Chapter 46: A Single Sword to Slay Evil, Questioning the Heart with the Blade

The courtyard was not large. Shen Dao retreated to the doorway to avoid being accidentally caught in the crossfire.

Yu Peng took a step back and slowly drew his sword.

"I was born into a humble family, and in my early childhood, my parents offended the powerful and died young."

"In my youth, I drifted from place to place, experiencing all the warmth and coldness of the human world."

"Later, by a stroke of luck, I was accepted into the Mohist school. Cultivating until this day, I have comprehended a divine ability."

"Its name is: A Single Sword to Slay Evil."

"Using my decades of meritorious deeds of doing good as a baseline, I question my heart with the sword."

"All the evil acts committed in the past will return to backlash and consume the doer."

"I wonder if Master Lu has ever committed any evil deeds in this lifetime?"

Yu Peng raised his sword slightly, pointing it straight at Lu Ge.

Lu Ge thought for a moment. Evil deeds?

Things like ravishing, plundering, and pillaging—he certainly never dared to do those.

At most, he had just killed quite a few people.

Yet either he was acting in self-defense, or those people were all cunning and vicious scoundrels.

Aside from that, after turning it over and over in his mind, Lu Ge felt that the greatest evil he had ever committed was probably stealing fifty cents from home when he was a little child to buy spicy gluten strips.

"What I have done, I dare not claim to be entirely righteous, but it certainly weighs on no conscience of mine."

Lu Ge stood up, his wide sleeves billowing.

"Draw your sword and try it, let us see if you can slay me."

Yu Peng said no more. With an utterly ordinary motion, he swung the long sword in his hand.

Lu Ge only felt a blur before his eyes, as if heaven and earth had shifted.

What he saw before him was no longer the backyard of the Impartiality Building, but a mountain path.

Standing ahead of him was not Yu Peng, but hundreds of bandits.

"You took our lives, and today is the day you must pay with your own."

The bandits roared in hatred, raising their blades in unison and charging forward.

Lu Ge neither dodged nor avoided them, speaking only in a calm tone.

"You lot murder and plunder, you deserved execution in the first place."

"I am acting on behalf of Heaven, what error is there in that?"

As his voice fell, the world before him shattered like colored glaze and instantly collapsed.

Replacing it was a Confucian scholar.

"Taoist scoundrel, I merely asked you to apologize to Xunzi, yet you stripped away my lifespan and took my life."

"Today, tit for tat is only fair."

The scholar angrily pointed at Lu Ge.

Lu Ge furrowed his brow slightly and said, "You sought to ruin my reputation, and the reputation of the Taoist school."

"I consumed a portion of your lifespan merely as punishment."

"Yet who could have expected that, for all your youthful appearance, you had less than twenty-five years of lifespan remaining."

"Old as Xunzi is, he can still live longer than you."

"Your own life was short, do not blame me for it."

Saying this, Lu Ge pondered briefly.

"However, you indeed harbored no intent to kill me, yet you did indeed die by my hand."

"Very well, I shall accept this karmic backlash."

"I will simply let twenty-five years of my lifespan be consumed."

The Confucian scholar instantly transformed into a streak of black light, plunging straight into the center of Lu Ge's brows and leaping into his sea of consciousness.

Within the sea of consciousness, the Dao talisman of the longevity divine ability spun slightly.

The twenty-five years of lifespan could be deducted.

Yet it seemed not to have been deducted at all.

What a joke, the thing I lack least is lifespan.

Deduct all you like; if you manage to exhaust it all, then you have earned it.

The world shattered once more, and figures emerged anew.

This time it was King Zhao, Lord Pingyuan, and those hundreds of imperial guards.

"Rebellious scoundrel, how dare you commit regicide?"

Lu Ge could not even be bothered to entertain this fellow.

"You sought to kill me, I killed you—that is the way of Heaven and Earth."

"Withdraw at once."

With a sweep of Lu Ge's wide sleeves, the world collapsed.

Appearing this time was the Grand Music Master Ji Ge.

Lu Ge was growing impatient.

"I have already said, everything I have done asks no quarter of my conscience."

"Is this the extent of your tricks?"

"Aside from that Confucian scholar, the rest are mere floating clouds."

Lu Ge lifted his right foot and brought it down heavily in a forward step.

In an instant, the universe spun. Lu Ge forcibly shattered Yu Peng's Heart-Questioning Sword Domain and returned to reality.

Yu Peng stared blankly at Lu Ge, remaining speechless for a long time.

To say his divine ability was weak would be inaccurate.

If his opponent was truly an evil person, it was an immensely powerful killing ability.

Its core principle was tit for tat.

It carried quite a lingering flavor of the Dao of karma.

Yet if his opponent had committed no evil, this ability became as useless as a chicken rib.

"Everything Master Lu has done is clear and untainted."

"I have lost."

Yu Peng's long sword clattered to the ground.

"Do it."

With that, he closed his eyes and awaited death.

Lu Ge sighed softly, slowly raising his hand to press a fingertip against the center of Yu Peng's brows.

"You are a good man."

"It is a pity, however, that we do not walk the same path."

"Truthfully, I do not wish to kill you."

"Yet our stances are opposed. When the states of Qin and Chu go to war in days to come, we will inevitably face each other again."

"And at that time, you will still die."

"Whether you die sooner or later makes no difference."

Lu Ge withdrew his hand and walked toward the main hall of the Impartiality Building, with Shen Dao hurriedly following behind.

In the courtyard, only Yu Peng remained, his eyes lifeless and his aura fading as he stood frozen in place.

Upon returning to the main hall of the Impartiality Building, Lu Ge was met with the gazes of several dozen people.

"Master Lu..."

The old man hurriedly stood up and cupped his fists.

Lu Ge waved a hand and said, "Send someone to make funeral arrangements for Master Yu."

"My grievances with him were personal, and I will not implicate the Impartiality Building."

"Of course, if you wish to avenge him, I am ready to receive you."

"You need only consider this well: those who dare seek me out will either see me dead, or themselves dead."

With a sorrowful expression on his face, the old man silently nodded.

Lu Ge walked over to where the wandering knight was.

The knight had already put down his writing brush, appearing to have waited for Lu Ge for quite some time.

"Finished writing?"

The knight nodded, picked up the bamboo slips from the table, and handed them to Lu Ge.

Lu Ge glanced down at the bamboo slips; they contained no more than a few hundred characters.

Yet a cursory reading revealed profound mysteries within.

"This is merely a foundational method for breathing and gathering qi."

"If one cultivates according to this, throughout an entire lifetime one can accumulate at most ninety-nine strands of primordial qi."

"To progress further in cultivation requires higher-grade methods."

"If your cultivation becomes stuck at the final bottleneck, do not blame me for failing to make this clear beforehand."

The knight felt it best to state it clearly.

Lest Lu Ge fall into a bottleneck in the future and come looking for him, claiming he had been given a fake.

What would become of his reputation then?

Rolling up the bamboo slips, Lu Ge smiled and said, "I do not intend to cultivate this specific method. I merely wish to examine it, extract its essence, and use it to supplement my own Great Dao."

"Now that all grievances between us are settled and our karma resolved."

"I take my leave."

Yu Peng was dead, and the qi-refining method had been acquired.

Having no intention of lingering, Lu Ge prepared to bid farewell and depart.

A trace of hesitation flickered across the knight's face, but he spoke anyway: "If you seek advanced methods in the future, you might search for the alchemists."

"Among them, there may truly be genuine qi-refining masters."

"After all, my master was once an alchemist."

Lu Ge cupped his fists with a smile and said, "Thank you for the information."

With that, he turned and departed alongside Shen Dao.

The next day.

The carriage rolled out of the post station, left Yingdu behind, and proceeded straight ahead.

Huddled inside the carriage compartment, Lu Ge cradled the qi-refining manual, studying it intently.

Though it consisted of only a few hundred characters, it clearly outlined the various fundamentals of entering the path of qi-refining.

The Dao of the primordial qi of Heaven and Earth had already begun to reveal a glimpse of its surface.

"A mere introductory mental technique alone is still insufficient for me to comprehend the Great Dao of primordial qi."

Lu Ge put down the bamboo slips and raised his eyes to look outside the carriage window.

"I must still seek out subsequent methods."

"Alchemists, you say?"

The very first person Lu Ge thought of was Xu Fu.

This figure was far too famous.

Unfortunately, at the present time, Xu Fu probably had not even been born yet.

"Very well, I shall leave it to fate."

"One day, I shall surely perceive the full panorama of the qi-refining methods."