Primordial Unity

Liu Yanran's already beautiful, large eyes widened as she stared fixedly at Li Xian, her face filled with horror, fear, and disbelief.

He had drawn his blade!?

Li Xian...

Had really drawn his blade!?

He...

Would really kill her?

Really dared to kill her!?

Could really bring himself to kill her!?

Crimson blood, still carrying her body's warmth, sprayed like a gushing spring from the hole in her neck, staining her pale green dress an inky black.

She staggered, leaned against the windowsill, and slid helplessly to the floor. At the same time, she clamped both hands over her neck, desperately trying to plug the wound and stop the blood from flowing out.

But no matter how hard she pressed, more and more blood continued to spill between her slender, pale fingers.

The fear of death gnawed madly at her mind, making her quickly forget her sweet intimacies with Prince Yue's heir apparent, forget their former vows, sworn before mountains and seas, of unwavering devotion. At this moment, she only wanted to live, only wanted to breathe...

"Gurgle... Li Xian... save... save me..."

Unfortunately, Li Xian's gaze no longer lingered on her for even an instant.

His blade struck at the other guards who were trying to escape with Yan Ruxue.

The sight drove Liu Yanran's fear of death to an unprecedented extreme.

She struggled to open her mouth, but could no longer make a sound. Blood gushed from her neck and mouth, shredding every syllable until only a faint rasp remained.

Cold.

So cold.

In that cold, as her blood drained away, cold enough to freeze her consciousness...

Her vision gradually dimmed, her thoughts gradually blurred.

Until they vanished completely.

Even among the utterly loyal Prince's Residence Guards, not everyone could face death without fear.

After Li Xian killed nine men in succession, the remaining guards finally broke. No longer able to spare a thought for the young commandery princess, Yan Ruxue, they scattered and fled in panic.

As Yan Ruxue stood exposed before Li Xian without any protection, not a trace of her initial overbearing arrogance remained on the young commandery princess's face.

She huddled in a corner, staring at Li Xian in terror, her whole body suddenly trembling uncontrollably.

"Stay back! Don't come any closer!"

Her status as a commandery princess of Prince Yue's Residence could no longer give her the slightest sense of security.

Because...

Mad!

Li Xian had absolutely gone mad!

He had shown no mercy even when killing his most beloved Liu Yanran. If that wasn't madness, what was!?

Why would a madman care about your status? Why would he care what consequences killing you would bring!?

He only wanted to satisfy himself.

"Stay back? If I stay back, how are you going to kill me?"

Li Xian shook the blood from his blade. "You said I was certain to die today, that even immortals couldn't save me. Now it seems I don't need any immortals to save me."

But he seemed to have shaken the blood off his blade a little too forcefully. A few drops flew through the air and splashed onto Yan Ruxue's pale little face.

Their icy temperature and the bloody stench assailing her nose made her cry out in terror. "Ah!"

Her body, still shrinking into the corner, went limp, and she collapsed straight to her knees. "Don't kill me! I shouldn't have spoken so loudly! I shouldn't have offended you! I was wrong! Please, don't kill me!"

Seeing this, Ma Fu could not help shouting sternly from the side, "Li Xian! Commandery Princess Yan Ruxue is a member of Great Zhou's imperial house! Do you know the price of slaughtering imperial offspring!? You're challenging the dignity of the entire Great Zhou Imperial Clan!"

Li Xian glanced at Ma Fu. He had not intended to speak.

But he was, after all, a reasonable man, so he still said, "Nothing in life is greater than death! You know perfectly well why you held this banquet today. Why would you think that when you come to kill me, I should still weigh every consequence and hesitate?"

Those words...

Made Ma Fu falter. "Well..."

At that moment, however, Yan Ruxue seemed to recover her wits and suddenly said in panic, "You... you said you wouldn't kill me today."

An intense desire to live flared in her eyes. "A young prodigy like you must surely speak words that carry the weight of nine cauldrons. You'll keep your promise, won't you?"

Hearing the young commandery princess's words, Ma Fu shook his head with a bitter smile.

Not kill her?

Naive.

If Li Xian had hesitated for even a second before throwing that blade at Heir Apparent Yan, he might have believed it.

Yan Ruxue seemed to have thought of this too. Although she trembled even harder, she stammered, "You knew that as the heir apparent, Yan Kaigui was bound to have something to protect his life, like soft gold-thread armor. So after his inner armor weakened the blade you threw, in theory, it would only wound him, not kill him... Although the process was a little different, the result was the same... You let him go."

Li Xian looked at Yan Ruxue in surprise.

She could explain it that way too?

"You showed him mercy. Shouldn't you leave a gap in the net for me too? Please..."

Yan Ruxue's eyes widened, brimming with the desire to live.

She was the young commandery princess of Prince Yue's Residence, born with a golden key in her mouth, raised in fine clothes and fine food, amid dizzying luxury. The greatest mistake of her life had been provoking this mud-legged peasant.

Especially when this mud-legged peasant was also a madman!

And as long as she avoided this madman and never entered the circles of those lowborn wretches again, she could still live in extravagant luxury, scattering gold like dirt.

Li Xian fell silent for a moment.

He had spared Yan Ruxue and Yan Kaigui so they could stir up trouble, send word to Prince Yue's Residence, and bring its guards out in full force to surround and kill him.

But on reflection, to pass on a message...

One person was actually enough.

"You're absolutely right. You guessed my intention precisely."

Li Xian spoke.

Joy instantly blossomed on Yan Ruxue's face, as though she had escaped death.

But the next second...

A blade flashed.

A chill instantly spread across the young commandery princess's neck.

At the same time...

Li Xian's voice sounded beside her ear.

"But you know too much."

Yan Ruxue's longing-filled gaze froze at once.

"Mad! Mad!"

Seeing this, Ma Fu could not help crying out in a reflexive fit of alarm, "Zhou Juechen, if you keep company with a madman like this, sooner or later you'll drag the entire Zhou Family into eternal damnation!"

Yet Zhou Juechen paid him no attention at all.

At this moment, his entire mind was devoted to this battle.

He grew faster and faster, his force grew fiercer and harder, and his moves increasingly shifted between complexity and simplicity.

Seeing this, Li Xian seemed to discern something.

Originally intending to lend a hand, he instead withdrew to the staircase to stand guard, preventing anyone from coming up and disturbing them.

The battle between the two continued.

In a sense, Zhou Juechen was no longer fighting Ma Fu at this point. The opponent he was fighting was himself.

The self who had previously borne countless shackles!

And now, as he kept throwing punches, every distraction, every flashy embellishment was continually refined and purified in the process!

Through this refinement and purification, this reduction of complexity to simplicity, his own essence and qi grew increasingly concentrated.

At a certain moment, an irrepressible light suddenly surged in his eyes.

His entire mental state seemed to enter a wholly new realm.

Guided by this mental state, all the force throughout his body seemed to condense into a single current, like primordial unity qi, and blast outward.

Bang!

Ma Fu, standing before him, could no longer withstand this abruptly surging primordial unity fist force. The arm held across his chest was broken by a single punch, and the force drove straight through like a blade splitting bamboo, striking his chest and blasting him backward into a pillar of the Wave-Viewing Tower.

Even the solid pillar, thick enough for one person to wrap their arms around, was forcibly cracked by the force driven into his body.

"Primordial unity!?"

Ma Fu's eyes abruptly widened as he stared fixedly at Zhou Juechen.

Primordial unity, an impervious body!

Zhou Juechen...

Had actually comprehended primordial unity during their life-and-death battle, advanced to the impervious body realm, and truly become a first-rate martial expert whose name would resound throughout a province!?

Pfft!

The next second, blood sprayed uncontrollably from his mouth.

That punch had actually severed his heart meridians completely.

He gave Li Xian, standing to the side with his blade, a bleak glance, then turned to Zhou Juechen. His eyes held unwillingness, but also a trace of complexity. "Before dying, I could still help forge an expert with an impervious body... I... haven't lost out..."

With those words, he collapsed, breathed his last, and died.

Both Blood Exchange and Marrow Washing experts Yan Kaigui had brought were dead, reduced to corpses.

(End of chapter)