This small county town is called Enhejin, which means "peaceful one." Many small counties on the grasslands have this name.

It's just some prefixes and such; we're all incredibly happy to finally see so many people at once.

Because of the military escort, the county magistrate came to greet them immediately.

I had my older brother from the Gao family handle these matters, while I took the two girls shopping at the market.

Because these small towns exist primarily for trade, the market offers a wide variety of goods.

However, prices are a bit high, but my younger sister and older sister from the Gao family have never been short of money.

They didn't care about the small price difference; the two girls didn't care whether they actually used it or not, they just bought it if they liked it.

They didn't haggle over the price, but fortunately, they only had a limited amount of cash to bring with them, which prevented the purchase from lasting long.

Even so, the items they bought were still too much for several grown men to handle; they were all decked out in various trinkets.

They were carrying all sorts of snacks; because there were so many people, they bought hundreds of pounds of beef jerky alone.

Most merchants don't buy this much, but these two were kind-hearted and bought two pounds of beef jerky for each soldier, which the shop owner then delivered to the convoy.

As for us, the county magistrate invited us to the best restaurant in the county for a welcome dinner.

Although the chef's skills were just average, the ingredients were really fresh, and there was a lot of wild game, so everyone enjoyed the meal.

We were just passing through and needed to rest for the night, so we didn't bother the county too much and paid whatever was due.

Anyway, I'm not short of money, but something interesting happened when I went for a walk after dinner.

An old Taoist priest was practicing swordsmanship in a threshing ground. The old man wore a coarse Taoist robe, and even his beard was white. He had a small braid tied up on his head.

He carried a small bag made of coarse cloth and wielded a Han sword, dancing with abandon.

Old Huang and I watched for a long time and discovered that the old Taoist priest had no internal energy; he was just an ordinary first-level martial artist.

Although he was a peak martial artist, that was about it; however, his swordsmanship was top-notch.

He had practiced his swordsmanship for countless years, and it had begun to transform the mundane into the extraordinary, somewhat reminiscent of the Nine Swords of Dugu.

However, practicing martial arts without internal training is futile in old age, due to limitations in innate talent.

He'll never be able to overcome this barrier in his entire life; he'll only ever be an ordinary martial artist.

Old Huang and I were still lamenting over the old Taoist priest when Yama, the demon in Old Huang's sword case, started acting up.

It kept vibrating and trying to come out, but we found it annoying and worked together to suppress it.

Then it suddenly dawned on him: looking at the old Taoist priest and then at Yama in the sword case, their compatibility was simply too perfect.

We quickly released Yama and sent it to fly to the old Taoist priest, while we watched from the sidelines.

The old Taoist priest was also surprised to see the sword suddenly flying towards him; Yama's appearance was truly terrifying.

The blood-red sword was covered in black ice cracks, and the hilt was a hollowed-out sphere.

Inside is a red eyeball, and the carvings on the hilt resemble bones. The red eyeball will also look back at you as you gaze at it.

The old Taoist priest instinctively caught Yama, and was immediately pulled into the consciousness space by it.

Then the test of swordsmanship began, which, from our perspective as outsiders,

A burst of blood-red mist emerged from the old Taoist priest's body, which slowly turned into black mist until the old Taoist priest opened his eyes and emitted a red blood-red light.