Chapter 74: The Fire Dragon Meets Water

After returning to the smithy, Chen Ping'an resumed his labor. During a short break to eat, he carried his bowl and found Master Ruan squatting beneath the eaves with Miss Ruan. He approached and quietly asked to borrow some money—perhaps fifteen or sixteen taels of silver.

Ruan Qiong didn't even bother to ask why. He simply paused, glanced sidelong at the straw-sandaled youth, and spat out two words: "Get lost."

Chen Ping'an obediently fled the scene.

Ruan Xiu frowned. "Father, must you always speak like that?"

Ruan Qiong snorted coldly. "Not beating him up already counts as speaking politely."

Ruan Xiu bristled. "He's been working himself to the bone as your apprentice without a single coin in return. While everyone else is either sound asleep or idle at dusk, he's the only one hauling soil from the well, running back and forth without rest. In times like these, who's been the most diligent, Father? Can you really say you don't know? Be honest with yourself. He just asked to borrow a bit of silver—how is that excessive?"

Ruan Qiong said nothing, his face darkening. Of course I know. That's exactly why I want to smash that wall-digging little bastard's head in. If this brat had even a fraction of Mount Zhengyang's Stone-Moving Ape's strength, I'd have beaten him half-dead like Qi Jingchun did, just to vent my rage.

But at that thought, Ruan Qiong grew dejected. Even though his strength surpassed that of the Stone-Moving Ape, even without relying on his title as a Sage of this realm, it was still impossible to end a fight in a single move like Qi Jingchun.

He could only console himself: Though a sword cultivator by name, his true aspiration was not the battlefield's carnage, but to become one of the realm's most accomplished swordsmiths—to forge a blade that could nurture its own spirit, a living sword with sentience, capable of cultivation, reincarnation, and perhaps even the pursuit of the Great Dao.

Putting down his chopsticks, Ruan Qiong looked skyward and suddenly cursed aloud, "You really think that with Qi Jingchun dead, you're free to act with impunity? I've made my rules clear. If you choose to ignore them, then show me the strength to defy them. If you haven't got it—then die."

With no one in sight, Ruan Qiong leapt skyward like a blinding white rainbow, piercing the clouds above.

High in the sea of clouds, several immortals—noble women in palace robes and finely dressed men—were flying in leisure, chatting and laughing as they admired the landscape of the former Dragon-Pearl Paradise.

Then came a deafening boom.

The head of a dignified woman adorned with golden hairpins exploded.

Next was a beautiful young girl beside her—her head likewise burst apart.

One after another, without exception, they all perished.

Ruan Qiong hovered in the golden cloudsea, gaze as sharp as blades, sneering as he surveyed the surroundings. "What, you send this rabble to probe my limits? Do you take me for a joke? I may be a mere blacksmith, no match for Qi Jingchun, but killing a few blind Ten-Tier cultivators here is nothing. From now on, there's a new rule: even if you hide beyond the border and covet the blessings of this land, if I, Ruan Qiong, feel even the slightest displeasure, I'll drag you into the skies above my territory and smash your heads to pulp. Believe it—or don't."

Just as he finished speaking, he vanished beyond the border in a flash. A moment later, he reappeared, gripping the head of an old man, dragging him back across the boundary. With a single press of his fingers, he crushed the man's skull.

"Master Ruan! Master Ruan! Let's talk! I'm merely—"

Before the old immortal could finish, Ruan Qiong discarded his lifeless body beyond the borders of his blessed land. A streak of emerald light fled the corpse, only for Ruan Qiong to cast a cold glance its way, sparing it for the time being.

That green light—barely over three feet long—fled madly for a thousand miles before plunging into a wide river shrouded in violet mist, its waters far grander than even the largest rivers of Great Li.

Blood still wet on his fingers, Ruan Qiong declared in a thunderous voice: "For the next sixty years—this is how it shall be."

In the distant clouds, a female cultivator concealed in mist muttered resentfully, "Such ruthless slaughter—what Sage of heaven and earth would act so viciously?"

Ruan Qiong laughed darkly. "Oh? Learned your lesson, hiding so far to whisper your complaints, thinking I can't get to you? Listen here—I'm no Qi Jingchun, that soft-spined scholar. Trying to preach morals to a military sword cultivator? Are you out of your damn mind?"

He raised one arm, fingers together, and intoned:

"By Heaven's command, the Storm of the Northern Dipper shall rise!By Earth's wrath, the Fire of Thunderpool shall burn!Obey, at once!"

In an instant, twin auras erupted—two newly awakened wells of force, one above, one below.

A calm voice elsewhere urgently warned: "Retreat! It's Ruan Qiong's twin life-bound swords—Wind and Thunder! Unlike others, he doesn't house them in his acupoints. They exist throughout the three thousand li of the surrounding world, patrolling with his two martial spirit guards!"

A green firefly of light, sparkling and desperate, darted across the sky, cloaked in crystalline peach blossoms that spun defensively around it.

But after eight hundred li of flight, a thin green thread fell from the heavens and pierced it straight through the skull.

The man who'd earlier spoken in her defense had long fled using a secret escape art, disappearing without a trace.

Silence returned to the sky. No one dared utter another word.

Ruan Qiong snorted coldly and ceased to pursue the scheming ghosts and would-be thieves. He descended back to the brook beside the smithy. Reeking of blood and malice, he washed his hands clean in the stream.

With a heavy sigh, he muttered, "Qi Jingchun… if you'd been half as unreasonable as me, would you really have died so miserably?"

Up on the riverbank, Chen Ping'an was finishing his hour-long stance practice. On his way back, stretching his limbs after the session, he saw Master Ruan emerge from the stream's edge. Hesitating for a moment, he slowed his steps, unwilling to provoke him.

For some reason, he always felt that Master Ruan harbored no fondness for him. The look in his eyes resembled Old Man Yao's—full of veiled disdain.

Ruan Qiong ignored the boy completely and strode back to the smithy without a word.

Chen Ping'an suddenly turned and gazed into the stream.

It was calm and peaceful, showing no sign of disturbance.

But just moments before, he had felt a chill in his heart—as if stabbed in the back. It was as though a drowned ghost had locked its gaze on him from within the water. An absurd thought—but a lingering one.

Yet to his eyes, the stream babbled merrily, clear and gentle.

Unwilling to let it go, Chen Ping'an picked up a few stones of just the right weight and followed the brook downstream, observing carefully, hoping to catch some trace of the strange sensation.

The farther he walked, the more wrong it all felt. Under broad daylight, the waters gave off an eerie, ghostly chill. Even when he had explored the deep pit beneath the Green Ox's back countless times, he'd never felt such a vivid sense of dread.

One thing was now certain in Chen Ping'an's heart: the world truly housed unfathomable demons and spirits, and perhaps the ghostly and monstrous now roamed freely, no longer held at bay by the presence of Mister Qi.

And so, he knew—he had to be careful.

Even if Master Ruan was the next to...