Little Longevity

Little Longevity

The great river surged onward, its surface shimmering beneath the sun. It was the largest river in the world.

This was Qinghe—the Qinghe of the Qinghe Sword Sect.

Many years ago, the river had been called the Bai River. Its currents rushed so violently that calm was a rare sight, and whitecaps covered its surface. That was how it got its name.

The Bai River wound through nine bends and thirteen turns, and nearly every year its banks burst. The people living along its shores suffered terribly.

Then, one day, an immortal came. He leveled the riverbed and put an end to the floods, turning the great river, once roaring with white waves, into a river of clear waters and calm shores. From then on, it was renamed Qinghe.

After taming the floods, the immortal did not leave. Instead, he molded earth into a city in the middle of the river and founded a sect.

Thus, the Qinghe Sword Sect was born, and it had endured to this day.

The people on both banks were all grateful for the immortal's kindness. They often burned incense and prayed along the river, and the offerings were most abundant every year in the first lunar month. There was enough incense smoke to turn Qinghe into a Black River.

Most cultivation sects chose remote mountains and deep forests, far from the hustle and bustle of the world.

But the Qinghe Sword Sect was different. Only newly admitted disciples were sent to remote mountain monasteries to cultivate in hardship. Once they earned the approval of their seniors, they moved into River City and became full-fledged disciples of the Qinghe Sword Sect.

The reason was simple: once your cultivation reached a certain level, you were supposed to protect ordinary people.

How could you witness the suffering of the world if you lived in some remote mountain? The disciples of the Qinghe Sword Sect not only cultivated hard every day, but also went out on regular excursions to right wrongs, help the weak, and slay demons.

That was what made the Qinghe Sword Sect unique. Others feared that such things might hinder their cultivation, but the Qinghe Sword Sect cultivated precisely to uphold justice.

That was also the life creed of Zhang Qi, the sect leader of Qinghe.

He had been orphaned young and depended on his foster mother. When he was a teenager, calamity struck, and a fiend killed her.

It was a time when the demonic path ran rampant. Fiends who killed people to practice their arts were everywhere. Zhang Qi had barely escaped with his life, and from then on, he loathed them to the bone.

Later, through a twist of fate, he began cultivating. His power advanced by leaps and bounds, and his swordsmanship reached the divine. He slew fiends of every size until they trembled in fear.

Even when there were eighteen Demon Venerables, not one dared face Zhang Qi's sword alone.

And even after he became the strongest under heaven, Zhang Qi remained true to his original resolve.

He did not cultivate for longevity, but to rid the world of demons.

Though he had long since reached Dao Integration Realm and should have been ready to ascend to the immortal realm at any time, he would rather waste away his lifespan than leave the mortal world before every evil was stamped out.

With one man and one sword, he had held down the world for a thousand years, leaving fiends of every size no choice but to cower like turtles in their shells.

Most cultivators sought longevity. Doing a good deed now and then was already considered commendable. Who would turn their priorities upside down like this? The Qinghe Sword Sect's ways had caused its disciples to dwindle year by year.

No one knew how many more years the strongest under heaven could endure.

In any case, the cultivation world was waiting. Whether Zhang Qi finally died of old age here or could no longer resist ascending, it would be a momentous event for the entire cultivation world.

Those with foresight had already begun to prepare, whether they belonged to the righteous path or the demonic one.

Su Chunyi returned to River City with the amber that held the Cursed Spirit Child. She had intended to leave behind the secret art and the Cursed Spirit Child, then depart. After all, there were still unfinished matters in Cui County.

The study of the secret art and the effort to save the Cursed Spirit Child could be left to her seniors.

But instead of that, Su Chunyi received a summons from the sect leader, Zhang Qi.

Su Chunyi was taken aback. Zhang Qi rarely involved himself in sect affairs anymore. Why would he suddenly summon a fifth-generation disciple like her?

But when the sect leader summoned her, Su Chunyi didn't dare delay. She hurried to the main hall to pay her respects.

The Qinghe Sword Sect had few rules. There was no need to burn incense or bathe before meeting the sect leader. When Su Chunyi arrived at the entrance, a disciple opened the doors for her and invited her inside.

The Qinghe Sword Sect cared neither for pomp nor splendor. The main hall was built entirely from stone—ordinary stone, at that—and its walls were covered in formulas and sword techniques.

Any disciple of the Qinghe Sword Sect could leave their cultivation insights and swordsmanship experience on the stone walls, regardless of seniority.

But if you dared leave your insights there, you had to be ready for others to learn from them—or tear them apart.

Su Chunyi glanced around and saw many fresh carvings. Some had already been scraped away; presumably, someone had refuted them. Others were covered in layer upon layer of different handwriting, meaning that disciples had studied them closely. Perhaps someone had already built on the original ideas and offered a different interpretation.

Outsiders knew only that the Qinghe Sword Art was the best under heaven, and assumed that was all thanks to Zhang Qi's teaching. Few knew about this custom of the Qinghe Sword Sect.

Once you were formally accepted into the sect, you could learn every spell and sword art the sect possessed. There were no further restrictions.

What you made of them depended entirely on your talent and effort.

There was no hierarchy in the way of the sword. Even Zhang Qi was constantly studying it, and he too left his insights on the stone walls. But he never signed his name, so no one knew which techniques the sect leader had left behind.

Su Chunyi had once seen a senior leave behind his insights into swordsmanship, only to have them refuted from top to bottom the very next day. Unwilling to concede, he debated the unnamed challenger on the sword for ten days before finally admitting defeat in dejection.

Only later did he learn that the one who had refuted him was the sect leader, Zhang Qi.

If anything in the Qinghe Sword Sect mattered most, the sect leader came first, and the Wuliang Sword Wall came second.

Su Chunyi had learned her swordsmanship from the stone walls as well. If the sect leader hadn't summoned her today, she would have loved to linger and study them.

At the thought, Su Chunyi couldn't help wondering again: why had the sect leader summoned her? Was something wrong with the secret art or the Cursed Spirit Child? Or was he going to blame her for wasting time and failing to find the mastermind behind the events in Cui County?

The thought made Su Chunyi uneasy.

This was her first time out on an excursion. She was afraid she had handled things poorly and brought shame upon the Qinghe Sword Sect.

Beyond the Wuliang Sword Wall, Su Chunyi reached the main hall.

In the center, a white-haired old man sat cross-legged on a meditation cushion. He held a book in his left hand and a chicken leg in his right, eating as he read. Grease stained his beard and Daoist robe.

The man was crude to the extreme, without the slightest trace of dignity.

Yet this unkempt old man was the strongest person in the world, Zhang Qi, sect leader of the Qinghe Sword Sect.

Su Chunyi wasn't surprised. The Qinghe Sword Sect had never cared about such things.

"Your disciple, Su Chunyi, pays respects to the sect leader."

Su Chunyi was about to kneel when Zhang Qi impatiently said, "Enough, enough. You can skip that."

Su Chunyi could only rise and wait for Zhang Qi to speak.

The old man set down his book, but not the chicken leg. He finished it in two or three bites, then a glimmer of light flashed between his fingers, and the bones vanished.

His Sword Qi was refined to the utmost. In an instant, it chopped the bones into pieces smaller than dust and reduced them to nothing.

Only then did Zhang Qi say to Su Chunyi, "Young Su, if I remember right, this was your first time out on an excursion. You're the most talented among the fifth-generation disciples. You were the first to go out after reaching the Tongxuan Realm."

Su Chunyi quickly replied, "Thank you for your praise, sect leader."

"That wasn't praise. You are indeed exceptionally talented. I just didn't expect your luck to be so good, too. Before you left, your master cast a divination for you. The omen didn't look too good, did it?"

Su Chunyi answered truthfully, "Reporting to the sect leader, my master said that fortune and misfortune would go hand in hand on this journey, and that I needed to act with caution. I've been traveling for days and have indeed encountered many difficulties, but I've also gained something from them. I don't think I'll let the sect down."

"Right, right. Fortune and misfortune go hand in hand. The problem is, your good fortune has already arrived, so misfortune can't be far behind."

Su Chunyi was confused and hurried to ask for guidance.

"Please enlighten me, sect leader."

Zhang Qi pointed with one finger. A thousand streaks of sword light coalesced out of thin air, forming several lines of text: the opening passage of the Ksitigarbha Vow Sutra.

"The secret art you brought back has quite a history. It even stirred up an old friend of mine, all the way over on Qingguan Mountain. If you're willing to give this secret art to the Fenxiang Sect, they're willing to give you a Soul-Cleansing Flower."

"This..." Su Chunyi hesitated. "Sect leader, this secret art doesn't belong to me. He gave it to the Qinghe Sword Sect free of charge so we could save someone. A person of such noble character... I have no right to decide for him."

"Have you thought it through? The Soul-Cleansing Flower isn't just any treasure. You're already at the Tongxuan Realm, and your next step is Spirit Transformation. Do you know that there are only two reliable ways to reach Spirit Transformation, and that the Soul-Cleansing Flower is the best choice?"

Su Chunyi nodded. As a disciple of the Qinghe Sword Sect, how could she not know?

The Gangsha Realm tempered the body and pushed beyond the limits of ordinary mortals. The Spirit Transformation Realm, on the other hand, enlightened the soul and transformed it, allowing it to condense into a physical form. In theory, those in the Spirit Transformation Realm could possess another body countless times, and under normal circumstances, their souls would no longer be damaged.

That was why the Spirit Transformation Realm was also known as "Little Longevity."