088

"The story begins on a rainy day."

"A young swordsman saved a girl, and it's unknown whose fleeting glance led to the beginning of this destiny..."

In the teahouse, a storyteller sat on the stage, vividly recounting a poignant tale.

The guests were enjoying their tea and listening to storytelling, completely absorbed in the experience. In a corner that no one paid attention to, a guest dressed in black sat, drinking a cup of bitter tea from dawn till dusk without leaving.

Jiang Huali finished the last sip of tea, placed the silver coins on the table, put on a bamboo hat, and her high-tied hair swayed slightly with her movements.

She picked up the sword that was placed aside and walked out of the teahouse.

A few burly men not far away exchanged glances, then put down their tea and followed.

Outside the inn, a light drizzle evoked a sense of melancholy.

Jiang Huali, sword in hand, walked leisurely towards the city outskirts.

Reaching a secluded spot outside the city, she heard light footsteps behind her. Touching the hilt of her sword, she drew her sword with a cold gleam in the air and struck him directly in the back.

Wherever the sword flashed, blood was shed. The sneaky man hiding in the shadows could no longer hold back and drew his sword to attack.

With a slight thought, Jiang Huali drew her sword and defeated all her enemies in just over ten exchanges.

These men were all strong and skilled martial artists, yet they couldn't withstand ten of her moves.

Jiang Huali sheathed her sword, not intending to kill them all.

Although such actions could lead to endless troubles, life is just too boring, so it's good to find some fun and exercise occasionally.

She had only walked a hundred meters when a woman in a purple dress descended from the sky and stood in front of her, her sword tip pointing directly at her throat.

Jiang Huali reached out, pinched the sword between two fingers, and moved it aside. She recognized the woman before her as a seventh-level expert, and said politely, "It's not quite right for you to draw your sword against me on our first meeting, is it?"

The woman in purple snorted coldly, not in a hurry to make a move, but said, "Hand over the Wu Qing Stone, and I may spare your life."

Originally, I came here because there was no bluestone.

Jiang Huali adjusted her straw hat, revealing a pair of eyes as black as obsidian.

"You've come to the wrong person. I don't have the Wuqing Stone."

"Enough with the nonsense, hand it over now, or today will be your death day!"

"If you are looking for Wu Qingshi, why don't you go to Yunshui Pavilion to inquire about it?" Jiang Huali kindly suggested.

The woman in purple didn't believe her: "If Pavilion Master Zhao heard you say that, he would be very unhappy. You only received the Wuqing Stone yesterday, how come it has already been handed over to Yunshui Pavilion today? My people have been watching you the whole time, and you clearly haven't left here."

It seems this person has thoroughly investigated her background, and those martial arts practitioners who are following her were likely sent by this woman.

Jiang Huali's sword was already half-drawn, and she didn't care about her threat: "Although I work for Yunshui Pavilion, Pavilion Master Zhao is not a cold-blooded person. Yunshui Pavilion is open for business, and the highest bidder wins. Why don't you go and take a look?"

"After all, so many people want the Wuqing Stone, and if you're late, it'll be gone."

The woman in purple had a sharp look in her eyes: "It seems you have no intention of handing it over. A mere sixth realm cultivator, yet you speak with such arrogance."

"You've obtained the Wuqing Stone despite only being at the sixth realm? Don't you know that underestimating your opponent is the worst thing you can do in a battle?"

Jiang Huali smiled slightly, her sword already drawn, its cold light flashing.

...

On a deserted path.

Jiang Huali's straw hat was sliced ​​off by the woman in purple during the fight, but fortunately the rain had stopped.

Her steps were slightly unsteady. Facing a prepared seventh-realm expert, although she didn't die by the sword, injury was inevitable.

As an assassin, getting injured was commonplace for her. She treated it briefly and continued on her way.

As for where to go, she hasn't decided yet.

The murderer who killed her people is still at large, and the clues to follow have run dry. She can only take things one step at a time.

The sky was overcast and night was approaching. She walked along the deserted path, her silhouette faintly revealing a sense of desolation.

After walking for a long time, a small village appeared ahead.

Jiang Huali walked forward, intending to find a place to rest, when she suddenly heard a slight whooshing sound. She drew her sword and shattered a pebble that was hitting her.

Jiang Huali looked in the direction from which the stones had come and saw a man.

A handsome, injured man was sitting under a tree, his face pale and barely breathing.

She wasn't a kind-hearted person and originally intended to continue walking forward, but then she saw the pattern on the man's clothes.

It looks somewhat familiar.

Jiang Huali pondered for a moment, then approached the man. When he saw her coming, he pleaded weakly, "Save me."

"I am a disciple of Tianmen Mountain. I was accidentally injured by a demon during my training. I beg you, fellow Daoist, for your help. I will repay your kindness tenfold." Seeing her hesitation, the man introduced himself.

After saying this, he fell into a semi-conscious state again.

Jiang Huali looked at the mud spots on his clothes with some disdain, used magic to help him up, and walked along the road towards the village.

The two walked one after the other on the path. One carried a sword in front, while the other was supported by spiritual energy and floated on the ground with his head hanging limply, which looked rather strange at first glance.

Jiang Huali found a doctor in the village to treat the man's wounds. He had been stabbed in the left chest, but his heart had not been injured.

After the doctor finished treating the wound, Jiang Huali took the man out of the village and left him in a dilapidated temple by the roadside.

Before leaving, she squatted down and carefully examined the man's face, but for some reason, she felt a sense of unease.

Her gaze fell on the pattern on his clothes, she blinked, placed a tracking seal on him, and then left without looking back.

Jiang Huali herself was also injured, but she could treat the external wounds herself, while the internal injuries could only heal slowly.

Taking advantage of the time when no one was around to disturb her, she took out the Wuqing Stone and planned to refine it.

She did lie to the woman in purple. Although she had accepted the task from Yunshui Pavilion, she had not handed over the Wuqing Stone, but kept it to refine herself.

The Wuqing Stone is very beneficial to cultivation, but it had been in the hands of the Wu family of Liuchuan for some time. Some time ago, the Wu family was in internal strife and in complete chaos. Jiang Huali took on two missions: one was to assassinate the head of the Wu family, and the other was to obtain the Wuqing Stone.

Assassins killing people is a common occurrence. Yunshui Pavilion trains assassins, partly to take on outside jobs, and partly to compete for profits within the pavilion.

However, Zhao Xing, the master of Yunshui Pavilion, is an eccentric person who dislikes harming innocent people, so those on the assassin's list are not kind-hearted.

Jiang Huali stayed at Yunshui Pavilion for two reasons: first, Zhao Xing had been kind to her; and second, Yunshui Pavilion had many spies, which she could use to investigate the truth behind the murder of her clansmen.

Items obtained from assassination missions can be exchanged for other items at a certain cost.

The bluestone was very useful to Jiang Huali, so she kept it.

The head of the Wu family is an eighth-level expert who has been in power for many years. His strategies and techniques are unfathomable. Jiang Huali's successful assassination attempt must have taken a great deal of effort.

There were countless people who wanted to kill the head of the Wu family, so she had to use some tricks to take advantage of their strength and reap the benefits. In addition, she had a special constitution and was not so easy to die, so she was finally able to escape successfully.

However, quite a few people followed suit, and countless groups of people have come in the past two days trying to seize the Wuqing Stone.

She spent a day refining the Wuqing Stone, and after successfully refining it, her injuries healed considerably.

Yunshui Pavilion has spies in various places. Jiang Huali has taken on another mission: to assassinate a young master from a collateral branch of a powerful family.

Today, many powerful families are expanding their influence and standing on equal footing with some prestigious sects, making them a force to be reckoned with.

Jiang Huali had made thorough preparations, but she never expected that this mission was specially designed for her. From the moment she accepted the mission to the assassination, someone was watching her every move.

The person behind her seemed to know her background very well. After suppressing her with a secret technique, they imprisoned her in the dungeon.

Her previous injuries had not fully healed, and she suffered new ones.

Jiang Huali knew perfectly well that the other party had set up a carefully prepared trap, all for that one thing she possessed.

With her power suppressed, and given that she was only at the sixth level of cultivation, Jiang Huali tried many methods but was unable to escape.

They imprisoned her in a water dungeon, tortured her for several days, and then bound her with icy iron, imprisoning her in a dungeon and torturing her there.

The surroundings were very quiet. Jiang Huali was bound to the cross rack by icy iron chains. She had just been subjected to water torture, and the wounds on her body were white from being soaked in water. A large patch of blood stained her clothes at the chest.

Footsteps approached.

Someone stood in front of her.

"Still unwilling to hand it over?"

Jiang Huali's chin was grabbed and lifted up. Upon hearing this, a mocking smile appeared on her lips. Blood rushed to her throat, and she coughed a few times, her voice hoarse: "What? Didn't you cut me open yourself yesterday? I don't have... dragon scales on me."

The last two words were emphasized.

The man gripping her chin had a sinister look in his eyes. He savored her disheveled appearance and said slowly, "The fact that you're still alive proves that the dragon scale is definitely on you... In that case, continue the torture until you tell me."

...

Jiang Huali was eventually rescued.

The person who saved her was the same man who had been stabbed in the chest that she had rescued that day.

This person brought her out of the dungeon and arranged for a healer to treat her injuries.

"Why did you save me?" Jiang Huali sat in a carriage, her chest wound already properly treated.

"My name is Shen Guiting. May I ask how you address me, young lady?" Instead of answering directly, the man introduced himself. His voice was cheerful and his face was handsome. Anyone who saw him would have to praise him as a dashing young man.

"Jiang Huali," she replied indifferently.

“Miss Jiang,” Shen Guiting smiled gently, “I must thank you for saving my life that day.”

"It was just a small favor."

Shen Guiting didn't care about her coldness and instead explained, "Although I have joined Tianmen Mountain, my father has always wanted me to inherit the family business. The person who captured you is a member of a collateral branch of the Shen family. This branch has been making a lot of moves recently and has done many things that have harmed the interests of the main family. My father sent me to deal with it. There are many innocent women who have been forcibly taken in that dungeon. I just didn't expect you to be in there too."

"I said I would repay your life-saving kindness tenfold."

Jiang Huali lowered her eyes, her expression somewhat unreadable.

Shen Guiting seemed to have mistaken her for an innocent woman who had been forcibly abducted, completely unaware of the truth about her capture.

He killed the man who captured her on the spot, without leaving a single word.

Thinking of this, Jiang Huali smiled slightly and said, "Thank you."

In the days that followed, Jiang Huali was taken to the main house of the Shen family, ostensibly to help her heal her injuries. She did not refuse and stayed at the Shen family's residence.

Shen Guiting usually stayed at Tianmen Mountain to cultivate, but since she moved into the Shen family, he often came back to see her and would bring some new gadgets to please her.

The servants of the Shen family were all talking behind their backs that their young master had fallen in love with the girl he had rescued.

The head of the Shen family didn't particularly like her, but he didn't stop his son from keeping her.

Jiang Huali lived in a secluded courtyard. Every night around midnight, she would go out of the courtyard to explore the terrain of the Shen family's residence.

During the day, there were too many people around, making it difficult for her to move around. So she had to take advantage of the darkness of night to avoid the patrolling guards and thoroughly investigate the Shen family.

Jiang Huali certainly wouldn't believe Shen Guiting's words so easily. Although nothing seemed out of the ordinary, it was too simplistic.

Things unfolded far too simply.

She noticed something when she saw the pattern on Shen Guiting's clothes after rescuing him.

She had seen that pattern before.

While she was tracking down clues about the murder of her people.

Therefore, she left a tracking mark on Shen Guiting.

Jiang Huali's tracking skills are incredibly advanced. In addition, she is of the Wushan Jiang clan, and her spiritual power is naturally able to merge with all things, which brings a great concealment effect, so she is not afraid of being discovered by others.

The Jiang family of Wushan was originally a reclusive family with few members. They had long since withdrawn from the martial world and stopped caring about worldly affairs.

Because of their ancient dragon bloodline, each member of the clan grows a dragon scale in their body. The purer the bloodline, the more surging the power within the dragon scale.

The dragon scales on their bodies can not only help people cultivate and forge magical artifacts, but also contain the power of the laws of heaven and earth, which can help people achieve great success in cultivation, overcome heavenly tribulations, and ascend to immortality.

Jiang Huali is the one with the purest bloodline in the clan.

More than ten years ago, her entire family was wiped out, but the clan elders risked their lives to create a way out for her, allowing her to escape.

Later, she was rescued by Zhao Xing and taken in by Yunshui Pavilion, where she became an assassin.

For many years, she never gave up on finding the murderer who wiped out her entire family, but there has been no progress.

Until recently, she commissioned someone who was investigating the clues to deliver a secret letter. The letter contained only a simple piece of paper with strange patterns drawn on it.

The pattern was extremely similar to the subtle pattern on Shen Guiting's clothes.

On the surface, she was tricked and captured, but now that I think about it, she was probably already caught in the trap the moment she saw Shen Guiting.

Fortunately, she had already refined the Wuqing Stone. The Wuqing Stone was compatible with the power in her bloodline. After refining it, it could greatly improve her healing speed and would constantly repair her wounds, both her soul and her body.

Although it has no green in its name, it actually contains a powerful force of life.

As her thoughts returned to normal, Jiang Huali had already donned her night clothes and was moving about the Shen family's residence in stealth mode.

Not long ago, she discovered a very interesting place in the Shen family's residence. It was heavily guarded and seemed to be a dungeon. The head of the Shen family would occasionally enter it at night and come out at dawn.

Instinctively, Jiang Huali felt she should go in and explore.

After waiting for many days, she finally found a good opportunity tonight.

Using the possession talisman to pass through multiple people, Jiang Huali successfully entered the dungeon.

Due to her spiritual abilities, she is very adept at hiding and concealing herself; as long as she is careful, almost no one can find her.

This is one of the reasons why she, at only the sixth realm, was able to repeatedly and successfully assassinate cultivators of higher realms than herself.

Jiang Huali made her way to the deepest part of the dungeon. The closer she got, the faster her heart beat. She had a premonition that there was something inside that resonated with her bloodline.

She stopped in front of a prison cell.

The cell was enormous, covered with countless array talismans. Jiang Huali looked inside, but did not see what she had imagined.

Aside from her clan's dragon scales, Jiang Huali couldn't think of anything else that could resonate with her.

She was slightly taken aback.

In the center of the vast dungeon, a man, naked from the waist up and covered in wounds, with a huge black snake tail at the waist, was bound by layers of iron chains and talismans, unable to move.

Seemingly sensing something, the man looked up in the direction where Jiang Huali was.

Even though she had concealed her figure, Jiang Huali felt that her reflection was clearly visible in the other person's eyes.

Looking at the man's face, she felt a storm raging within her.

That face was exactly the same as Shen Guiting's!

However, only half of this person's face was intact; the other half was covered with countless horrifying scars, as if half of his face had been gouged out.

Jiang Huali stared at that face, somewhat lost in thought. Her first thought was that half of his face looked much better than Shen Guiting's.

The man stared intently in her direction, and with what seemed like immense force, silently uttered a single word:

"Walk."