The Elder of Bai Family replied, “Yu Qingzi, you’ve witnessed it as well. Your Tai Hua Mountain’s disciple was still beating Bai Chi even after he won! Where’s Tai Hua Mountain’s so-called fairness and justice?”
Yu Qingzi slapped the table, “take back your words! Offensively challenging Tai Hua Mountain’s disciple, Bai Chi asked for the whack!”
“Yu Qingzi! You…”
Over the Xuan Tian Continent, usually there was such a small chance for someone to meet a high-level cultivator who had achieved Tribulation Passage Period cultivation. However, today on Tai Hua Mountain, a dozen of Tribulation Passage Period Cultivator gathered together, and two of them even started quarreling with each other. All the young disciples were watching the squabble with excitement kindling in their eyes. Luo Jianqing smiled reluctantly, and bowed down, “Respected Master Yu Qingzi, it seems you forgot something – I didn’t win at the first place.”
Yu Qingzi wondered, “but you did kick Bai Chi off the ring, right?”
Luo Jianqing explained, “what I mean is that I didn’t win before I knock him off from the ring.”
The Elder of Bai Family was enraged, “Nonsense! Everyone here saw that you’ve defeated Bai Chi’s Spear of White Snow Touches Plum Blossom! How do you explain that?!”
Luo Jianqing made an astonished look, “but, Elder, it was Bai Chi who said that ‘he will not surrender’!”
The audience was shocked. After a while, someone whispered, “yeah, I remembered that the Seventh Childe of Bai Family insisted to keep fighting.”
“Whoa, Cultivator Luo is awesome. You know what, I didn’t even give a damn to what Bai Chi said. That Bai Chi… wait, Bai Chi, Bai Chi? This name sounds like…”
“Sounds like Idiot (In Chinese, Bai Chi was pronounced the same as 白痴 bái chī, which means “idiot”)? Hahahahaha!”
Mouth open, the Elder of Bai Family was speechless.
Yu Qingzi burst into laughter with Guang Lingzi who sat beside her. This year, only three Peak Masters of Tai Hua Mountain attended the grand competition. Except the two who were laughing, Sir Hao Xingzi was touching his bear, siting at the First Seat elegantly as if he had no intention to join the quarrel. Hidden in the gaze he fixed on Luo Jianqing, there was nothing but praise.
Luo Jianqing was no arrogant man, he bowed again, smiling blandly, “if there’s no other question, I will go back to my seat now.”
“Wait!”
On the bleachers, a muscular man suddenly left his seat. His eagle-like eyes fixed on Luo Jianqing. Luo Jianqing didn’t hold his smile for long once he spotted that guy. Their gaze entangled with each other for quite long time, the man spoke, “I am Yun Rong of Yun Family, ranking at the first among all the offspring of my family. I heard that Cultivator Luo took a great care of my younger sister in the Liu Yan Valley. Today, maybe I can have the honor to challenge Cultivator Luo?”
Finishing his sentences, Yun Rong flew up into the air and landed quietly in the competition ring. He never moved his bleak eyes away from Luo Jianqing, which made the later started to tense up.
Before what happened in the Liu Yan Valley, on the Xuan Tian Continent there were four most famous geniuses of the young generation.
Yan Su – the Senior Disciple of Duan Hun Sect; Yu Chen – the Buddha of Gui Yuan Sect; Bai Ji – the fourth son of Bai Family; and Yun Rong – the First Childe of Yun Family.
All four of them were twenty-years older than Luo Jianqing, which means that they’ve been cultivated for sixty years. There was a twenty-years difference in the time length of cultivation, so even if people were well aware that Luo Jinqing was the only other Superior Spiritual Bone in the world, the commoners still believed the four older ones were better than Luo Jianqing and they – being addressed as “Xuan Tian’s Four Legends” – were the actual top four of the young generation.
That was what people believed until the battle of Liu Yan Valley in which Luo Jianqing fought with three other cultivators by himself. In that fight, Yan Su was one of his rivals. Moreover, Mo Qiu – as the offspring of the exiled Mo Family – made his name a well-known one as well. The two of them quickly became a legend after that battle. When heard the rumor saying Mo Qiu and Luo Jianqing might have died in the Liu Yan Valley, many cultivators felt that it was a great pity to lose such two promising raising stars. Now, since they got out of the Liu Yan Valley alive, their legend story sounded even more mysterious.
Yun Rong shared little similarity with Bai Chi. He achieved the Nascent Soul Period eight years ago and was not the weakest one even among Xuan Tian’s Four Legends. There was rumor saying that Bai Chi fought with Yun Rong once, and was defeated without even had the time to draw out his spear.
Yun Rong stood on the fighting ground, “Cultivator Luo, be careful!”
Luo Jianqing smiled and nodded, “please!”
Boom!
Within a blink, Luo Jianqing watched the world in front of him collapsing into pieces. The disciples on the bleachers all disappeared, even the Elders sitting in front of the Ling Yun Palace were gone as well. The magnificent Tai Hua Mountain vanished along the wind. The sky was dyed crimson. Clouds overcast the firmament on which snake-like lightning was meandering constantly.
Luo Jianqing felt enormous pain from his own body. His left hand ached as if it was put into lava. He can feel no Spiritual Power from that hand – the spiritual vines were completely chopped off. Blood covered his eyes. The smell of blood came with every breath. Luo Jianqing couldn’t help shivering, and he realized… his cultivation went back to the late-stage Gold Core Period.
Wind was roaring along his ears. Luo Jianqing didn’t have the courage to lift his head, but heard a steady voice broke the wind and reached his ears, “Senior Brother, you’ve killed countless people. Brother Luo, this is the last time I call you “brother”. You have fallen to fiend. You have killed Second Senior Brother and Sixth Senior Brother. Your sin is unforgivable, and your mistakes unamendable. Today, I give you a chance to end your life by yourself. If you do so, given that we’ve been brothers, I shall ask the other cultivators to leave you a whole corpse.”
Luo Jianqing slowly lifted his head, and suddenly saw a bunch of people.
Hundreds of cultivators surrounded him. Staring him with rage, every single one of them drew out their magic items. The leader was wearing a white robe of Tai Hua Mountain, with the disciple tablet of Yu Xiao Peak slung beside the waist. Sorrow displayed on his visage; Li Xiuchen was holding… a sword.
Sharp and merciless, even when sheathed, that sword was still capable of shaking the heaven and the earth.
Luo Jianqing stared at the sword and didn’t utter a word.
Li Xiuchen’s patience was wearing down, “Luo Jianqing, you still won’t repent?!”
Luo Jianqing lifted his gaze and looked at him.
That winsome face was profaned by dirt and blood, only the eyes were still glittering with his usual grace. Blood dyed Luo Jianqing’s bice robe which billowed in the wind. Behind him was Duan Qing Cliff thousands of miles deep; before him was the righteous cultivators who chased him for ten days and ten nights. He watched all of these blankly. His lips trembled, but, as if there were mammoth amount of stone pressing on his throat, he didn’t manage to speak.
Li Xiuchen squinted, then suddenly drew out the sword.
Once it was unsheathed, the wind stopped. The sword lightened up the cliff with its horrifying light.
Li Xiuchen pointed at Luo Jianqing with the sword, and said harshly, “Luo Jianqing, if this is your choice, then forgive me with what I’m going to do. If there is a little good left in you, you should end your life right now, that way, the Xuan Ling Sword won’t be tarnished by you!”
Hoarse voice was uttered by Luo Jianqing, “why… this sword?”