Chapter 129: Conflict

The old man tried them one by one, giving pointers from time to time, and gradually came to Zhang Junxue.

After only three moves, the old man smiled, stepped back, and waved his hand: "You don't need to try anymore. This broadsword scraping or brushing against me would be terrible. And your waist-chopping saber is already complete in itself. When fighting, you just need to focus on playing your own rhythm. Paying too much attention to the opponent's moves is not beautiful."

Next, he walked to Pei Ye: "Young man, a new face? How should I address you?"

"Pei Ye. Home is in Fenghuai, meridian tree is First Life, use a sword." Pei Ye cupped his hands.

"Hmm, First Life, huh." The old man smiled. "To be honest, First Life doesn't need to spend this money. We require Third Life to sign up, actually because what we teach is most useful for Third Life and above."

"I appreciate the elder's care." Pei Ye smiled.

"Oh! You're the one from Bai Sibing's side..."

While speaking, the old man opened his stance, signaling Pei Ye to draw his sword.

Pei Ye moved his wrists.

"Dealing with the Bai Zhu Pavilion is actually about 'speed' and 'subtlety.' As long as they can't see clearly or understand, 'striking after the enemy' becomes sitting and waiting for death." The old man continued, "So I said learning these things below Third Life is not very useful, because no matter how fast you are, you can be as fast as—"

He suddenly gave a start, the short sword in his hand suddenly parried upward, but it only sliced through a piece of air.

The fine hairs on his neck stood up slightly; the silver-white sword blade had politely stopped three inches away.

"..."

"..."

Not only did the old man not expect it, but Pei Ye himself was also a bit surprised—he was still holding a change of moves in his hand, waiting for the opponent to "strike after the enemy" for a bit.

"Cough, cough." The old man stroked his beard and smiled, "Little brother has a handsome bone structure—how long have you been practicing the sword?"

"Eight years."

"Eight years, that can be considered a talent of good jade." The old man said, "You don't need to experience it anymore. This sword skill is enough to deal with Bai Zhu Pavilion disciples of the same level."

"What about high-level ones?" Pei Ye got to the bottom of it.

"High-level ones naturally have high-level martial arts. At that time, it depends on what level of sword art you have mastered." The old man smiled, "We can only talk about their basic paths here."

"Oh."

"Practice well." The old man patted his shoulder and then turned and left directly.

This actually made Pei Ye pause—he remembered there was still a student behind him.

Thinking this in his heart, he turned his head to look.

The first glance, most of the field of vision was empty. Only when the second glance moved down did he see him—a short, fat boy with a five-short stature, sitting on the ground, leaning on a stone barbell, narrowing his eyes comfortably.

Amidst the sweat and panting of the entire martial arts field, he looked like he was here to watch a show.

Seeing Pei Ye look down, he immediately opened his narrowed eyes—although they were still very small—and then twisted his butt and moved back a few steps with a "creak, creak."

"Am I blocking you? Sorry, sorry."

"No." Pei Ye looked down at him, "Why aren't you training?"

"Ah?" The little fat boy looked at him confusedly, "You practice your practice, why bother with me."

"Curious, if you don't want to practice, why pay to sign up?" Pei Ye picked up two stone locks in his hands.

"My dad signed me up."

"... Oh."

"Practice and practice, can you practice to be the best in the world? A lifetime of cultivation is ultimately just a handful of yellow soil, and such a beautiful autumn day will never return." The little fat boy narrowed his eyes again and leaned on the barbell, slowly stretching his hand toward the sky, "A person's life is only a hundred or eighty autumns, and you have already missed one."

Pei Ye lifted the stone locks twice: "But with high cultivation, you can live a few dozen more autumns."

"..."

"And greed and lust make it easy to die early."

"You go practice your practice."

Pei Ye turned back and continued to train his whole body's muscle strength.

This kind of hot and intensive training was actually something he hadn't experienced for a long time. He remembered that back then, he was always the last one to stop and was still not satisfied. Now, he already felt some fatigue, but no one on the martial arts field had exhausted their strength yet.

And the effort of Zhang Junxue beside him particularly caught his eye. The training intensity of this woman was almost twice his. Now, she was hot and panting, truly like a tigress. Pei Ye originally thought she was just at high intensity for a while and would soon slow down, but he didn't expect that there was no sign of easing up until now.

It was hard to say she was raising her body; it was more like she was squeezing it without sparing any effort.

Pei Ye frowned. The intensity of training should match the bone structure and True Qi. If it continued to be excessive for a long time, it would inevitably cause damage to the body.

Pei Ye reminded her. The woman turned her head. This time, her voice was finally not dull. Her heavy nasal breathing was a bit like his own chestnut horse after exhaustion: "It's okay... I, just this half month..."

Finally, an hour passed. Everyone sat on the ground and panted for a while. When they stood up, the ground was full of wet marks.

Coming to the sparring session, Pei Ye was in a group with Zhang Junxue.

In fact, Pei Ye felt that he was not very suitable for sparring with this woman. They could only fight for real—Pei Ye definitely couldn't block her powerful saber, but she couldn't necessarily dodge Pei Ye's tricky sword every time.

Therefore, the outcome would be decided within ten moves.

If they were to spar and dismantle moves, Pei Ye himself wouldn't be affected much, but Zhang Junxue would have to put away a considerable amount of strength, and it definitely wouldn't be fun to fight, somewhat equivalent to being a sparring partner for Pei Ye.

But when Pei Ye suggested she find someone else, she shook her head: "I want to fight with your sword."

"My sword?"

"I want to experience how a swordsman of your realm uses a sword."

So the two started sparring. In this process, Zhang Junxue was indeed staring very seriously at Pei Ye's sword path and was dismantling moves with Pei Ye in an overly respectful and vigilant way.

Several times Pei Ye couldn't help but remind her: "You don't need to be so careful here. You have enough strength; a direct slap can deflect my sword."

Zhang Junxue just shook her head. She even put away a portion of True Qi again, placing herself in a situation where both speed and strength were inferior to Pei Ye.

In this way, Pei Ye naturally won repeatedly, but every time Zhang Junxue could modify the mistakes of the previous time and start over. Gradually, Pei Ye actually felt a kind of resilience and danger from her.

Pei Ye looked at Zhang Junxue. The woman's serious and firm eyes were staring at his sword. Pei Ye seemed to understand—she didn't like putting away her strength to be beaten; it was just that there was another opponent in her heart.

She placed herself in such a situation because in front of that opponent, she was just as powerless and struggling as she was now.

Pei Ye raised his sword and went again.

When the two were sparring until it was time to rest, a tall figure walked over, stood straight beside the two, cupped his hands, and said in a rough voice: "Excuse me, can I spar with Zhang Junxue?"

Pei Ye turned his head, his expression paused. Then he immediately captured the source of this familiarity—the man in front of him had thick eyebrows and big eyes, a tough and sincere face, and a long saber in his hand. Wasn't he the person in the painting at the door of the Dingyun Trading Company grain and oil shop, Chang Yue?

In fact, this figure hadn't just come over.

Not long after the sparring started, he came to the side to practice saber techniques by himself, as if there was no one to spar with.

"Oh, okay." Pei Ye glanced at Zhang Junxue, and seeing she had no opinion, he stood up and gave up his position.

He sat down beside the little fat boy.

"Yesterday when she first came, Chang Yue fought a round with her. He originally wanted to continue today, but you intercepted him." The little fat boy was still lying down with his eyes narrowed, not even turning his head.

Pei Ye was strange: "Zhang Junxue also came three days late. Didn't Brother Chang have a partner before?"

"..."

"Oh! It's you!"

The little fat boy sighed: "So what if it's me? I'm a Third Life waste, with cultivation but loose martial arts. Chang Yue fighting with me is not as good as practicing by himself."

"My name is Pei Ye, what's yours?"

"My name is Zhang Dingyun."

"Dingyun? You are with the Dingyun Trading Company—"

"My dad opened it."

"Okay."

After chatting for a while, Pei Ye had rested enough, so he picked up his sword and stood up, leaving Zhang Dingyun to continue enjoying the autumn day, and went to practice sword techniques by himself.

It was the first move of the Cicada section, 【Breaking Ground】.

Pei Ye had already dismantled this move thoroughly. It was a clean starting move, with three parts strength and seven parts reserve, more probing than attacking, just like a cicada crawling out from underground after a rain, with most of its body still buried in the hole.

This move had three places that could be flaws, but before learning the Sparrow section, it was best not to expose them.

And if not used as a hook for the Sparrow sword, but just as an independent sword move, this sword was only slightly stronger than the Willow-Supporting Sword. The feeling of suddenness and the basis of advance and retreat were worth pondering, but more of it was paving the way for the next six swords.

Understanding this move thoroughly before learning sword moves was indeed twice the result with half the effort. Pei Ye constantly verified his insights from the past few days with his current practical operations. Gradually, knowledge and action were unified, and his Clumsy Realm body was constantly adjusting his sword path, each sword being more beautiful than the last.

It only took two quarters of an hour for Pei Ye to learn this move.

It was not the rough and reluctant kind like 【Flying Copper Shadow】, but was correctly and precisely integrated into his body's memory. In the future, to improve, he could only rely on proficiency and insight.

After Pei Ye learned this move, he waited for a while before the hour of sparring ended.

At lunchtime, the martial arts hall brought out food again. Zhang Dingyun took Chang Yue out of the martial arts hall to eat. He originally invited Pei and Zhang to go together, but the two naturally refused to eat and drink casually and remained in the martial arts hall to dine.

Squatting in the corner as usual, Pei Ye shoveled rice and asked the woman beside him: "Do you know what the process of the small competition in the afternoon is? Who fights whom? Do we have to fight everyone?"

The morning's training was quite fulfilling. Pei Ye hadn't had this feeling of his muscles and bones being fully activated for some days, and at this time, he was a bit eager to try.

Zhang Junxue shoveled a bowl clean dully—she not only ate more than Pei Ye in one bite but also swallowed faster. This was a comprehensive crushing from mouth to throat to stomach.

After swallowing, she said a quite long passage: "The martial arts hall should have held a big competition when the class opened. The subsequent small competitions follow this result. The ones behind fight the ones in front. If you win, you can continue to fight upward."

"Oh."

In this way, others should have already ranked high and low, only Pei Ye and Zhang Junxue, the two newcomers, hadn't been included in the ranking.

"Is that Ginseng Pill a medicine to assist cultivation?"

"Hmm."

"You seem to know this place very well. Did you come here in the last session?"

"No, it's..." Zhang Junxue stopped shoveling rice, looked down at the bowl, and was silent for a while.

"An older sister in the family came here."

Pei Ye noticed her emotions. Just as he was hesitating whether to ask in detail, the light in front of him was blocked by a shadow. Pei Ye looked up, and the narrow-eyed youth from the morning was standing in front.

"Kid, where are you from?" The youth looked at him.

Pei Ye didn't speak.

This narrow-eyed youth sucked his teeth, tilted his head to look at the horizon, turned back, and actually cupped his hands casually: "The morning matter was my fault. I just want to ask if you are from Xu Gu?"

Pei Ye smiled, lowered his head, and shoveled rice.

This attitude angered him a bit. The youth pointed his hand fiercely at Zhang Junxue and said in a suppressed voice: "Kid, I'm just making it clear to you. If you have no relationship with Xu Gu, it's best to stay away from her, don't suffer this crime in vain."

"None of your business."

"Hahaha, good, good, good." The youth grinned, revealing a mouthful of forest-white teeth.

"So tough! So heroic! I say, you don't want to climb the high branch of their Zhang family, do you?" He leaned down, "Can you also get tough against a pig?"

Pei Ye stopped his chopsticks, put down the bowl, and stood up.

"Yo, why, still want to—"

The voice behind was stifled into a muffled drum in his throat.

A fist like a stone lock smashed fiercely and heavily onto the bridge of his nose.

His head felt like it had been hit head-on by a battering ram. The True Qi in the youth's body was already filled with a stress response, but his brain fell into a short period of dizziness under such a fierce heavy hammer.

His limbs still tried to punch and parry by instinct, but his body was already tilting backward.

Pei Ye grabbed his collar and pulled him back, lifting his knee and hitting his abdomen with full force again.

His body suddenly bowed into a cooked shrimp. His brain woke up slightly under the impact of this rapid pain, but there was no chance to give the next instruction. In just an instant, an equally heavy fist hammered onto his head from the side.

In the dizziness and severe pain, he felt the world spinning, and then there was a heavy "thump" sound. Waiting for the dull pain to come from the back of his head, he realized it was the sound of his head hitting the ground.

Then his neck was strangled by a powerful hand.

The successive heavy blows didn't come again. When he slowly woke up, he found himself panting violently, his brain buzzing, and the churning of his internal organs in his abdomen made him want to vomit.

Then he felt a hand touch his waist and pull something out.

His heart sank—it was his dagger.

Just as he was about to struggle, his hands were pressed to the ground and stepped on.

In the chaotic golden stars, a youth leaned down and looked at him, whispering: "Let me see how tough you are."

A "clatter" sound.

His heart was fiercely gripped, and he shouted out: "Don't!!"

His legs kicked hard, but it couldn't stop the trajectory of the dagger at all. Like a poisonous snake biting into his crotch, the youth screamed and bounced hysterically, but the cold and severe pain had already arrived at the same time.

Pei Ye stood up quite disgustedly and left.

The youth panted on the ground with a pale face for a while before realizing that the severe pain came from his thigh. He reached out to wipe it, and his pants were already soaked through.

It was some blood, and a large amount of incontinent liquid.

Pei Ye threw the dagger onto his face: "So fond of hanging other people's lower three paths on your lips, I thought you had grown several."

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 130 =====