Mo Si… they know what the Zhen Mo Si cares about most—nothing more than us ordinary folk."

Having finished his purpose, Butcher Zhang didn't stand on ceremony: "Come on, scoot over, let me stay a few days. Damn, nowadays trying to find a good Mr. for the little tyke, the tuition is just too damn much—carried goods for ten days before I scraped together the silver."

"You sleep, I'm going out for a walk."

Shen Yi gave up the bed and walked into the courtyard.

His thoughts drifted.

His expression was complex—wary… yet tinged with a faint, barely perceptible murderous aura.

If the evil dragon escaped, would he be among its targets for revenge?

At this point, no matter the time or place, everything lined up—how could he fail to guess the origin of that young, gravely wounded flood dragon demon?

Even a river demon could sniff out the scent of a flood dragon's core.

Now that the flood dragon's core had entered his belly and transformed into the innate power of a flood dragon, was there something similar—a scent of some kind?

Shen Yi wasn't entirely sure; his understanding of these matters was still too shallow. Since he couldn't judge, he'd consider the worst-case scenario.

His eyes flickered, and the panel unfolded before him.

Previously, the Wind-Thunder Demon-Subduing True Understanding could serve as a stamina-restoring supplement, but now that he'd reached perfected Jade Liquid Realm, that efficiency was far too low.

"If the oil lamp is exhausted, without pills, roughly how many years of lifespan would it take to instantly restore full condition?"

He slowly channeled the demons' and yokai' lifespan into the Wind-Thunder Melting Sun Treasure Canon.

Shen Yi had not expected to derive anything new; he only wanted to feel the changes within his qi sea, so as usual he kept pouring in year after year.

As the prompt swept past.

His expression shifted slightly.

【Fifth year, your realm did not advance, but your qi and blood grew vigorous, and the Sun-Melting Treasure Furnace — originally at two hundred and seventy apertures — actually connected one more aperture】

An unexpected bonus, though he didn't yet know its use; any improvement was still a good thing.

Shen Yi closed his eyes, feeling the faint drift of heaven and earth qi from his body, and after a moment reached a conclusion.

Even though the Sun-Melting Treasure Codex was far more efficient at drawing in and tempering than the Wind-Thunder True Explanation, his current reserves were now a hundred times what they had been.

Limited by the thinness of heaven and earth qi, if the qi sea truly dried up and the hundred years of accumulated Jade Dew within his body were spent — even with internal energy perfected, meridians widened, and his body long steeped —

Without relying on pills, it would take at least twenty years of lifespan to refill it.

Until he obtained martial arts sufficient to trigger a qualitative change, this was Shen Yi's greatest reliance.

No matter how wondrous the spiritual medicine, absorbing it still took time.

But as long as he had enough lifespan from demons and monsters, he could always maintain his most perfect state.

Uh, updates are around 11 PM every night.

The baseline is two chapters.

The matter of going on the paid shelf... because of some of my strange operations, I lost the full-attendance bonus...

Basically I didn't get a recommendation slot, and wasn't quite willing to accept it, so I waited another week, and then the data dropped again... hahaha, I'm going to be blown up by my own stupidity.

The bigshots have already helped me a lot; it's still that my own ability isn't quite enough, I guess.

Anyway, since there's no full-attendance bonus anymore, on top of the baseline two chapters at 11 PM, I'll post extra chapters at irregular times each day, mainly depending on how much I've written.

Thanks again to all the bigshots for your support!

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(End of chapter)