Arranging the Follow-up

The next day,

after a night of fierce battle, everyone was exhausted in both body and mind. Leaving a few people to stand guard, they all went back to sleep.

Early this morning, they were summoned to Zhengqi Hall by Yue Buqun, who gave a lengthy lecture to steady the disciples' hearts.

He also called Wang Ming and Linghu Chong into the study separately for individual talks, offering a flurry of praise for Wang Ming's progress on the Purple Haze Divine Skill.

Yue Buqun had no idea Wang Ming had already mastered it, assuming he was only fifty or sixty percent of the way there, and Wang Ming did not bring it up of his own accord. As for what was said to Linghu Chong, Wang Ming had no way of knowing.

Wang Ming stood upon a stone cliff, watching the clouds and mists amidst the distant mountains, his state of mind growing tranquil along with them.

Gradually, his thoughts began to drift, pondering the direction of his future.

In the previous world, lacking the strength to run wild without restraint, he had felt compelled to stick a hand into every major plot node. While he had certainly reaped plenty of benefits, he had ultimately drawn the attention of Zhu Wushi and squandered his own life away.

Therefore, Wang Ming learned a bitter lesson and decided to stay low-key and avoid courting disaster.

Thus, having arrived in this world for over a decade, he had never even descended Mount Hua once, consistently playing the part of a shut-in.

These dozen or so years had not been wasted either.

First, he had resolved his awkward struggle with classical texts in the Mount Hua schoolroom, no longer like in the previous world where peerless manuals lay right in his bosom yet he could not understand a single one, possessing not a shred of resistance capacity right up until his death, forced to perish humbly and helplessly.

And then, having lain low in this world for over a decade, the system's cooldown period for traveling through worlds had also arrived. Now he could leave The Smiling, Proud Wanderer at any moment, which could be considered his greatest safeguard.

Furthermore, following the battle of the previous night, Wang Ming could basically affirm that in a one-on-one fight, he should be considered the third strongest in the contemporary world.

Yesterday Wang Ming had held back, but his enemy-killing results were only a hair's breadth behind Yue Buqun's, from which it could be deduced that his strength was definitely above Old Yue's, and Zuo Lengchan probably wouldn't be a match for him if he unleashed his full might.

The only ones who could defeat Wang Ming were Dongfang Bubai and Feng Qingyang. Those two were ten-thousand-year veteran shut-ins who basically never came out to stir up trouble.

Against Dongfang Bubai, the true First Under Heaven, Wang Ming had zero confidence and basically only faced the path of defeat and death; his speed was simply too fast, making it impossible even to run away.

Against Feng Qingyang, he probably wouldn't be a match either, but the man was old. If they fought to mutual destruction, while Wang Ming would undoubtedly die, Feng Qingyang would also definitely perish from exhausted oil and a withered lamp.

Wang Ming's suggestion this time to stay behind and guard Mount Hua was not only because the natural stronghold favored him, but also because he knew of Feng Qingyang's existence, ensuring that even if he messed up, someone would have his back.

This was why Wang Ming needed to come out and deal with the Sword Sect disciples, locking them up. If he let Linghu Chong and the others kill them—especially using the Nine Swords of Dugu to defeat the Sword Sect disciples and then dealing them a fatal blow—it would undoubtedly thoroughly disgust Feng Qingyang.

This must also be the reason why Mount Hua had been so unlucky in the original plotline without ever even seeing Feng Qingyang.

He had already taken all the resources on Mount Hua that he ought to take, and continuing to stay there held no meaning whatsoever.

This time, one could say Wang Ming had stayed low, farmed his character level up to maximum, and only then stepped out of the novice village. He refused to believe he could still manage to get himself killed.

It wasn't that Wang Ming didn't want to keep hiding out until he was the First Under Heaven before heading out, but rather that he had basically reached his limit.

The Purple Haze Divine Skill was already mastered, and advancing further was a matter of slow, grinding effort, consuming time.

The Indestructible Vajra Body had also hit a bottleneck, with extremely slow progress.

Continuing to cultivate it would yield ordinary results.

Yet leaving just like that felt somewhat embarrassing. He had taken no small amount of Mount Hua's resources—consuming even more than Linghu Chong—so he still needed to make some arrangements before leaving.

Linghu Chong arrived at the cliff where Wang Ming was lost in thought.

"Fifth Apprentice-Brother, is there something you wanted junior brother to come to Jade Maiden Peak for?"

Linghu Chong was also very puzzled as to why this fifth apprentice-brother of his—who had always been extremely low-key and basically never interacted with him alone—would suddenly think to ask to meet him.

Linghu Chong's arrival snapped Wang Ming out of his trance.

"Eldest Apprentice-Brother, do you still like Little Junior Sister?"

As soon as these words came out, Linghu Chong's expression instantly turned gloomy. If he didn't know that Wang Ming wasn't one to indulge in malicious teasing, he would have thought he was intentionally rubbing salt in his wounds.

Lin Pingzhi, eager for revenge and wishing to acquire martial arts to elevate his strength, constantly buttered up Yue Lingshan in an attempt to take a circuitous route to draw closer to Yue Buqun. As a result, he plied his flattery off-target, taking advantage of Linghu Chong's wall-facing penance on Mount Hua to swoop in and poach Linghu Chong's corner.

"What if I do like her? Little Junior Sister now likes Little Lin." Linghu Chong said with a depressed mood.

"As long as you promise me three things, I can help you win back Little Junior Sister's affections."

"Really? Don't say three things, a hundred wouldn't be a problem." Linghu Chong agreed without even thinking.

"No need, three will do. Listen to me finish the three things first."

Wang Ming turned around this time to glance at Linghu Chong, then continued.

"The first thing: quit drinking. Regardless of whether someone is righteous or demonic, as long as you share a few cups with them, you take them for a friend.

The second thing: keep yourself clean and conduct yourself with self-discipline. Stay away from people of the Demon Cult. There are true heroes among them, but making alliances with them is a mistake."

"I can't do that. They kill without asking about right and wrong, but they are all men of passion and good fellows." Linghu Chong said with a low mood.

"Do you know the reason why the Sword Sect came knocking this time, and why the masked men launched a murderous assault on the mountain last night?"

"The Sword Sect wanted the position of sect leader, and the men in black came because of Little Lin's ancestral swordplay."

Wang Ming looked into Linghu Chong's eyes and slowly said,

"No! It was because of you."

"Fifth Apprentice-Brother, what nonsense are you talking about?"

"At Huiyan Tower, you simultaneously offended the Hengshan Sect and the Mount Tai Sect, plus you offended the Qingcheng Sect, causing Mount Hua to lose three allies. And then you made the unilateral promise to take Lin Pingzhi as a disciple, forcing Master to take in this hot potato of a Lin Pingzhi, instantly making Mount Hua the target of public criticism."

In the original plotline, Lin Pingzhi sought to apprentice under Yue Buqun, but the latter had zero desire to take him in; Old Yue was not that unwise.

He had been stunned stupid by a triple play: Lin Pingzhi begged Yue Buqun to take him as a disciple before his parents' graves, and Old Yue refused. First, Linghu Chong jumped out and said he had mentioned it in front of Mr. and Mrs. Lin and that Old Yue had agreed, then Ding Yi of Hengshan chimed in to back him into a corner, and finally his daughter delivered a backdoor stab, causing him to swallow this bitter fruit.

Hearing Wang Ming put it this way, Linghu Chong's confidence faltered somewhat as well.

"The Mount Hua Sect is not as formidable as you imagine. Mount Hua has no older-generation masters, nor does it have fellow disciples of Master's generation to lean on for support. You could say Mount Hua relies entirely on Master's reputation as the Gentleman Sword to prop it up.

Only with a good reputation can one have righteous allies to assist. Those who harbor malicious designs against Mount Hua will think twice before acting. When the Demon Cult attacks Mount Hua, they send righteous sects to come and help, and Zuo Lengchan fears that Shaolin and Wudang will directly classify Mount Shan into the ranks of heterodox and demonic factions, making him an object of universal punishment."

Wang Ming saw that Linghu Chong's mood was somewhat depressed, which also proved he wasn't completely devoid of a conscience.

"The moment you went down the mountain, you were sworn brothers with the First Under Heaven Lecher, and right in front of the righteous alliance, you aided the Demon Cult elder Qu Yang and the Five Peaks traitor Liu Zhengfeng. You ruined Master's reputation, which is why you brought upon yourself the Sword Sect using the excuse of lax disciple discipline to come and seize the leadership. In this world, apart from black and white, and righteousness and evil, there is also the matter of stance!"

"Stance?" Linghu Chong was confused. Yue Buqun's education consisted solely of upholding chivalry and justice.

After all, Yue Buqun maintained the persona of a gentleman and couldn't spell things out explicitly. Linghu Chong had already dug plenty of holes for him by attending Liu Zhengfeng's hand-washing in gold ceremony, so he wanted him to kill anyone who was demonic without asking about the causes and conditions. Unfortunately, those few words were utterly incapable of changing a person's character.

"You are the Eldest Apprentice-Brother of the Mount Hua Sect, and every word and action of yours represents Mount Hua. When you provoked Mu Gaofeng and Yu Canghai didn't die, it wasn't because your skills were great; it was because they showed restraint toward you for Master's sake. Likewise, when you collude with the Demon Cult, these matters are also tallied against Master. Standing behind you is the entire Mount Hua Sect, hundreds of fellow disciples. Whether they live or die rests entirely in your words and actions."

"Put that way, I truly am the one who brought about this great disaster."

Linghu Chong stood there, utterly dejected and practically on the verge of autistic withdrawal, though he did not know that what Wang Ming said contained truths mixed with his own private agenda.

"The third thing: I hope apprentice-brother will not descend Mount Hua for ten years. I am afraid you will trick Master to death and trick Mount Hua out of existence."

Hearing this, Linghu Chong looked at Wang Ming in sudden astonishment, failing to grasp his meaning.

"Never mind the rest, do you promise?"

"Since apprentice-brother has put it so plainly, even if it weren't for Little Junior Sister, I promise you."

Having spoken, he turned and departed with heavy steps, paying no mind to Wang Ming, who remained standing in place.

"Ah!"

Watching Linghu Chong's dejected figure slowly receding into the distance, Wang Ming sighed.

Linghu Chong's natural talent was exceptional. If given ten years of time, the future First Under Heaven would be none other than him, so binding him to Mount Hua's war chariot would never result in a loss.

To take a step back, trapping him on Mount Hua was equivalent to defusing quite a few ticking time bombs for Old Yue.

There was no helping it; Wang Ming had no intention of becoming the Young Sect Leader of Mount Hua. Judging from Old Yue's energetic vigor, he could remain in power for at least another ten or twenty years.

He had no desire to be this stifled, eternal number-two. Besides, his own target had never been right here on Mount Hua, nor within this The Smiling, Proud Wanderer world—the direction of his advance was the Myriad Worlds.

Despite how harmonious his current relationship with Yue Buqun appeared, if he continued to stay, his personal prestige would sooner or later threaten the sect leader, and when petty conflicts inevitably arose, the disgusting part of it would still fall on himself.

Regardless of what kind of person Yue Buqun was in the original plotline, at least for these dozen-odd years he had done nothing to wrong him, and could well be called a gentleman.

Rather than letting both sides turn hostile by then, it was better to make a clean break early on, which would also preserve this bond of master and disciple.

"Little Junior Sister! I've noticed you've constantly been practicing your family's swordplay, but you always seem to miss the essentials. Have you ever thought about the reason?"

After Linghu Chong left, Wang Ming welcomed the second person he had asked to meet: Lin Pingzhi.

"Pingzhi does not know. Can apprentice-brother explain this problem for Pingzhi?"

"Your swordplay is incomplete. Do you want the Bixie Sword Manual?"

"Apprentice-brother, you know where my ancestral Bixie Sword Manual is?" Lin Pingzhi asked, trembling with excitement.

"I know!"

"Apprentice-brother, Pingzhi begs you to tell me the whereabouts of the manual. For this grace, I will surely act as an ox or a horse..."

Seeing Lin Pingzhi drop to his knees and start kowtowing, Wang Ming immediately cut him off.

"You have half an hour to pack your things and wait for me at the foot of Mount Hua. Do not tell anyone else, or we won't be able to leave."

With those words, he turned and walked away.

An apprentice informed Yue Buqun that Wang Ming was waiting for him in the study. Upon arriving at the study, he saw no sign of Wang Ming, only a single letter. He immediately opened it and read:

"Master, by the time this letter is seen, your disciple Wang Ming has already departed. I hope Master will not worry. At the moment of departure, this disciple has several matters to report to Master:

Master has no need to worry overly much about the Mount Hua Sect. Mount Hua still possesses a member of the Qing generation; his name is Feng Qingyang, and his martial arts are no lower than Dongfang Bubai's.

As for Feng Buping and Cheng Buyou, Master can consider how to handle them yourself.

Inside the cave on Siguo Cliff, there are Five Peaks sword techniques and counters to the Five Peaks swordplay left behind by Demon Cult elders.

Eldest Apprentice-Brother has not cultivated the Bixie Sword Manual; instead, he has learned the swordplay from the cave, along with Grand-Uncle Feng's Nine Swords of Dugu.

Back in the day, the two patriarchs Yue Su and Cai Zifeng went to the Shaolin Temple as guests and secretly observed the Sunflower Manual. The time was rushed, and the two men did not have time to simultaneously read through the entire book, so they immediately split the reading, each reading one half before returning to Mount Hua.

After the two patriarchs returned to Mount Hua, they jointly tried to comprehend it. Unexpectedly, when the two of them cross-checked the techniques in the book, they were as mismatched as a cow's head to a horse's mouth and could not be reconciled at all. Both men firmly believed that the other had read the book wrong and that only their own recollection was correct. The division of Mount Hua into the Sword and Qi sects originated from this.

Chan Master Hongye of Shaolin discovered this matter shortly afterward. He knew that the martial arts contained in this manual were not only profound and vast, but also extremely perilous. The most difficult part was the very initial hurdle; as long as that initial hurdle could be breached, everything afterward would be nothing. But if there was even the slightest deviation at the initial hurdle, death or severe injury would follow instantly. Hongye promptly dispatched his prized disciple, Chan Master Duyuan, to Mount Hua to advise Yue and Cai against cultivating the martial arts within the manual.

When Chan Master Duyuan ascended Mount Hua, Yue and Cai treated him with the utmost respect, admitting to having read it privately while expressing deep apologies, yet simultaneously consulting him on the martial arts recorded within the scriptures. Little did they know that although Duyuan was Hongye's prized disciple, he had not been taught the martial arts of the manual. Chan Master Duyuan did not point this out on the spot; listening to them recite the scriptures, he casually offered explanations while secretly memorizing them in his heart. Chan Master Duyuan's martial arts were already exceptionally brilliant, and he was a person of supreme wit; hearing a line of scripture, he would improvise an interpretation for it, and it actually sounded completely logical and well-founded.

However, what Yue and Cai had memorized was already limited to begin with, and after passing through this retelling, it inevitably suffered another discount. Chan Master Duyuan stayed on Mount Hua for eight days before bidding farewell, yet from that day on, he never returned to Shaolin either. Shortly thereafter, Chan Master Hongye received a letter from Chan Master Duyuan stating that his mortal longings were difficult to suppress, he had resolved to return to secular life, and had no face to see his master again, and so on.

The fact that Mount Hua possessed the peerless martial art Sunflower Manual also leaked out to the outside world. Not long after, the ten elders of the Demon Cult attacked Mount Hua, engaging in a massive battle at the foot of the mountain. Most of the ten Demon Cult elders suffered severe injuries and were routed in defeat. Yet both Yue Su and Cai Zifeng perished in this battle, and the Sunflower Manual recorded by the two was seized by the Demon Cult.

The identity of Chan Master Duyuan after returning to secular life was none other than Lin Yuanzhi. This is the reason why the Bixie Swordplay and the Sunflower Manual are similar. The reason why Lin Yuanzhi's might shook all directions, while Lin Pingzhi's Bixie Swordplay couldn't even defeat Little Junior Sister, is because he failed to breach the first hurdle of this martial art.

That first hurdle is: 'To practice this divine skill, one must first perform self-castration.'

If Master wishes to revitalize Mount Hua, you should study Shaolin and Wudang; you must have faith and an imperial court background.

Mount Hua is actually a branch left behind by the Quanzhen Sect of the Northern Song dynasty, and Master can explore this direction.

Back when Mount Hua was the Alliance Leader of the Five Mountains, it already threatened the status of Shaolin and Wudang, and likewise aroused the vigilance of the imperial court. The Sunflower Manual is clearly martial arts belonging to the palace.

Master should not harbor thoughts of exterminating the Sun Moon Holy Cult, as that too is something fostered by the imperial court. Chivalrous men break the laws with martial arts, and in the eyes of the imperial court, martial people are unstable elements. To their view, righteousness and heterodoxy are all the same. The imperial court supports Shaolin and Wudang among the righteous factions, and the Sun Moon Holy Cult among the heterodox factions, using this to corral martial artists and make them deliberately slaughter one another, wearing down the strength of martial people so they will never threaten the imperial court.

May Master and Mistress take good care of themselves."

After finishing the letter, he flipped open the attached volume of writing, on the cover of which were written the words "Illusion Sword".

Yue Buqun had people search Mount Hua for Wang Ming, but his figure was long since nowhere to be found.