With his outstanding personal charm, after subduing the Thunderstrike Sword, Ling Yunpo holed up on Green Snail Peak and stopped going out, focusing on practicing dual-wielded sword control with Senior Sister An.
From time to time, he would reload his save and go to Qiu Changtian to practice casting Jade Pivot Thunder more covertly.
Or he would take on Luo Yan's identity and attend lectures at Penglai, dealing with Eldest Young Lady Shi and grinding up his synchronization value.
Time passed just like that, and at last the day of the sword duel arrived.
At noon, sword lights began arriving one after another at the summit of Shushan's Golden Hall Peak.
Most people had come to observe the duel. Some had friendly ties with Purple Cloud Peak, while others held grudges against Green Snail Peak. Each harbored their own schemes, which need not be mentioned.
Lou Zhizheng stood on the southern side of the dueling ground, carrying his sword on his back and clasping his hands behind him, putting on an aloof pose.
A short while later, two sword lights descended on the northern side. They were none other than Ling Yunpo and An Zhisu.
"Since you've already come, and the duel hasn't begun yet, do you have any last words? You may say them all now," Lou Zhizheng said.
His voice was loud and vigorous, shaking the air above the summit until it buzzed. Several Foundation Establishment disciples nearby exclaimed in alarm:
"Could he really have reached the Marrow Cleansing Stage?!"
Regardless of what rumors had circulated before, in the eyes of most Shushan disciples, a sword duel should naturally be conducted openly and honorably. Victory should be glorious, and defeat should be dignified.
A dirty trick like deliberately arranging a duel between people of the same stage, only to force a breakthrough during the actual match, was always looked down upon.
Now that they saw Lou Zhizheng had truly broken through to the Marrow Cleansing Stage with the aid of a secret technique, they all began jeering loudly.
"Tsk! Strategy is also part of a sword duel. What do you fools know?"
Lou Zhizheng did not care in the slightest. He merely folded his arms and sneered.
Forcibly breaking through with the Purple Qi Crown Gathering secret technique would heavily damage his future cultivation.
Since he had paid such a price, he was determined to beat Ling Yunpo half to death this time, attacking wherever he could damage his Root Bone.
Only when An Zhisu could no longer bear to watch and was willing to offer up her immortal sword in exchange for spirit stones would he smoothly agree, then cleanly defeat Ling Yunpo and let him go.
Seen this way, the plan was simply perfect—flawless from beginning to end.
The only regret was that no senior disciple of sufficient rank from his own Purple Cloud Peak had come to watch.
If a Golden Core True Person were standing at the edge of the arena, how many spectators would still dare to come and make all that noise at him?
Listening to the waves of jeers from outside the arena, the corner of Lou Zhizheng's eye twitched. He secretly held back his anger and silently tightened the hand seal in his grip.
"That guy doesn't seem to be very popular," Ling Yunpo said.
"Don't mind what outsiders say." An Zhisu smiled. "Just focus on fighting."
When Ling Yunpo took his place in the arena, the surrounding crowd erupted into an even louder storm of jeers.
The viciousness of the curses and the sharpness of the abuse truly startled him.
"Is this the new disciple of Green Snail Peak? Why is he so blind that he would join that den of evil, Green Snail Peak?"
"Is he the Grass Cutting Sword Immortal's junior brother? I heard he's only at the Qi Refining Stage. Looks like he's bound to die this time."
"Hahaha! No matter which side is gravely wounded or dies miserably this time, it will be a cause for celebration. After the duel, drinks are on me."
I just said the other guy was unpopular. Who would've thought my own reputation wasn't much better? Ling Yunpo thought to himself.
As for why that was, he had already more or less gotten to the bottom of it during the period before the duel.
His cheap master, Su Jian, had supposedly once been Shushan's great killer. The number of fellow True Persons and elders who had died by his hand in sword duels was beyond counting.
It was only because he later entered a death seclusion that he faded from the attention of everyone in Shushan.
As for his own Senior Sister An Zhisu, although she was usually gentle and considerate, outsiders regarded her as a little killer.
There were even rumors that whenever the slightest conflict arose, she would smile and draw her sword to hack people apart. Yet her strength was formidable as well; without eighty or a hundred disciples of the same stage, there was no way to restrain her.
If Shushan did not have a rule forbidding sword duels across stages, a Golden Core True Person would have rushed over long ago and annihilated her seventeen or eighteen times.
The old and young masters of Green Snail Peak had oppressed Shushan's other peaks and countless fellow disciples for years. As a result, Green Snail Peak's reputation within Shushan was nearly as vile as that of members of the Devil Cult.
From this, it was easy to imagine the discrimination and censure Ling Yunpo would face in the outside world as a disciple of Green Snail Peak.
The sword duel had yet to begin, but angry muttering and abuse already filled the surroundings.
They cursed Lou Zhizheng as "a man who stops at nothing" and "a disgrace to Shushan."
They cursed Ling Yunpo as "a killer's disciple" and "someone who should hurry up and die."
Their verbal firepower rivaled a ninth-grade flying sword. They practically wanted to skin the two men alive in front of everyone.
An Zhisu stood at the edge of the arena, her delicate brows slightly furrowed. Clearly, she could not hide her worry.
Although her junior brother was powerful, this was his first time facing such a hostile home-ground crowd. Would he be under psychological pressure?
The more she thought about it, the more worried she became.
In the eyes of a disciple standing nearby, however, this faintly stirred a trace of malicious delight.
This disciple also had a grudge against Green Snail Peak. The Senior Sister he admired had once challenged An Zhisu, only to have her Destiny Sword Artifact cleaved apart and her cultivation severely damaged. After that, she never recovered, and six years ago she had requested to leave Shushan and serve elsewhere.
He normally did not dare provoke Green Snail Peak. But now, seeing Ling Yunpo besieged by public opinion and An Zhisu looking troubled, he summoned his courage, came over, and mocked her:
"Senior Sister An, I never thought your Green Snail Peak would be so obsessed with sword duels that you would even attempt the feat of having someone at the Qi Refining Stage challenge someone at the Marrow Cleansing Stage?"
"Tsk, tsk, tsk. Senior Sister, you have spent your life wielding your sword with such pleasure, but even you have misjudged someone. Now you can only collect your junior brother's corpse."
An Zhisu smiled faintly.
"A sword duel is a means by which we Sword Immortals break through. Only by standing on the brink between life and death can one encounter the opportunity for great enlightenment."
"By the way, you seem to be a disciple of Green Bamboo Peak. I wonder whether your Senior Brother Jin, who is at the Abode Transformation Stage, has recovered from his injuries from the last sword duel?"
"If he has, please relay this message to him: after a while, Senior Sister will visit him again to seek his guidance."
The disciple had initially only sneered. But when he heard her mention seeking guidance, his expression changed drastically, and his heart gave a hard thump.
He had only wanted the fleeting pleasure of winning an argument. He had never expected to bring a great calamity upon his own household.
If Ling Yunpo died in the sword duel and An Zhisu came storming over in fury to seek guidance, would Senior Brother Jin not lose half his life to her blade?
Looking around the edge of the arena again, he saw that, apart from Purple Cloud Peak, not a single Abode Transformation Stage disciple from all of Shushan had dared to come!
They must have feared that if Ling Yunpo unfortunately died, the killer Senior Sister An would erupt on the spot and seek someone to duel in order to vent her fury. That was why they had all hidden away in advance!
The more wildly he imagined things, the more terrified he became. He could only summon up his remaining courage and speak a few meek, conciliatory words to An Zhisu in a low voice.
Seeing the fear on his face, An Zhisu could not help laughing. She smiled and gently reassured him with a few words.
The disciple's expression grew even stranger as he listened. This Grass Cutting Sword Immortal really is vicious. Was she actually playing some sort of blade-hidden-in-a-joke trick?
He hurriedly found an excuse to take his leave, then seized the opportunity to form a hand seal and ride his sword back to Green Bamboo Peak, where he told his Senior Brother Jin everything.
The result was that Senior Brother Jin turned pale with fright, gave him a furious tongue-lashing, and immediately rode his sword out of Shushan through the night, hiding outside to avoid the disaster.
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