One backward smile unleashed a hundred charms, routing heavenly generals and startling ghosts and gods!

Flying Crane Mountain was neither tall nor large.

Five low hills stood connected, with a large clearing not far behind them. This was Pure Yang Palace's training ground.

As the Pure Yang Daoist Sect was a martial Daoist sect, imparting skills and practicing martial arts were essential, so its training ground was quite large.

Here, the ground was packed yellow earth. Disciples gathered in twos and threes to practice, not many of them-about thirty or forty, both men and women.

This was not the time for group practice. The other disciples still had to receive worshippers on the mountain.

Eighty percent of Pure Yang Palace's martial arts came from Patriarch Lü's legacy, while the remaining twenty percent were assets left behind by successive sect leaders.

Some disciples wielded swords, some practiced with sabers, and others worked on their punches and kicks.

Although internal power and True Qi were the hard currency of this world, the various martial techniques were the true extension of martial prowess.

No matter how profound your internal power was, it was useless if you could not hit anyone.

Only by refining martial techniques to a high level could one strike an opponent faster and better.

Besides, if one could not improve one's internal power, a sophisticated set of martial techniques could still kill an enemy.

Hadn't Linghu Chong relied on the superb swordsmanship of the Nine Swords of Dugu to fight after losing all his internal power?

The two watched for a while without studying too closely.

As a major Daoist sect with centuries of heritage, the Pure Yang Daoist Sect naturally possessed sophisticated martial arts, but neither of them was there to steal its techniques.

After observing the special techniques they used for a while, the two were satisfied.

Those few glimpses were enough to borrow a few moves for inspiration.

They skirted the training ground and headed farther east, where there was a small path.

Following it downhill, they passed through a dense wood, and the sound of flowing water grew clearer.

After another few dozen paces, the view suddenly opened up before them, revealing a small pool.

Water flowed down from a mountain stream and gathered here to form it.

Walking downstream from the pool, they saw a pond built of bricks.

They looked back upstream and understood.

The little pool upstream was natural, supplying drinking water for Pure Yang disciples to carry back.

This artificial pond was probably for washing clothes, since the blue bricks bore obvious wear, clearly left by years of scrubbing.

They continued downstream along the little river. The water grew wider, and after some three or four li, the little river had become a large one.

A great river rolled with broad waves, the breeze carrying wildflower fragrance along both banks... because there was no rice.

Grassy ground flanked the river, whose current was swift in some places and gentle in others. A small village was faintly visible not far beyond the opposite bank.

Farmers worked the fields, with cattle and sheep, chickens and ducks.

Zhang Qingyuan took off his shoes and socks, crossed the grass to the river, and dipped his bare feet into the water. The cool current washed over them. How he missed this.

As a child in his previous life, he had often waded and bathed in the river near his maternal grandmother's home. It had been the same scene of everyday life.

"If only I had a fishing rod. I could dig up some earthworms and sit by that slow current to fish. That would have its own special flavor."

Zhang Qingyuan was still playing in the water and musing when he glanced back, only to find that Zhang Junbao had somehow crossed the water to the opposite bank.

He watched him skim over from that side, then step onto the water here and glide back across.

Or he would toss blades of grass into the river, let them float on the surface, then use them as footholds to practice his lightness skill.

Well, Zhang Qingyuan admired him too.

A good student thought about learning at all times. Even encountering a river like this made him want to test his lightness skill.

They called it a large river, but it was actually only five meters wide, merely larger than it was upstream.

Zhang Junbao was having the time of his life, searching for the optimal output of True Qi to stay afloat.

Success was no accident!

Zhang Qingyuan put his shoes and socks back on, rose, and followed his example, skimming the water like a dragonfly.

Just then, several village women approached from the village, carrying wooden basins to wash clothes.

They came chatting and laughing, so the two could hardly continue practicing.

Before long, the village women reached the riverbank, and the two sides looked each other over.

The women wondered why these two Daoists' robes differed from those of Pure Yang Palace, while Zhang Qingyuan and Zhang Junbao were studying why one of the village women looked so astonishingly otherworldly.

After perhaps three to five breaths, the two nodded first in greeting, and the village women politely returned it.

Without disturbing their laundry, the two turned toward the village.

Both walked along deep in thought. Once they had gone some distance and were certain they could no longer hear the village women talking, they paused.

Zhang Qingyuan and Zhang Junbao exchanged a glance, and both smiled at the same time.

"Brother, you noticed too?"

Zhang Qingyuan nodded lightly and replied in a low voice, "It would be hard not to."

"To think such an extraordinary person exists!"

"Noble beyond words!"

The two quietly looked back, only to discover that the figure they sought had vanished.

"Where is she?" Zhang Qingyuan asked.

Zhang Junbao shook his head blankly. "I don't know."

"One, two, three, four, five..." Zhang Qingyuan counted, puzzled. "There are five. The number's right, so how did one of them change the moment we turned around?"

Zhang Junbao patted his shoulder and raised his eyebrows toward the woman in the middle. "Look at her."

"Oh!" Zhang Qingyuan could not help exclaiming.

The woman in the middle stood up and rolled up her sleeves.

From behind, she resembled a beautiful painting, freezing an instant of beauty in time. Her slender figure looked especially graceful against the mirror of the water.

At that moment, she seemed to shimmer with an intoxicating radiance. Even the green grass, flowing river, white clouds, and blue sky could not match a fraction of her beauty.

Her silhouette was like a sinuous curve, tracing an unforgettable picture of timeless beauty.

How could it be described?

One glance toppled a city; another toppled a kingdom?

Or did clouds evoke her robes and flowers her face, while spring breezes brushed the railing and dew gleamed thick?

As light as a startled swan, as graceful as a roaming dragon?

None seemed right, because no poem or idiom could describe this woman's figure from behind.

Such loveliness belonged only in heaven; the mortal world could not allow a fairy's beauty!

Even the wooden Zhang Junbao stared in a daze, a blush rising to his cheeks.

All it took was a view of her back and the motion of reaching up to roll her sleeves, even dressed in coarse hemp clothes with a kerchief around her head.

It made both their hearts quicken involuntarily, their breathing turning somewhat hurried.

"Gulp."

Zhang Qingyuan recovered first and nudged Zhang Junbao.

The lad started awake like a bird startled by a bowstring.

"B-Brother Yuan."

He stared at Zhang Qingyuan, dull and dumbstruck.

Zhang Qingyuan said incredulously, "Is that the astonishingly otherworldly woman?"

Even Zhang Junbao had lost confidence. "I don't know," he said uncertainly.

"Back!"

The two turned north and sprinted upstream, pushing Cloud Ladder to its limit.

Once they were certain those village women were out of sight, they flew across the water to the opposite bank, then used their lightness skills to head south along the river to a spot downstream, where they hid and watched.

It was still the same five women washing clothes, still the same person in the middle.

They observed carefully and considered earnestly.

Zhang Qingyuan asked, "Are you sure it's her?"

Zhang Junbao shook his head again, his tone uncertain. "I don't know."

"Back!"

They repeated their earlier route, avoiding the women as they returned to a spot behind them.

"What about now?"

"Brother, how about we go back and look again?"

"Let's go."

The two returned to the opposite bank.

After watching for a long while, Zhang Qingyuan sank into bewilderment, scratching his scalp and muttering, "That shouldn't be."

"Brother, look!" Zhang Junbao tugged his arm to alert him.

Zhang Qingyuan turned sharply. The woman in the middle had stood up. Having finished her laundry, she carried her wooden basin and started back.

After just two steps, she seemed to have forgotten something and looked back, lowering her gaze.

With that single turn, that one backward glance, the two felt the heavens collapse.

One backward smile unleashed a hundred charms, routing heavenly soldiers and startling ghosts and gods!

They were certain now. This was that woman.

But why was there such a mismatch between her face and her figure from behind?

Seen from behind, this woman belonged only in heaven.

Seen from the front, this woman also belonged only in heaven!

Because she looked far too bizarre.

It was not a question of whether she looked good, but of how one looked at her.

When they had passed her earlier, Zhang Qingyuan and Zhang Junbao had found her astonishingly otherworldly precisely because her appearance was so peculiar.

She clearly had exquisite eyes, a delicate nose, rosy lips-an angel's face.

Taken individually, every one of her features was first-rate, yet together they possessed an indescribable ugliness!

An ugliness that shocked one into seeing a celestial being, an ugliness beyond compare.

That was why Zhang Junbao had called her extraordinary, and Zhang Qingyuan had called her noble beyond words.

Because no appearance under heaven was so incongruous.

Yet when they looked at her from behind, that silhouette was incomparably beautiful, beautiful enough to put others to shame.

They could not be certain that such an explosively beautiful silhouette belonged to that incongruous-looking woman.

So, to make certain this was not Heaven playing a trick on them, they had run back and forth several times.

At last, they confirmed that this woman truly was a back-view killer.

Any single one of her features was a beauty painstakingly sculpted by Heaven.

Put together, they were incongruously ugly, incongruous beyond belief.

Those eyes, ears, mouth, and nose would clearly send anyone's looks soaring if placed on their face, yet these exquisite features had grown on one person's face, and together they were so distressing.

Yet this face, so difficult to accept at a glance, came with a silhouette that could drive every man under heaven mad.

Heavens,

Were you punishing her?

Mouth open, Zhang Junbao shook his head repeatedly. "Looking at her face, she'd have a hard time finding a husband. Looking at her from behind, anyone would want a kiss.

"No! Not a kiss. No man looking at her from behind would have a lewd thought. It's like looking at a work of art. No, no, no, it's like looking at the Mystic Maiden above the Nine Heavens, to be admired from afar but never profaned."

Zhang Qingyuan sighed, feeling a little sorry for her. "She must have blown up the Milky Way in her previous life."