Chapter 305: Born Extraordinary

The three of them faced the light and looked outside together, seeing the appearance of Xue Xianyun, their master.

At this moment, Xue Xianyun was neither as stubborn and irritable as usual, nor as high-spirited as he had been at the Sword Casting Assembly, nor did he have the muddled fragility of when he was drunk; his expression was very calm, even serene, and the Micro Light gave him an ethereal, immortal air, just like the fisherman fishing alone on the great marsh as Tang Zhao had first seen him by the water, with a crane dancing behind his back, as if a pair of wings had grown from it.

It was just like this...

Jiang Shenyi's eyes narrowed slightly, and for a moment, he became dazed.

When he first met Xue Xianyun, this Sword Master was exactly like this. On that night he did not wish to recall, Xue Xianyun had descended from the sky with a crane, possessing the same peerless grace as he did now, appearing like a banished immortal. He had pulled him in, taken him away from that hell, and brought him to the paradise-like Jiugao Mountain.

At that time, the white crane danced in the air, revealing a pair of wings from behind Xue Xianyun, just like the wings of an Immortal. At that time, Jiang Shenyi had decided in his heart—that he too would make himself a pair of wings in the future, to carry himself straight up into the clouds.

He was so grateful to and worshipped Xue Xianyun; while others just called Xue Xianyun Master, Jiang Shenyi had always called him his Benefactor, because there truly was a debt of rebirth, which was why he hated Shi Chunqing to the bone for his betrayal.

Seeing Xue Xianyun like this again, Jiang Shenyi felt a soreness in his nose as he recalled the past, followed by gnashing his teeth—if not for Shi Chunqing's betrayal, why would his Benefactor have had to endure these six months of hardship, and how could Zhuoyu Villa have fallen into such a crisis?

Shi Chunqing, a hundred deaths would not be enough to atone!

At the same time, Tang Zhao was somewhat flustered.

He had known early on that Shi Chunqing was here; the whole story about Xue Xianyun getting drunk and stumbling into the Sword Hut, accidentally meeting Shi Chunqing, was all an act. He had only one purpose in coming here—to catch Shi Chunqing off guard, surround and suppress him, and incidentally force out the whereabouts of that Pillar of State.

He felt that in this situation, it was best not to bring Xue Xianyun along. Firstly, it would add to Xue Xianyun's resentment and ruin the good mood he had at today's Sword Casting Conference, and secondly, the bond between the two was too deep; he feared that when the moment came, Xue Xianyun would do something irrational, giving Shi Chunqing an opportunity. Therefore, he had dragged along Jiang Shenyi, who hated Shi Chunqing the most.

It just so happened that Xue Xianyun was drunk, and he had grabbed hold of Tang Zhao, who was being impersonated by Wei Se, and came here alone. Tang Zhao had let Wei Se use some methods to make the old man fall asleep. Then he had Wei Se disguise Jiang Shenyi as Xue Xianyun to come to the Sword Hut with Tang Zhao to deal with Shi Chunqing. Of course, Jiang Shenyi's acting skills were not great and might not deceive Shi Chunqing, so Tang Zhao did most of the talking, telling him to speak less and not add extra lines for himself.

He hadn't expected Xue Xianyun to come anyway. Thinking about it, it made sense—even if Wei Se was specialized in sneak attacks, had Xue Xianyun lived all these years in vain? Wei Se could not use heavy force, and in the struggle, Xue Xianyun might have discovered the clues and come directly.

But now that he had come, what exactly did he want to do?

As for Shi Chunqing, after his initial astonishment, he calmed down and said, "You finally came."

Xue Xianyun nodded; both of them were very calm, except for the two little disciples standing by with swords drawn, as if it were just any ordinary day in the past twenty years, with master and disciple speaking casually in front of the Sword Hut.

Xue Xianyun said, "I just heard. You found your biological parents?"

Shi Chunqing was silent for a moment, then said after a while, "Found them, they are both dead."

Xue Xianyun paused and said, "That is a pity. If they had been found earlier back then, perhaps you could have been reunited."

Shi Chunqing gave a dry laugh and said, "They were dead back then too."

Xue Xianyun said, "Is that so?"

Both were silent, and Xue Xianyun asked again, "You wanted to see me just now? Did you want to see me, or did you want to see it?"

He reached out his hand, holding a sword flat in his palm.

This was a dim sword, but it was not the dark gold sword of Tang Zhao, but the sword Xue Xianyun had cast that all the guests present had wanted to see but could not.

Compared to Tang Zhao's sword, this sword was even more inconspicuous; it did not even look like a new sword, but rather appeared old, covered in rust, and in dire need of polishing.

Shi Chunqing stared at the sword and said, "This is..."

Xue Xianyun said, "You knew early on, didn't you? This is the 'Treasure Sword'."

The sword's name, Treasure Sword.

Not every newborn sword had a name; most had to wait for the Sword Guest to name them, but this sword's name had been decided when it was still a Sword Seed—no, even before it was a Sword Seed.

First came the "Treasure Sword," then came the Treasure Sword.

Back then, Shi Chunqing also had a "Treasure Sword" he carried with him; it was a gift from Xue Xianyun, a Treasure Sword that looked inconspicuous at first but became sharper and stronger the more it was used. That Treasure Sword was a Dharma Artifact, and it was a Talisman Magic Tool without an Original Sword; even for Xue Xianyun, it had taken immense effort to create such a thing out of thin air, and it was the only one.

After Xue Xianyun named Shi Chunqing back then, he had created this Dharma Artifact and given it to Shi Chunqing, hoping that he would hone himself just like this "Treasure Sword," so that in the future, the sharp blade would be unsheathed and bloom with light.

Even so, Xue Xianyun still felt it was not enough; he had always felt that Shi Chunqing deserved more than just one Dharma Artifact, and that he needed a true Treasure Sword. Therefore, he wanted to cast a sword.

Yes, the sword he had pondered for ten years and pursued tirelessly from the beginning was never cast for himself, but for Shi Chunqing.

"The sharp edge of a Treasure Sword comes from honing, the fragrance of plum blossoms comes from the bitter cold."

Shi Chunqing muttered to himself.

"That sentence was a gift to you from Azhao. Besides urging you to settle your heart and hone yourself, and not to be moved by the clouds and smoke of the Waijie, it was also to tell you that the sword I cast was cast for you. This was Azhao's good intention; he wanted you to know that I was good to you, hoping to dispel your rebellious heart."

The facts were exactly as such.

Tang Zhao had already sensed Shi Chunqing's restlessness at the time and had given that sentence to Shi Chunqing, precisely to tell him of Xue Xianyun's painstaking efforts. In his mind, Xue Xianyun was a person who clearly had love for his disciple, but because of his pride, he had always refused to show it, which might have caused his eldest disciple to misunderstand, leading to bad things happening. If Shi Chunqing knew how much effort Xue Xianyun had put in, he would surely turn back from his wrong path.

In fact, Shi Chunqing had understood immediately.

However, he did not turn back.

"Azhao is still young and thinks too simply. He still has the childish mindset that if someone is good to me, I should be good to them. I know you are not like that ungrateful little brat Zhongnan; your rebellion was something you decided on your own."

"I also think I know what is good for me. When Tang Shidi said that, I knew it was your good intention. So I returned the favor and changed the plan." Shi Chunqing said calmly, "Originally, according to the plan, I should have lurked until the end, struck back at the critical moment of your sword casting, stolen the sword, and destroyed Zhuoyu Villa. It was precisely because I had a moment of soft-heartedness and acted early that although you suffered minor losses, you were warned, allowing you to call for help in advance, make calm preparations today, and have the villa escape this disaster and instead beat us back. I harmed myself to benefit others; is that not enough?"

Jiang Shenyi became angrier the more he heard, shouting, "What? You held back, only nearly ending our Benefactor's future and not wiping out our entire sect, and we should thank you for it?"

Shi Chunqing said calmly, "There is no need to thank me. You can thank your Shidi; he not only saw through my rebellious heart but also sensed that I was not as indifferent to the world as I appeared in my daily life. I was suppressing myself; there was a surging ambition beating in my chest. So in the end, I will cut out my ambition and show it to him; this is also returning the favor. As for me personally—"

He said word by word, "I really hate the sentence 'The sharp edge of a Treasure Sword comes from honing, the fragrance of plum blossoms comes from the bitter cold.' Likewise, I hate the name he gave me, I hate his expectations of me while standing in front of the stone, and I hate that he fabricated a whole set of illusory imagery to trick me into suffering and working hard. He knew from the beginning that my efforts were in vain; he had always determined that I was a stone and could not become jade. He kept telling me to be a hardworking stone, to be a stone more beautiful than jade. But so what? A stone is a stone, and jade is jade."

His voice rose higher and higher,

"However, he was wrong; I am not a stone, I was jade from the start. You all have eyes but cannot recognize true jade!"

"I do not need to be polished to be smoother than others; I was born extraordinary! I was stronger than others from the beginning, always riding above the common people!"

At this time, Tang Zhao's calm voice came, saying, "But you are indeed very ordinary, and it does not change with your will, so what can be done about that?"

Tang Zhao was always understanding and rarely said things that made people uncomfortable, but it was also because he was understanding that he could say the most heart-piercing things.

Shi Chunqing's eyebrows twitched, and he seemed to be on the verge of losing control for a moment, but he controlled it in an instant, his expression becoming arrogant; the previous calmness was suppressed by arrogance, and the brocade robe on his body glittered magnificently in the Micro Light.

"That is just your shallow view. You only think your little cleverness and little talent are the qualifications for you to be born extraordinary, and you are proud of them, not knowing that that is exactly where you are shallow and ridiculous. True extraordinariness is strength, is resources, is a foundation thicker than your waist from pulling out a single hair, is the power to grind you into dust with a flick of a finger. I was born destined for such extraordinariness."

Tang Zhao seemed to know what he meant now, saying, "Who gave you the courage to say these things? The Turtle Bandits?"

Shi Chunqing did not deny it, saying, "It is the Dawai Chao. The Dawai Chao allowed me to find my roots. I have such parents, such bloodline, such a family; from the very beginning, I was different from you."

Let alone Tang Zhao, even Jiang Shenyi was amused by him, saying with disdain, "Family? A family is worth nothing."

Shi Chunqing glanced at him, his eyes showing a bit of pity, and said, "Jiang Shidi, I know your background. You look down on what you cannot get. I do not want to poke at your pain, but your family left you nothing, only leaving you with debts; that does not mean others are the same. Moreover, even when your family was at its most prosperous, it was far from being comparable to my lineage. Not to mention Tang Shidi."

He bypassed the furious Jiang Shenyi and looked at Tang Zhao with a smile, "Shidi, you are very likable yourself. If I had met you in the Dawai Chao, although our statuses would be worlds apart, I would still like you. I would not mind your humble background; I would take you into my home, let you be a Guest Minister, treat you like a younger brother, and could even marry my sister or niece to you. I would give you resources and cultivate you into a Sword Guest. When you achieved success and fame, I might feel a little moved, but I would never envy or be jealous, because everything you have would be my gift."

Not to mention Tang Zhao, Jiang Shenyi could not help but say, "How pitiful it is to be unable to extricate yourself from delusions. You must have gone crazy wanting to not be an ordinary person to have made all this up to comfort yourself?"

Shi Chunqing said indifferently, "You don't believe it? It is precisely because of the change of dynasty that you dare to speak to me this way. But when order is restored and everything returns to the proper path, I will still be a noble by birth. How I treat you all will depend solely on my whim at the moment."

Xue Xianyun had been listening the whole time, but at this moment he felt a sense of sorrow; the alcohol he had just suppressed surged back up, misting his eyes, and he said, "Chunqing, when exactly did you become like this?"

Shi Chunqing said, "I have always been like this, didn't you notice? Ah, it is you who have been trapped in a fantasy, unable to extricate yourself. In your heart, you imagined a senior brother who was simple-natured, down-to-earth, gentle, and uncompetitive, and you used that to project onto me. In truth, I was just playing along with your act. Why play along? Because I was an orphan with no one to rely on; I had no choice but to play along. I lost my father in my youth and learned early on to observe expressions, knowing what kind of child you wanted to adopt. If I didn't fit your expectations, you could abandon me at any time and leave me with nothing. What else could I do?"

"But I didn't like it, I hated it, so in the end, I had to run away."

He glanced at the Treasure Sword again:

"As for this sword. It shouldn't have been forged in the first place. Since you insisted on forging it and it can no longer be broken, then give it to me."