Proofreader: Zhu Yuan
There were countless schools of practice in the world, and each pract.i.tioner"s innate const.i.tution was not the same, so in the past hundreds of years, many grand masters who established their schools had risen to power, creating many kinds of methods to practice and powerful means to absorb the aura of heaven and earth.
Minshan Mountain Sword Schooland Lingxu Sword School of Great Qin had studied the means of using sword to the extreme. However, many schools of Chu, Yan and Qi dynasties were beyond the reach of pract.i.tioners of other dynasties in terms of using instrument, figures, spells or incantations.
Even the three dynasties of Han, Zhao and Wei, which had already perished, besides hundreds of esoteric schools, the Han"s Nanyang Dan School, Zhao"s Sword Furnace and Wei"s Yunshui Palace were so outstanding that others were unable to keep pace with them in terms of practice methods and skills.
However, of all the methods of practice, Nine-death Silkworms was undoubtedly the most powerful and mysterious one.
No one knew the origin of this method, only vaguely speculated that this was established hundreds of years ago by the invincible Emperor Phantom, who was the founder of Great Yu.
There was even speculation that the reason why Emperor Phantom, who was the strongest pract.i.tioner of that year, died in his fifties was because of an accident with this method of practice.
The reason why there was such speculation was that after Emperor Phantom, the most brilliant figures of all the previous dynasties had the chance to obtain this mysterious practice method. However, all people, including the one who was almost the taboo of Qin dynasty, did not dare to practice this achievement method.
If no one practiced, no one in the world would know how powerful and wonderful this skill was.
Later pract.i.tioners only knew from the records of bamboo slips left over from Great Yu that many people were to be killed in the process of practicing this skill... and when the pract.i.tioner who studied this practice touched the True Yuan of other pract.i.tioners, sounds like thousands of silkworms devouring leaves would be heard.
However, pract.i.tioners at that time were sure that this method could not directly devour other people"s True Yuan to improve their own accomplishments like the schools of Qi dynasty.
Then what was the use of touching each other"s True Yuan and making such a sound of thousands of silkworms, and what did it mean?
This kind of unsolvable speculation made people feel more mysterious and scared.
However, it was not just because of this practice method itself, but because this achievement method eventually died out in the hands of that man that made Song Shenshu extremely frightened at this moment.
That man used to have many followers.
But Song Shenshu, many years ago, was only one of the humblest coachmen of the man"s follower.
Now, the power of Nine-death Silkworms, which should have disappeared completely with the death of the man, was very real in front of him. The countless images he deliberately did not want to think about suddenly forced on him like a mountain.
His was unable to move, and his whole body twitched violently.
He began to realize that the story circulating in Changling some time ago was true.
……
Ding Ning looked at Song Shenshu and his movements did not stop at all. His fingertips, like smoothing the folds on the clothes of Song Shenshu, carefully swept every crimson True Yuan on the surface of Song Shenshu"s body.
With countless silkworms devouring sounds, Song"s True Yuan disappeared under Ding Ning"s fingertips.
"What is it like to betray your friends for benefits?" While doing this, Ding Ning asked Song Shenshu carefully, as if he really wanted an answer.
Hearing this sentence, Song Shenshu"s fear finally returned, "Don"t kill me!" He was sweating all over, making hoa.r.s.e and ugly sounds with stiff throat muscles.
"Debt must be collected."
Ding Ning looked at him with commiserative eyes. "You tell me, what else can you use to pay your debts except your own life?"
Song Shenshu"s eyes were almost covered by his sweat. He opened his eyes hard and said in a hurry: "If… if I tell you some secrets more important than my life, can you spare my life?"
Ding Ning"s brow puckered slightly. He hesitated for a few moments and said, "Alright."
Song Shenshu"s eyes seemed to have the flame of hope, and some hesitation.
Ding Ning sneered, "You should know the name of his sword."
Song Shenshu"s eyes lit up.
"When Li Guanlan was killed, Mu Zi was the one who betrayed him. Now he has changed his name to Liang Lian."
He controlled his increasingly stiff throat, making an ugly sound, telling the first secret that he thought was the most important.
Ding Ning"s eyes were imperceptibly turning dark.
Those familiar names meant a lot of debts to him.
"Liang Lian?"
"Tiger-Wolf Army general? The one who made grand military feats, the most promising candidate to be conferred a Lord?"
Ding Ning frowned deeply and said to himself.
"That"s him." Song Shenshu"s desire to survive was strong. Although it was more difficult for him to speak, his voice became louder.
"Only these? You should understand that as long as what you say is true, I will find them out some day in the future." Ding Ning looked at him coldly.
Song Shenshu swallowed hard and his heart beat violently.
He knew that the secret he was going to leak would certainly satisfy Ding Ning, but he also knew very well that if people knew that the secret was leaked from him, his future results would certainly be more miserable than now.
"Lin Zhujiu is not dead." He looked at Ding Ning with begging eyes.
When Ding Ning"s body shook, his face lost its calm for the first time. He exclaimed, "What did you say?"
"He was locked up in the cell in the deepest part of the water dungeon."
Song Shenshu felt that his heart was going to jump out of his throat. "Prime Minister Yan wanted to get some practice secrets from him, so he hasn"t been killed… people outside thought he was dead, even Prime Minister Li and Head Officer Ye didn"t know the secret."
Ding Ning"s face was calm. He was silent for a moment and asked earnestly, "How do you know this secret?"
Song Shenshu did not dare to look into his eyes. "Because Prime Minister Yan could not dig anything useful out of his mouth, he thought of some methods … He sent people to pretend to break into the jail and rescue Lin, some of whom were people Lin knew before."
"You are one of the people Lin knew, but he didn"t know that you are already Prime Minister Yan"s follower." Ding Ning"s face remained calm. "What happened afterwards?"
Song Shenshu said with difficulty, "I don"t know what"s wrong. Lin was not deceived."
"His is more cautious than Yan. How can those small tricks deceive him?" Ding Ning lowered his head and whispered: "He must be very uncomfortable now."
Song Shenshu didn"t know how to answer. He didn"t say anything.
Ding Ning did not look at him, but he whispered, "Nothing else?"
Song Shenshu"s heart beat violently again. He recognized that Ding Ning was not satisfied.
"Hm..." Song trembled and told the last extremely important secret he knew, "The legendary Gushan Sword Collection should exist, and most clues may be in the hands of Bai ShanShui of Yunshui Palace."
"Gushan Sword Collection?"
Ding Ning"s breath stopped for one second -- it was another piece of news he had never heard of.
Legend had it that the Gushan Sword was a mysterious and powerful school. n.o.body knew when it originated or when it died out. However, there had always been rumors that Gushan Sword had a hidden treasure.
Apart from some lost spiritual practice methods, what made all spiritual pract.i.tioners more enchanted was some extinct medicine and instruments.
As more and more things related to Gushan Sword Sect had been discovered, pract.i.tioners all over the world could confirm that Gushan Sword School and secret collection really existed, but there was no specific clue about the location of Gushan Sword Collection.
"How do you know?" Ding Ning eyes flashing. He looked at Song Shenshu and asked again.
"Imperial Secret Service once brought several pieces of jade slips to Stack of Cla.s.sics for identification. The writing on the pieces was very strange. After we thoroughly checked the cla.s.sics, we found that it was the unique writing of Gushan Sword."
Song Shenshu said out of breath, "And I have secretly investigated. The people in Imperial Secret Service fought with the remnants of Yunshui Palace. They are sure that there are more pieces of jade slips in the hands of the remnants of Yunshui Palace."
Ding Ning did not speak at the moment.
Even though the pract.i.tioners of Yunshui Palace were as hidden as the those of Zhao"s Sword Furnace, he could find some clues as long as he was willing to spend some time.
"Is there anything else?"
Ding Ning looked at Song Shenshu and asked again.
Song Shenshu looked at him helplessly and his brain gradually went blank.
He really couldn"t think of any more secret that was important enough.
"Very good."
Ding Ning seemed very satisfied with the nod, leaning down to Song"s ear, "In this case, you can go die."
Song Shenshu"s eyes widened.
At this time, the strong power easily penetrated into his heart, cutting off several blood vessels that were the most important to a person"s life.
"You ..."
He could not believe that his life would come to an end, seizing the clothes of Ding Ning with a stiff hand.
"You must feel shocked that I didn"t keep my word, right?" Ding Ning whispered, "He is the most trustworthy person, so you think his disciples will keep their word. It"s a pity that he"s dead. Should I obey the rules set by him?"
Ding Ning calmly removed Song Shenshu"s fingers seizing his clothes.
Song Shenshu heard this sentence clearly. He felt angry that he had been deceived, but in the next moment, he only heard strange sounds in his own throat.
That was his last breath.
He died with endless regret.