Chapter 128: root (1)
128 – root (1)
Lin Xun jolted awake, sitting up from the pod. Old Man Huo pulled him out, and he tumbled to the ground. After exchanging a glance with his master, they hurried outside together. The front door was open. They took the stairs two at a time, reaching the fourth floor where the door was also wide open. The living room was empty—everyone had gathered in the room where the Chixiao Longque Sword was stored, murmuring in discussion.
Lin Xun followed his master as they pushed through the crowd to the front. There, the jade coffin that had once held the Chixiao Longque Sword was now nothing but an empty shell. Originally, the sword had been embedded in the base of the coffin, but now even the base had been pried away. The jade coffin, a vertical rectangle, now lacked its bottom edge, resembling the shape of the character “door”. Perhaps there were other Chinese characters that could more vividly describe this state—like the character “冈” without the cross in the middle—but this touched upon a blind spot in Lin Xun’s knowledge. He wasn’t even sure if that was a real character.
Old Man Huo strode over to Xiaoyaozi’s side. “What exactly happened?”
Xiaoyaozi’s brow was tightly furrowed, as if a few more wrinkles had appeared on his face overnight. His lips were pressed into a thin line, and the horsetail whisk in his hand had lost half its white hairs, likely plucked out in frustration.
A young disciple behind him stepped forward. “Reporting to Azure Peak True Lord, we are also unsure how it was lost. This morning, the sect leader woke up and conducted his routine inspection, only to find the sword-guarding disciples unconscious on the ground and the divine sword gone without a trace.”
Old Man Huo asked, “When was the last time he checked the sword? What about the defensive formations?”
The disciple replied, “The sect leader last inspected the sword yesterday morning before leaving with the other elders to attend the Technology Expo. The sword-guarding disciples were still conscious at the time. There were no signs of the defensive formations being triggered.”
Old Man Huo muttered, “How strange.”
Just then, there was a commotion nearby—one of the four unconscious sword-guarding disciples had been roused. Xiaoyaozi hurried over and asked if he had seen anything suspicious or when he had lost consciousness.
The disciple’s eyes were vacant. It took him five minutes to slowly come to, but he knew nothing, only remembering that he had played a game with his fellow disciples at noon and lost rank—it seemed he had been attacked in the afternoon.
“It appears that while we were out this afternoon, the defenses here were weak, and we were ambushed by demons,” Xiaoyaozi said, almost tearing out his beard. “In just a few days, have the demons’ cultivation and intelligence already reached such heights? They know the Chixiao Longque Sword is our divine weapon against the demon realm. If it has already been dragged into the rift, the demon realm is in grave danger!”
Old Man Huo asked, “If a new rift appeared, why didn’t the Zhou Tian Star Formation react?”
“It did react. Don’t you remember? While we were watching the Technology Expo, demonic Qi briefly flared up. Perhaps that was the moment demons emerged from the rift.”
As he spoke, Xiaoyaozi turned his gaze to Lin Xun. “Lin Suan, did you see anything?”
Lin Xun’s eyes had been fixed on the coffin for a long time. Hearing this, he looked back at Xiaoyaozi. “Elder, I don’t think it was necessarily demons who stole the Chixiao Longque Sword.”
Xiaoyaozi asked, “What makes you say that?”
Lin Xun replied, “Before this, demons have never coveted the Chixiao Longque Sword.”
“That’s hard to say,” Xiaoyaozi countered. “It’s likely that as the demons’ intelligence gradually increased, they learned that the Chixiao Longque Sword is their bane. Sensing its location, they came to seize it.”
“No.” Lin Xun slightly furrowed his brow. “Even when demonic creatures lacked intelligence before, they still knew to persistently cling to me and attack.”
“Then according to you, could it be a mole within the mortal realm?” Xiaoyaozi’s expression grew serious again.
“May I ask, senior,” Lin Xun said. “After the Red Sky Dragon Sparrow Sword was forged and entrusted to Mount Qingcheng for safekeeping, why didn’t Mount Qingcheng have… something like a sensing array to deduce the artifact’s location?”
Xiaoyaozi: “I have never heard of such a thing.”
“Also, at that time, the Dragon Sparrow Sword had been missing for centuries. I stumbled upon its location by accident, but I wasn’t the first to discover it,” Lin Xun said slowly.
Xiaoyaozi: “You mean… the Sword Sect?”
Lin Xun: “Exactly.”
A divine artifact entrusted to Mount Qingcheng for safekeeping—Mount Qingcheng must have implemented complete protective measures. Even if it was later hidden in the back mountains during turbulent times, an array should have been set up so that future generations could find it—yet Xiaoyaozi knew nothing of this. Meanwhile, it was the Sword Sect, which had defected from Mount Qingcheng, that first discovered the location of the Red Sky Dragon Sparrow Sword and attempted to obtain it.
Moreover… according to Old Man Huo, the Sword Sect was not some minor offshoot of Mount Qingcheng. On the contrary, the Daoist cultivation and sword cultivation branches were on equal footing, both core forces of Mount Qingcheng. Therefore, Lin Xun reasonably speculated that Mount Qingcheng’s Sword Sect, the sword cultivation lineage to which Qi Yun belonged, possessed some inheritances unknown to the Daoist cultivators. For example—how to find the Red Sky Dragon Sparrow Sword, or how to use it.
This would also explain why Mount Qingcheng’s defensive arrays showed no reaction—because sword cultivators also knew Mount Qingcheng’s methods.
But now, seeing that Xiaoyaozi had also come around, he flicked his whisk and angrily muttered, “What a Yan Yangzi!”
Yan Yangzi—Qi Yun’s master.
Old Man Huo mocked, “All this fuss, and it’s still just infighting among your own. When will your Mount Qingcheng be as united as my Limitless Sect?”
Lin Xun thought this might be because the Limitless Sect had few members. Above was his master, below was just him—of course they were united. They didn’t even have the conditions for infighting.
Thinking this, he took out his phone, intending to contact Qi Yun. The screen lit up, and he paused—4:30 a.m., Brother Chang Ji had sent him a message.
Chang Ji: Is Qi Yun with you?
A Happy Zhi Zhen: ??
A Happy Zhi Zhen: He’s missing too?
Brother’s reply came quickly.
Chang Ji: Missing. Too?
A Happy Zhi Zhen: The Red Sky Dragon Sparrow Sword is also missing.
Chang Ji: .
A Happy Zhi Zhen: Look together?
Chang Ji: Okay, wait a moment.
Brother’s school wasn’t far from here, and traffic was fast in the early morning. Before long, he too knocked on the door of the fourth floor. They sat facing each other on the living room sofa. Mount Qingcheng had lost the sword from their room, and brother had lost the fish from his tank—both seemed somewhat troubled.
Lin Xun poured his brother a cup of tea. “Brother, what’s the story?”
Brother: “When I woke up this morning—”
Before he could finish, Lin Xun first felt awkward.
Senior Xiaoyaozi also woke up this morning, brother also woke up this morning—neither saw anything wrong with getting up at 4:30, while he had been dug out of his gaming pod.
But he listened as brother continued, “When I woke up, he was already gone. The doors and windows in the room were intact, and his phone was unreachable.”
Lin Xun: “But he’s just a fish—where could he jump to?”
But seeing his senior brother frown slightly, as if wanting to say something but hesitating, seemingly finding it difficult to speak, after a while, he finally said, “Two days ago, I had a breakthrough in my cultivation, and my body was surrounded by Buddhist protective Qi. He discovered that staying by my side could maintain his human form, and he complained that the bathtub was cold and hard, insisting on sleeping with me. Because he had absorbed the power of the protective Qi, he wouldn’t revert to a merman for a whole day.”
Lin Xun: “So, he really did run away on his own?”
“But the window lock is intact, and the dormitory building is sealed at night, so he couldn’t have gotten out.” Chang Ji said, “I suspect he used an earth escape technique.”
Lin Xun nodded: “That makes it even more certain it was his master. Back at Qingcheng Mountain, Senior Yan Yangzi used a talisman to escape.”
As he spoke, he also tried dialing Qi Yun’s number, with the same result as Chang Ji—no answer. He checked elsewhere, but Qi Yun’s social media accounts showed no activity, and the only fan account that followed him hadn’t posted anything in the past few days.
A Qingcheng disciple said, “Earth escape talismans are extremely draining. They can’t be used multiple times in a single day, nor can they cover too great a distance.”
Lin Xun: “Then what’s the maximum distance?”
The disciple scratched his head: “It depends on the user’s strength, but overall… they can’t go beyond the Fifth Ring Road.”
That was still a vast area. And with them carrying the Chixiao Longque Sword, which was clearly a malevolent weapon, public transportation was out of the question. Flying on a sword? Even more impossible—even drones were banned in the urban areas of the capital, let alone people.
Lin Xun looked out the window. In the early morning sky, stars still twinkled in the eastern horizon, while a thin, mist-like white light had risen, reflecting the dense, shadowy silhouettes of buildings outside. The entire capital had countless roads, countless streetlights, and countless buildings. In such a vast sea of people, how could they possibly find two individuals?
Lin Xun rested his chin on his hand. Meanwhile, the senior disciples began searching for any relevant spells or talismans.
Three minutes later, no results.
Lin Xun: “Then… let’s call the police.”