Chapter 75 – Empty and a Sword in One Hand

After Ye Liuyun and Teacher Fei Jie left, Fan Xian sat alone on the seashore for a long time, the sea had long since lost the shadow of the big ship, his gaze still bet on the endless sea, the wind and rain on his body hadn’t weakened in the slightest, and he was drenched in wetness. He sat in an odd posture, hugging his knees like a very cute little boy, but in reality, everyone knew that Fan Xian couldn’t possibly be a simple little boy.

The two strands of true qi in his body were slowly flowing and flowing, and the true qi that had previously been energized by Ye Liuyun’s deliberate release of momentum was rapidly running through the circumference of the sky in a relatively smooth and harmonious manner. For him, this moment seemed to be an opportunity, an aura that had suddenly appeared because of the change in his mind and the change in the emotions around him, gently reflecting in his heart.

Fan Xian closed his eyes, his palms naturally stretched out in the rain, allowing the rain to strike his palms.

After a long time, Fan Xian’s palms remained as dry and smooth as ever, as if the rainwater could never really land on his palms and wet any inch of his skin.

Fan Xian’s palms were covered with a faint layer of true qi, which was released from every pore and flowed back from every pore, forming an extremely thin yet interesting circuit. It is exactly what he has been practicing since he was a child, that weird to completely useless method ……

Of course, this dharma door had made him an expert climber in this world, having climbed the imperial palace, the western mountains, and many, many dangerous places that humans would never expect. However compared to when he was a teenager, the entire six years of time and energy that he had once spent on this, this kind of result really seemed very unconscionable.

Five Bamboos had not corrected him back then either – everyone knew that Five Bamboos did not know how to perform internal martial arts.

But today it felt different.

There seemed to be a very subtle and hidden difference from the past. Fan Xian slowly opened his eyes, wiped a handful of rainwater from his face, and stared blankly at the palm of his hand, speechless for a long time.

To be able to make true qi detach from the body and become a weapon that could hurt people was a very strong realm in itself, but it wasn’t an unattainable realm, as long as one practiced to a certain extent, coupled with sufficiently skillful luck techniques, strong people could barely do this.

In particular, Fan Xian had once seen Ye Liuyun’s scattered hands with his own eyes; the Grand Master’s fingers blossomed like withered plums, and the true qi at his fingertips erupted out, piercing through the air in an instant, and pointing out ten thousand plum blossom puddles on the sandy beach beneath the cliffs of Tanyu. This kind of finger qi was already the highest level of human beings breaking through the limitations of the physical body and releasing energy outside the body.

Yet Fan Xian felt a different flavor today, a completely different flavor. He was lost in contemplation in the midst of the storm, rainwater dripping down his smooth hair and dripping down his cheeks, and being blown away a little more by the strong winds from the seashore.

When the dangqi skillfully left his body for a few moments and followed it back again, there seemed to be something more, and with Fan Xian’s realm of mind and spirit, yet he couldn’t even notice that something more was there, but he sensed it.

Surprised, he was puzzled, everything in the world, the total amount of equal Qi, how much real gas released in the body, will be recovered how much real gas, can be recovered, has been Fan Xian’s unique skill, but …… how can it still be more? Doesn’t that mean that you don’t need to meditate, you just need to keep doing this circular flow of true qi, and then you can have more and more true qi in your body?

Where did the extra true qi come from?

The pupils of Fan Xian’s eyes narrowed slightly, and even the tips of his fingers trembled, vaguely aware that he had perhaps touched a door that no one had ever pondered, thought about, or reached in the past, and what was behind that door?

Why had this change suddenly occurred? When Fan Xian sensed the chance in his mind, he sat quietly with this chance in the wind and rain by the sea. Was it Ye Liuyun who came from the sea? Was it the death of the Four Guards Sword that looked out over the sea? Was it the death of the Four Guards Sword that looked out over the sea, or was it the confusion of parting with loved ones?

Fan Xian was perplexed, and then began to calmly sort through the passing of this day and night; he had to find out why this chance was, in order to know exactly what color that door was, and who had opened it in front of him.

This was not a difficult task to carry out, for he had rushed from the Ten Villages to Dongyi City, and had spent the night in the Sword Lodge, and the most likely cause of the change could only have been the two pamphlets, especially the latter, which was written in oddly phonetic words.

Fan Xian had already given this booklet to Mr. Fei Jie to take back to the mysterious Western continent, but he had already completely memorized the contents of the booklet in his mind. Although he still didn’t know the meaning of many of the words on it, he still understood the meaning of a few of the sentences.

Those words were not like an incantation, but more like a kind of poem that he had once seen in his previous life, something in the genre of Dante’s Divine Comedy.

Italian off of Latin? Fan Xian frowned, sitting bitterly in the wind and rain, but somewhat unable to recall the knowledge that had long since faded into oblivion, only remembering that the Italian language had many dialects, and that the real Litany was unrelated to Dante’s Divine Comedy.

Could it be that those few sentences were imprinted in one’s mind, allowing one to subconsciously mobilize one’s mind in the process of running true qi, thus creating such an odd situation at hand?

Spells? Fan Xian slowly stood up, frowning, looking at the empty boat, in vain the sea breeze and sea rain of the ghostly blue water, seemingly to see all the way to the mainland at the other end of the sea.

I love you, this bright spring wind.

I use my whole heart, feel the air every jump of spring XX.

To be close to you, to be one with you.

This is poetry, this is not a spell incantation, Fan Xian stood in a daze in the rain, still holding on to his judgment. But it was clear that these poem-like words had taught himself something, sensed something. Could there really be the so-called heaven and earth vital energy in the air outside one’s body, which was supposed to be empty? And was it that he had previously adsorbed back something by adding a hint of mindfulness similar to the poem’s meaning to the reflux in the process of running his gong?

His footsteps somewhat hurriedly stamped twice on the sandy beach, and his body turned around twice on the windy and rainy shores of the East China Sea, he looked at the air around him, looked at the rain around him, squinting his eyes and letting out light, as if he wanted to find that elusive thread of something from all these transparent or natural things.

Yet there was nothing.

Fan Xian’s mind was flooded with too many speculations, doubts, and judgments in an instant, causing him to feel a little overwhelmed, and with a stifled grunt, he rubbed his brow.

The book was a relic left behind by Master Bitter Lotus, and with the occasional words revealed by the Four Guards Sword, one could tell that this former state master of Northern Qi was extremely interested in Western cockamamie spells, and had even made a small display of his skills on the Great Eastern Mountain.

But it was all in Italian, no matter how amazing that state master was, he shouldn’t be able to. Then how did he practice? What exactly had he practiced?

There was also that collection of poems that might have something to do with spells, which itself was also odd, looking at the age of a very long time ago, even before Bitter Lotus was born, probably a certain predecessor of this continent, who occasionally came into contact with the essence of spells in the western continent, and thus forcibly memorized these words.

Fan Xian suddenly regretted that he shouldn’t have hurriedly given this booklet to his teacher to take to the distant western continent, he should have studied it a little more, with the power of the Supervisory Yuan, he might have been able to dig out who that predecessor who had long since turned into a white bone was, and then dug down into history from that line.

As the rain dripped down his face, Fan Xian suddenly laughed in relief and shook his head mockingly, thinking to himself that he had indeed gone a little overboard under the intense pressure – the victory and defeat on the Great Eastern Mountain had proved that, no matter how far Master Bitter Lotus had practiced, and how much mastery he had over this odd dharma, in the end, there was still no essential change, and was still defeated at the hands of His Majesty.

Spells, spells, might not be the chicken ribs that people thought they were, but they couldn’t possibly be the sharp weapon that changed everything either.

Fan Xian looked back somewhat downcast and left the seashore, traveling towards the rainy Dong Yi City. The Four Gu Swords had passed away, and the entire Dongyi City must be in a state of grief and despair at this moment, when he had to go back, meet with the disciples of the Sword Lodge, and bring the situation here under control.

He didn’t know that he had missed a very precious opportunity, an opportunity that could have opened that door. This kind of opportunity, whether on this continent or on that continent, is extremely rare to only appear occasionally, once it passes away, and then to seize this kind of chance, I don’t know how long it will take until what year or month.

The good thing is that chance and luck, such a vague and ethereal thing, is always related to human perseverance and curiosity, with Fan Xian’s diligence and desire to explore, I think the time for him to touch this door again, should be shorter.

There was white smoke rising from the depths of the grass hut, this white smoke was not cooking smoke, nor was it the pungent smelling smoke from burning fallen leaves in the depths of autumn, the white smoke signaled a fact. So can see the white smoke, heard about the white smoke of the people of Dongyi City, are terrified and uneasy to look at that direction, some people have even kneeled down, kowtow more than over there.

Most people had already learned of the news that the Sword Saint had passed away.

Fan Xian walked to the door of the Sword Lodge, and all the disciples on the periphery of the Sword Lodge glared at him, the fire of hatred burning in their eyes, completely enough to melt him away. With Fan Xian’s strong will, it was still hard to avoid palpitations under these circumstances.

He knew where the hatred of the Sword Lodge’s disciples came from, for the Four Gu Swords had originally died under the insidious entrapment of His Majesty, the Emperor of the Kingdom of Qing, and the Great Patriarch of the Kingdom of Qing, Ye Liuyun, and he himself, a powerful official of the Kingdom of Qing, had undoubtedly become a sort of substitute for being hated.

However, Fan Xian did not have time to think about how to ease the emotions of these disciples of the sword hut, he just looked at the white smoke from the depths of the grass hut, a hint of worry flashed in his eyes, pushed the door and went directly to the flat ground next to the sword pit of the grass hut, and looking at the roaring firewood, he unusually and dryly walked up and sprinkled a handful of something into the fire.

The color of the fire changed instantly, and the remains of that great master in the fire had long since become invisible.

Along with this action of Fan Xian, snorting sword intent spread across the depths of the Sword Lodge, eleven longswords surrounded his circumference up and down, sword intent spitting out like a snake’s mane, ready to stab Fan Xian to death on the spot at any moment in the next moment.

The thirteen sons of the Sword Lodge, with the exception of Yun Zhilan and Wang Xii Lang who were kneeling at the very front, all of them were enraged by Fan Xian’s action.

Fan Xian felt the bone-deep invading cold and chilling sword intent, and did not dare to make any big moves, because he knew that facing the eleven Ninth Grade’s pincer attack, even if it was His Majesty himself who came here, he would still have to consider whether or not to temporarily avoid the attack, and as for himself, he would not even have the chance to return the favor.

He looked at Yun Zhilan, who was kneeling in front of him, and said, “The smoke is poisonous, I don’t want this white smoke to kill half of the people in Dongyi City.”

When he saw the white smoke, Fan Xian’s heart jumped up in fear, he simply did not expect that he was sitting on the seashore for a few moments, and the disciples of the Sword Lodge were so dryly cremating the remains of the Four Gu Swords, after all, as far as he could remember, there was no cremation habit in this continent.

There was poison within the remains of the Four Gu Swords, there was a strong poison, non-Mr. Fei Jie laid down a strong poison, it was simply impossible to stiffen the flesh and resisted the injuries of the Emperor Wang Dao’s punch for three whole years.

Of course, this kind of toxin was burned by the fire, along with the white smoke, and it was not as terrible as Fan Xian said, but everything should be careful.

And Fan Xian had prepared some means in secret for the sake of the injuries on Si Gu Jian’s body, and those medicines were the very things that should be used.

Hearing Fan Xian’s explanation, Yun Zhilan, who was kneeling at the very front, didn’t get up, didn’t turn around, and simply raised his right arm.

The sword returned to its sheath, and the sword’s aura returned to blandness, and in just an instant, the surrounding area of the Sword Mound returned to a calm and mournful atmosphere, with a few sword boys crying while adding firewood to the fire, and the thirteen second generation disciples of the Sword Lodge kneeling before the blaze.

Fan Xian watched this scene, his heart incomparably moved, knowing that after the death of the Four Gu Swords, Yun Zhilan undoubtedly possessed the highest prestige in the entire Sword Lodge.

Thirteen swords, how much terrifying power was this, and how good it would be if the hand holding these swords was his own.

Fan Xian frowned slightly, looking at the fire, thinking about this in his heart.

At dusk, Yun Zhilan entered the house, holding a small urn wrapped in cloth, and with an indifferent face, handed this urn to Fan Xian, saying, “Although I don’t understand what Master Zun meant, since he asked me to give it to you, I will.”

Fan Xian solemnly accepted it with both hands, realizing that the urn was still slightly warm, and the thought that inside were the ashes of the Sigu Sword that hadn’t gotten cold yet gave him a strange feeling in his heart.

Yun Zhilan slowly knelt down in front of him and said, “The twelve swords of the Sword Lodge are handed over to Your Excellency in accordance with the orders of the master.”

The pupils of Fan Xian’s eyes shrunk and glowed slightly.