Abandoning the sword bone
It was another moonlit night, shrouded in mist.
Wen Zheng carried a lantern and walked towards Baiku Peak. There were very few disciples on the way; she could count the number of disciples she encountered on one hand.
As they approached the cave dwelling, Wen Zheng removed her veil and her gaze fell upon the person standing outside the cave.
"Who are you?"
The person standing there was dressed in light green clothes, with his hair loosely tied up and half-hanging over his shoulders, giving him a very languid air.
Elder Yunhe turned around and looked at Wen Zheng when he heard the question: "Are you here to see Feng Gui?"
Wen Zheng nodded, but said nothing more.
"Wen Zheng, is that right? Come in, Feng Gui is inside." Elder Yunhe raised his hand, and the cave door opened, revealing the scene inside.
Surprised that this person could recognize her identity so easily, Wen Zheng asked suspiciously, "Have you asked the elder's name yet?"
Yunhe glanced at her and said, "Yunhe is just a lazy cultivator from the Thousand Saints Palace. He's not worth mentioning."
Wen Zheng silently repeated the name twice, and after confirming that she had no recollection of it, she stepped into the cave.
Inside the cave, Feng Gui held a tortoise shell in her hand. The patterns on the tortoise shell were particularly unique. Wen Zheng looked at it twice and felt dizzy and dared not look at it anymore.
"You're here, have a seat." Feng Gui pointed to the seat next to her and placed the tortoise shell on the table.
Wen Zheng carefully sat down beside her, glancing at the tortoise shell every now and then, and explained her purpose.
"The Immortal Sect Competition starts tomorrow. Shan Fengyu will definitely not let me go. Moreover, I heard that Shan Wuxiu's injuries have healed and he will also participate in the Immortal Sect Competition."
Dan Wuxiu's back injury looks like a shrimp vein has been removed. Even with rare and precious materials to repair it, it would be difficult to return to its previous state, let alone recover within a few days.
Considering her past grievances with Shan Fengyu and Shan Wuxiu, she felt that this Immortal Sect Competition was likely to end badly.
Feng Gui had more ways of gathering information than Wen Zheng and had already learned of this matter. Upon hearing this, she asked, "You want to put the sword bone back?"
Although Wen Zheng's sword bone was not a good match for Shan Wuxiu, Shan Wuxiu had been nourishing it with various elixirs and medicines, hoping that one day he could use the sword bone.
The aura emanating from this sword bone now far surpasses Wen Zheng's strength.
"Can it be faked?" Wen Zheng asked, still feeling that the whole thing was too horrifying.
"able."
After calmly finishing her statement, Feng Gui made no further move, staring intently at Wen Zheng, lost in thought.
The piercing gaze made Wen Zheng lower her head. She took out the box containing the sword bone, and the sword bone, which emitted a faint blue light, felt very peculiar in her hand. After touching it a couple of times, Wen Zheng put it back in the box.
After waiting for a long time, Feng Gui finally came to her senses and talked about what she had found out before: "I checked the two places you mentioned last time, and there were no abnormalities."
The fact that both locations appeared normal made her suspect that Wen Zheng might have just mentioned the locations offhand.
Wen Zheng frowned, lowered her eyes, and asked, "Is there absolutely no problem?"
Feng Gui shook her head.
She went to check it out herself, and there was indeed no problem.
Upon hearing this, Wen Zheng frowned even more deeply. In this critical moment, she couldn't afford to do anything unnecessary; the place where the item was hidden was definitely suspicious.
After thinking for a long time, Wen Zheng still insisted on her opinion: "Perhaps we are investigating in the wrong direction."
Just now, she thought of Elder Shi from the Changsheng Sect who had drugged her and Mu Qing, the Soul-Separating Powder from a thousand years ago, something so ancient.
"What were those two places a thousand years ago?" Wen Zheng asked.
"Why are you asking this?" Feng Gui'e frowned slightly. "There's nothing special about it. The Temple of Longevity used to be just an empty lot. The mass grave was formed a dead land a thousand years ago when various forces fought over the Jianmu tree, resulting in rivers of blood."
When the Jianmu tree was born, all sorts of forces, big and small, rushed over to fight for it. They fought without regard for the consequences, and when the Jianmu tree was divided up, rivers of blood flowed and countless corpses piled up unattended.
Because of their overwhelming resentment, these corpses eventually transformed into wandering spirits.
After listening quietly to the whole story, Wen Zheng lowered her eyes and made a decision.
"I want to go to the mass grave."
She suspected she had left the items in a mass grave.
"Alright, I'll think of a way," Feng Gui said in a deep voice. These two places are not open to ordinary people, and she only dared to go in to take a look because of her high cultivation level.
After finishing this, Feng Gui's gaze fell on Jian Gu. Wen Zheng followed Tai's gaze and asked, "What's wrong with Jian Gu?"
Her gaze was indescribable; could it be that the sword bone couldn't be reattached?
“The sword bone is fine.” Feng Gui withdrew her gaze and pushed the tortoise shell on the table in front of Wen Zheng: “This was sent by a friend of mine who is good at divination, along with some words.”
"What did you say?"
"You have to give up something to gain something; what you give up is the opportunity."
The meaning behind her words was quite clear. Wen Zheng stared at the sword bone on the table and remained silent for a long time.
It's hard not to feel sad about having to discard the sword bone you've been searching for so long, which you haven't even had a chance to warm up yet.
Wen Zheng lowered her eyes, her expression unreadable, and asked calmly, "Is your fortune-telling friend accurate?"
Feng Gui nodded: "When I wanted to summon your spirit after you died, she told me to go to the southwest to look for it, and that's when I found that Shan Fengyu was acting strangely."
She was quite happy when she received the message from her friend this morning, but her mood plummeted after reading the message.
Making her personally persuade Wen Zheng to give up the sword bone technique is a cruel thing to do.
She thought of many things to say to persuade him, but in the end, she only said these few sentences.
"Have you thought it through? If you want to keep the sword bone, I'll put it back for you right now." Feng Gui took out a small box containing various small knives and utensils, the tips of which were extremely sharp.
Wen Zheng held the sword bone in her arms, head down, very quiet.
Just as Feng Gui thought she was going to leave the sword bone behind, Wen Zheng calmly said, "Since we can't keep it, let's just forget about it."
She is quite skilled in talismans, but she has heard that sword cultivation is hard and tiring, and she doesn't like it.
Her mind was filled with images of sword cultivators practicing their swordsmanship diligently, and her hand unconsciously continued to gently stroke the blade.
Feng Gui sighed, looking reluctant: "Why don't we install it first and try it out? If there are any problems, we can destroy it immediately."
Wen Zheng shook her head, and after a long sigh, she put down the sword bone: "Hesitation only leads to more trouble; leaving it behind only adds to the worries."
Seeing this, Feng Gui stopped trying to persuade her, picked up the sword bone, and prepared to leave.
Wen Zheng looked up and called out to her, her gloomy mood still lingering. She asked, "Where are you going?"
Feng Gui: "Go outside and destroy the sword bone. You used a lot of good materials to nurture this sword bone, so the destruction will be very noisy."
Wen Zheng: "How big is it?"
Feng Gui thought for a moment and gave his answer: "It's probably the power of a Nascent Soul stage cultivator's self-destruction."
Wen Zheng's lowered eyes brightened, and she quickly called out to her, "Don't destroy the sword bone yet, I have a use for it."
Feng Gui turned her head in confusion: "What's the use?"
Wen Zheng accepted the sword bone and remained silent, instead bringing up the matter of Elder Yunhe: "Is it reliable to have that person guarding outside?"
In her eyes, no one from the Thousand Saints Palace was a good person, and she remained suspicious of outsiders.
"You mean Yunhe? He seems to be a spy who infiltrated the area, but I haven't asked which sect he belongs to yet."
Wen Zheng's eyes flickered. After a brief chat, she prepared to return, and Feng Gui told her to take the tortoise shell with her.
As soon as she returned to the courtyard, she saw Mu Qing, who had been waiting for a long time. After looking her over, he frowned and asked, "Did you fail to install the sword bone?"
Wen Zheng ran into Mu Qing before leaving home, and then told him about reinstalling the sword bone. She didn't expect him to be waiting for her to come back so late.
Thinking about the reason for the failure to install the sword bone, Wen Zheng's eyes dimmed, and she tried to change the subject: "There was a problem. It's so late, aren't you going to rest?"
Mu Qing had spent too much time with Wen Zheng, and could guess what she meant just by looking at her words. Her expression immediately changed: "There's a problem with the sword bone."
His tone was firm, and after Wen Zheng tried several times to change the subject but failed, she had no choice but to explain the situation to him.
"The sword bone might be related to what I'm about to do, and I have to give it up."
Moreover, she couldn't get over the fact that this sword bone had been nourished by someone else's body.
"fart!!"
In the heat of the moment, even Mu Qing, a person of such self-discipline and propriety, blurted out a curse.
"Someone must be spreading lies. You finally found the sword bone, and they just let you give up so easily. That's too malicious."
From the Immortal Pursuit Sect to the Thousand Saints Palace, Mu Qing has witnessed Wen Zheng's talent firsthand and knows her dedication to the sword bone. If she gives up so easily now, what is the point of all her efforts?
Someone could defend herself, and it would be a lie to say Wen Zheng wasn't moved. A surge of emotion welled up inside her, but then she noticed the wooden bracelet on her wrist had slipped away again.
"Let's not talk about that now, I have something I'd like to ask you for help with."
Wen Zheng hastily wiped away the tears that had just welled up with her sleeve and cleared her throat.
"I want you to help me research things about Jianmu from a thousand years ago, especially the reason for its existence and its purpose."
Her intuition told her that things might have started a thousand years ago.
Mentioning the Jianmu tree, Mu Qing's expression darkened. He took out a black piece of wood and handed it to Wen Zheng: "It was a fragment of the Jianmu tree that the Qingchen Sect elder discovered when he was imprisoned in the mirror by Xu Ximing at the Changsheng Sect."
He didn't investigate the reasons at the time, but now it seems to be connected to Wen Zheng's matter.
Mu Qing couldn't help but ask, "What are your thoughts?"
Wen Zheng shook her head in confusion: "I have a guess, and if it's true, it would be terrifying."
If what she thinks is true, then the cultivation world is really doomed.
The next day.
As the Immortal Sect Competition began, Wen Zheng followed the other senior brothers and sisters of the Immortal Pursuit Sect, but she was out of sorts the whole time, her mind constantly preoccupied with that question.
The gazes from all around her brought her back to her senses; some were curious, some were slightly confused, and some were malicious.
Wen Zheng glared back and discovered that most of them were from the Thousand Saints Palace, and there were quite a few of them.
Wen Zheng tugged at the sleeve of the senior sister in front of her and asked, "Are there people from Thousand Saints Palace participating too?"
Didn't you say you didn't care about fame and only focused on cultivation?
The senior sister replied in a low voice, "I heard that it was Palace Master Shan who spoke up, wanting to see the competition between the disciples of Thousand Saints Palace and other sects, so as to learn from each other's strengths and weaknesses."
Wen Zheng smiled, a mocking smile playing on her lips.
Learn from each other's strengths and make up for each other's weaknesses?
It's like going to her life to make up for her unedited shortcomings.
Wen Zheng wanted to ask more questions, but then someone on the stage announced the start of the Immortal Sect Competition, and the disciples of each sect dispersed.
To avoid attracting attention, Wen Zheng followed behind the other members of the Zhuxian Sect, glancing back as she took a step.
On the stage, Shan Wuxiu stood beside Shan Fengyu, surrounded by elders from various sects praising his exceptional talent and abilities.
As he proudly accepted the praise from everyone, he noticed a white-haired cultivator in the corner below the stands. He followed the gaze and immediately saw Wen Zheng looking back. He snorted coldly and glared at the white-haired cultivator.
Mu Qing, who had been looking at Wen Zheng, turned her gaze away and stared at Shan Wuxiu with a dark look in her eyes, her thumb tracing the hilt of her sword.
Let him be smug for a while.
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