If one ignored her strange attitude, the journey had actually been fairly normal.
It was just that the two of them were clearly not on the same wavelength when they talked.
She kept asking Qin Wangchuan what he liked.
Meanwhile, Qin Wangchuan's attention was fixed on the Li Clan Sword Seal.
"The Sword Seal is the foundation upon which the Li Clan stands."
Though she said that, it was not some top-secret matter that could not be revealed at all.
But before that, Qin Wangchuan first voiced his own insight.
"Though I do not know exactly which characters are contained within your Li Clan's Seven Kill Sword Seal." Qin Wangchuan gazed at the mountains flickering in and out of sight amid the Cloud Sea, then suddenly turned his head. "I would guess that it definitely contains the characters 'Mie' and 'Open.'"
At some point, the distance between the two, who had originally been seated opposite each other, had become close enough for them to count one another's eyelashes.
At first, they had sat facing each other.
Later, without him noticing when, she had moved to sit beside him.
Li Qingluan's sleeve even pressed down on the corner of his robe. The scent of a maiden, mingled with the cold fragrance of winter plums, lingered at the tip of his nose.
"Oh?" She suddenly leaned closer, her hair brushing over the back of Qin Wangchuan's hand. "What makes you say that?"
"Sword Intent cannot deceive."
Qin Wangchuan quietly leaned back half an inch.
"I have seen someone use a Sword Seal before. It was not merely about destruction and slaughter, but a Great Dao method that first destroyed, then created."
Li Qingluan simply stared at Qin Wangchuan's profile.
At this distance, she could clearly see the profound gaze reflected in his eyes.
And smell the snow cedar fragrance coming from the young man.
When she came back to her senses, her heart was filled with shock.
She had seen countless Sword Cultivators contemplate the Seven Kill Sword Seal. Some had cultivated bitterly for a hundred years without grasping its method, while others had remained trapped by the surface of its character formulas for their entire lives.
—Yet never had anyone, with only a single glance, pointed straight to the true meaning of the Great Dao within.
"You only saw it once. You couldn't possibly..." Before she could finish, she froze first.
What was impossible about it?
Sword Cultivators valued fate and affinity above all else, and the person before her seemed born for the sword.
At that thought, her gaze sharpened. Her life-bound flying sword, Qingfeng, shot from its sheath.
"There truly are the characters 'Mie' and 'Open,' but neither of them is any one of the Seven Kill Seals."
"The profound mystery of the Seven Kill Seals lies in the fact that they are actually formed by overlapping different characters."
"For example..." As she spoke, the tip of her sword moved, and four characters slowly appeared and overlapped.
"Slash, Mie, Open, Heaven! Only when the Dao Rhyme of these four characters is connected does it become the complete first seal."
"In other words, four characters make one sword."
"Of course, when others use it, there may be more than four characters."
"One sword?" Qin Wangchuan was surprised this time and hurriedly asked, "You mean the Sword Seal is actually freely composed of many characters? The Sword Seals each person casts are all different?"
Li Qingluan nodded. "Precisely."
"So that's how it is..." Qin Wangchuan murmured, his gaze passing over her and settling in the distance, as though piercing through mountains and Cloud Sea to see something beyond.
He suddenly smiled. That smile was like a sword edge leaving its sheath, sharp and bright. "I understand."
Li Qingluan raised a brow. "Understand what?"
"Then it all makes sense."
"No matter how perfect a cultivation art is, it is still dead. It could never be revered as a Sacred Relic."
"Your Li Clan's Sword Seal is a 'living' Sword Technique."
Using his fingers as a sword, he imitated her earlier movements and began to dance the sword.
But Li Qingluan suddenly snorted. "If we are discussing the Sword Dao, how can you merely wave your hands around empty-handed?"
Qin Wangchuan took the longsword. Its blade trembled slightly, releasing a clear Phoenix Cry.
"This sword is called Guluan. It has not yet acknowledged a master, so I will lend it to you for now." She stood with her arms folded. "Lest you claim that the Li Clan Sword Seal has only profound mystery, but no tangible proof."
The young man lightly flicked his wrist, and the sword edge drew a perfect crescent arc through the air.
The azure-gold Dao Patterns along the Sword Spine suddenly came alive, flowing across the blade like wandering dragons. Every turn of his sword stance perfectly replicated Li Qingluan's earlier trajectory, yet carried an indescribable rhythm of its own.
"Slash, Mie, Open, Heaven!"
With every character he spoke, the sword stance grew fiercer.
When all four characters had been spoken, the sword tip had already gathered a strand of pure Sword Intent that lingered in the air without dispersing.
"So that's how it is." Qin Wangchuan sheathed his sword and stood upright. "Whether sword formulas or anything else, these characters are merely outward appearances. The true core is for Sword Cultivators to combine them with their own 'Dao.'"
"In other words, this is a path of seeking oneself."
"I think the person who opened this path originally never wanted later generations to be constrained by fixed moves. I am unbound, and my Dao is boundless!"
After saying that, Qin Wangchuan gazed at the Guluan Sword suspended before him.
As the blade trembled softly, a phantom Azure Luan flowed out from its edge, its clear sword cry echoing through the valleys.
Where the sword radiance reached, even the howling mountain wind froze still.
"It is a fine sword," he said softly. As his fingertips brushed over the Sword Spine, a wisp of rosy light burst from the point of contact, illuminating his smiling brows and eyes.
Come to think of it, he was not truly a Sword Cultivator, so naturally he had no sword.
His only one was the Wooden Sword gifted by the Wood Ancestor.
It is time to find a sword of my own.
That was what he thought to himself.
Meanwhile, Li Qingluan stared at that pure Sword Intent that remained condensed without dispersing, her fingers unconsciously tightening around her sleeve.
There was no doubt about it—the person before her was a true genius...
"If you like this sword..." she suddenly said, her voice several degrees lower than usual, "then I will give it to you."
Qin Wangchuan raised a brow. "Hm?"
"A sword only shows its sharpness when it meets a worthy master." Li Qingluan paused as she spoke, brushing aside a lock of fallen hair. "Compared with me, it can better display its edge in your hands."
Qin Wangchuan's fingertips gently traced the Dao Patterns on the Sword Spine, and he suddenly smiled.
"If that is the case, then I cannot take your sword for nothing."
As he spoke, he took out a jade fruit, crystalline from end to end, with flowing light seemingly moving beneath its skin.
"This is the Heaven Defying Nine Phoenix Fruit. It has miraculous beautifying effects."
"If you refuse to accept it," he said, offering her the fruit, "then I would not dare take this sword."
Li Qingluan hesitated for a moment before accepting it.
Though that was not why she had given him the sword, the fruit indeed held immense appeal for women.
Who did not want to become more beautiful?
"..."
In the distance, everyone from the Li Clan had long since undergone a drastic change in expression.
Several elders' pupils constricted sharply. The accompanying sword attendants were even more dumbfounded, and some staggered back as though they had witnessed something unbelievable.
"That Guluan Sword... isn't it the supreme treasure the young lady was preparing to refine? She just gave it away like that?" someone asked in a low voice.
The others were equally confused.
"Since when has the young lady become so..."
"Shh! Do not speak recklessly."
"But this is clearly..."
Their gazes shifted back and forth between the two, eventually turning into a meaningful sigh.
Who could have imagined that the eldest young lady, always aloof and self-controlled, would lose her composure so thoroughly today, practically wishing to offer up all the treasures she possessed with both hands?
The two continued with a discussion on the Dao concerning their predecessors.
As they debated, the topic gradually turned to themselves.
"Interesting." She suddenly turned her wrist, and the Qingfeng Sword carved half an azure rainbow through the air. The hilt pressed neither too lightly nor too heavily against Qin Wangchuan's Adam's apple. From this angle, she could see his fair, enticing throat and neck perfectly. "Then what is your 'Dao'?"
Sunlight reflected from the sword edge, casting both their faces in pale brilliance.
The guards on both sides immediately grew tense.
Qin Wangchuan's pupils spread slightly, as if that question had pierced through a fog that had shrouded him for a long time.
He lowered his head to look at the longsword in his hand and murmured softly.
"My... Dao?"
His voice was so light it nearly scattered into the wind, and even Qin Wangchuan himself found it unfamiliar.
—He could not answer that question.
"Young Master."
The old servant's voice suddenly cut in, shattering the stagnant air.
At some point, the Flying Ship had stopped above a stretch of Ruins. Rotten beams jutted at angles from scorched earth, like a piece of hell.
"We have arrived at the Han Clan ruins."
Before you continue