Song of Adolescence

Chapter 231 Drifting clouds and beasts of burden and a blade for killing

Li Fansong\'s sword was very powerful, but the middle-aged Confucian\'s sword was just a casual flick of his hand. But it took only an instant, and Li Fansong’s sword aura was completely wiped out by that flick. The middle-aged Confucian turned his right hand, lifted the peach wood sword and hurled it forward. The peach wood sword passed under Li Fansong’s sleeve and carried him with it to nail firmly into a pine tree.

Everything happened in an instant. Li Fansong didn\'t even get a chance to react and Fei Xuan was also stunned. The two originally wanted to go to Unrivaled City to challenge the new citymaster, but they’d just met Li Hanyi, and they barely managed to block her sword with their combined strength. Now, they faced this middle-aged Confucian. Don’t even mention that he’d lost his sword from the get go. Even with the power of the sixth-ranked sword under Heaven, Azure Empyrean, he was completely blocked by him. They were previously filled with pride and heroic spirit, but now, they could feel none of it left.

"Who is this distinguished person?" Li Fansong asked.

The middle-aged Confucian raised his eyebrows. "You don\'t know who I am?"

Li Fansong freed himself from the tree and said, "Please grace us with your distinguished name!"

The middle-aged Confucian did not answer, but instead countered with, "Then why did you attack me?"

Li Fansong started and Fei Xuan also scratched his head with embarrassment. Just now, the two of them were shocked by the appearance of Li Hanyi holding the Peach Blossom sword, so they turned hostile against the middle-aged Confucian who interrupted them without reason. Now, in retrospect, both of them were a little ashamed. Li Fansong clasped his fist and said, "Senior, this junior was reckless just now. We became overly anxious when we saw an item belonging to our late master and couldn’t restrain ourselves."

Fei Xuan added hurriedly, "Senior, please forgive us. We still need to rush off and look for that person. Please, Senior, if you could leave us your name and place of residence, we will definitely call on you to apologize when the matter is settled."

"Live happily without anxiety, tranquil without worries, treat Heaven as a cover and Earth as a chariot. My name is Xie Xuan. I have no home. I treat the world as my home," the middle-aged Confucian said with a smile.

"Xie Xuan?" Fei Xuan found the name somewhat familiar.

Li Fansong’s face was already pale with shock. "Xie Xuan! Confucian Sword Immortal Xie Xuan!"

"Not so loud." Xie Xuan cleared his throat. "Being well read is not to seek arrogance, humility is the proper way. Don’t sword immortal this and sword immortal that. I am the Confucian scholar, Xie Xuan. I know who you are. One of you is Li Fansong and you’ve inherited Zhao Yuzhen’s sword arts. The other is Fei Xuan and you’ve inherited Zhao Yuzhen’s Daoist arts."

Li Fansong was pleasantly surprised. "How does Senior know this?"

Xie Xuan smiled slightly. "One who walks under Heaven learns all under Heaven. Although I’ve never been to Qingcheng Mountain, and haven’t met your shifu much, I’ve been around for a while."

"I see," Li Fansong said in understanding.

Fei Xuan\'s eyebrows furrowed slightly, and he heard a hidden meaning in the words. "Shizu has never left Qingcheng Mountain for many years, and Senior also said you’ve never been to Qingcheng Mountain, but you said you haven’t met him much. Could it be…"

"Mister Xie, you’ve met my shifu!" Li Fansong also realised.

Xie Xuan nodded slightly. "Yes. At the moment that Zhao-xiong passed away, I was by his side."

Li Fansong and Fei Xuan exchanged a glance, then Li Fansong said slowly, "Then, Senior should know best how my shifu died."

Xie Xuan asked, "Doesn\'t Qingcheng Mountain know?"

Li Fansong sighed softly. "That day, all of us on Qingcheng Mountain set up the Dragon Lookout Array which could seek a person’s qi even a thousand miles away. Fei Xuan and I were still weak in our cultivation so we could only seek out shifu’s qi. Perhaps our shizu could have really seen what happened a thousand miles away. That day, when we realised that shifu’s qi had disappeared, we knew that shifu had really passed away. Our shizu know who the murderer is, but they didn’t want to tell us.”

"Since they didn’t want to tell you, they must have their reasons. Hatred and vengeance are not something you can let go of just because you want to. Persuading others to let go of their hatred and be magnanimous towards the world is truly disgraceful conduct. But, you are still young now, and hatred can sometimes deceive your eyes," Xie Xuan said softly. "If you want to do something for your late shifu though, there’s something you can do."

Li Fansong and Fei Xuan were overjoyed and hurriedly asked, "What can we do?"

"Earlier, did you see a woman with purple hair and armed with two swords pass by here?" Xie Xuan asked.

Li Fansong nodded. "Snow Moon Sword Immortal Li Hanyi!"

Xie Xuan pondered for a while before he said, "That\'s your shiniang[1]."

"She’s really… our shiniang?" Fei Xuan couldn\'t laugh or cry. "Shizu said that he was going down the mountain to find our shiniang. He really brought back a shiniang? Did they really complete the rites and get married?"

"Indeed, they had completed the rites and gotten married. That was the most beautiful wedding I’ve ever seen," Xie Xuan said with emotion, as he recalled the scene that day.

"Then, why is Lei Hong following shiniang?" Li Fansong responded.

"Because Lei Hong likes your shiniang," Xie Xuan replied.

"How dare he!" Li Fansong exclaimed angrily. "Shameless!"

"What’s there to be shameless about? Your shiniang has suffered qi deviation since your shifu died. If it weren’t for Lei Hong accompanying her all the way here, I’m afraid she would have left a string of corpses in her wake." Xie Xuan smiled slightly, but his eyebrows were knitted in a frown.

"Qi deviation? Then, we must catch up to her quickly," Li Fansong said anxiously. "We can’t let shiniang fall into any mishap."

"Don\'t worry, your shiniang won’t fall into any mishap." A cold voice sounded nearby, and a short sword appeared pressed up against his neck. "Because you will die first."

Li Fansong was shocked. The Azure Empyrean sword flashed a rosy light and slashed behind him. At the same time, he turned his neck to avoid the short sword. But the person behind him snickered and didn’t bother to dodge the Azure Empyrean sword. He held on to his short sword and sliced it downwards.

"Drifting clouds!" Xie Xuan suddenly moved, and the Book of Knowledge sword flew out of its sheath in his bookcase. He grabbed onto the sword and flashed to Li Fansong’s side in an instant.

This sword was extremely fast, yet ethereal, like drifting clouds under Heaven.

The man snorted coldly, immediately withdrew his sword, and retreated backwards.

"Beasts of burden!" Xie Xuan made another sword move. This sword was very sluggish, very slow, and even a little bit clumsy. But, the sword aura was continuous and it forcibly dragged down the assailant’s pace.

"Blade for killing!" Xie Xuan raised his sword and slashed it horizontally. This was not a sword technique, but a blade technique. Sweeping aside all of the elegance and poignance of the previous moves, this was actually a move from a tyrant’s sabre of Nanjue!

This sword pierced through the chest of the assailant and blood gushed out. The man retreated several steps before he fell to the ground with a bitter laugh. "This is the legendary Three Forms of a Rain Shower. It is worthy of the Confucian Sword Immortal."

"First reveal to others your elegance, then yield to others with bluntness, and finally, dominate others with killing. But I have made two sword moves, and your killing intent has remained undiminished. Although we scholars are very patient, we prefer to settle matters in less than three moves." Xie Xuan waved his left hand lightly and brushed away the blood on the blade.

"You shouldn\'t have stepped into this muddy water[2]," the man gasped.

"Although I profess to be a mere Confucian scholar, all under Heaven recognizes me as a sword immortal. I have killed a demon head in the martial world, I have fought a prince in Heavenly Revelations. You are not qualified to threaten me." Xie Xuan smiled slightly and continued, "Even if you are the Hidden River."

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Note from the author:

PS: Yesterday, I listened to Song Pangzi’s new song, 《空港曲》 (Empty Port Song). There’s not much to say about the song but the lyrics are rather enjoyable. Especially this line, “drifting clouds and beasts of burden and a blade for killing” which I like very much, so I borrowed it. I also uploaded this song today to use as background music. Infringement deleted. Song Pangzi made a mistake in the past and now he’s returned and wrote a good song that was very similar to the songs he used to write before he became famous.

Note: The singer the author refers to is Song Dongye, a musician from Beijing. The author just wanted to credit him with borrowing that line which is the title of this chapter, as well as the names of Xie Xuan’s sword moves.

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