At the edge of the desolate wilderness, a flying sword hung obediently in the air, like a well-bred young lady meeting an elder who had laid down the household rules. It could only lower its brows and eyes, standing there meekly with its hands bound.
Beside the flying sword stood a travel-worn middle-aged Confucian scholar, the frost in his temples noticeably thicker. Had the two Reading Seeds, Zhao Yao and Song Jixin, been present, they would have discovered that in the brief span of ten days, their schoolteacher had gained much more white hair.
The flying sword's tip pointed at the silent Mountain-Moving Ape of Zhengyang Mountain, whose entire body faintly radiated the violent air of someone ready to decide life and death at the slightest disagreement.
At last, the Mountain-Moving Ape could not hold back and asked in a deep voice, "Why was someone from Zhenwu Mountain allowed to go in, while I was not? Mr. Qi, aren't you being rather too snobbish?"
Such a direct challenge was exceedingly impolite, yet the Mountain-Moving Ape did not feel the slightest impropriety. Though Zhenwu Mountain was the sacred ground of Military Strategists on East Treasure Bottle Continent, it had always been a heap of loose sand, with little sense of sectarian unity. Cultivators and martial cultivators of great divine abilities were more like people who merely hung their names at Zhenwu Mountain. Zhenwu Mountain's rules were famously broad and hollow, scarcely binding at all. Where could any cohesion come from?
His face full of weariness, Qi Jingchun first said to the flying sword, "Go. Your master is unharmed now."
The flying sword felt as though it had received a pardon. Its blade gave a joyful hop, turned around, and flashed away.
The Mountain-Moving Ape believed he had guessed the reason, and