Thousand Dusts Ferry Me - Chapter 73

Cheng Suiyan woke up before Fu Xue and pushed Fu Xue awake after he awakened.

A massive cultivation force descended from the sky. This time even Yun Qing sensed it, and their reactions were quick enough—they directly smashed through the dilapidated roof and jumped out.

At that moment, a huge transparent palm print fell from the sky, faintly refracting light in the white snowy night.

The five people and one cat scattered to avoid the palm print. The palm print ultimately crashed onto the ruined temple, reducing the lonely temple to rubble.

Ci Li had already transformed into his young man form while in mid-air.

Hanlu Zi landed and stood firm, with the Xuan sword returning to her hand. She roared angrily, “Xingge Zi, you old thief, are you also going to aid the tyrant? I should have killed you all back then!”

In the wind and snow, a purple-robed man with a thick beard sneered coldly: “Martial Aunt, what grand words you speak. If the sect master hadn’t shown mercy to fellow disciples back then and spared your life, how would you have the chance to speak such wild words today!”

This man appeared much older than Jiang Binghe, but was actually Jiang Binghe’s junior martial brother. This couldn’t be helped—he had achieved enlightenment much later than Jiang Binghe, so naturally he looked older.

Yun Qing looked around and saw that besides Xingge Zi and Jiang Binghe, there was another man with a broad face, square lips, and full forehead, also wearing purple robes. The three wore outer robes of the same purple color, but with different embroidered patterns.

Judging by his age and clothing, this person should also be an elder.

Hanlu Zi’s words confirmed her guess. “Mingxuan Zi, you dog-like creature, you also have the face to come?”

Yun Qing’s eyebrow twitched, thinking this senior was quite skilled at cursing. If there was a chance in the future, she could exchange cursing techniques with Ci Li.

Around them, Li Xiuzhu, Yu Beiting, and Xie Junze each led their disciples to surround them.

Since this involved sect secrets, Jiang Binghe had only brought disciples who were his most trusted confidants this time, not too many. Besides the elders and the three main disciples, the remaining ordinary disciples numbered about fifty or sixty.

At this moment, Yun Qing and the others had been scattered by Xingge Zi’s palm strike from above, temporarily unable to use their “A Neat Family” formation.

This was exactly Jiang Binghe’s intention—he wanted to prevent them from escaping collectively.

When Li Xiuzhu and Xie Junze saw Yun Qing, they ignored everyone else and led seven or eight disciples straight toward Yun Qing.

Yun Qing couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow, thinking that Jiang Binghe seemed to think quite highly of her, actually sending two personal disciples specifically to deal with her.

Yu Beiting now carried a gleaming silver sword named “San Qi.”

This was also why Li Xiuzhu and Xie Junze found him unpleasant—whatever good weapons their master had, he gave to Yu Beiting. How could a traitorous disciple who betrayed his master deserve such treatment?

They never considered that Jiang Binghe hadn’t given Yu Beiting a single magic treasure in all these years.

Now Yu Beiting wielded the San Qi sword as he attacked Hanlu Zi, who sneered coldly, “Good beast, seeking your own death!”

Xingge Zi led people against Jiang Baiyu, Mingxuan Zi brought people against Ci Li, while Fu Xue and Cheng Suiyan were entangled by several ordinary disciples.

Fu Xue couldn’t help saying to Cheng Suiyan,”They’re looking down on us.”

Cheng Suiyan replied, “Don’t say it out loud!”

Jiang Binghe observed the scene and, confirming that Yun Qing was tied up and temporarily unable to rally everyone to escape, didn’t rush to act.

He took out the red lacquered plate from earlier that day.

Jiang Binghe channeled his cultivation, and the black and white glass beads in the lacquered plate rolled around, finally stopping on certain trigrams.

This magic treasure’s purpose was simple—to detect active formations in the surrounding area. For simple formations, it could directly locate the formation core, but for complex formations, one still needed to solve them personally.

Now, Jiang Binghe shook the lacquered plate several times and determined there were at least three formations around them.

However, none of the formations had detectable cores.

He was puzzled—this demoness’s accomplishment in formation arts was so high!

He didn’t know that the formations in Emperor Xi’s Wordless Book had a kind of simple elegance, and many formations had no cores at all.

They emphasized following the natural way and utilizing the inherent power of all things, therefore focusing on the selection and arrangement of materials. This was completely different from the current popular formation methods that emphasized technique over principles and calculation over structure.

Yun Qing had only learned two or three tenths of the formations from Emperor Xi’s Wordless Book, but now when she looked at other formations, she often felt like an adult watching children play.

Now, unable to find formation cores, Jiang Binghe simply relied on his high cultivation to forcibly break through.

Yun Qing was already fighting against multiple opponents, and now with Jiang Binghe breaking her formations, she inevitably suffered backlash.

She gritted her teeth and held her breath, wielding her refined steel sword in an impenetrable defense while cursing Jiang Binghe, “Old fool, so frightened! Cowardly as a mouse, no wonder Huayang Zi looked down on you. If I were him, I’d also choose Tuishan Zi.”

Hanlu Zi, fighting fiercely, even found time to agree, “Well cursed!”

These words struck Jiang Binghe’s sorest point—he hated most being told he was inferior to Yu Wanzhi. His facial muscles twitched slightly in anger, and he sneered coldly, raising his hand heavily.

The snow fell heavier, like flying cotton fluff, but the wind suddenly diminished.

This wasn’t right.

Yun Qing glanced around quickly between sword moves. The snow near them fell straight down, while snow in the distance flew slanted, indicating there was wind in the distance. They must be surrounded by something.

As for what, it was obviously a qi wall.

This old fool apparently wanted to repay Jiang Baiyu with a qi wall, to wash away the humiliation suffered in the Battle of Linglong City.

Yun Qing said, “There’s actually a qi wall, Ci Lili, they’re looking down on you!”

“Shut up!” Ci Li naturally also noticed something wrong—cats were always more sensitive to their environment than humans.

Unfortunately, the “dog-like creature” Elder Mingxuan Zi he faced was quite skilled and had many disciples assisting him, so he needed to find the right moment to use his magical treasure.

Finally, Ci Li found an opening and brought out his Dissolving Water Gathering Wind treasure. The young man gently blew on the dandelion and softly chanted the incantation:

“Like flowers yet not flowers, Like snow yet not snow. Blue sky holds white umbrella, Sending you to the ends of earth. Water rise!”

The tiny white fluffy flowers blew into the snowflakes, becoming even harder to detect. Soon, changes occurred in many places along the qi wall—the qi transformed into water, then this invisible water scattered and flowed away. The qi wall broke open with gaps like melting ice blocks.

Snowflakes were once again swept up by the wind.

This was somewhat unexpected for Jiang Binghe. He only knew this mysterious dandelion could gather wind, but hadn’t realized it could also transform water—this was a rare dual-purpose magic treasure.

Seeing the qi wall was useless, Jiang Binghe raised his hand again. “Form array.”

All ordinary disciples coordinated perfectly, abandoning the chaotic battle and surrounding them to begin forming an array.

This array was called the Nine-Nine Chongyang Sword Array, created by Huayang Zi Wen Zhongming. Its greatest feature was flexible participation—at least nine people, at most eighty-one people, as long as the number was a multiple of nine, the array could be formed.

Naturally, different multiples had different effects.

This array was quite powerful. With fifty-four disciples forming it now, though not reaching the maximum power of eighty-one people, Jiang Binghe believed once this array was formed, it would be enough to trap them for some time.

Who knew that when Hanlu Zi saw their array formation method, she suddenly sneered: “Forming the Chongyang Sword Array in front of me? You probably don’t know that Senior Brother created this sword array with my guidance!”

Xingge Zi mocked. “Martial Aunt, you’re truly senile, daring to boast about anything!”

Hanlu Zi chuckled, immediately spotting the disciple serving as the array core, and her Xuan sword left her hand, piercing through wind and snow to decapitate him with one strike!

The Xuan sword came too fast with too fierce sword intent. That disciple had no time to defend, his head directly severed and flying away. His empty neck spurted great gouts of blood, staining the flying snow red.

With the array core dead, the sword array broke.

The Xuan sword struck once and quickly returned to Hanlu Zi’s hand, just in time to parry Yu Beiting’s incoming sword, the timing neither early nor late, just perfect.

Hanlu Zi said, “My senior brother taking you bunch of pigs and dogs as disciples was truly the greatest mistake of his life!”

Jiang Binghe’s eyes were full of killing intent, and he raised his hand again, “Form array.”

This time the formation only needed twenty-five disciples, while the rest continued the chaotic battle.

These twenty-five disciples formed a plum blossom array, raising their sword fingers with closed eyes while chanting incantations.

Jiang Binghe stood with one hand behind his back, one hand on his sword, calmly standing in the wind and snow, calling out loudly, “Martial Aunt, how is this array? Do you need to offer some guidance?”

Hanlu Zi spat. “You want my guidance? As if you’re worthy!”

Cheng Suiyan brought out his Zhaoming Painted Bone Fan and quietly chanted the incantation:

“Brows like distant mist, eyes holding frost, Graceful jade steps shine in flowing light. If only—”

But he couldn’t speak the third line no matter what.

Fu Xue turned to see him holding a fan with wide eyes, dragging the Beihai sword in his other hand, awkwardly dodging sword light. She was confused and wanted to ask, but when she opened her mouth, she found she couldn’t speak.

“Mmm mmm mmm.” Fu Xue exaggeratedly patted her mouth, alerting the others.

So Jiang Binghe had set up a silencing array? Yun Qing thought, apparently to prevent them from using magic treasures.

At this moment, Jiang Binghe stood outside the array, watching as they couldn’t speak one by one. He smiled slightly. “The game has just begun.”

Between heaven and earth was a cold silence, with only wind sounds, snow sounds, and sword sounds remaining.

Before them was golden light, silver light, and bloody light.

Jiang Baiyu not only had to deal with his immediate opponents but also had to observe the entire battlefield with divided attention, occasionally using talismans for support.

The one to guard against most was Mingxuan Zi. This elder had remained silent since appearing, not saying a word even when cursed by Hanlu Zi, appearing like an honest person but actually quite sinister.

While fighting Ci Li, he secretly used talismans to ambush others several times, fortunately all discovered by Jiang Baiyu, who countered with his own talismans.

The snow fell heavier, almost in chunks. The dense snow chunks seemed to lay a thick white fog between heaven and earth, and within this white fog, a moon rose.

The Jade River Sky-Shaking Mirror stopped in mid-air, spinning rapidly. Its powerful pressure stirred the surrounding snowflakes, forming a spherical lantern in the air.

Yun Qing quickly flicked her refined steel sword twice, the sharp ringing echoing in the howling wind and snow.

This was their signal, and this signal had only one meaning: Run!