Ze Tian Ji

Edited by: Michyrr

"I don’t know." Chen Changsheng shook his head and added, "It’s already been half a year since he sent me a message."

Guan Feibai silently thought for a few moments, then suddenly said, "I’ll go with you."

Chen Changsheng was rather shocked and Zhexiu also raised his head. From the Ivy Festival to the Grand Examination, and then while viewing the monoliths in the Mausoleum of Books and taking part in the Boiling Stone Summit, when Tang Thirty-Six and Guan Feibai saw each other, they would begin quarreling so intensely that they almost came to blows. Why did he want to go to Wenshui?

Seeing the look in their eyes, Guan Feibai felt a little uncomfortable. "Is it not okay for me to go and make fun of him for being useless?"

"That’s fine, it’s up to you," Chen Changsheng said with a smile.

Zhexiu shook his head, thinking, after all these years, why are all of you still acting like children?

Chen Changsheng asked, "What of Blue Pass? Although it’s said that your Mount Li Sword Sect still only takes suggestions and not orders, it’s not good to just up and leave."

Guan Feibai replied, "I told them beforehand that after I finished this mission, I would return to Mount Li. I’ll just have the relay station in the next town deliver a letter, and it will be finished."

Chen Changsheng was somewhat surprised, asking, "You were intending to return to Mount Li?"

"Second Brother should have already left Snowhold Pass by this time. All of my martial brothers are going back."

"Because the demons retreated?"

"There is that reason, but it’s primarily because Eldest Brother is returning to Mount Li."

Hearing this, Chen Changsheng fell silent. After a while, he asked, "Just where has your senior brother been these past few years?"

Chen Changsheng had not appeared in public for three years now, but Qiushan Jun had been missing for five.

Just where had Qiushan Jun gone? This was a question that everyone was very interested in.

"We also don’t know."

Guan Feibai looked at Chen Changsheng, wanting to say something, but he ultimately chose not to.

Anyone could tell that Qiushan Jun’s disappearance was assuredly related to Chen Changsheng. To be more precise, it was related to his engagement with Xu Yourong. Chen Changsheng was quiet for a very long time, finally saying, "I’ve never met Qiushan Jun, but if he really is as all of you describe, I’m confident that he would never seclude himself out of lovesickness."

......

......

The starlight was brightest at the extremely late hours of the night.

Standing at the peak, one could see all sorts of sights.

Outside Hanqiu City, with the mountain ridge as the boundary, the world was divided in two. On one side was a fertile land irrigated by a river for countless years. Even in the deep winter, it was still somewhat green and did not give off the slightest hint of desolation. On the other side, however, was a mountain valley and desert, formed from stones and utterly devoid of life, appearing desolate to the extreme.

If one wanted to go to Wenshui, traveling along either side was fine.

Luo Bu did not know how Chen Changsheng would choose. What he wanted to know right now was how those assassins in the forest would choose.

There were many experts amongst these assassins. One part came from the Tang clan, one part from the Wu clan, another from the Mutuo clan, and one from his own clan.

Simply put, these people were the elite strength of the Four Great Clans.

If these pursuers really did catch up to Chen Changsheng, no one could be sure what the final result would be.

Under the starlight, the forests were brimming with an unreal and illusory beauty, and what happened next made Luo Bu wonder if all this was real.

The assassins from the Four Great Clans did not choose any path. After receiving reports from their scouts and engaging in a discussion, they retreated along their original path.

Luo Bu had a deep understanding of the cautious and conservative attitude of these noble clans. After a moment’s thought, he had a rough guess of what had occurred.

These assassins had found it impossible to confirm the route Chen Changsheng had chosen, so if they wanted to pursue him, they would have to split up. This sounded like a very simple math problem, dividing one into halves, but the backstabbing between the noble clans made the problem more complicated. In addition, they were not confident that they could kill Chen Changsheng with only half their number.

An even more important problem was that the hand signals used by the scouts to report very clearly communicated that the situation of the road going south along the river had changed.

So they were forced to consider, was this a trap laid by the Orthodoxy?

......

......

Luo Bu glanced north at the stone mountain and desert, a dazzling white under the starlight, then turned around and headed down the mountain.

Under the cover of the dark forest, he very quickly reached the river.

In the darkness, he silently walked along the river, all the way until the morning sun rose and painted the meandering river into a belt of silver.

This river was a tributary of the Wenshui that flowed south. Compared to the mountain and desert to the north, it was a little warmer. (TN: Wenshui translates to ’Wen River’. It can refer both to the river and to the city of Wenshui.)

But it was still midwinter, so the river was still frozen solid, its surface layered with a thick mantle of snow.

Ahead, the river turned right, where a thicket of winter plums grew on the protruding cliffs.

Luo Bu walked to that thicket. With a glance, he could see the people on the surface of the river in the distance.

Many holes had been torn in the ice covering the river, spreading cracks in all directions that extended for several dozen zhang. At the end of each crack lay a black-clothed figure.

The ice was stained with blood, the black-clothed figures unmoving. He could not tell whether they were still alive or not.

From this sight, he could imagine just how earthshaking the exchange that produced it was.

He could imagine just how powerful their opponent was.

There were still two figures standing atop the cold and snow-covered river.

One was that blue-clothed stranger that Luo Bu had seen in Hanqiu City. The stranger’s face was still covered in a copper mask that made them seem abnormally terrifying.

Even more terrifying was the Qi exuded by their body.

When the snowflakes falling from the sky or the cold blowing across the river approached the stranger, they would naturally avoid it.

At this level of battle, the blue-clothed stranger could not conceal their own Qi, let alone their cultivation level.

Luo Bu slightly raised his brows, his right hand subconsciously gripping the sword at his waist.

Even if he attacked, he was still no match for the blue-clothed figure, but only by holding the sword could he remain calm, could he ensure that he had not been discovered.

The blue-clothed figure was an expert of the Divine Domain!

The hidden strength of the Great Western Continent truly had surpassed the reckonings of many people in the Central Continent.

Even more shocking was that despite the power of this blue-clothed figure, they had still been the loser in this morning’s battle.

A trickle of blood flowed down the stranger’s shoulder and a small piece was missing from the copper mask.

Who could defeat a Divine Domain expert?

Standing on the other side of the river, that person also wore a blue gown, but a fainter blue, and also a much simpler gown.

He was not wearing a mask. His face directly confronted the snow and this world with an indifferent expression.

His eyebrows were drooped and his shoulders were somewhat sunken, so he looked very impoverished.

The wind and snow blew about his body. One of his sleeves ruffled, unexpectedly empty.

Three years ago, he had cut off his own arm.

His remaining hand gripped a metal blade.

Fearless he stood as the wind blew about him.

The flow of water beneath him had already been severed.

"I did not expect that I would have the chance to experience Wang Po of Tianliang’s blade."

The blue-clothed stranger’s raspy voice said.

With a serene expression, Wang Po replied, "I also didn’t expect that I would get a chance to glimpse the elegant manner of an expert of the Great Western Continent."