Cut off the flow with a dagger
The sound of the flute, which had suddenly surged like a hundred rivers flowing into the sea, abruptly came to an abrupt end.
The courtyard was silent, without a sound.
Before A Qiu could even consider whether what she had done was right or wrong, she saw Gongyi Xiu and Mo Yimingyue exchange a startled look, then stare at her incredulously.
Before the two of them could even remind A Qiu of anything, Wan Qiqing's calm yet emotionless voice rang out, "Come in."
When A Qiu stepped into the courtyard, she was greeted by Wan Qiqing's clear, lightning-like eyes, which shone brightly.
His tall and handsome figure could not be concealed by his flowing white robes. He calmly and casually tucked the crystal-clear jade flute back behind his back, as if nothing had happened.
Suppressing his doubts, A-Qiu stepped forward, knelt down, and greeted his master.
But as she looked up and stood up, she caught a fleeting glimpse of uncertainty in her master's eyes.
This was something that rarely happened to her master. Wan Qiqing had always been carefree and easygoing with her disciples, and she had never seen any shadow in her master.
Wan Qiqing's eyes softened as he looked at her and said, "I'm not surprised that you were able to carry out the mission so well and return unscathed. It was something I had expected long ago. After years of training in Lanling Hall, in terms of assassination skills alone, your concealment, swiftness, and decisive retreat are all superior to Xiu'er and Mingyue. You are probably the most outstanding assassin in Lanling Hall in the last hundred years."
He continued, "But what I'm curious about is something else entirely."
A-Qiu listened attentively, awaiting his master's questions.
Wan Qiqing said calmly, "How do you manage to remain completely unmoved after entering and leaving the mortal world and committing murder?"
A-Qiu was speechless at the question, raised her head, and looked at her master with a puzzled expression.
Wan Qiqing said, "Life and death are the cruelest things in the world. When the rabbit dies, the fox grieves; when things are hurt, their own kind is hurt. Even beasts know how to grieve for the death of their kind. If you say that your mind was never disturbed by external things before, it's because you never left Lanling Hall. But now, after rushing thousands of miles to decide life and death, with blood splattered on the blade, have you never felt the slightest bit of sadness?"
A bitter smile appeared on his handsome face as he said, "Do you know that your senior brother, because of his soft heart, has never killed a single person since he began learning martial arts? He can be considered a freak of my Lanling Hall."
A-Qiu opened her eyes wide in disbelief.
Gong Yixiu, the head of Yiyantang and the senior disciple of Lanlingtang, has never killed anyone under his command.
If this gets out, it will probably be the biggest joke in the martial arts world, bar none.
But she was immediately speechless. With Gongyi Xiu's abilities, he could accomplish many things without killing anyone. As a strategist and debater, whether he could kill people with his own hands was not that important.
This also shows the Master's tolerance towards Gongyi Xiu.
Wan Qiqing said, “I watched Mingyue grow up. He suffered greatly from the war and knew the worst parts of human nature. He had no extra compassion, so killing was not difficult for him. To him, it was only natural for me to kill when I was strong and be killed when I was weak. That is why he could take charge of the Xingfeng Hall, which was responsible for interrogation and purging.
He looked at A Qiu with a glint in his eyes and said, "But how did you manage to remain unmoved before and after the event, until you stepped into my door and saw Xiu'er and Mingyue, when you finally had a chance to take advantage of me? And you swiftly swung your dagger from a distance, cutting off my rhythmic flow and making it impossible for me to continue?"
Although his tone remained calm, A Qiu detected a hint of barely concealed shock in it.
She pondered for a moment and replied, "It's not that I'm completely unmoved; it's just that when a thought arises, I naturally try my best to banish it. When I was outside the door, I drew my dagger to cut off the sound, which was also because I sensed that my mind was about to be disturbed by the sound of the flute, and I made a decision instinctively to avoid being disturbed."
After a moment of silence, Wan Qiqing stared intently at her and asked, seemingly unrelated to her question, "To your ears, is my flute playing beautiful?"
She thought for a moment and answered confidently, "Of course it sounds nice."
A fleeting look of disappointment or joy crossed Wan Qiqing's eyes as he calmly asked, "Then why didn't you listen a little longer, but instead decisively swung your dagger to cut off the sound stream?"
She thought for a moment and replied, “I simply instinctively eliminate anything that disturbs my clear mind. It’s like polishing a bronze mirror; the goal is simply to polish the mirror so that the reflection can be clearly seen. As long as something obscures it, it should be removed, regardless of whether the thing that obscures it is beautiful or ugly, good or evil.”
When Wan Qiqing heard her words, his majestic body suddenly trembled violently, and his usually expressionless face turned pale and bloodless.
It was as if the sky over the entire Songxue Hall had suddenly darkened.
After a long pause, he said in a deep voice, "Do you know that no one has ever interrupted my playing without hesitation like you have? To be forced to stop before a piece is finished is something that has never happened in my life."
A Qiu immediately recalled the hesitant expressions on Gongyi Xiu and Mo Yimingyue's faces when she cut off the sound flow, causing her master's flute playing to stop abruptly.
She immediately knelt down, bowed her head and said, "Disciple begs forgiveness from Master. What I did just now was extremely rude."
Wan Qiqing stared at her for a moment, then slowly said, "It's not your fault, but I was just testing you. Get up."
She stood up in a daze, not knowing what her master meant.
Wan Qiqing turned his back and looked at the distant mountains and rivers, saying, "No one has ever interrupted my flute playing, not entirely because the listeners lack the ability, but because they don't want to."
He said deeply, “In fact, the most terrifying thing in the world is not ugliness or evil, because everyone knows to stay away from it. Rather, it is beautiful things. If people are attracted to them, they will immerse themselves in them and even forget their personal stance and goals. That is the most dangerous thing.”
He turned around abruptly and looked directly at her, saying, "Both Xiu'er and Mingyue have their weaknesses. And even I, your teacher, am not without flaws. But you are someone who can put everything aside and focus solely on the goal at hand."
He sighed softly, “It’s not that you’re indifferent to music. If needed, you can master music very well. You just instinctively avoid letting it touch your emotions.” He sighed deeply and said, “For me personally, this may be a regret, because you will never truly understand my philosophy of music or become my confidant. But for the entire Lanling Hall, it will be a great blessing.”
"Because a true assassin, with a heart as pure as ice and snow, clear and insightful, who disregards life and death and cultivates on the edge of a blade, is finally about to appear."
A Qiu gently closed her eyes, standing in the shadows of the ancient ruined palace, feeling the tranquil and profound atmosphere of the place.
On the two stone pillars on the left and right sides in front of the ruined palace, there are patterns of cranes disappearing into the clouds. Although they are mostly worn, the image of the divine birds roaming freely in the clouds and mountains can still be discerned.
For some reason, A-Qiu felt that the pattern looked familiar, as if she had seen it somewhere before.
At this moment, what she recalled was the pale face of Wan Qiqing after she asked that question, his expression shifting from shock to pain, and finally to deep sorrow.
That was the only time her master lost his composure during the years she spent with Wan Qiqing.
She successfully completed her first mission, proving that she was the one in the hall capable of leading the "assassination of Qin," and also the only assassin in the Lanling Hall in a hundred years to inherit the name of "Jing Ke."
"Jing Ke" was a king among assassins, a lion and tiger among beasts. Even with the Lanling Hall's lineage tracing back a thousand years, there are only a handful of such figures.
Wan Qiqing immediately ordered the reopening of the "Divine Weapon Hall" and selected the most talented assassins from Lanling to train in the Divine Weapon Hall. A Qiu was promoted to the head of the Divine Weapon Hall, and the three halls of Lanling Hall stood in a tripartite balance, thus establishing a pattern of operations mainly based on assassination.
Prior to this, the "Divine Weapon Hall" had not been reopened for a century, and the name "Jing Ke" had not appeared in the martial arts world for several generations.
A Qiu's act of beheading more than ten high-ranking officials one by one under the name of "Jing Ke," the master of the Divine Weapon Hall, indirectly helped the newly established Dayan regime, which was also a great favor to Gu Yi.
Since most of those people were powerful warlords who had already amassed large armies during the Qian Huan era and were difficult to control, Gu Yi had just established the central government and had not yet had time to eliminate them one by one. Even if he wanted to, it would be impossible for him to remove them cleanly and decisively in such an extreme way as Lanling Hall.
Wan Qiqing's original intention was to create chaos and terror in Dayan, to test Gu Yi's strength, and to shake the foundations of the Southern Dynasty's rule. However, Gu Yi's reaction was far faster than he had imagined.
A Qiu acted with lightning speed, traversing thirteen prefectures within the Southern Dynasty in half a month, and beheading more than ten people without a moment's respite.
Almost simultaneously, Gu Yi's replacements for the presiding officials in each state, as if prepared in advance, took their positions one by one under the pretext of quelling the rebellion and punishing the perpetrators, thus completing the power shift from the central government to the local governments without making a sound.
But to be honest, when the officials of various prefectures were in a state of panic and trembled at the mere mention of the name of the Lanling Assassin, those who were willing to risk their lives to become the prefect of a prefecture were themselves courageous, resourceful, and capable of taking on responsibilities, and could not be judged solely on their ambition for power.
This was the first time in a century that the Divine Weapon Hall had unleashed such a decisive move, and it also became the opportunity for Gu Yi's dynasty to undergo a purge. However, if Gu Yi had not responded appropriately, what awaited Dayan would not have been a simple and perfect replacement of its core members, but rather a fragmented and inflicted turmoil upon the empire.
After this battle, Wan Qiqing realized that Gu Yi's strength was not easily shaken, and that continuing to kill would only cause Lanling Hall to lose all its support, turning the "righteous man" who had been deeply rooted in people's hearts since the Warring States period into a terrifying and bloody image. Moreover, when A Qiu made his final stab, he encountered Lie Changkong, the chief of the Junior Master Charioteers, and revealed half of his true form. Therefore, Wan Qiqing decided to stop and instead infiltrate the Southern Dynasty in a peaceful manner.
A Qiu's entry into the palace was an action taken under this line of thinking.
However, it was only after A Qiu, the master of the Divine Weapon Hall, took over that Lanling Hall gradually shifted from a defensive posture in the shadows to an offensive and probing posture in the open.
At that time, A Qiu asked Wan Qiqing a question.
She asked, "With your profound knowledge of heaven and earth, your talent and ambition that allowed you to traverse the north and south, why didn't you restart the Divine Weapon Hall to fight for the world in your generation?"
Wan Qiqing was the previous head of the "One-Man Hall" in Lanling Hall, and Gongyi Xiu, the current senior disciple of Lanling Hall, inherited his mantle. However, in terms of flamboyant and decisive behavior, A Qiu believed that her master far surpassed her, and was more than capable of leading the Divine Weapon Hall. The reopening of the Divine Weapon Hall had originally been planned for several generations, and her succession as the head of the Divine Weapon Hall, succeeding "Jing Ke," seemed more like a coincidence.
She did not believe that Lanling Hall could not have gained power without her.
If Lanling Hall had risen to power during the chaos at the end of the Huan Dynasty, or if the timing had been better than it is now, when Gu Yi is in charge of the government.
To everyone's surprise, Wan Qiqing's face turned deathly pale upon hearing her question. He immediately turned his head away to conceal the change in his expression.
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