Because she needed to reduce her fatigue level, Wu Zhen fell asleep shortly after returning to the inn.
Logically speaking, people are highly prone to letting their guard down when nearing their destination. Following the failure of the previous assassinations, the assassins sent by the Ten Ultimates Pavilion should have been getting stronger and stronger.
However, the night passed peacefully without the anticipated assassins showing up.
Wu Zhen even felt it was a bit of a pity.
"Is my life no longer worth anything?"
The player pondered as she bumped into Deng Caiying in the corridor.
Deng Caiying almost choked upon hearing this and said helplessly, "Probably not. Besides their own assassins, when a target is tricky and the losses are high, the Ten Ultimates Pavilion will also outsource the contract, allowing other martial artists in the pugilistic world to take the bounty. Since you've taken down so many of their men, young hero, you should already be classified as this type of target."
"Moreover, there are many eccentric and skilled individuals in Shu, and no shortage of people willing to take risks for wealth. Yet, there's been no movement since we entered Shu. It's more likely that the Ten Ultimates Pavilion has temporarily shelved this contract."
Wu Zhen tilted her head slightly. "Shelved?"
She smiled. "Do they not want my life anymore?"
Deng Caiying replied, "Based on my understanding of them, it's possible they found it too unprofitable and decided to drop it, but this situation rarely occurs. It's more likely a request from the employer."
"Oh."
Wu Zhen fell silent for two seconds before suddenly asking, "The employer is in Shu?"
She looked up, her dark eyes staring straight at him, devoid of any emotion.
Deng Caiying was slightly taken aback.
It wasn't just because of Wu Zhen's words, but rather her expression and demeanor. Traveling together these past few days, he had somewhat forgotten just what kind of character the person standing before him truly was.
"It's highly possible," he thought for a moment and analyzed. "Feixing Villa takes the old master's eightieth birthday very seriously, opening its doors to welcome guests fifteen days in advance. Renowned figures from various sects and factions in the martial world will attend to offer their congratulations. It can be said to be a rare grand event in the pugilistic world. Perhaps the person behind the scenes doesn't want to go too far at this critical juncture."
"How much further to Feixing Villa?" Wu Zhen asked again.
Deng Caiying smiled and replied, "Only a day's journey left."
After so many days of long-distance trekking, even he was finding it a bit hard to endure.
Wu Zhen nodded. "Let's set off then."
Saying that, she walked towards the door.
Deng Caiying asked in confusion, "What about Young Master Jiang?"
Wu Zhen said, "He went out last night. He has his own business to attend to."
When they were at her ancestral home, Jiang Zhenxue would also go out from time to time, but in the past, he would always leave silently. This time, he had specifically informed her.
Seeing Wu Zhen say this, Deng Caiying nodded and didn't press further.
He quickly packed his belongings, grabbed the birthday gift, and hit the road once again.
Factions of Feixing Villa's scale were generally situated on mountains, and usually ones with unusual terrain. If it was a stranger who had never been there and had no one to guide them, they would easily get lost.
As Deng Caiying led the way, he shared some information about Feixing Villa with Wu Zhen, but she wasn't really listening.
Her attention was completely captivated by the deep mountains and ancient forests, and a very simple wish formed in her mind.
She also wanted to build a Wu family mansion in the mountains.
And it had to be in an even more treacherous, steeper, and more inaccessible secluded deep mountain where people couldn't casually trespass.
"Up ahead is the path leading to Feixing Villa." Deng Caiying pushed aside some branches to reveal iron chains secured to posts on the cliff. The chains connected to the opposite cliff face, with a bottomless abyss below. The chains were not pulled taut, and when the wind blew through the gorge, they would sway with it, looking incredibly terrifying.
Deng Caiying explained, "Feixing Villa's lightness skill is unparalleled in the world, so they use various iron chains to connect the peaks. This path into the mountain is the most perilous. Right now, it's not yet time for the villa to open its doors to guests, so the bridge hasn't been lowered..."
Before he could finish speaking.
The black-haired young woman had already leaped onto the iron chain. Her clothes fluttered as the tips of her toes lightly tapped the chain twice, and she glided across with swift and weightless grace. When she landed nimbly on her feet, her pitch-black hair, whipped up by the wind, had not even begun to settle.
The iron chain spanning the cliff hadn't swayed the slightest bit, as if what had just flown across wasn't a living person, but a weightless fallen leaf.
Deng Caiying completely forgot what he was about to say. His spirits lifted, and he blurted out, "Excellent lightness skill!"
Spurred by the moment, he also channeled his lightness skill to cross the chain. This wasn't difficult for him either, but after witnessing Wu Zhen's lightness skill, for the first time, he felt dissatisfied with his own mastery of the technique.
Meanwhile, Wu Zhen had already continued walking forward.
She was in a good mood and switched the map to 2D. The subsequent chains didn't even require the use of lightness skills, because the 2D map only had that single path. After passing through two more stitched maps, NPC figures began to appear. Deng Caiying negotiated with them while she continued onward.
Those little figures seemed to want to stop her, but obviously failed. Deng Caiying said something else, and they glanced at her, then glanced at her again, before finally silently averting their gazes and letting her pass.
Deng Caiying caught up with her and told her the location of the forging master.
Clearly, he didn't expect her to visit the master of the villa first either.
Between martial world etiquette and his benefactor, Deng Caiying still decided to choose his benefactor.
Upon receiving the location, the corresponding coordinates immediately appeared on Wu Zhen's map.
Relying on her excellent lightness skill, she didn't even use the navigation. She simply started moving in a straight line towards that direction, leaping and bounding between the cliff faces. The changing expressions on the little 2D map avatar of Deng Caiying's face were quite a spectacular sight.
At first, he tried to keep up with her, but later accepted the reality that her route couldn't be replicated, and obediently took another path.
Soon, Wu Zhen arrived at the location marked on the map.
This was a rare flat terrace with beautiful scenery, where one could see the clouds on the horizon without even looking up. Near the mountain face were a few small stone-built cabins. On a stone table under a tree outside, there was a tea set, making it obvious at a glance that someone was living here.
As Wu Zhen curiously observed the map environment, a gray-haired old woman pushed open the door and walked out of the house leaning on a walking stick. She looked up and saw Wu Zhen, who had just come to a stop at the edge of the cliff.
The old woman's movements paused. "...?"
She glanced at the sheer cliffs behind Wu Zhen, which logically no one could traverse, then looked at the bridge on the proper path that hadn't been lowered at all, and the guards who were still dutifully standing at their posts completely oblivious to what had happened. When she turned her head back, her aged eyes were filled with the disbelief of having seen a ghost.
She wasn't afraid that Wu Zhen had any malicious intent either. Leaning on her walking stick, she clattered her way over to her, thoroughly felt the player's bones, and immediately widened her eyes, becoming visibly excited. "Good girl! Good bones!"
"This is absolutely the material for blacksmithing, ahem, forging! Little girl, you... huh, are you Wu Zhen, that Wu lass the Deng kid mentioned?"
She leaned back slightly, narrowed her eyes, and looked Wu Zhen up and down, as if trying to recognize something.
Wu Zhen blinked. "That should be me."
"Oh—" The old lady's face instantly broke into a beaming smile. "You are here to learn forging from me, right? Come, come, good child, let's go inside and chat."
Thus, when Deng Caiying finally arrived, knocked on the door, and was granted permission to enter, what he saw was the master weapon forger, Granny Ran, wearing a smile and looking as benevolent as could be.
He could not help but stop in his tracks and look back to confirm he had not come to the wrong place.
...Wait, was this really the eccentric Granny Ran he knew, the one who always loved to wear a scowl on her face?
Was she really not someone in disguise?
While Deng Caiying was still doubting his reality, Granny Ran had already beckoned him over. Although her expression visibly cooled down, there was still a hint of affection by association. "You brought a good seedling over, and this old woman is very pleased."
She was already in her sixties or seventies. Anyone else at this age would have long since found someone to pass down their craft to, but she had never been able to pick a suitable apprentice. A few old friends had recommended candidates to her, but either their build and strength were not to her liking, or they were just boys who always looked grubby.
Thinking of this, Granny Ran could not help but look again at the black-haired young woman who was casually picking up and inspecting the weapons she had forged. The more she looked, the more she liked her.
At first glance, one could tell she was a good girl who could quietly focus on forging.
"Xiao Wu, if you see anything you like, just take it," she said serenely. "Your old granny here still has quite a few, so just take them to play with, alright?"
After saying that, she shot Deng Caiying a look to shoo him away.
Deng Caiying: "..."
He wiped his face and left the small house with a weary expression, heading off to visit the master of the Flying Star Villa.
Wu Zhen naturally noticed Deng Caiying coming and going, but she did not care in the slightest. She did not even look up, her attention entirely focused on the weapons displayed in the room. These were obviously practice pieces, yet their extraordinary quality was already apparent. If they were meticulously forged and combined with good materials, they would not necessarily be inferior to the Three Yin Blade.
She thought for a moment, selected a pile of materials and ores from her inventory, held them in her arms, and dumped them onto the table with a clatter.
As the materials piled up into a small mountain,
Granny Ran also seemed to freeze in shock.
Wu Zhen asked, "Can these materials be used?"
Seeing Granny Ran still staring wide-eyed at the pile of materials, looking as if her soul had left her body, she kindly helped right the teapot that the old lady had been tilting so much that the tea was about to overflow from the cup.
This action seemed to bring back the old lady's senses. Her gaze shifted away from the materials, and she looked at Wu Zhen, hesitating to speak several times before finally choosing to swallow her words.
"You," the old lady said, touching her gray hair. She felt she had not had such a hard time figuring things out in decades, and she struggled to find the right words. "In the future, when you are in front of others, do not easily conjure... take out so many things."
The player nodded obediently.
As for whether she would actually do it, that was another matter entirely.
Wu Zhen had a foundation in forging, and her level was not low either. The only thing she lacked was experience in forging divine weapons. Therefore, Granny Ran let her get hands-on that very day, beginning to impart some of her exclusive techniques.
With her forging skill at max level, Wu Zhen quickly mastered and integrated everything. Granny Ran said the word "good" more times that day than she probably had in her entire life.
Late into the night, the elderly lady could not stay awake any longer. After having someone prepare Wu Zhen's room, she went to rest first. The next day, when she took a look at the situation in the forging room, she was instantly surprised. "You stayed in here all night?"
Moreover, she still looked radiant and full of energy, showing no signs of fatigue. Even her terrifying physical strength had not diminished in the slightest.
...Seriously, was this some forging deity descended to the mortal realm?
For the first time since she entered the trade, Granny Ran, who had always believed her talent was unmatched by anyone, felt her confidence waver.
