Chapter 5#
Chapter 5#
Aside from the bedroom with the slightly ajar door, there was only one other room at the other end of the long corridor.
If nothing had changed in a thousand years, that room should be where Xie Zefeng kept some unused magical tools.
There were no restrictions around the room; as long as he didn’t touch the spirit treasures or magical tools, he wouldn’t alert Xie Zefeng.
An Wuxue made a quick decision, turned, and walked in quietly.
Bright pearls refined from fire essence were placed everywhere in the room, and various magical tools and spirit treasures wrapped in restrictions were neatly displayed.
The room was brightly lit and dust-free in all four corners.
Why did it feel like people often entered and exited this place?
Xie Zefeng’s aura was already close.
He didn’t have time to think further. He closed the door, gasped slightly, and hurried to suppress his aura.
He had been careless.
His desire to leave Luoyue Peak was too urgent, and he hadn’t thought things through carefully.
Even the gatekeeper disciples knew that Xie Zefeng would leave for three days every year at this time without fail, so he had thought it impossible for the other party to return early.
How could he be so unlucky as to encounter an exception.
He could only gamble.
Gamble that Xie Zefeng wouldn’t suddenly release his divine sense within his own cave dwelling.
An immortal’s divine sense only needs a casual sweep for every blade of grass and ephemera in the entire Frost Sea to be exposed.
An Wuxue had not used his spiritual energy to resist the cold for a long time. At this moment, his whole body was frozen stiff. He could only stand motionless by the door, quietly spreading his divine sense to probe the movements outside.
Xie Zefeng seemed to be heading toward the bedroom, his steps actually somewhat staggering.
Was he injured?
It didn’t seem so; his aura wasn’t chaotic.
Unsettled in mind?
In any case, it was a good thing for him.
As long as Xie Zefeng remained uninterested in paying attention to his surroundings, once he left the Frost Sea or began to meditate, An Wuxue could find an opportunity to slip away.
An Wuxue breathed a sigh of relief.
He relaxed slightly and let his divine sense sweep over the magical tools and spirit treasures covered by various restrictions in the room.
He had to pay attention to the positions of these restrictions to avoid accidentally touching them while hiding in the room.
Just as his divine sense swept past a corner—
An Wuxue suddenly saw an object that was all too familiar.
His thoughts went blank instantly.
That was…
How could it be?
How could that thing be here?
He turned his head and looked in the direction his divine sense had just scanned.
A sword rack standing against the wall came into view.
The sword rack leaned against the wall, occupying a solitary space in the room filled with various spirit treasures, with the surrounding area being exceptionally empty.
The sword rack was made of a special spirit stone material, and spiritual energy swirled above it, holding a long sword with a blade as thin as a cicada’s wing in the air, perfectly preserved under the coverage of the restriction.
He was not mistaken.
This was what his divine sense had scanned.
His natal sword, Chunhua.
Chunhua was the spirit sword chosen for him by An Wuxue and Xie Zefeng’s master—the previous Immortal Venerable, Nan He.
Immortal Venerable Nan He had governed the two realms for thousands of years, and Luoyue Peak had many disciples.
But Nan He had only two disciples—An Wuxue and Xie Zefeng.
Nan He initially didn’t intend to take disciples.
But a thousand years ago, An Wuxue was born.
He was born in an unremarkable small village in the mortal realm. At that time, the two realms had been deeply mired in the Immortal Calamity for a long time; corpses were everywhere, withered bones piled up like mountains, and there were countless resentful souls. Under extreme chaos, there must be the blessings of the Heavenly Dao, and An Wuxue was that blessing.
He was born with a golden body and jade bones, uniquely gifted in the path of cultivation.
The moment the infant uttered its first cry, the spiritual energy from all directions of the small village converged to form a wind vortex, clouds piled up, and spirit beasts roared.
Coincidentally, a few demon cultivators passed by.
Demon cultivators rely on cultivating the turbid energy of heaven and earth to increase their strength; their other cultivation techniques are not much different from ordinary cultivators.
A natural golden body and jade bones, if they cultivated turbid energy from a young age, would instead be a great asset to demon cultivators.
The demon cultivators naturally wouldn’t let him go.
The mortals saw the demon cultivators’ ill intentions.
They hid the infant and were unwilling to hand him over even at the cost of death.
In a fit of rage, the demon cultivators slaughtered the entire village.
By the time Immortal Venerable Nan He sensed the spiritual energy fluctuations and arrived, corpses lay all over the ground, and the thick smell of blood lingered.
The souls of those who died wrongly were filled with resentment, inducing frost and bringing down heavy snow. The drifting snow fell and covered everything, the eye-piercing white mixing with the glaring blood-red.
A mortal’s obstruction was merely an ant trying to stop a carriage for a cultivator, but it was precisely this that delayed them for a moment. Before those low-level demon cultivators could find the child, they were instantly killed by the arriving Nan He.
Nan He brought him back to Luoyue Peak.
Since he was a child, An Wuxue had the Immortal Venerable’s teaching and possessed a golden body and jade bones. He had cultivated to the Inedia period before he was ten years old. By the time Xie Zefeng joined the sect, he was already in the Small Success period.
On the day he broke through to the Great Success period, his master gave him the Chunhua sword, saying, “After the snow comes the spring flowers (Chunhua); this sword suits you.”
This was a spirit sword as gentle and calm as spring water.
Nan He hoped he would walk an immortal path with a clear and transparent Dao heart.
He had once hoped so too.
Later, when he held Chunhua and took Xie Zefeng to handle a matter of demon cultivators refining souls, he discovered the resentful souls of those who died in the village back then.
The souls of those who had once protected him had been refined into fierce ghosts by demon cultivators using their unwilling resentment.
An Wuxue’s hand holding Chunhua shook slightly, completely unable to strike that sword blow to seal demons and dispel evil.
As the fierce ghosts closed in for the kill, it was Xie Zefeng who struck that blow for him.
The sword light fell, and the souls that had been forcibly detained for decades were finally liberated.
His junior brother was still using the ordinary spirit sword that every Luoyue Peak disciple had. Turning back to see An Wuxue’s desolate expression, his junior brother’s voice was not as cold as usual, but rather spoke to him with great conviction: “Senior brother should be happy. They have waited decades for this sword strike.”
Chunhua trembled slightly, letting out a melodious sword hum.
His junior brother’s sword strike had severed his innate inner demon, but personally planted another emotional tribulation in his heart.
From that day on, Chunhua was no longer as gentle as water; instead, it became sharp and fierce. Later, Nan He perished and Luoyue Peak declined. In his hands, Chunhua was stained with countless bloodstains.
When he stood before the Luoyue Peak mountain gate and crushed that cultivator’s divine soul, he looked at the bright red blood dripping from Chunhua’s blade and remembered Nan He once saying to him: “I picked you up from among the corpses under the flying snow. I named you Wuxue (No Snow) and gave you Chunhua, hoping you could hold this sword to stabilize the mountains and rivers of the two realms and sweep away all the rootless snow in the world. May your Dao heart be like the spring flowers after the snow, clear and transparent.”
In the end, he failed to do so.
The various events of his past life flashed through his mind like a thousand thoughts in an instant.
It was only the time it took to blink.
Those past events were perhaps only remembered by him, a person who should be dead.
And he, this person who should be dead, was currently hiding in the Buried Frost Sea. Outside, Xie Zefeng seemed to be walking toward the bedroom.
But An Wuxue suddenly felt extremely uneasy.
Something was wrong.
Where…
It’s the sword!
Natal swords are all connected to a cultivator’s divine soul; the sword follows the thought.
He hadn’t felt Chunhua’s existence before because Chunhua was wrapped in Xie Zefeng’s restriction.
But just now, he had swept over Chunhua with his divine sense…
Right at this moment.
“Buzz—”
Chunhua, within the restriction, was indeed triggered by his divine sense and trembled!
This was originally nothing.
Chunhua only trembled once. As long as he didn’t continue to actively wake Chunhua with his divine sense, it wouldn’t expose his identity.
But this tremble of Chunhua touched Xie Zefeng’s restriction!
At the same time.
A surge of powerful spiritual energy rushed in, crashing open the door and striking mercilessly in front of An Wuxue, instantly sweeping him backward!
Suxue’s body, only at the Inedia period, could not withstand this blow at all. He was thrown by the spiritual energy against the various restrictions behind him and suddenly spat out a mouthful of fresh blood.
He staggered, and before he could fall, a man’s ice-cold hand grasped his neck, pressing against his Adam’s apple.
An Wuxue felt unable to breathe.
Bone-chilling spiritual energy took away his final perception of his body. He was already so cold that he had no feeling. The spiritual energy he had been suppressing until now began to circulate instinctively at this moment.
Xie Zefeng stood before him, his palm pressing against his throat. There was no need for force; the surging spiritual energy around them could take his life in an instant.
His hands instinctively grasped the other’s wrist.
Icy spiritual energy surrounded them, stirring the weak spiritual energy in Suxue’s body.
The moment Xie Zefeng’s spiritual energy swept past his arm—
The Furnace Cauldron Mark, which An Wuxue had forcibly suppressed, suddenly became as hot as if it were burning, recklessly pulling at his emotions and thoughts.
It hurt so much.
It was so cold.
And so hot.
And also a little… dizzy.
His fingertips gradually applied force, and the cool wrist of the person in front of him felt warm to the touch.
“Mm…”
…Was that his voice?
He quickly bit his lower lip.
The Furnace Cauldron Mark connected the two sides. Xie Zefeng’s spiritual energy flow paused slightly, and his breath hitched.
The man’s expression was gloomy, his gaze heavy, and his voice was wrapped in killing intent: “What are you doing here?”
An Wuxue’s breathing was weak, and his heart pounded.
“…I couldn’t wait for the Im… Immortal Venerable these past few days,” he managed to make a sound with great difficulty, speaking strained and intermittently, his voice trembling slightly. “The Furnace Cauldron Mark flared up. I… I wanted to find the Immortal Venerable but couldn’t find him…”
Xie Zefeng would not hesitate to kill a threat that had sneaked into the Buried Frost Sea with ill intentions, but he might not necessarily care about a male pet furnace cauldron wandering around.
As expected, this person looked down at the Furnace Cauldron Mark that was currently flaring up on him, and the killing intent in his eyes seemed to recede for a moment.
The next moment—
“Cough…”
The hand pressing against his throat actually used more force!
He had once held this hand to teach him how to swing a sword and led this hand across the thousands of peaks of Luoyue Peak.
This hand now gave him no room to breathe.
In an instant, the man’s spiritual energy surged from his fingertips, and killing intent reappeared in his eyes, even carrying anger.
Xie Zefeng actually seemed to have lost his reason, forgetting that he possessed the spiritual energy of an immortal who looks down upon all living beings, holding his neck like a common mortal.
The wind blew in from outside the house, and the whistling wind wrapped around Xie Zefeng’s low voice: “But you touched something you shouldn’t have.”
An Wuxue only felt a sweet, metallic taste in his throat, and his entire body ached.
Just as the pain surfaced, it was covered by heat, and he couldn’t help but tremble slightly.
In the blink of an eye, it seemed like many thoughts were flashing in his heart, yet everything was pitch black, invisible and intangible.
…What did I touch?
Chunhua…?
The familiar feeling of approaching death surged over him.
It wasn’t the first time he had felt that fleeting moment before the approach of boundless darkness.
There was no fear, only absurdity.
“An Wuxue” had been dead for a thousand years, yet this person was so heartless. Not only did he seal his natal sword, but even for a furnace cauldron kept by his side, the reason for his anger was not unauthorized entry into the Buried Frost Sea, but touching Chunhua.
He had died once and been lost for a thousand years, only to end up dying at Xie Zefeng’s hands after all.
Ha, Xie Zefeng wanted to kill him again.
He was now powerless; was he to just sit and wait for death?
Chunhua was nearby…
With his last remaining sliver of clarity, he controlled his divine sense and headed toward Chunhua.
Behind Xie Zefeng, out of his sight, the spirit sword that had been sealed for a thousand years trembled slightly again.
The pressure on An Wuxue’s throat grew heavier.
An Wuxue’s vision went black, and his body instinctively struggled.
The talismans he had modified fell from his sleeves as he struggled, blown up by the wind of the Buried Frost Sea and fluttering past Xie Zefeng’s eyes.
Chunhua slowly floated up inconspicuously, its edge ready to strike.
Xie Zefeng, however, was stunned.
He suddenly let go.
His killing intent vanished too quickly, and Chunhua stalled in the air before falling silently to the ground.
An Wuxue had long since lost his strength. Losing support, he fell to the ground, gasping for breath violently.
Xie Zefeng was dazed for a long time.
Looking at the talisman papers whose patterns followed the habits of An Wuxue’s previous life, he asked him word for word with absolute clarity: “These talismans—where did you obtain them?”