Frost-Heaven Divine Sword (Please Bookmark, Please Follow)

"Young Master is back!"

After the crisp shout rang out, two little maidservants with twin-bun hairstyles timidly poked their heads out from behind the door and looked toward Jiang Xuan at the entrance. Shen Yuerong and Liu Hui then emerged arm in arm from the main house, followed by a maid carrying a tea tray.

Seeing Jiang Xuan's stunned expression, Liu Hui beat Shen Yuerong to the punch and smiled. "The Su Household's mistress came by to visit two days ago. Seeing that your home was rather old, she asked your mother what she thought and helped have it renovated."

"Also, the mistress felt that your mother had toiled for most of her life and should enjoy some peace and comfort. And since you'll be cultivating away from home, she thought your mother might find it cold and lonely living here alone."

"So, she found some people to look after your mother." Pointing at the two little maidservants, Liu Hui said with a soft smile, "Little Red and Little Green are not outsiders. They're the daughters of old friends of your mother and me."

"With them around, your mother will have someone to care for her and won't be lonely."

"..." Jiang Xuan did not know what to say in response.

Even though he knew perfectly well that the Su Household was currying favor and trading in goodwill, he could not refuse.

Jiang Xuan was not cultivating the Ruthless Dao Fruit, cutting off kinship and abandoning emotion. If he had the means, he naturally wanted his mother to live comfortably.

And these children from two or three families they knew well could indeed ease his mother's loneliness when he was gone.

In the end, he could only sigh inwardly.

"Worthy of an Aristocratic Clan of cultivators with a heritage spanning centuries. Even their gifts leave no fault to pick at."

Jiang Xuan said, "I truly will be cultivating outside from now on. With someone by Mother's side, I'll be at ease as well... Aunt Liu, please thank the Su Household's mistress for me."

"Huh?"

Jiang Xuan's ready acceptance instead left Liu Hui, who had prepared a bellyful of arguments, momentarily stunned. She had thought that, given Jiang Xuan's temperament, he would surely decline for quite some time.

What surprised her even more was Jiang Xuan's demeanor.

When the Daoist Academy had first opened, Jiang Xuan had always carried an inescapable air of unease and anxiety, as if something behind him were urging him to run. Yet now, there was more composure and steadiness between his brows. His entire bearing had changed.

"Did something happen to him?"

Liu Hui was puzzled, and Jiang Xuan's circumstances and state of mind truly were different now.

Before, he had been a poor boy all alone. Faced with the schemes of others, all he could do was be careful, careful, and more careful. Nor could he casually accept things from others.

Once he accepted them, he would find it hard to repay them.

Moreover, Jiang Xuan had only just awakened the memories of his previous life then. He had discovered that the place he lived in was no longer a modern society of orderly rules, but an immortal cultivation world where the strong devoured the weak.

Even though he knew that his sect was one of the righteous and renowned, the suddenly changed and unfamiliar environment, the ancient feudal system, and the pressure brought by Song Zhou, a lecturer at the Daoist Academy, had all made Jiang Xuan feel as though he were treading on thin ice.

At that time, he could only desperately improve his strength to protect himself.

But after joining Four Seasons Valley and gaining a group of fellow disciples, the unease in Jiang Xuan's heart had faded considerably.

As an Inner Disciple acknowledged by Four Seasons Valley, he was no longer alone.

If he encountered trouble, he no longer had to shoulder it alone. He could ask the Valley's seniors, or Xia He and the others, to stand up for him.

Just as the Su Household might wish to use their favor as leverage and have him help Su Linyin, he could simply say that he could not decide such a matter himself and would have to inform the Valley elders, letting them handle it.

The price of asking a poor boy to act was not the same as the price of asking an Inner Disciple of Four Seasons Valley.

Before the elders of Four Seasons Valley, the Su Household would not even dare mention such petty favors.

"A common house and two or three maidservants, and you want a disciple of Four Seasons Valley to give up his points and wholeheartedly help your child enter the inner sect? Heh heh, are you treating the Inner Disciples of Four Seasons Valley like beggars and insulting us?"

And with Four Seasons Valley behind him, the Su Household would not dare recklessly lay a hand on his family either.

His elevated status and the existence of a powerful backer finally allowed Jiang Xuan to loosen the taut string in his heart. He became far more composed when dealing with matters.

Of course, this did not mean Jiang Xuan would stop striving. Whether it was for immortality, for the chance to see grander vistas after attaining a higher status, or to elevate Four Seasons Valley's standing and repay Zhou Qing, Xia He, and the others who had cared for him, his steps along the path of cultivation would not slow.

But with seniors sheltering him from behind, Jiang Xuan was no longer as impatient as he had once been.

When he read in the Scripture Repository, he no longer chased speed by casually picking three hundred simple, easy-to-understand books to memorize. Instead, he devoted himself fully to studying every book and Daoist scripture. This was a manifestation of his changed mindset.

Naturally, Liu Hui knew nothing of all Jiang Xuan had experienced, but that did not stop her from forming a few guesses.

However, being someone who knew how to read the room, she merely guessed and did not pry further.

Besides returning home to visit his mother, Jiang Xuan would also return to the Star Daoist Academy every few days to attend a class and exchange insights with Dong Hao and the others.

Then Jiang Xuan discovered that he had become a target of hostility.

Of course, he was not the only one. After observing for a while, he found that every disciple who had passed the first round of assessment on the seventh day and received an Excellent evaluation was being watched closely by pairs of burning, unwilling eyes.

"Ignore them." Su Linyin was the one who spoke to Jiang Xuan. Dong Hao had not come today, and after noticing those people's gazes and Jiang Xuan's confusion, she took the initiative to come to his side and gently explained, "Those people are disciples who advanced on the eighth and ninth days with Good evaluations. They still hope to defeat you and rise to Grade A in the second round of assessment."

"Unfortunately, one step behind means falling behind at every step. Advancement at the Star Daoist Academy does not allow disciples like us to be even one step slow. In the second round of assessment, the Star Daoist Academy will not have forty or fifty Grade A spots like it did in the first round. There will only be ten."

"They have already been eliminated."

When Su Linyin said this, there was a meaningful glint in her eyes.

Jiang Xuan vaguely sensed something as well.

But he did not care. He merely said to Su Linyin, "Thank you for the reminder, Miss Su."

"No need."

Once those words fell, Su Linyin—the one who had renovated his old home and sent two maidservants to his Household—did not say anything else. She simply left quietly.

Her perfectly measured restraint only confirmed Jiang Xuan's earlier guess.

"The Su Household is... waiting for me to grow anxious, waiting for me to ask them for help?"

Thinking of the Su Household's calculations, then recalling his progress these past days, a nearly imperceptible curve tugged at Jiang Xuan's lips.

"If you keep waiting like this, I'm afraid you'll be waiting in vain."

At the Daoist Academy, Jiang Xuan mostly just gathered information and had no intention of lingering. He still spent most of his time in Four Seasons Valley, cultivating in earnest.

On the seventh day he remained there, after polishing Winter Solstice to mastery, Jiang Xuan formally began practicing the subsequent sword moves:

First Nine: Frost Shadow in Pursuit; Second Nine: Iceburst Shattered Shadow; Third Nine—Frost-Heaven Divine Sword!