Planning a Risky Move, Part 2

The fifth secret realm trip to the ancient battlefield arrived swiftly.

Guided by Senior Sister Weiyue, Su Qing didn’t fully trust Steward Li. She made a show of reluctance, adamantly refusing to team with Xu Wenqing, insisting Li assign her a new partner.

Li cajoled and scolded, citing Sword Sect rules. After a back-and-forth, Su Qing feigned resignation, agreeing reluctantly. She added pointedly, “That Lingbao Pavilion storage bag issue—Xu Wenqing doesn’t know, right?”

Li’s face darkened, barely containing his anger. “Such baseless, unproven claims—how could I let them spread?”

With a flick of his sleeve, he jabbed, “Your behavior makes me wonder if you’re hiding something. Framing him, perhaps? What did you do to fear entering? Or are you dodging sect duties?”

Su Qing paused, thinking: *You’re no saint either.*

She sighed, “If that’s how it is, I’ll comply. But if I face danger in the realm, or Xu Wenqing acts against me, I’m too weak to resist. If I send for help, you’d better come quickly. My life’s in your hands!”

Li’s expression softened. “Rest assured!” @Infinite Good Reads, Only at Jinjiang Literature City

As before, the team gathered, using a token to open the realm at a random tree. Su Qing and Xu Wenqing stood together, exchanging mild smiles, the atmosphere almost pleasant.

No onlooker could sense the brewing storm.

But both knew a battle was imminent.

When their turn came, Li’s eyes glinted. “Please.”

The moment Su Qing entered the realm, she infused spiritual energy into her feet, darting away from Xu Wenqing. As expected, a volley of poisoned steel needles shot toward her.

Summoning Manqing Sword from her bracelet, she twisted the hilt, sweeping the blade to deflect the needles.

The needles embedded in the ground. Unscathed, Su Qing stood, sword in hand, glaring at Xu Wenqing. “No grudge, no enmity—why harm me?”

“You know I mean to harm you, yet you come to die?” Xu Wenqing sneered, drawing his sword. “Blame your bad fate, born without a good family.”

“Last chance,” Su Qing warned. “Stop now.”

“Talk of stopping now? Womanly mercy!”

Xu Wenqing waved his sleeve, releasing two mid-tier first-grade puppets. They crawled up, sprouting greenish flesh in a blink, moving with malevolent aura, baring white fangs and dripping saliva—terrifying.

Clearly an evil cultivator’s method, sealing dying souls in bodies, denying release, turning them into frenzied flesh puppets.

Such sinister tactics—how could he use them?

But Su Qing wielded a Pure Yang Sword.

The puppets flanked her, moving swiftly, their stench nauseating.

Unfazed, Su Qing bent, swinging Manqing Sword at the left puppet. The massive, heavy blade carried unstoppable force.

While other sword cultivators moved with their swords, heavy sword users moved with the sword’s momentum. Su Qing felt she held not a sword but a wild beast’s reins.

The blade’s edge swept, sending the left puppet flying into the right one. She pressed forward, pinning the left puppet onto the right, then thrust upward, lifting both off the ground!

The sword’s Pure Yang energy surged, white light blazing, melting the puppets’ foul blood, eliciting screams.

Xu Wenqing was stunned. Both at Qi Refining Layer 2, Su Qing’s talent was lesser, yet her strength was overwhelming!

Luckily, he hadn’t underestimated her, preparing thoroughly.

A scholar before joining the sect, Xu Wenqing’s hands weren’t suited for combat, so he focused on arrays in Formation Sect. His initial needles and puppets were to buy time for his array. @Infinite Good Reads, Only at Jinjiang Literature City

But he hadn’t expected her to shatter his low-tier puppets so easily!

A woman, supposedly steeped in yin, wielding a Pure Yang Sword?

As Su Qing hacked the puppets’ spines and charged, her sword wind stinging his face, Xu Wenqing crushed a teleportation talisman, shifting ten meters away. In desperation, he used spirit pearls to complete his unfinished array.

Red light flashed, five red dots appearing around Su Qing, weaving into lines, then a complex array in a breath. Su Qing reacted swiftly, striking the blood spirit pearls with Manqing Sword. But Xu Wenqing, prepared, cast a spell, hurling beast blood from his storage bag at her face!

Su Qing frowned. What was this?

The blood, entering the array, congealed, steaming with primal heat, forming a massive, ancient-looking spear, reeking of blood and malice, its tip aimed at her.

Compared to it, Su Qing was an ant.

Shocked by the overwhelming resentment, her pupils shrank. Manqing Sword heated, trembling, as if facing something impure.

Xu Wenqing, trembling, blood trickling from his lips, grinned viciously. Pointing at Su Qing in the array’s eye, he pressed down. “Divine Might Borrowed, First Form!”

The spear hummed, charging at her.

A piercing force slammed toward Su Qing, her vision red, blood forming a thick wall. No matter how she swung, she couldn’t break it, watching herself be engulfed!

Seeing her buried in blood, Xu Wenqing relaxed, triumphant. The array drained 70% of his spiritual energy but worked!

This Ten Rakshasa Blood Flower Array, a Guan family gift, though incomplete, was third-tier. After relentless study, he wielded it at first-tier strength: blood sacrifice summoning an ancient weapon for three attacks.

With no ambient spiritual energy in the realm, they relied on stored energy and artifacts. Su Qing’s deeper reserves and solid cultivation gave her an edge in prolonged fights. Decisively, he used blood spirit pearls and wronged beast blood collected with the Guans.

Using his prized treasures hurt, but it was worth it. Proving himself a useful blade would earn more from the Guans.

In a sect-dominated, clan-controlled world, how was it different from the mortal realm? Cultivation was just another hierarchy. Why not leverage power?

Once he rose with these resources, who’d dare look down on him?

The blood array surged, devouring its prey. Xu Wenqing saw a bright future, smirking confidently.

But his dream didn’t last.

A deafening *bang*—the spear shattered from its base, blood spraying in the air.

A vacuum formed in the blood sea. Su Qing, blood-soaked, gripped her sword, its blade buried in the ground, cracking the earth toward Xu Wenqing. Shocked, ignoring his injuries, he cast, “Second Form!”

The explosion was Su Qing unleashing Manqing Sword’s heavy strike.

As the spear charged, she blocked its tip, pushed back ten meters by its force. The spear dissolved into blood, crushing her, shifting her organs. But tempered by lightning, her body endured the pain.

Unable to break through with swordplay, she unleashed the sword’s inscribed array, releasing a massive strike.

Stored purple qi burst forth, clashing with the beast blood’s yin, boiling violently. Her stronger qi prevailed, blasting a gap.

The sword’s recoil drilled into the ground. Su Qing’s trained arms barely withstood the force.

Xu Wenqing’s second form, weakened by purified yin, was feeble. Su Qing blocked it easily. He realized he couldn’t match a Body Sect cultivator head-on, even a woman!

Crushing another teleportation talisman, he fled to regroup.

Inspired, Su Qing reversed Manqing Sword, hilt down, tip up, unleashing another strike. The recoil launched her into the air. In that eternal second, she adjusted, gripping the sword. Passing Xu Wenqing, calm and focused, she twisted, delivering a 360-degree sweep, slamming him to the ground!

The earth shook, dust rose, then settled.

Landing, Su Qing saw Xu Wenqing, barely alive, half-paralyzed. Clutching the ground, he rasped, “Don’t kill me… I’ll give you anything…”

Su Qing, done with his nonsense, struck his neck with the hilt, knocking him out.

Scornfully, she said, “Brain’s not clear. I won—everything’s mine. Need you to give?”

Having abandoned ethics in the unregulated realm for a brutal fight, he had to face the law of the jungle.

She was stronger. He was her prey.

To be safe, she took his storage bag, probed his body with her sword tip, and tied him with immortal-binding rope, tighter than a dumpling.

Guarding him, she struck his neck whenever he stirred, ensuring he stayed down.

The fight was exhilarating but anticlimactic. No life-saving artifacts used, not even all of Manqing Sword’s strikes. What kind of experience was this? Was she too strong, or he too weak?

Comparing her seniors and roommates, she concluded: she wasn’t strong—he was weak.

Formation Sect was lacking.

The dust hadn’t settled. Though she’d subdued Xu Wenqing, Su Qing stayed vigilant. Her blood still ran hot, with 50% spiritual energy left for another fight. Reassured, she began collecting her spoils.

First, Xu Wenqing’s storage bag was hers.

He was weak, but she’d gladly take his stuff. Since he courted death, she’d spend his legacy.

Next, the second-tier black iron blood crystals on the cliff. Perfect for sword crafting, she planned to share with her roommates and Jiang Weed, saving some for Manqing Sword. In an hour and a half, she flew to the cliff, harvesting most crystals, periodically checking Xu Wenqing and itching to hit him again.

She skipped hard-to-reach crystals, focusing on extracting the fourth-tier spirit-dispersing array.

Lacking array knowledge, she relied on Weiyue’s expertise. From Su Qing’s sketched terrain, Weiyue used a Bagua compass and rulers to pinpoint the array’s eye.

Su Qing just had to verify.

Weiyue had done the heavy lifting. The array’s eye was likely under the cliff’s waterfall. Measuring distances, Su Qing injected fire, earth, wood, water, and metal spiritual energies into the dune, soil, forest, waterfall, and cliff.

No response.

Waiting hopelessly, the ground suddenly quaked, stones falling, dust rising. The tremor stopped as quickly as it began.

Xu Wenqing was too battered to wake. Clearing debris with her sword, Su Qing found a rusted sword.

Dull and corroded, it had succumbed to time.

Weiyue predicted a corpse at the array’s eye, as the spirit-dispersing array required the caster’s presence, often leading to their death. Its cost meant survivors would retrieve it.

No corpse. Digging, Su Qing found a faded disciple jade token.

Comparing it to hers, it was identical but older—a Sword Sect disciple’s from 300 years ago, likely the rusted sword’s owner. Their fate was unknown.

Having buried dozens of evil cultivators, Su Qing regretted not finding this senior’s body.

After fruitless searching, she injected spiritual energy into the token.

Expecting nothing, she was shocked when it glowed faintly, revealing text:

“Fifth Class student Ji Shuang, lacking skill, failed to cycle this array’s energy, shaming the sect. My death here is no loss. Yet, I fulfilled my mission.”

Su Qing understood.

Per Steward Li, the battlefield was from 300 years ago, during the Full Moon War when evil cultivators attacked Sword Mountain for immortality. Ji Shuang ran this array, killing dozens of evil cultivators but succumbing to its immense energy, leaving only a sword and token.

No corpse—obliterated by the energy.

A rusted sword and token were the best outcome.

She retracted her earlier thought: Formation Sect wasn’t weak—some people were.

Looking at the sword, Su Qing said, “With no body, shall I take your sword to the sword tomb? A memento, how’s that?”

The sword didn’t respond. But a complex array disc appeared on the ground.

The spirit-dispersing array.

…

As the realm’s time neared its end, Su Qing, with her haul, guarded Xu Wenqing.

Exiting, she faced Steward Li. All work-study students had emerged.

Chen Minjing, seeing the near-dead Xu Wenqing, rushed over, panicking. “Xu大哥!”

Shaking him, unable to rouse him, she looked at Su Qing, tears falling. “What happened in the realm? What’s wrong with him?”

In her confused gaze, Su Qing confronted Li loudly. “Steward Li, the moment I entered, Xu Wenqing ambushed me. I sent you distress messages at life’s edge—why didn’t you save me? If not for my luck, I’d be dead!”

Her voice boomed, face flushed, as if rage had overtaken reason.

Students, half-dispersed, crowded back, whispering, “What happened?” “Someone attacked in the realm.” “They say Li’s involved.”

Li hadn’t expected Su Qing to emerge. Desperate to clear himself, he brandished his jade token. “Nonsense! When did you message me? I’ve served Sword Sect tirelessly—how dare a brat slander me? Show your token, let’s see who’s lying!”

He’d erased his token’s records, confident it was clean. Students, seeing his righteous stance, half-believed him.

“No records, of course,” Su Qing sneered. “A steward deleting logs is easy.”

Li, emboldened by her lack of proof, feigned heartbreak. “Resentful because the sect kept your storage bags? They’re evil techniques—useless to you!”

Some hotheaded students, buying his hint, thought they understood, glaring at Su Qing. “Li’s looking out for us—why go this far?”

Su Qing admired Li’s bald-faced lies.

Spotting a familiar figure approaching, she didn’t delay, tossing a hidden image-recording stone to the ground.

Voices and images spilled out:

“No grudge, no enmity—why harm me?”

“You know I mean to harm you, yet you come to die? Blame your bad fate, born without a good family.”

“Last chance. Stop now.”

“Talk of stopping? Womanly mercy!”

Her distress message to Li was recorded.

The stone was borrowed from Weiyue, who ran the confession wall and press corps, with ample resources. This was undeniable evidence.

Unlike cameras, image stones had limited recording time, but it sufficed for this drama.

Li, seeing the images, felt his head pound, ears ringing. The students’ murmurs cut like knives.

He was finished!

Rushing to destroy the stone, he shouted, “Image stones can be faked! Who knows if you tampered with it? Why frame me like this?”

His words were irrational. Tampering required high-quality stones and advanced cultivation—Su Qing’s basic stone and Qi Refining Layer 2 couldn’t manage it.

Li, desperate, struck the stone, erasing its contents. Only then did he glare at Su Qing, face twisted.

As he prepared to intimidate her, a warm female voice interrupted.

It was Chen Yu. @Infinite Good Reads, Only at Jinjiang Literature City

Raising her token slowly, she asked, “Steward Li, even if the stone can be faked, are these evidences fake too?”

She held proof of Li’s covert dealings over the years.

Li, overwhelmed, spiritual energy reversing, collapsed from a stroke beside Xu Wenqing. Both, like rotten meat, unconscious to the world’s mockery—a twisted blessing.

Glancing at the stone’s debris, Su Qing thought: *Destroy it? I’m thorough—I’ve got backups.*

She had plenty of image stones.