Accompanied by the two guardian of grass with ulterior motives, Xiao Ran finally returned to Sword-Wielding Mountain three days later.
Having transmigrated to the True Spirit Continent three years ago, Xiao Ran had drifted from place to place without a fixed abode among the various countries in the western region of the True Spirit Continent just to embark on the path of cultivation.
Now that he had entered the prestigious Zongzhi Mountain, Sword-Wielding Mountain was his only home, and the buildings and fields on the mountain had all been built by his own hands.
After a three-day absence, he naturally felt a bit homesick.
Approaching Sword-Wielding Mountain, he saw vast stretches of fields and seas of flowers from afar.
The undulating, gentle slopes to the south were covered with emerald-green spirit grain, golden wheat fields, bright yellow rapeseed, and crimson seas of flowers...
A breeze swept by, carrying the fragrance of flowers and grain, stirring up colorful waves of vegetation as gorgeous as an oil painting and as melodious as a violin piece.
The vegetable garden to the west was verdant and laden with heavy fruits.
The orchard had fully bloomed and entered its flowering period, with bees and butterflies dancing gracefully back and forth among the trees.
Patches of pear blossoms were as white as snow, tree after tree of peach petals were as brilliant as morning glow, branches of begonias were weighed down by pears, and a riot of brilliant colors resembled spring.
Among them, the strawberries and grapes had ripened early.
The strawberries as big as a child's fist and the grapes as big as strawberries firmly captured the gazes of the two guardian of grass.
The spirit plants on the mountain were far sturdier than similar plants in his past life, giving a sense of grand and mighty majesty.
The sword bamboo forest to the north swayed with ripples, bamboo leaves fluttering as they danced with squirrels and colorful butterflies.
Hot Spring Cliff was misty all day long, shrouded in curling water vapor where peach blossoms bloomed and flowing water murmured.
To the east, pines, maples, and cherries set each other off, blending in layers and surrounding a pool of crystal-clear water.
Streams gathered into waterfalls over the pine rocks, plunging straight down three thousand feet to turn into hazy celestial mist.
Xiao Ran felt a myriad of emotions welling up.
Thinking back five or six days ago when he first arrived at Sword-Wielding Mountain, this place had been as bare as a desolate mountain wilderness.
Now, if not quite a fairyland, it at least rivaled the magnificent scenery of other renowned peaks, possessing a unique charm all its own.
Xiao Ran and the two little girls inspected the area from the air, then landed by the pool in the eastern leisure zone.
The swimming fish in the water had also grown quite a bit and could now be fished out to make soup.
The reason Xiao Ran landed by the pool was because he unexpectedly discovered—
There was actually an orange fat cat of the Qi Refining Realm hiding in the crevice of a giant boulder by the pool! The orange cat was as big as a tiger, yet able to contort its body and curl up inside the rock crevice. Its long orange tail, interspersed with black circular stripes, stretched quietly into the water, luring a flurry of swimming fish to frolic around it.
Suddenly!
With a flick of its tail tip, a crucian carp was hooked straight up into mid-air.
In the bushes behind the rock crevice, the orange cat crouched directly beneath the falling crucian carp and lazily opened its blunt-toothed mouth.
As a result.
A yard away, Chunwa, who was sitting on Xiao Ran's shoulder, suddenly stuck out her small tongue and, with lightning-fast speed, sucked the crucian carp into her belly from afar, swallowing it whole right on the spot.
Xiao Ran's forehead was covered in black lines.
Master actually wanted to marry off such a creature to him when it grew up? Her tongue was certainly nimble!
Chunwa's act of snatching food from the tiger's mouth clearly angered the orange cat.
With a leap, the fat feline body sprang up and pounced toward Xiao Ran in a cat leap.
Xiao Ran made a motion as if to execute a sliding tackle.
Suddenly, a gust of demonic wind swept by, whisking the orange cat away into mid-air.
Raising his eyes, the fat orange cat appeared in the arms of the petite and slender young woman, shielding most of the young woman's body so that only her head and feet were visible.
A pair of fair, slender little hands stroked rhythmically back and forth on the cat's neck, swiftly quelling the orange cat's anger, and it fell asleep with a soft meow.
"So this is how you killed Xiao Hong!"
This time, Chuyan saw Xiao Ran's dashing sliding posture with absolute clarity.
Recalling Xiao Hong's tragic death and the... gruesome aftermath of its demise, she stared at Xiao Ran with red-rimmed eyes, tears welling up and almost spilling over.
Was this guy a devil? Xiao Ran turned around to look at the green-clothed young girl who was even smaller than the orange cat and smiled. "Just playing with it, cat meat isn't even tasty."
The two little girls turned their heads to look at him and spoke in unison. "You've never eaten it, how do you know it's not tasty?"
The orange cat started awake from a nightmare, baring its teeth and letting out a low, purring tiger-like growl.
Xiao Ran hastily tossed the two little girls away and asked Chuyan, "Where did you get that cat?"
Chuyan pouted, wearing an aggrieved little expression.
"For three days, stuck in such a big place all by myself, how boring would it be? Jingyin sent me an orange cat to keep me company... If not for this cat, the fully ripened vegetables in your garden would have rotted in the dirt."
Xiao Ran nodded.
Come to think of it, unlike his system space, ordinary space rings consumed spiritual power when storing items.
Especially preserving spirit plants like fruits, vegetables, flowers, and grasses, which consumed an immense amount of spiritual power.
Therefore, in the Dharma Ending Era, some low-grade items were usually not stored in space rings.
What's more, most of the vegetables in Xiao Ran's garden were not yet graded, so storing them in a space ring would consume too much spiritual power.
Xiao Ran pointed at the orange cat.
"What's its name?"
Chuyan said petulantly,
"It didn't have one before, waiting for you to name it."
You're quite sensible! Xiao Ran said, "Then let's call it Oran—"
Chuyan interrupted him, "You've already named her Fanghua."
Fanghua would do, I suppose! Xiao Ran asked again, "Male or female?"
"Naturally female."
"Why naturally?"
"Female cats save on the trouble of getting fixed."
"..."
Xiao Ran felt a chill in his lower regions and was left speechless for a long time before he finally said, "You should learn from Comrade Fanghua. A woman has to eat heartily to have the strength to work."
Chuyan:
"..."
Before long.
Lingzhou Yue came back carrying a bamboo wine gourd. A barely perceptible smile hung on her ethereal and peerlessly gorgeous face, and her bold, sword-like posture exuded slender grace.
The green-clothed young girl couldn't pull her gaze away; her pale little face was illuminated by a ray of Goddess Light, making her look dazzlingly vibrant.
Free of debts and relaxed, Lingzhou Yue lazily straightened her body, revealing her towering and slender contours, and sleepily yawned as she said, "Though the scenery of Sword-Wielding Mountain is beautiful, you must not indulge in ease and comfort, lest others mistake everyone on Sword-Wielding Mountain for good-for-nothings. Starting today—you are going to learn swordsmanship."
Good-for-nothings—she was certainly self-aware... Your elder self finally knows what Sword-Wielding Mountain is for! Considering the Art of Resonance he had acquired last time, Xiao Ran was rather looking forward to this.
Chuyan immediately ran over to Sword Plaza and sat down obediently, her rush mat already prepared.
Lingzhou Yue was taken aback.
"What are you doing?"
Chuyan:
"Learning swordsmanship."
The thought of having to teach two people made Lingzhou Yue's head swell, and she hurriedly explained,
"People's physical constitutions cannot be lumped together. Wait for your master to teach you; I'll teach your master first."
Xiao Ran thought to himself that he was hardly in a position to teach Chuyan—among any three people walking together, there must be one he could learn from—so he said, "Let's do it together."
Lingzhou Yue listlessly sighed out a breath of alcohol.
"Then it's settled. I'll only teach it once, you see. After all, when I learned swordsmanship back in the day, I only listened once."
"Alright."
Seeing Chunwa and Qiuchan hanging from a pine branch and curiously watching the few of them, Xiao Ran asked,
"Are you two still lingering and refusing to leave? Do you want to learn swordsmanship too?"
Chunwa and Qiuchan also grew interested.
"Is there a swordsmanship that can weed with a single sword?"
One-click weeding—they had that in FarmVille.
Xiao Ran thought to himself.
Lingzhou Yue said to the two of them with unexpected seriousness,
"That requires reaching the realm of Man-Sword Unity."
Man-Sword Unity?
As soon as the two little girls heard this, they turned around and walked away, leaving behind a remark.
"We're not even human."
After soaring away on their swords, they looked back to see that the three of them weren't looking. Then, executing a turning maneuver, they plunged headfirst into the western orchard.
The autumn light was bright and the gentle breeze was breezy. On Sword Plaza, Lingzhou Yue recalled the appearance of her academy teacher back then, pacing back and forth as she said, "Man-Sword Unity exists within your heart. Only when your state of mind, physical constitution, swordsmanship, and sword are in the exact same rhythm will your sword be the strongest."
Having said that, Lingzhou Yue went up to a pine branch and sat cross-legged.
Xiao Ran thought she was striking a pose, brewing up some earth-shattering lines.
As a result, after waiting for a long time, she even closed her eyes without hearing her say anything else.
So he reminded her by asking, "And then?"
"And what else?"
"Teach the swordsmanship!"
Lingzhou Yue was taken aback.
"Back at the Academy, the teacher only taught me this one sentence... Learning swordsmanship is something anyone with hands can do. Do you need any other teaching methods?"
Chuyan:
"..."
Xiao Ran:
"..."
With this kind of teaching method, she was afraid of trouble just because she taught one extra person? What was that about learning swordsmanship being something anyone with hands could do... Could she mean someone with flying hands?
Of course, Xiao Ran had his system, so he didn't care for her teaching anyway.
Chuyan, on the other hand, sat there obediently and was exceptionally expectant about it.
"Grandmaster, could you tell us about your Tidal Force Sword Art? I want to learn it."
Lingzhou Yue sat cross-legged with her eyes closed, took a sip of clear wine, and said faintly, "Didn't I say that everyone's physical constitution cannot be lumped together? The Tidal Force Sword Art requires drawing upon the spiritual power of the moon, which will severely disrupt your blood circulation. When executing a sword strike, if you fail to control it, you might even dehydrate and die—that's why I always carry a few thousand gourds of wine on me."
As a young woman who understood everything, Chuyan understood what Lingzhou Yue meant and was instantly too frightened to speak. Her body was small and she couldn't handle such a toss-up.
Xiao Ran thought to himself, I'm a man, I don't get periods, what is there to fear? "The Tidal Force Sword Art—this disciple feels he can give it a try."
Lingzhou Yue abruptly opened her eyes, stared fixedly at him, and said faintly,
"In order to pursue absolute control over blood and bodily fluids, those who practice the Tidal Force Sword Art must remain pure and chaste forever. Can you do that?"
"I feel the Resonance Sword Art suits me quite well."
Before you continue