Madam Picks Three Thousand Spring Rain Drops for Youth's Pride

An Le had never learned to fight, but fighting was human instinct.

The Five Animals Body Tempering Technique had successfully opened his Qi and Blood, allowing him to step into the First Realm of martial arts. With the Sword Dancer Dao Fruit's enhancement, using the umbrella as a sword, he easily crushed the experienced gang thugs.

For the first time, An Le witnessed the gap between ordinary people and cultivators.

He also truly understood why it was said that all pursuits were inferior, and only cultivation stood above.

The three wailing gang thugs, faced with An Le's questioning, did not persist in their silence.

They were no hard men; they wouldn't stubbornly keep Liu Qingyan's secrets. Liu Qingyan had sent them to break a cultivator's hands—how was that different from sending them to their deaths? What obligation did they have to keep quiet?

An Le picked up the bloodstained oil-paper umbrella and gazed calmly at one of the burly men.

The burly man looked at An Le, enduring the pain, and said, "It was Liu Qingyan, the painter Liu Qingyan!"

"He's jealous of your skill, hates that you stole his chance to paint at Lin Manor, so he told us to break your hands!"

"Really, everything we said is true! Spare us, sir!"

The three burly men were filled with terror.

Cultivators were all high above, like clouds compared to mud when set against ordinary people like them who couldn't cultivate. At this moment, only reverence remained.

The painter Liu Qingyan?

An Le was stunned. He couldn't help recalling the scene at Tianbo Water Pavilion yesterday—that elderly painter whose work Girl Zhuifeng had called crap?

An Le had never expected that the painter could be so vicious.

"Just because my painting was better than his, and I took his chance to paint at Lin Manor, he wants to break my hands?"

An Le took a deep breath.

The spring rain fell densely, sprinkling across his face and skin, making him feel the coldness of human hearts.

Liu Qingyan was the mastermind, but these thugs were also unforgivable.

An Le hadn't thought of killing them—after all, deep down, he still respected the law. But he was acquainted with Captain Huang, and could have him arrest them.

Assaulting a Juren scholar on the street—that charge was enough to land them in prison.

Suddenly.

An Le looked toward the entrance of Quiet Street. The spring rain fell thickly, the twilight clouds dark and low.

This timely spring rain had dimmed the sky, turning daylight into dusk.

At the entrance of Quiet Street, a familiar carriage slowly approached. The breeze blew, the carriage curtains fluttering unevenly. The carriage was as luxurious as ever, rainwater dripping from its eaves like interwoven strings of pearls.

This carriage...

An Le remembered. When he had left Lin Manor that day, he had seen this carriage. Inside sat a man, heavily entwined with Time Qi—dozens of strands, a true fat sheep.

Back then, An Le had assumed he was some noble from a nearby mansion and paid it no mind.

But now, the appearance of this carriage carried a deeper meaning.

The carriage stopped ten zhang away from An Le. On the shaft sat a burly coachman in a straw rain cape and bamboo hat, holding the reins. The extremely handsome horse was perfectly obedient in his hands.

An Le's gaze fell on the coachman. The burly man was like a small mountain, his Qi and Blood faint yet intensely suppressed. The falling spring rain threads twisted their paths as they neared him.

Clearly, this coachman's Martial Body Tempering cultivation was extremely high.

In An Le's eyes, the coachman had exactly ten strands of Time Qi—neither more nor less, less than Girl Zhuifeng and Fairy Yun Rou, but still a strong figure in An Le's view.

The main point was inside the carriage. That noble man lifted a corner of the curtain with his hand, his playful and profound gaze like a blazing sun rising in the spring rain, burning down on An Le.

In that instant, An Le felt the world lose its color. The Spiritual power he had just nurtured in Entering Stillness froze, and his Qi and Blood became like a northern river in winter, unable to circulate a single thread.

Just meeting the gaze of the man in the carriage made his heart feel as if a hand had gripped it, starting to pound violently, beating like a drum, the sound echoing through every corner of his body. It seemed that if it kept pounding like that, his heart would burst open like a shattered war drum!

Spring rain slid down An Le's cheek, gathering into a thread at his chin.

He closed his eyes, forcibly cutting off the gaze, but the man's stare still blazed like the Blazing Sun.

An Le visualized the Sword Waterfall Diagram. A sword fell from the heavens, slicing through the scorching radiance, and his mind regained its composure.

Yet his heart's pounding remained uncontrollable, still leaping wildly, as if about to explode out of his chest.

An Le mobilized his Spiritual power, trying to control his body's condition, but it was incredibly difficult.

His legs began to tremble slightly, as if he couldn't help but kneel on the rain-soaked alley ground, bending the spine that symbolized his dignity.

But An Le understood—he could not kneel. Once he knelt, his cultivation heart might become like a treasure covered in dust, and sweeping away that dust would be immensely difficult.

On this day, An Le understood two kinds of gaps.

One was the gap between ordinary people and those newly entered into cultivation.

The other was the gap between a powerful cultivator and a weak one. The distance between the latter...

was even harder to cross than the former.

A vast, calm lake stretches to meet the distant sky, fine misty rain dampens the light smoke.

Tianbo Water Pavilion.

A spring rain made the scenery of the water pavilion even more enchanting.

On the Great Pond, ripples spread in circles and rings, a poetic and picturesque atmosphere like the blank spaces left by an artist's ink wash painting.

In the main hall of the water pavilion, Madam Hua reclined on a couch, her voluptuous and dignified figure like a ripe peach, exuding charm. On the stove, red charcoal boiled water, the rolling steam creating a hazy mist.

Madam Hua was quietly reading "Knowledge and Action," written by a great scholar of the academy. On the table lay a painting—a sketch portrait of An Le, drawn by him for Madam Hua.

Her fair fingers turned the yellowed pages. Suddenly, Madam Hua's fingertips paused, and her eyelids drooped.

"The neutral forces in Great Zhao are few. The Lin, Zhong, and Ye Families—the Three Great General Families—but in His Majesty's eyes, neutrality represents the unknown. The weight of the three families' influence is too heavy... enough to stir the winds of the Imperial Court."

"Now that His Majesty's time is limited, if he cannot take that ultimate step, a choice must be made for the Crown Prince's position, to ensure the continuation of the dynasty. Thus, to His Majesty, neutrality instead... is filled with unknown unease and uncontrollability."

Neutrality now does not guarantee neutrality later. The Lin, Zhong, and Ye Families stand like mountains within the Imperial Court, enough to break any side's balance.

"And with His Majesty's intent laid bare, the various nobles have begun to stir, seeking to probe the stance of the three families."

"Now... even every stray cat and dog dares to throw its weight around in front of my Lin Manor."

Madam Hua sighed softly.

She gently closed "Knowledge and Action," sat up, and placed her delicate bare feet on the floor, stepping down.

With Madam Hua's cultivation, she naturally sensed everything that happened at Quiet Street Entrance.

She hadn't planned to intervene at first, because she was astonished to discover that An Le had successfully opened his Qi and Blood, stepping into the first realm of Martial Body Tempering.

And An Le was only facing two martial arts experts, not cultivators—no threat to him.

Thus, Madam Hua held back, merely observing.

But when the carriage appeared and the cultivator inside used his aura to oppress An Le, trying to bend his spine and crush his spirit...

Madam Hua couldn't watch any longer.

Putting the painting aside, Madam Hua genuinely admired this youth. Though he started his cultivation late, he didn't wallow in self-pity. His mindset was excellent, and he even entered stillness in three breaths, opening his Qi and Blood overnight.

Such talent stirred Madam Hua's fondness for nurturing talent. She couldn't bear to see the youth she admired have his spirit erased and his Dao heart tarnished just as he set foot on the path of cultivation.

Moreover, she knew An Le was caught up in this because of Lin Manor's affairs, so she had reason to act.

The main point was that she couldn't stand the man in the carriage bullying the weak.

Madam Hua rose from the couch, her delicate feet treading the floor as she walked to the railing of the main hall. Her graceful figure leaned against the railing as she watched the spring rain fall from the sky.

Spring rain fell like oil, drifting and scattering.

The swirling draft from the corridor blew continuously, tilting the steam from the boiling water on the stove and scattering it.

Gazing at the endless spring rain, Madam Hua extended her fair and flawless hand.

Reaching toward the twilight sky, as if plucking flowers.

In an instant!

The spring rain over the entire Tianbo Water Pavilion came to an abrupt halt, as if the blossoms were being picked one by one.

"A great cultivator who has surpassed five realms, bullying a youth who has just begun his cultivation—does that bring you satisfaction? Then let me bully you and see if it brings me any."

Madam Hua murmured softly.

Then, she spread her hand and released.

Plucking three thousand spring rain drops, she scattered sword qi to shatter the azure clouds.

All for the youth's single breath of spirit.

The raindrops, frozen like grains of ice, were pulled into thin swords midair, whistling as they crossed Tianbo Water Pavilion, passed the multi-eaved Tianbo Tower, and flew over the Stone Tablet Jade Workshop.

Toward Quiet Street Entrance, where a carriage was pressing down on a youth with boundless might, they poured forth.

One corner of the carriage's curtain suddenly lifted, as if cut off by a sharp blade, falling weakly onto the puddled ground, floating like duckweed upon it.

Inside the carriage, the man who had been High Above, his Expression Was Normal, finally showed a change.

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