Chapter 65: Chapter 65
The black-canopied boat rocked with the waves.
Geng Weizhi undid the water-skin at his belt, took a long pull, and continued:
“Zhaixing Sect, together with the Qingyuan Sword Tower, the Bixia Mountain Estate, and the Zhenhai Marquis House, stand as the four great powers of Nanxiang Commandery!”
“The sect brims with masters, its foundations deep as an abyss. Its rules, too, are naturally strict!”
“By sect law, any disciple across the eight branch schools must knock open the ‘Manifest Strength’ threshold before turning sixteen to earn the right to join Zhaixing Sect as an outer-gate disciple.”
“And to go further still — to be taken into the inner gate — one must, before turning thirty, open every meridian in the body and shatter through the great barrier of ‘Hidden Strength’!”
Manifest Strength just to qualify as an outer-gate disciple!
Inner gate required Hidden Strength!
And on top of that, age restrictions!
Shen Xiuhan was inwardly taken aback — a great martial faction of the prefectural city was worthy of the name!
Standards like these, if transplanted to Changyun County, would leave ninety-nine in a hundred martial practitioners staring up in despair, their ambitions dead on the spot.
At this point, a shade of regret crossed Geng Weizhi’s face.
“If the Patrol Envoy won’t laugh — my own master, the head of Dragon-Tiger Hall, Qin Hu, was once an outer-gate disciple of Zhaixing Sect.”
“But alas…”
He shook his head with a sigh:
“Master drifted past thirty without ever breaking through Hidden Strength. In the end, heartsick and discouraged, he could only leave Zhaixing Sect behind and settle for opening a hall in Changyun County to take on students.”
“……”
Shen Xiuhan understood at once.
This Master Qin Hu had likely made no further progress after leaving Zhaixing Sect.
Otherwise, Shen Xiuhan would not have heard so little of his name.
In Changyun County, martial halls lined every major street and lane.
But strip away the flashy fakes and the swindlers with their empty forms, and the halls with genuine substance and real skill numbered only ten or so.
Among those ten-odd halls, most of the hall masters’ cultivation was stranded on the near side of Hidden Strength.
Those that truly had a Hidden Strength expert seated at their head numbered a mere three!
Zhendong Martial Hall!
Tongbei Martial Hall!
And Mei Hall.
Shen Xiuhan’s thoughts drifted.
He recalled how, in an idle moment between drills, he had once asked Xu Chuan about Master’s cultivation out of curiosity.
Xu Chuan’s exact words had been:
“Four years ago, when Master came to Changyun County, her cultivation was already at late-stage Hidden Strength…”
Four years ago, already at late-stage Hidden Strength…
Four years later?
In all likelihood, she had advanced another step — pressing close to the threshold of ‘Transforming Strength’!
In twenty-odd years, Changyun County had produced a grand total of three Transforming Strength martial artists.
In the past ten years, not a single person had stepped into Transforming Strength!
As for Hidden Strength practitioners — even counting the retainers the various great clans had hired at great expense, the total barely exceeded twenty.
Of those twenty, the majority had only just entered Hidden Strength, or were at best scraping into Initial Mastery.
Those who had cultivated to late-stage were already rare as phoenix feathers and unicorn horns; let alone Hidden Strength at Perfection.
By Shen Xiuhan’s estimate, the number of late-stage and Perfection-grade Hidden Strength practitioners across the entire county, combined, would not fill a single hand.
In other words, the powers that could truly hold themselves above Mei Hall numbered no more than the three Transforming Strength clans — Wang, Bai, and Luo.
“Hah…”
River wind blew straight into his face.
It carried the faint chill of early-spring moisture; the tip of his nose held a trace of water-grass brine.
Shen Xiuhan stood at the bow, hands clasped behind his back, gazing far into the distance. He let the wind lift the hair at his temples, and pressed down the thoughts surfacing in his heart.
The martial way was a road long as an endless night.
He had only just knocked open ‘Bone Tempering.’ There was no room for pride — no losing sight of the martial way’s true heart.
…
After chatting with Geng Weizhi for a while, Shen Xiuhan returned to the boat’s cabin and closed his eyes.
He had always moved with the caution of a man treading on thin ice.
This mission had come without warning, and it meant covering over a hundred li. The dangers on the road were anyone’s guess — naturally, he had to run the Intelligence System and take a look.
【Today’s Intelligence has refreshed!】
【Intelligence ①: The Ji clan’s merchant convoy is carrying one 『Five-Primes Qi-Refining Pill』 purchased at great cost. Word has leaked, and the pill is now coveted by ‘Qu Wu,’ a direct-line disciple of the Bixia Mountain Estate. To throw off suspicion, the Ji family has openly marshaled hands to guard the convoy; in truth, the pill has been quietly hidden on the Ji clan’s Second Young Lady, to be escorted back to Changyun County under cover — by you.】
【Intelligence ②: Two days hence, at the Linshui Wharf, Chenjian Wu’s Tenth Chief Qu Bushi and his subordinate officers will attempt to intercept the Ji clan’s young ladies. Among their number are three Blood Tempering martial artists!】
【Intelligence ③: The Ji family has already dispatched ‘Ji Wen,’ Head of the Martial Hall, to shadow the route in secret. At this moment, he is lying in concealment beneath Mang Mountain.】
Only three items today.
But with each one he read, Shen Xiuhan’s face grew a shade darker.
The Ji clan’s waters were muddy indeed!
‘Five-Primes Qi-Refining Pill…’
Shen Xiuhan rifled through his memory.
He had seen a reference in one of the old texts he’d leafed through in Mei Hall’s study:
Any martial practitioner who wished to step into ‘Transforming Strength’ must first nurture a breath of ‘force’ within the dantian’s qi-sea to fullness and perfection, attaining the Transforming-realm’s might — force that drove through the body and wounded from a distance.
In particular, at the very moment of the Transforming Strength breakthrough, one had to lay in a great quantity of spiritual materials to ensure the ‘force’ flowed without interruption throughout the process.
‘This Five-Primes Qi-Refining Pill is almost certainly meant for someone in the Ji clan to make the push to Transforming Strength — a treasure among treasures. No wonder it’s drawn the Bixia Mountain Estate like flies to blood!’
‘Still, the Ji clan isn’t stupid either. They foresaw that carrying such a gem would invite disaster, and so they’ve set this gambit — building the plank road in the open while crossing through Chencang in the dark.’
‘On the surface, a grand show of force escorting the convoy. In the shadows, the treasure pill is slipped to their own Second Young Lady, with a master dispatched ahead to watch over her in secret.’
Shen Xiuhan’s eyes gleamed.
The name ‘Ji Wen,’ Head of the Ji clan’s Martial Hall, he had certainly heard.
The man’s cultivation stood at Initial Mastery of Hidden Strength — the only Hidden Strength martial artist in the Ji clan proper, aside from the clan patriarch himself. He commanded every martial affair within the family, and his standing was very high indeed!
But the trouble lay precisely here.
A full Hidden Strength master, choosing to hide himself — this meant he dared not easily reveal his whereabouts.
At root, it was all for fear that Bixia Mountain Estate’s eyes would spot him, and thereby unravel the Ji clan’s ‘cicada shedding its shell’ stratagem!
Following that logic…
So long as the Ji clan’s Second Young Lady was not at death’s door — so long as the 『Five-Primes Qi-Refining Pill』 was not at risk of being lost — this Martial Hall Head would in all likelihood sit on his hands and stay hidden!
Even in a crisis, choosing to save the pill and abandon the person was not beyond the realm of possibility.
After all… one Transforming Strength master was worth far more than one young lady!
‘So in the end, the Chenjian Wu bandits at the Linshui Wharf will come down to me!’
At this thought, Shen Xiuhan let out a long breath, his face gaining another edge of cold resolve.
In his days garrisoned at Yunyi Island, he had pieced together a fair picture of the water-bandit chiefs in the surrounding waters.
Chenjian Wu’s Tenth Chief, Qu Bushi, had taken his seat only in the past two years.
Chenjian Wu had once held an unwritten rule:
Below Hidden Strength, no one sits in a chief’s chair!
But ever since the siege that killed Ji Guannan — after which Luo Changming and Wang Zhidao, two Transforming Strength masters together, had gone to confront Chenjian Wu —
From that point on, the Hidden Strength experts within Chenjian Wu had ceased making any overt moves.
Some time later, they had promoted five Manifest Strength fighters, filling the chief’s chairs on down to the tenth seat.
In the years since, it had been precisely these five who had been harassing the merchant fleets of every faction.
Qu Bushi was one of them.
Two and a half years ago, when he first took his seat, his cultivation had already entered Bone Tempering.
Two and a half years later, there was no chance his strength had stayed where it was.
He would only have grown more fearsome and harder to handle!
On top of that, Qu Bushi had two Blood Tempering elites at his back…
‘A hard fight!’
A cold gleam of forest-frost passed through the depths of Shen Xiuhan’s eyes.