Chapter 30: Great Ambition, Blue Edge

"Senior Sister, you're in quite a leisurely mood, aren't you?"

Su Changqing walked step by step toward Lu Xueqi and said to her with a sheepish grin.

"Admiring the moon is one of the few things that can relieve the boredom of Senior Sister's cultivation."

Lu Xueqi gave a faint smile and replied to Su Changqing.

Su Changqing did not answer; he leaped onto a branch and sat down at a distance neither too near nor too far from Lu Xueqi, looking up at the bright moon above together.

"Why did you not use your true strength today?"

After the two sat in silence for a while, Lu Xueqi suddenly turned her gaze to Su Changqing's face and asked him with a solemn expression.

"Huh? What are you talking about, Senior Sister?"

Su Changqing looked back in surprise, feigning confusion as he asked Lu Xueqi: "Senior Sister, today was my true strength. I am only at Foundation Establishment Stage 1; how could I possibly defeat Senior Sister Lu?"

"Still lying to me!"

A hint of anger appeared on Lu Xueqi's beautiful face.

"I..."

The excuses Su Changqing had prepared were all forgotten under Lu Xueqi's anger; for a moment, he did not know how to reply, feeling that anything he said would be wrong.

"You clearly resisted that move of mine and still had the energy to continue fighting."

Lu Xueqi rebuked Su Changqing, word by word: "The outcome was not yet decided, yet you deliberately caused your Qi to erupt and pretended to be injured to lose the match."

Su Changqing's brows furrowed slightly.

Was his acting really that bad? Could she even tell from that? Under the moonlight, after a long silence between them, Lu Xueqi recovered from her previous anger, stared at Su Changqing, and asked him very earnestly: "So, Junior Brother, what exactly are you thinking?"

"Senior Sister."

The silence just now had also brought Su Changqing some realization; he exhaled softly and asked her in return: "Senior Sister, what difference do you see between the bright moon in the sky and the glow-worms on the ground?"

"The bright moon is white and clear, hanging high in the night sky with brilliant light, while the glow-worms only emit a faint glimmer across this vast earth."

Lu Xueqi pondered for a moment and answered Su Changqing with her thoughts.

"Then, Senior Sister, do you wish to be the bright moon or the faint glow-worm?"

Su Changqing continued to ask.

"The bright moon. If we do not wish to become the bright moon, how are we any different from the common masses in our bitter cultivation?"

This time, Lu Xueqi did not overthink it and gave her answer directly, just as any cultivator would.

Su Changqing smiled faintly and gave his own answer leisurely.

"Senior Sister, you all wish to be the bright moon, but I alone wish to be the firefly."

"The bright moon sheds white moonlight to brighten the dark night, but while the firefly's light is faint, it can also point the way for those who are lost."

"The so-called attainment of the Great Dao to seek immortality is nothing but an illusion. We of the righteous path should set our hearts on the Heavenly Dao, establishing heart and life for all the common people of the world; only then can it be called the Great Dao."

Lu Xueqi did not speak for a long time after hearing this, only shifting her gaze from the moon above to the fireflies dancing within the peaks.

"In my view, with such a heart for the righteous path, why be constrained by the difference between the bright moon and the firefly? Hiding one's strength to be a 'nobody' is not necessarily bad. Cultivating silently until stepping through the gates of the Great Dao to cast one's remaining light upon the world is what I desire."

Su Changqing smiled and said to Lu Xueqi. Some things, when hidden in the heart, only make one feel lost; now that he had said them, he felt much better.

"I understand your great ambition, Junior Brother."

After hearing Su Changqing's heartfelt confession, Lu Xueqi finally understood his desire to hide his talents, and gradually, this great ambition settled in her own heart as well.

"Thank you for understanding, Senior Sister, and please keep this matter a secret for me."

Su Changqing finally breathed a sigh of relief.

"Mm, I will keep the secret for you, Junior Brother."

Lu Xueqi nodded earnestly.

Afterward, Lu Xueqi took a sword case from the side and handed it to Su Changqing. Under his surprised gaze, she explained: "I said today that I would give you a gift; this sword is the gift Senior Sister wants to give you."

Su Changqing took the sword case and opened it to look.

Lying there was a long sword, blue all over. It just lay there quietly, its blade emitting a brilliant light under the moonlight, making one feel the sharp sword-aura radiating from it.

It was truly a peerless sword! "This sword is named 'Qingfeng', and it came from the same origin as my immortal sword, 'Tianya'."

"Rumor has it that a piece of Nine Heavens Exotic Iron fell into the mortal world, and Senior Kuxin obtained it in the Arctic Ice Plains. Senior Kuxin forged it into the 'Tianya' immortal sword, then took 'Tianya' to fight a great expert of the Demonic Cult for a day and a night, establishing its name as an immortal sword. Every cultivator dreams of obtaining it. Later, it passed through many hands until it reached me, and 'Tianya' acknowledged me as its master."

"However, the world only knows of 'Tianya', not knowing that Senior Kuxin also forged another immortal sword back then, only it was kept hidden away. Now that it has reappeared in the world, it is the 'Qingfeng' in your hands."

Lu Xueqi told Su Changqing the origins of both swords one by one.

Su Changqing was shocked.

He naturally knew the name 'Tianya'; it was Lu Xueqi's immortal sword, and one of the peerless swords recorded in the "Ten Volumes of Exotic Treasures", worthy of being in the top ten famous swords of the world.

In the story, 'Tianya' became famous twice: once when Senior Kuxin used it to resist the Demonic Cult's Black Heart Elder, becoming a well-known treasure of the righteous path, and the second time when Lu Xueqi used 'Tianya' to become a world-renowned female sword immortal.

What Su Changqing did not know was that besides 'Tianya', there was another immortal sword, 'Qingfeng'.

It was currently lying on his lap.

No wonder he felt its extraordinariness the moment he saw this blue long sword; now that he knew it shared the same lineage as 'Tianya', it was no surprise. If 'Tianya' could rank in the top ten famous swords of the world, it meant 'Qingfeng' was also among them; it was just that the world did not know of this sword's existence.

"Senior Sister, such a precious gift, you are just giving it to me?"

Su Changqing was naturally extremely fond of 'Qingfeng', but he also knew this sword was precious and not some common item that could be given away lightly.

"I said it was a gift for you; do you expect Senior Sister to go back on her word?"

Lu Xueqi said to Su Changqing very earnestly.

"I wouldn't! I love 'Qingfeng' dearly; even if you asked me to return it, I wouldn't agree."

Seeing her attitude, Su Changqing feigned fear that Lu Xueqi would take it back, hugging 'Qingfeng' to his chest as he joked with her.

For a so-called sword cultivator, the importance of a good sword is self-evident.

Su Changqing's current sword was still a common sword he had received from the sect when he first began learning the sword path; he hadn't thought about finding a suitable good sword before because his cultivation was not high.

Now that he had reached Foundation Establishment, he had long planned to change to a good sword, but who would have thought Senior Sister would give him a peerless immortal sword just like that.

Such kindness, Su Changqing kept deep within his heart, never to be forgotten for his entire life.

(End of this chapter)