Lu Wu-bing pondered for a long while before finally making up his mind.
He silently memorized the sword manual by heart, then left the cellar and copied out another version. He placed the genuine "Yuanling Swordplay Manual" into a black wooden box and tucked it against his chest.
Afterward, he gave his mother a few more instructions.
Seeing that night was drawing near, he lingered no longer. He changed into a servant's outfit, put on a bamboo hat, and climbed over the wall...
Blending into the stream of people returning home along the streets, he turned left and right before arriving at a shabby little alley and knocking on the door of a residence.
"Young Master."
When Lu Wu-bing lifted his bamboo hat, a white-haired old man hurried forward and cried out in delighted surprise.
"Uncle Fu, keep this with you. If you hear that my Lu family has been wiped out, or that something has happened to me, open the bundle. There is a letter inside—follow its instructions. I leave it to you."
"Rest assured. So long as this old servant still draws breath, I will never delay such an important matter."
A sharp glint flashed through the old man's eyes. Drawing a deep breath, he agreed. From Lu Wu-bing's tone, he had heard far more than was said.
"It is merely a backup plan. Perhaps we will not need to take this step."
Lu Wu-bing smiled, took out a handful of broken silver and pressed it into the old man's hand. He put his bamboo hat back on and quietly departed.
Following Mao Mao's lead.
He arrived at Yuelai Inn on a street corner.
Lu Wu-bing tossed a piece of broken silver into the waiter's hand, said, "I'm looking for someone," then went up to the second floor. Reaching a guest room, he knocked gently on the door.
The door opened, but the room was empty.
Lu Wu-bing looked at Mao Mao by his feet in surprise. The little fellow's eyes were equally bewildered. It wrinkled its snow-white nose and sniffed around, then could not help sneezing.
He does not want to see me. He has avoided me.
Lu Wu-bing's gaze darkened. Lowering his head slightly, he took the black wooden box from his robes and held it in both hands. In a soft voice, he said, "This junior, Lu Wu-bing, begs to meet Senior Ouyang. My family possesses nothing of worth, so I offer a manual of divine swordsmanship..."
A cool breeze blew into the room.
Lu Wu-bing heard a soft sound of surprise beside his ear. At some unknown moment, someone had appeared in the room.
The man wore a feathered crown and a cyan Daoist robe. Five strands of long beard hung beneath his chin, and his gaze was gentle, betraying neither joy nor anger.
His movement technique was so exquisite and his bearing so extraordinary that he was plainly a senior master. He should be Ouyang Zheng, the Celestial Star Sect's leader mentioned by Head Constable Li.
"Master."
Without caring about propriety, Lu Wu-bing bent into a salute.
Just as he was about to bow lower, he discovered that an immense force—gentle yet incomparably resilient—had stopped his movement. No matter how hard he exerted himself, he could not move.
From somewhere farther away came what seemed to be an almost inaudible chuckle.
"Slow down. My Celestial Star Sect does not accept just any disciple. Little fellow, do you think this old man would covet your family's sword manual?"
Ouyang Zheng looked at Lu Wu-bing with a faint smile, clearly having long guessed what he was thinking.
"Senior Ouyang's divine skill towers over the world; naturally, you would not covet my Lu family's mere sword manual. This junior only heard of Senior's reputation for Righteousness Reaching the Heavens, of your chivalrous name resounding throughout the land. Surely you could not bear to see this wicked art poison all four directions. Therefore, I offer this manual for Senior's safekeeping. Only then can all be utterly secure."
Lu Wu-bing smiled as he opened the box, took out the sword manual, and laid it atop the lid. Holding it out with both hands, he said, "Senior will understand at a glance."
Ouyang Zheng's eyes fell upon the four blood-red characters, "Yuanling Swordplay Manual," and his expression shifted slightly.
The four characters were carved like iron, hooked like silver. Merely seeing them made it seem as though mountains of corpses and seas of blood rose in one's mind. The calligraphy contained the spirit and will of the person who had written it.
What a thing.
The cover alone possessed such an imposing aura.
What martial artist could endure having a secret manual of divine skill right before his eyes and not flip through it?
Not one bit.
Ouyang Zheng clearly could not ignore it either. He silently accepted the manual and opened to the first page. With one sweep of his eyes, his expression changed at once.
First, it turned green, then it turned blood-red.
After he finished reading the six pages of the manual, his Daoist robe suddenly billowed without wind, swelling fiercely.
"Hummm..."
A muffled thunderclap rang beside Lu Wu-bing's ears.
Lu Wu-bing's brows twitched wildly as he saw Ouyang Zheng's right middle finger bend and extend slightly. A translucent ripple surged through the air toward the side...
Without a sound, a redwood stool three zhang away shattered into dust upon the floor.
Was that sword qi, or finger force?
If that landed on me, would I not be smashed to pieces?
"As expected, it is wicked..."
The blood drained entirely from Ouyang Zheng's face, while his voice grew even gentler. "You are very good! But with such a fearsome demonic sword manual in your possession, how could your Lu family resist practicing it? Even if you did not practice it, why did you not simply destroy it?"
Lu Wu-bing's heart stirred. He knew that this was the true moment between life and death.
Do not be fooled by Ouyang Zheng's sterling reputation or his kindly smile.
The more so, the more dangerous he was.
As the leader of a sect, it made no sense to call him softhearted.
What if...
"Senior does not know this, but my ancestor deeply understood that the Yuanling Swordplay Manual was exceedingly evil. Once later generations practiced it, they would surely harm both others and themselves. Thus, many years ago, he sealed away the manual and left behind ancestral instructions, strictly forbidding Lu family descendants from opening the box and taking what lay within...
"If the Eastern Sea Sword Sect had not been so vicious and greedy, seeking to seize the manual, this junior would not even have known that the Lu family still possessed such a harmful thing."
At this point, Lu Wu-bing changed the subject.
"At this critical juncture of survival or destruction, this junior originally intended to print countless copies of the manual and send my family's trusted retainers racing to the northern and southern provinces, spreading it in every direction.
"Should anything happen to the Lu family, there would surely be hundreds or thousands more people in the world practicing the Yuanling Demonic Sword. I ask for nothing else—only that once their swordsmanship reaches great success, they sweep the Eastern Sea Sword Sect's court clean, uprooting it from its den, and slaughter every last one..."
"Absolutely not..."
Ouyang Zheng's face twitched, and he nearly failed to maintain the bearing of a great master.
The faint thought in his heart vanished like smoke in an instant.
He fully understood the seasoned ruthlessness behind this handsome, refined youth's action.
With Ouyang Zheng's discerning eye, after only a glance at the sword manual and circulating the first divine meridian, he had immediately discovered the terror of the Yuanling Sword.
Not only was its power extraordinarily strong and its cultivation swift, it also affected one's nature, turning people into demons and monsters who killed without restraint and committed every evil beneath heaven.
So long as anyone dared cultivate it, within three to five years, an extremely difficult demonic fiend would soon emerge in the martial world.
If hundreds or thousands of such fiends appeared, he did not dare imagine what this world would become.
Even if the Eastern Sea Sword Sect were tenfold or a hundredfold stronger, it might still be slaughtered to the last man.
Even the Celestial Star Sword Sect would find it difficult to remain untouched.
This was a scheme to extinguish bloodlines.
"What crime have the common people of the world committed... Those who cultivate this sword will surely leave corpses strewn across the fields, devour spirits and consume souls, rape and plunder. You are so young—how can you be so cruel and ruthless?"
Lu Wu-bing shook his head and smiled lightly. "It is not really cruelty and ruthlessness. If we cannot overcome this hurdle with the Eastern Sea Sword Sect, the Lu family will surely be exterminated to the last member.
"Once we are dead, how could we still care if floodwaters rise to the heavens after us? Senior, is that not the truth?"
Yes.
Their family was about to be exterminated.
Yet he expected them to remain kindhearted.
That was forcing the impossible upon them.
Even if Ouyang Zheng's belly were filled with learning and he possessed a hundred arguments, he could not persuade him by even a single word.
Fortunately, Lu Wu-bing changed the subject again and said, "After considering everything, this junior believes matters have not yet reached a dead end. A few days ago, I happened to learn that Senior Ouyang of the Celestial Star Sect was passing through Jiangzhou and had temporarily settled here, so I immediately came to seek apprenticeship.
"Given Senior's chivalrous reputation, you surely cannot stand the Eastern Sea Sword Sect's conduct—seizing by trickery and force, killing without cause.
"Once this junior successfully becomes your disciple, the Lu family will have the Celestial Star Sect supporting us. I trust the Eastern Sea Sword Sect will not dare make the slightest move. All those desperate plans from before will merely remain a last resort never to be used; they need not be taken seriously."
Before you continue