When the words landed, Xu Qinghuan did not linger any longer. She stepped out of the rear hall in a single stride, walking directly into the courtyard that was covered in standing water.
Clang— The sound of a blade rang out abruptly.
Inside the rear hall, the White-haired Daoist froze beside his prayer mat, letting out a low, stifled laugh.
In the courtyard, Xu Qinghuan, who was about to cross the threshold, paused her steps slightly.
The plain hem of her cloak cast a shadow over the puddles of rainwater. She stood still, yet still showed no intention of turning back.
“What a phrase… ‘I am the Dao itself.’”
The White-haired Daoist stared fiercely at the slender yet overwhelmingly imposing figure beyond the door. His clouded, murky eyes erupted with a glint of maddened brilliance, entirely without warning.
He had spent his entire life in the rear mountains of Qingfeng Temple, observing the stars and casting divinations. He had clutched the bamboo slips passed down by his ancestors, calculating the nation’s fortune and fate for decades. Every calculation was bound by rigid rules decreed by heaven itself.
That was an ancient path, rotten to the core—a dead end paved with countless predecessors’ lives.
And now, this woman of the Great Qian Dynasty, utterly lacking in cultivation, dared to be so arrogant!
Rainwater splashed everywhere as it was stomped through the courtyard.
Several younger Daoists who had been stationed outside the courtyard heard these heretical words and could no longer contain their fury. Seeing this outsider spouting such outrageous claims and then trying to swagger away, they immediately drew the Dharma swords strapped to their backs with a sharp clang.
Four or five young men in gray-blue Daoist robes splashed across the puddles, closing in swiftly. Their long swords tilted slightly as they formed an enclosing sword formation, blocking the path entirely.
Li Sheng stood at the foot of the rain-sheltered corridor without so much as blinking. He twisted his sturdy wrist in a fluid motion.
The steel saber at his waist rang out with a crisp sound, drawn halfway from its scabbard.
The blade angled downward, pointing at the ground. Rainwater clung to the spine of the blade, yet before it could slide away, a rare, murderous aura surged forth. Even from several yards away, it locked directly onto the throat of the foremost young Daoist.
…
Seeing this, a flicker of surprise passed through Xu Qinghuan’s eyes.
…
No ostentatious preparatory moves.
If Xu Qinghuan took another step forward, Li Sheng’s blade would slice through the young Daoists’ throats without obstruction, turning this peaceful place into a river of blood.
“Stop! Let her leave!”
A dry but thunderous shout erupted from the shadowy depths of the rear hall.
The roar expended the speaker’s last reserves of strength.
The Daoists, who had been about to lunge, were shaken by this imposing force and froze in place.
The leading reception Daoist’s lips quivered for a moment. He looked at the bloodthirsty Li Sheng, grip tight on his saber, then back at the worn house beyond the threshold. In the end, he lowered his sword tip toward the ground in defeat, making way of his own accord.
The White-haired Daoist, bracing his hands on his knees, rose from beside the prayer mat with excruciating slowness and effort.
This time, he did not stoop his spine, bent by the weight of years.
He gritted his teeth and straightened that aged backbone bit by bit, until he was standing fully erect.
His wide, worn Daoist robe rustled and snapped in the draft that swept through the hall.
In the final moments of his fading life, he shed the frailty of a man on the brink of death, restoring the dignified bearing befitting the Master of Qingfeng Temple.
He took heavy, sluggish steps, walking over to the half-open carved wooden window.
His gaze passed beyond the aging window frame, settling on the woods and mountains of the capital city, which were drab even after the rain.
He understood all too well that this struggle over the “Dao” had long since spiraled beyond anyone’s control.
The crushing momentum of great forces in the world was not something a few young disciples, skilled only in chanting scriptures and practicing swordsmanship, could afford to provoke.
Today, he had to extricate these arrogant youths of the temple—untouched by the world’s dangers—from this murky trouble they had no business wading into.
“Laywoman Xu, I will grant you the dignity you seek.”
Standing behind the old window frame, the White-haired Daoist announced loudly to Xu Qinghuan’s retreating back.
His voice pierced the suffocating tension in the courtyard, carrying with it a note of finality.
He was using his own worn-out flesh as a bargaining chip, to secure Qingfeng Temple’s immunity from the impending chaos between north and south.
It was a profoundly unequal trade, and his sole concession to this virtual executioner.
As his words fell, the Daoist raised both hands and set them flat against his chest.
His withered ten fingers wove and interweaved in an exceptionally complex and bizarre sequence, eventually forming a seal as tight as a dead knot.
The moment their joints twisted and locked, the very air itself seemed to take on an indescribably heavy weight.
Qingyu, the young apprentice who had been cowering silently in the corner beneath the desk, saw clearly—through the dim light from the window—the shape of that hand seal.
“Master! No!”
Tears burst from Qingyu’s eyes, a wailing cry of grief tearing from his throat.
He tumbled out of the shaded corner, tripping over his overly large Daoist robe but paying it no heed. He threw himself recklessly toward the White-haired Daoist at the window.
He had once seen an illustration of this seal in the annotations of a damaged ancient scroll. According to it, past temple masters only used the Guiyuan Seal when facing a life-death tribulation that threatened the temple’s very survival, a move exchanged with their own lives.
In the moment the Guiyuan Seal fully formed—
The incense ash left in the bronze Boshan censer inside the hall was suddenly stirred into motion by an invisible vortex of energy, scattering and floating through the air like falling snow.
The life force within the White-haired Daoist, long withered and approaching its end, began to surge backwards with violent intensity, blowing his graying hair and beard standing on end.
His face, flushed with an unnatural ruddiness, was turned toward the window.
Xu Qinghuan stood at the foot of the blue stone steps, her back still straight as a pine.
Her calm, serene eyes showed not a ripple.
At last, she turned around unhurriedly, facing the old man from three yards away, separated by the high wooden threshold. She silently watched the elder burning up the last of his vitality.
There was no emotion on her face, not a trace of pity or dismay.
She observed the sacrifice being made for her like a bystander, with absolute, detached rationality.
With his last words laid out fully and no more hanging threads, the White-haired Daoist closed his eyes. He pressed the intricately formed, locked seals directly against his own heart with brutal force.
“Crack.”
The dull sound of bones shattering rang out with stark clarity in the otherwise silent hall, overwhelming even the drip of rainwater falling from the eaves outside.
Enduring this final blow, the violently reversed life force within the Daoist’s body was severed completely. All traces of vitality were drained in an instant.
He did not fall backward.
He kept that last breath of air stubbornly lodged in his throat, remaining frozen in his posture of hands pressed to his heart, like a wooden statue drained of moisture, standing rigidly before the half-open window.
By the most tragic means, he preserved the last shred of dignity for Qingfeng Temple and drew a profoundly desolate conclusion to his lifelong pursuit of the Dao.
Qingyu, racked with pain, scrambled up from the ground and collapsed at the old man’s feet, clutching tightly to his already cooling legs. He buried his face in the ragged Daoist robe and wailed loudly.
The reception Daoist in the courtyard let his sword fall with a clatter into the murky puddle.
The Daoist, who usually valued rules above all else, collapsed weakly, dropping heavily to his knees in the muddy water.
All around him, the young sword-wielding Daoists fell to their knees in unison, splashing up great arcs of mud.
They faced the rear hall and pressed their foreheads hard against the ground, kneeling for a long time, unwilling to rise.
Crying mixed with the wind echoed endlessly through the rear mountains of Qingfeng Temple.
Xu Qinghuan stood in the cool breeze after the rain.
The edges of her plain-colored cloak fluttered softly in the wind, stained by a few specks of mud.
In this transaction, she had obtained everything she wanted.
"Let's go."
Xu Qinghuan uttered these two words flatly, withdrawing her gaze.
She turned sharply and strode toward the temple gate, never once looking back at the sorrow-filled temple courtyard.
Li Sheng sheathed his blade and followed closely.
Daoists filled the entire courtyard, remaining on their knees—no one dared to stop her, and no one could.
……
