Proofreader: Zhu Yuan
In the autumn of the eleventh year of Yuanwu"s reign of the Qin Dynasty, a rare storm swept across the entire Changling. The dark black clouds, thunder and lightning made the capital city like h.e.l.l.
At the dock of Wei River outside the city, countless officials and sergeants in black uniforms stood in the rain, letting themselves at the mercy of the storm. They did not move, as if their bodies were nailed to the ground.
In the turbid waves, a giant armored ship suddenly appeared.
At this moment, a bright lightning pierced the sky and illuminated the armored ship.
When they saw the ship clearly, all the officials and sergeants at the dock were shocked:
The bow of the ship was actually a real dragon head!
The dragon head was even bigger than the carriage. Although it had been cut off, its red eyes were still flashing with madness. The majesty of the dragon-head ship was even more formidable than the terrifying waves.
Without waiting for the ship to pull in to sh.o.r.e, three officials flew tens of meters over the river, landing like three hammers. .h.i.tting on the bow deck.
What made the three officials even more shocked was that there were terrible gaps and debris everywhere over the huge ship, representing numerous fierce battles it had experienced. The only person they could see was an old man in straw rain cape, who stood ghostly in the corner of the ship"s side. They could not see the figure of the person they were anxiously waiting for.
"Lord Han, where is Head Officer Ye?"
The three officials made a salute in unison, fighting back the intense fear.
"No need to be over-courteous. Head Officer Ye has already gone to the hidden place of the Remnants of Evil from the Sword Furnace." The old man made a salute back with a slight bow. In the storm, the old man"s face couldn"t be seen clearly, but his eyes were extraordinarily deep and cold, exuding a thrillingly intimidating power.
"Head Officer Ye has already gone?" The three officials trembled in their hearts at the same time, and couldn"t help but look back at the city.
The entire Changling had been shrouded by heavy rain and the darkness of the night, and only the looming shadows of the tall turrets could be seen from time to time.
At the same time, a black umbrella suddenly appeared on the river on the south of Changling City.
The man with the black umbrella walked on the surface of the raging river, as if walking on the ground. He arrived at the bank and went to a winding alley.
There were six officials in black of different heights. What they had in common was that they held the same black umbrellas, which hid their faces under the shadow. They waited quietly for the man who came from the river.
After the man landed, the six officials did not have any extra moves or any noises but followed him silently.
In the alley, there was an ordinary yard, which was the destination of these men with black umbrellas.
There was sound of water ticks, mixed with the sound of chewing.
In the yard, a middle-aged man in black coa.r.s.e clothes was having his dinner under the roof.
The man"s clothes were worn out, and a mess of hair was casually tied up with a straw string. His cloth shoes were also worn out, with shoe soles ground through, and the hands and nails were dirty. His face was as ordinary as those of other porters nearby.
His dinner was also very ordinary and simple, just a bowl of coa.r.s.e rice, a dish of green vegetables and a dish of dried beans. However, the man was enjoying the food, chewing dozens of times before slowly swallowing.
After chewing the last bite, the middle-aged man reached for a wooden scoop hanging under the eaves, taking a scoop of water from the water tank next to him. He drank the scoop of water in one breath and burped with satisfaction.
At this moment, the first man with a black umbrella stopped at the door of the small yard.
A foot in a white official boot stepped out of the shadow, and it looked very eye-catching against the black color.
Above the official boots, it was a white dress. The man – actually the woman - had silky hair, thin lips and faint eyebrow, like hazy mountains in the rain.
The "man" strolling from the turbulent river, was actually a beautiful woman with an elegant style and a curvaceous body. She walked out from the black umbrella, letting her hair wet by the rain. She walked into the yard of the middle-aged man in a light footstep. Then she said to the man softly: "I am Ye Celeng. It"s an honor to see you, Mr. Zhao."
The middle-aged man raised his eyebrows slightly, which made his face become vivid suddenly, exuding an unspeakable charm.
"I"ve been in Changling for three years, and this is my first time to see you, Officer Ye." The man said.
He did not salute back but smiled slightly, and his eyes swept past the young woman, looking into the overlapping streets in the autumn rain.
He continued: "Changling is very boring, just like the swords and personality of your Qin people, straight and direct, and the walls are either gray or black. There is no beauty. Today it"s my pleasure to meet you, Officer Ye. The grace of you lights up before my eyes, but unfortunately it is not so suitable for Changling"s style."
He talked with a calm voice, just like the tone of daily chat with common people, but all the people under the black umbrellas turned furious hearing his words.
"How dare you! Zhao Zhan, You Sword Furnace Remnants of Evil! Head Officer Ye has come here in person. Surrender right now. How dare you say such hurtful words to Head Officer Ye!"
This strict reproach came under a black umbrella in the distance.
Obviously, this official intended to let his face be seen, because he lifted the umbrella and came out of the shadow. He was a handsome young man with a beautiful face. He had red lips and white teeth. His complexion was as smooth as jade, and the light of his eyes was shining like lightening.
"Oh?" The middle-aged man, Zhao Zhan, hummed. His brow furrowed and his face was relieved, "No wonder you are weaker than others. It turns out that you are not part of Jiantian Department. I guess you are a member of Imperial Secret Service."
The hands of the young official had been shaking before he took a move. The previous action seemed to cost him a lot of courage. Upon hearing Zhao Zhan say that he was weaker than others, anger was ignited in his eyes, and his breath became more rapid.
Zhao Zhan"s gaze had already left the young man and come to the woman in the white dress. He smiled at the woman and said: "He has nearly crossed the fourth level halfway. Must be a rare talent in your country."
The woman, Ye Celeng, smiled back, with two shallow dimples on her cheeks: "What you said is right. Mr. Zhao."
"He took this move just because he admires you and wants to impress you, I suppose." Zhao Zhan cast a meaningful looke at Ye Celeng. "Would it be a pity if you kill him just for this?"
"What do you mean?" The young official"s face suddenly became pale, his clothes were soaked in cold sweat, and an ominous presentiment lingered in his heart.
The woman turned to look at him and smiled a little. It seemed that she didn"t bear any malice about the young man. However, a raindrop falling on her side was suddenly still.
Then the raindrops began to accelerate to a horrible speed, naturally elongating into a thin and sharp little sword.
The sound of the body being pierced was heard.
The inside of the young man"s black umbrella was filled with plasma in one second. The head of him was cut out of the neck and landed on the ground with the umbrella. He didn"t die in peace, his eyes still widely open with shock.
"Impressive!"
Zhao Zhan clapped and cheered. "You even killed the person from Imperial Secret Service, who was monitoring your actions. Head Officer Ye is really bold. But killing a rare talent just because of a minor disagreement doesn"t seem an action coming from a person with big breadth of mind."
Ye Celeng sneered: "What"s the use of a big breadth of mind for a woman? To have big b.r.e.a.s.t.s is enough for a woman."
Zhao Zhan was speechless, for he was surprised that a woman like her would say such a sentence.
"It makes sense." He smiled sarcastically, "Officer Ye, look at the supreme status of yours. No matter what you do or say, you don"t need to care too much about others."
Ye Celeng"s eyelashes slightly quivered, and her lips opened. However, at this time, she sensed something, and her brows frowned and stopped talking.
The smile on the face of Zhao Zhan disappeared at this point. The tiny wrinkles around his eyes were smoothed by some strange shining light. His skin began to shine with the l.u.s.ter of the jade, and hot air was generated, making the rain turn into white water vapor, and a strong killing atmosphere began to flood the small courtyard.
"Although the majors of spiritual practice are different, the strength of world"s spiritual pract.i.tioners can be divided into nine realms. Each realm is then divided into three levels. Which realm has your emperor reached now?" When prestigious Ye Celeng made a salute to him at the beginning, he didn"t salute back. However, this time he made a serious salute with a deep bow.
"I am "narrow-minded", so I won"t answer your questions without any benefit." Ye Celeng looked at him calmly and said in a nonnegotiable tone. "Let"s take turns."
Zhao Zhan hesitated for a while and looked up: "Deal."
Ye Celeng asked directly: "The disciples of the Sword Furnace school study a very dangerous swordsmanship, and even ignore their own lives. What has confused me is that in the past three years, you didn"t a.s.sa.s.sinate our spiritual pract.i.tioners, recruit people to form your clique, nor try to steal our spiritual practice cla.s.sics. What do you want?"
Zhao Zhan looked at her and sighed: "The secret cla.s.sics of your spiritual practice are indeed powerful, but is there any chance that your cla.s.sics are more powerful than the legacy of that person?"
His didn"t even mention the name of "that person". However, these two words were like a taboo. The five other officials under black umbrellas outside the courtyard didn"t have much reactions when they saw the previous b.l.o.o.d.y scene of decapitation, but when they heard "that person", their emotions fluctuated and the black umbrellas in their hands quivered at the same time, splashing water drops on the umbrella surface.
Ye Celeng suddenly felt a little unhappy. She sneered: "It has been so many years, you won"t give up on the legacy of that person, will you?"
Zhao Zhan did not say anything, but looked at her eyes with great interest and waited for her answer.
Ye Celeng looked at him who had become more attractive than before, feeling a sense of sympathy. She said softly: "His Majesty was on the top level of the seventh realm five years ago. He hasn"t shown his power in the past five years. I don"t know whether this answer makes you satisfied."
"He already reached the top level of the seventh realm five years ago. It is enough for him to break into the next realm. So, is there any possibility that he has already reached the eighth realm?" A sorrowful and frustrated expression appeared on Zhao Zhan"s face, but in the next moment, his expression turned into a sharp sense of killing!
His entire body began to shine, like a peerless sword that had been hidden in the sheath for many years, finally being drawn out of the sheath!
All the dry wormwood on the wall and on the ridge of the small courtyard, were sharply smashed into pieces and flew outwards.
"Officer Ye, please!"
Zhao Zhan took a deep breath, and in his eyes the world seemed to only have the woman.
"The seventh disciple of Sword Furnace, Zhao Zhan, asking for the duel with Head Officer Ye. Use your Autumn Water Sword!"
When he said this, Ye Celeng was still silent and seemed to have no reaction, but the five black-clothing officials started to move, walking to the five corners outside the courtyard all of a sudden. The black umbrellas in their hands were also rotating rapidly.
The black umbrellas were like round shields, but this time they did not sprinkle countless rain drops, but countless slashes of sword spirit
.
"Boom!"
The whole small courtyard bulged out, and instantly exploded into countless burning pieces.
A squeaking sound came from the umbrellas, and the burning debris contained amazing power, which made the noise stronger between the five umbrella-bearing officials" soles and wet stone roads.
The dense air formed the impenetrable wall, and few burning debris could puncture out. The hot air and the burning sparks were forced to vent to the sky. From a distance, it was like huge standing furnace between heaven and earth.
In the center of the furnace, a red sword was somehow held in Zhao Zhan"s hands.
This sword was no more than two feet long, but the flaming fire on the blade and the tip of the sword formed a fireball covering several square meters!
Ye Celeng had disappeared. Only thousands of sharp sword-like rains were coming to him.
......
When five officials began to attack him, dozens of swordsmen with various swords also sneaked into the alley.
These swordsmen had the same atmosphere as the five officials. In this severe storm, the raindrops falling around their bodies flew away, as if afraid of them. Every swordsman had a transparent air ma.s.s round his body, like an independent small world.
Such a picture showed that they were the same as the five officials with black umbrellas, who were rare spiritual pract.i.tioners in the world with unimaginable means.
However, at this moment, listening to the constant roaring in the small courtyard and watching the constantly splashing water droplets in the surrounding water shovels because of the ground vibration, they felt extremely insecure. Without any knowledge of how the battle was going on in the courtyard, their faces became pale and there was more and more cold sweat in their hands.
They had already known exactly how powerful the Sword Furnace of the Zhao Dynasty was, but today they finally understood that they underestimated this school.
It actually took a very short time. It was so short that it even made the people nearby think it was just a thundering. Suddenly, the surface of the black umbrella around the small courtyard cracked strangely.
One black umbrella could not resist, flying nearly a hundred meters away.
The swordsmen with non-sheathed iron swords scattered around the small courtyard were shocked at the same time. The four officials behind the black umbrellas suddenly roared together, unsheathing their swords in front of their bodies.
After four loud clunking noises, the four swords were bent into a semi-circular shape at the same time. The four black swordsmen were shaken and they wanted to resist the opposite power forcefully, but in the next moment, the four were spouting blood in the mouth. They were knocked away like the birds with broken wings.
The momentum swelling from the crack of the black umbrella pa.s.sed through a vegetable garden, destroying two fences; and then it pa.s.sed through a wide street, rushing to a sesame oil shop across the street.
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Then there came a sound of explosion.
Several door panels leaning against the door of the sesame oil shop burst into countless small pieces, and then half of the shop collapsed with the roof tiles smashed onto the ground, raising a large amount of dust.
"Which blind dumba.s.s drove the carriage so fast? You ruined my shop!"
A shrill scream blew from the half-slipped shop. A middle-aged woman holding a spoon of oil rushed out of anger, ready to have a fight with the people who ruined her shop, but the moment she saw the real situation, the oil spoon in her hand dropped, and she made a more piercing scream.
"Jiantian Department is handling the case!"
A black swordsman who was seriously hurt was lying on the bluestone road in front of the shop. Hearing the scream of the middle-aged woman, he gnawed his teeth and stood up with the support of his sword. His shout and his killing sense frightened the screaming woman, which made her frozen and silent.
At this time, what shocked the swordsman was a boy walking out of the shop. He was a teenager about thirteen or fourteen, carrying a bottle of oil. Despite the dust on his tender face, there was no fear on his face.
He was just curious, looking at the swordsman with clear eyes, and then he looked beyond him to the two destroyed fences.
In his sight, a graceful woman in white dress was coming out of the gap in the black umbrellas.
"Bury him with full honors."
The dress of the woman was already soaked by sweat. She seemed to be extremely tired. When the black umbrellas gathered to shelter her from the rain, she just said these words softly.