The rain came down heavier and heavier.
Everything in the world looked blurry through the rain. Raindrops hit the ground and shattered into pieces, releasing moisture into the air, covering the world like a rising mist curtain.
Outside Beiluo City.
Rain pattered heavily on the coaches.
But it was very quiet inside.
Mo Beike’s coach and Imperial Advisor Kong Xiu’s coach were far apart and opposite each other. They could see each other, but they did not greet one another.
Water splashed as a black ox walked by. Holding an umbrella on the ox, Li Sansi was making his way over with a wooden sword at his waist.
A coach drove by him. Water splattered.
Li Sansi took a glimpse at that coach.
He knew the coachman very well.
“Old Ten,” Li Sansi called.
His voice was drowned out by the rain. However, Nie Changqing heard him. He looked and nodded at Li Sansi.
He knew what Li Sansi had come for.
It was beyond his anticipation that Xie Yunling had called the Sword Saint, Hua Dongliu, from Sword Sect and the philosopher, Gongshu Yu, from Jiguan School to come with him to Beiluo.
Nie Changqing remembered Xie Yunling had asked him about Young Master’s strength.
Nie Changqing had told him Lu Fan was very strong. Actually, he was so strong that he was not afraid of antagonizing the whole world.
However, Xie Yunling had eventually come here.
Were the philosophers of the hundred schools going to be stubborn until the last minute?
Nie Changqing let out a quiet sigh.
He slowed down the coach, advancing toward the city slowly with Li Sansi’s black ox.
Li Sansi looked at the coach as if he saw through the silent woman sitting in the coach at one glance.
Nie Changqing did not speak. Neither did Li Sansi.
One riding the ox, the other driving the coach. They came to the city gate of Beiluo in the rain.
They caught sight of Mo Beike’s coach and the Confucian Imperial Advisor’s coach.
Li Sansi smiled. The Mohist giant and the Confucian Imperial Advisor were both here.
Together with Lv Dongxuan from Tianji School, who was already in Beiluo City, the philosophers of the hundred schools were almost all here.
Mo Ju saw Li Sansi and Nie Changqing.
So did Mo Tianyu.
They did not speak.
Li Sansi smiled. His voice was lingering in the rain.
“Old Ten, you intruded the Daoist School alone. I wasn’t there that day.”
“As the principal disciple and the number one of the Daoist School, I, Li Sansi, wasn’t there that day. It was my fault. Now that we meet today, let’s settle the grudges between you and the Daoist School,” Li Sansi said.
On the coach, Nie Changqing was slightly struck dumb.
He threw Li Sansi a confused and surprised look.
“You are a different person now,” Nie Changqing said.
“You desire to become strong…”
Nie Changqing was leaning against the frame of the coach. His plain voice lingered in the air. Just like Li Sansi, it was also drowned out by the roaring of the rain.
If it was in the past, Li Sansi would have been happy that he did not have to fight.
Mo Ju and Mo Tianyu did not speak. There was actually no place for them to butt in.
“Yeah? After going through some trials, I think becoming strong is necessary. If I’m not strong enough, I won’t be qualified to protect others. It is a cruel world.”
Li Sansi was holding an umbrella. Streams of rain kept dripping from the open umbrella’s rim.
“Come on. If you can’t defeat me, I’ll take Sister Ru back,” Li Sansi said with a smile.
Of course, he was just joking. He knew Nie Changqing’s weakness well. He knew how to goad the latter into a fight.
Nie Changqing stayed calm. He curled his unshaven lip slightly.
“You were number one and I was number ten. I wasn’t even qualified to point my knife at you.”
“It was a pity for me that I didn’t see you at the Daoist School. Now I have the chance to make up for it, you don’t have to use Ru’er to irritate me,” Nie Changqing said.
As he spoke, the butcher knife on the coach began to shake.
In the next second, it let out a black radiance and flew out.
Boom!
With Nie Changqing at the center, Spirit Qi fluctuated and spread out. It pushed the rain aside and created a hole in the air.
“Huh, you are beyond Qi Core?”
Li Sansi smiled quietly.
The next second, the energy emanating from him shook the rain away.
The umbrella closed and was placed on the black ox’s back. Li Sansi looked very solemn. He unsheathed the wooden sword he had been carrying at his waist slowly and used it to tap on the ox’s head gently.
“What a coincidence… Me too.”
Bang!
When that had been said, the rain before Li Sansi turned into sharp arrows. They shot forward at Nie Changqing sitting atop the coach.
The raindrops disappeared before Nie Changqing as he leaned over.
The rain exploded before both of them. It was as if tens of thousands of small ice beads were sprinkled on a solid ice surface and kept jumping against it.
The powerful Spirit Pressure made Mo Ju and Mo Tianyu in the distance shiver in terror.
In those two coaches, Mo Beike and Kong Xiu both squinted.
Interesting things were happening both inside and outside the city.
…
The lake’s surface rippled as the rain fell on it.
The boat was still on the lake.
Looking at the island and the white-clothed teenager on the terrace, Xie Yunling squinted involuntarily.
Was that teenager, who looked like a painting, the legendary Lu Ping’an from Beiluo?
That fantastic Young Master Lu?
Xie Yunling’s clothes were soaked with rain. He could not help but clam his fist down on his wide sleeve.
“Old Lv, Tianji School has already joined White Jade City. Are you still going to take part in this battle?” Xie Yunling asked, looking at Lv Dongxuan.
Hua Dongliu and Gongshu Yu also looked back at Lv Dongxuan. Lv Dongxuan, wearing white, seemed eye-catching in this grey world.
That gold necklace around his neck was especially conspicuous.
Lv Dongxuan’s wrinkled facial skin trembled, as if snakes were swimming beneath the surface. He was smiling.
He recalled an image from not long ago.
…
Under the overcast sky, Lv Dongxuan walked upstairs to the second floor of White Jade City’s pavilion. He stood behind Lu Fan who sat in his silver wheelchair.
“Young Master…”
Lv Dongxuan arranged his white clothes and then knelt down.
He was about to speak.
But Lu Fan cut in.
“Go, if that’s what you want. Show me the strength of the philosophers who were once all-powerful in this world.”
Lu Fan’s plain voice came. Lv Dongxuan trembled involuntarily.
“You should cherish these old memories.”
“Instead of the leader of White Jade City’s Tianji Pavilion, today, you shall be Tianji School’s philosopher, Lv Dongxuan.”
Lv Dongxuan was very grateful. His lips trembled. In the end, he kowtowed to Lu Fan seriously.
“Thank you, Young Master.”
…
That image faded out.
Lv Dongxuan came to himself. He looked at Xie Yunling next to him and smiled. He grasped the gold necklace around his neck.
“Count me in.”
Lv Dongxuan’s answer made Xie Yunling and the other two’s eyes narrow.
Then, all three of them burst out laughing. The laughter echoed across the lake, drowning out the sound of the rain.
The fishes in the water were startled.
Bang!
The laughter stopped.
The Sword Saint, Hua Dongliu, acted first.
He was treating this battle very seriously. The sword that had accompanied him for decades was unsheathed.
The silk-like light given off by the sword slit the rain curtain open, cut a hole through it.
The sword chimed, sounding like a dragon chime, and the sound echoed.
The sword spirit inside Hua Dongliu was getting more and more aggressive. It lifted his clothes despite the rain pattering on his body.
He whipped the lake surface with the sword. Water splashed.
Brandishing his sword, Hua Dongliu sprinted across the lake’s surface towards Lake Island.
Xie Yunling also charged. He bent down to stick two fingers in the water. Then he took them out, bending them slightly.
The water roared instantly. Two water pillars soared into the air.
Standing on the boat, Xie Yunling kept drawing in the water. Water pillars kept popping up around him, outlining the pattern of some formation diagram.
Then he gave the outline a hard thrust.
The formation diagram pushed through the water.
Stepping on the formation diagram embedded into the water, Xie Yunling was ejected onto the island.
Seeing Xie Yunling and Hua Dongliu set out, Gongshu Yu was thrilled. Jiguan School’s strength was beastly machines. However, besides beastly machines, Jiguan School was also very skilled in making hidden weapons.
Since beastly machines posed no threat to Lu Fan, Gongshu Yu was going to use his best secret weapon this time.
Bang!
He took the pole of the boat.
He tossed it forward hard. Standing straight and pushing the pole against the lakebed, he approached the shore at high speed.
And his metal-like hands were suddenly tightly closed. The sounds of metal filled the air.
Crack. Crack…
The harsh sound of metal on metal grated while he rubbed his hands.
The water rippled.
Gongshu Yu was extremely focused and meticulous.
Finally, as he rubbed his hands, a metal bud emerged in his hands.
The pretty bud, like the most beautiful poison in the world, caught people’s attention completely.
“The number one secret weapon of Jiguan School, Pear Blossom in the Storm.”
His hoarse voice, echoing over Beiluo Lake, sounded thrilled.
On the boat, Lv Dongxuan was sitting cross-legged. His white clothes were drenched with rain. His white hair stuck to his forehead.
He was smiling. He seemed to be thinking of the past.
He felt as though he was seeing the four of them decades ago as if he was still a young man, green and childish.
Xie Yunling had been just an insignificant Daoist priest with low self-esteem.
And the Sword Saint, Hua Dongliu, was a swordsman who left Zhongnan Sky Mountain for the first time, carrying three sword-cases on his back.
They had fought shoulder to shoulder together, causing great disturbances in the martial arts world and earning themselves a great reputation.
Now, decades had passed.
They were already established philosophers of the Hundred Schools, reunited to fight at the end of the era.
Lv Dongxuan’s pupils constricted. That silly, upstart smile he usually had on his face was gone.
He became earnest and serious.
“Sorry, Young Master,” Lv Dongxuan murmured.
In the next second, he put his hand on the gold necklace.
The gold necklace suddenly fell off his neck. It turned into seven gold tubes.
Qi and blood burst. While his Spirit Qi was surging, the seven gold tubes floated in the air.
“Fight based on my calculations,” Lv Dongxuan shouted.
He thrust the palms of his hands forward. The seven floating gold tubes started to spin and buzz like crazy.
Xie Yunling, Hua Dongliu, and Gongshu Yu were all shocked by Lv Dongxuan.
“Old Xie, thirty degrees from the northeast!” Lv Dongxuan shouted.
“Old Hua, point your sword at the center!”
“Gongshu, thirty-six degrees to the southwest!”
“I’ll resist the Spirit Pressure for you. You guys only have one shot!”
Then, the palms of his hands suddenly turned outwards.
The sound of the seven gold tubes got harsher as they spun.
On Lake Island, Lv Mudui was conflicted. Jing Yue stared at the man stepping on the water’s surface with his lips pressed into a thin line.
Ni Yu, Yi Yue, Bai Qingniao, and the others were all curious, but they were not too thrilled.
Mingyue sat upright on the bluestone, playing the pipa. In the heavy rain, the sound of her pipa sometimes rose and sometimes fell. Like countless large and small beads falling onto a jadeite plate, the sound was silvery and pleasing to the ears.
None of them acted.
Even Ning Zhao, who had already reached the Internal Organs Realm, did not either.
She just held the umbrella for Lu Fan quietly.
On the second floor of White Jade City’s pavilion, Lu Fan leaned against the silver wheelchair and held a black chess piece in his hand.
Gazing down at the three men attacking from three different directions, he was as calm as usual. He placed the chess piece on the chessboard lightly.
Clatter.
The dreadful Spirit Pressure was suddenly gone!
Boom!
It spread out like a storm, Lu Fan’s body at the center of it.
Lu Fan did not release the Spirit Pressure of Refined Qi Level Three. He stuck to the Spirit Pressure of Refined Qi Level Two.
He wanted to see how strong the philosophers really were.
Oh?
Lu Fan suddenly raised his eyebrow.
The Spirit Pressure that spread out with his body being the center had weaknesses too. Average people would not be able to find them, and they would not even have the chance to look for them. But Lv Dongxuan had found them.
The directions Lv Dongxuan had mentioned were exactly where the weaknesses of this Spirit Pressure lay.
Although he could not divert all of the Spirit Pressure away, he could start from a point and crack the whole thing in the end. As long as he could divert away enough Spirit Pressure from those three positions, he would be able to create opportunities for Hua Dongliu, Xie Yunling, and Gongshu Yu!
Xie Yunling and the other two felt their throats getting stroked.
Then, suddenly they felt their bodies liberated.
They knew Lv Dongxuan was resisting the Spirit Pressure for them.
They did not hesitate.
They landed on the island one after another.
The blood in their bodies surged and went wild.
Even young people could not be as resolute or as strong-willed as the three old men.
Bang!
“Young Master Lu, I’m Xie Yunling from the Daoist School. Please!” Xie Yunling shouted in anger.
With rain pattering down on his face, he threw the lake water formation diagram drawn by his two fingers.
As the formation diagram spun, a water snake popped up from it.
The snake lunged at Lu Fan on the second floor of the pavilion.
Gongshu Yu’s hoarse, low and profound voice came next. His voice sounded like it had been rubbed against gravels.
“Young Master Lu, I’m Gongshu Yu from the Jiguan School. Please!”
After the greeting, the metal flower in his metal hand gave a tight spin, as if it was a bamboo copter. Then it flew out with the grating of metal on metal.
Cling-clang. The metal flower seemed to come to life. Its petals opened. One after another silver needles shot directly at Lu Fan. They flew across the sky through the rain in large amounts.
The chime of a sharp sword was next.
The Sword Saint, Hua Dongliu, whipped with his sword. A silver radiance appeared in the air.
One divided into two. Two turned into three. Three turned into five!
Five divided into ten!
One sword turned into ten East Flowing Swords!
The ten swords fell from high speed in different directions, like a waterfall flowing east!
“Young Master Lu, I’m Hua Dongliu from the Sword Sect. Please!”
At this moment, the three philosophers, as if they had been rejuvenated, showed their true mettle!