Radiant Blade of the Wilderness

Chapter 135: "Dream Sword"

From a distance, Ding Songyan leveled a single sword thrust at Zheng Zhuxi. The crystalline tip, flickering with icy light, swelled with uncanny swiftness, as though it had crossed mountains and seas in an instant.

Within Zheng Zhuxi’s eyes, that sword tip swiftly filled her entire vision.

She was dressed in a dark blue-black curved-hem robe, holding a palace lantern as she walked along the banks of a surging river with the swaying grace of a willow in the breeze. She took in the humid heat of a summer night and the chill that seeped in when the ghost gates opened.

The palace lantern cast a warm, amber glow that dissolved the ghosts wandering the night or drove them far away, freeing every human who had yet to reach home and giving them a sense of peace.

Listening to one expression of gratitude after another, she, as a handmaiden of the Candlelight Goddess, felt a joy that came from the heart.

Suddenly, a young man called out from several meters away, his voice sincere.

"Today you light my way. One day I’ll light yours!"

...

Inside the Brightnight Sect’s mountain gate on the banks of the great river.

She and her fellow disciples crowded the entrance to a hidden passage, hearing battle cries and agonized screams from every direction outside the hall, watching as multiple unorthodox powerhouses of fearsome and strange appearance combined forces to shatter the heavy gates.

"Run, all of you." Her master’s words came quickly, but his voice was calm. "I’ll hold the rear. They’re mainly after me."

With that, the Supreme Master leveled his sword across his chest and turned to face the horde of heretics.

Her vision blurred. She was swept up in the crowd, stumbling as she ran through the hidden passage.

As they fled south, her master uncles, her senior sisters, her senior brothers—one after another stepped forward to block the enemy’s pursuit and carve out a chance of survival for those who remained.

At last, she was the most senior one left.

She smiled at her junior brothers and sisters.

"Run. I’ll hold the rear."

Just as her elders had done, she turned and faced the enemy without a moment’s hesitation.

...

Inside a decrepit, ramshackle courtyard.

She heard her master uncle seated at the head say, "Using the Celestial Stars Scripture and the Candlelit Nocturne Sutra to complement each other’s aperture forging and viscera installation techniques is extremely dangerous. Who is willing to try?"

She watched as her senior brothers and sisters rose to their feet and said with a smile, "You haven’t reached the Great Proliferation Realm yet. Leave this to us."

Over the years that followed, she watched her senior brother succumb to qi deviation, bedridden and wailing every day. She watched her senior sister lose her mind, until one day she hanged herself without warning. She watched one fellow disciple after another meet with terrible fates.

Then the day came when it was her turn to attempt the new aperture forging and viscera installation techniques.

Everything proceeded normally. Not a single anomaly.

First she was overcome with joy, then tears began streaming down her face and she could not stop crying.

...

Alpine Lake ran red with blood. Towers and pavilions crumbled. Heretics besieged the Brightnight Sect’s mountain gate once more.

She cut down one unorthodox cultivator after another, but more and more of her fellow disciples fell around her.

When that brocade-robed figure with the allure of a god and demon came walking forward with hands clasped behind his back, she had already burned through her primordial essence and was utterly spent.

Suddenly, a warm amber sword light cut across the sky and fell, scattering the darkness surrounding the Demon Sovereign and dissolving all evil.

A tall, upright figure appeared before her. He had regular, well-proportioned features, clear and open brows and eyes. Dressed in black fitted clothes, he held a crystalline longsword.

The young man smiled at her.

"Once you lit my way. Today I light yours."

Zheng Zhuxi jolted awake to find the icy-gleaming sword tip hovering before her forehead.

At some unknown point in time, several tears had rolled down from the corners of her eyes.

"How was it?" Ding Songyan withdrew Frostshade and asked with concern.

Zheng Zhuxi was dazed for a few breaths before speaking.

"It truly felt like living through past lives. Every lifetime was connected to the Brightnight Sect and I was moved by the sect’s forebears in every one of them..."

"It’s a meeting of minds. I used my own knowledge of the sect’s history to draw out your memories and imaginings of the sect’s past. Then I made certain adjustments to make the story more coherent, more vivid, and more moving. Only that way could you be fully immersed in that extraordinary spiritual journey with no will to resist my sword," Ding Songyan said plainly.

Zheng Zhuxi was taken aback and couldn’t help but scoff.

"What the hell is wrong with you?"

She had still been moved, still savoring the experience, and yet her junior brother had to be so coldly rational about it, explaining that every bit of it was something he had fabricated from her own memories and imagination.

"That’s exactly the point. It was to help you see through the illusory nature of that spiritual journey, so you won’t be swept away by it. If you ever encounter a similar technique in the future, you’ll be able to face it calmly," Ding Songyan explained with a smile.

Once he reached the Heaven-Man Realm or the Spirit Platform Realm, a single sword strike might let someone fully live through the entire Legend of the White Snake. It would be first-person and fully immersive, no less.

Of course, the prerequisite was that the target had to have read or heard the Legend of the White Snake at least once and have the relevant memories.

Having heard her junior brother out, Zheng Zhuxi had settled down and said with genuine feeling, "You really are so much more mature and clear-headed than I am. Sometimes I feel like you’re the senior one.

"I really was too caught up in the sentiment just now."

She turned and asked Ding Songyan, "Does this mean the Dream Sword is complete?"

"The prototype is done. From here, it’s a matter of fine-tuning the details through actual combat," Ding Songyan said, unable to hide his smile.

In truth, the Dream Sword’s prototype had been ready by version 15. The problem was that every time he sent Senior Sister into a dark cycle of past lives, her Candlelight Sword Intent would flare up in response and break the Dream Sword’s effect. This time, he had changed it to a positive cycle that tugged at her emotions instead, and finally managed to work around the Candlelight Sword Intent.

Ding Songyan continued, "I have to concentrate fully to maintain the ’past-life cycle,’ and my sword can only extend forward on its own momentum. That’s fine in one-on-one combat, but against two opponents, a partner can easily deflect the strike or even counter while I’m vulnerable.

"The Celestial Heart imprint’s ability to split one’s focus into two could compensate for that..."

After discussing the Dream Sword’s details with Zheng Zhuxi for a while, Ding Songyan suddenly noticed something was off.

"Senior Sister, why are you the one guiding me again today? Where is Senior Brother Wan?"

Wasn’t it usually Senior Brother Wan and Senior Sister taking turns?

Zheng Zhuxi smiled.

"Senior Brother Wan installed the Black Turtle viscera yesterday. He needs to rest for a while, so it’ll be me for most of the next half month."

Recovery time for aperture forging varied by technique, ranging anywhere from a day or two to seven or eight days. But viscera installation always required at least half a month of rest, and sometimes a full month.

Viscera installation was indeed quite taxing on the body. Within the Brightnight Sect, there was an unwritten rule: no more than three viscera installations per year, to avoid irreversible harm.

"I’ve been so absorbed in martial cultivation lately that I completely missed that." Ding Songyan thought for a moment. "I’ll go visit him in a bit."

He was a senior brother who had guided him for quite some time, after all.

Zheng Zhuxi gave a quiet affirmation and said with a small smile, "In another half month, I should be able to install the Vermilion Bird viscera."

Since returning from Qisong Prefecture, her character having advanced greatly through the ordeal with the nightmares, she had immediately forged her eleventh alien aperture, then completed the twelfth ten days ago. All that remained was installing the Vermilion Bird viscera before she could advance to the mid-stage of the Great Proliferation Realm.

"I’ll come visit you when that time comes," Ding Songyan said with a grin.

...

After finishing that day’s training, Ding Songyan thought he couldn’t visit Senior Brother Wan empty-handed. He stopped by the dining hall and bought a paper bag of steamed buns with all kinds of fillings.

Bag of buns in hand, he knocked on the gate of Senior Brother Wan’s small courtyard.

A servant opened the door. Disciples in recovery after viscera installation were always assigned servants to attend to them around the clock—two for the first seven days, one for the next seven, and thereafter depending on how their recovery was progressing.

Stepping into the bedroom, Ding Songyan found Senior Brother Wan half-reclined on the bed, a soft pillow propped behind him. His complexion was deathly pale and even his sharp sword-brows seemed to droop.

"Senior Brother Wan, how are you holding up?" Ding Songyan asked politely.

He helped himself to a chair and sat down.

Wan Guhong said feebly, "Not dead yet."

"Don’t you love steamed buns? I brought you some." Ding Songyan held up the bag. "There’s pork filling, beef filling, vegetable and tofu filling..."

Wan Guhong’s mouth twitched slightly.

"Still can’t eat any of that for the first few days."

"Rough." Ding Songyan shook his head inwardly.

This is just like recovering from major surgery...

Even as he spoke, he took out a pork bun and started eating it casually.

Wan Guhong turned his head, his expression complicated.

"Did you come here specifically to torment me..."

"Can’t let them go to waste," Ding Songyan smoothly changed the subject. "Senior Brother Wan, once you’ve recovered and spent ten-odd days condensing the apertures above Black Turtle and opening the corresponding meridians, that’ll put you at the perfected Great Proliferation Realm, right? Does that mean you’ll be heading out to travel again?"

Wan Guhong shot him a sidelong look.

"At least let me get through the New Year first."

It was already November!

Perhaps out of boredom from being confined to bed, Wan Guhong said more than usual.

"Roaming the jianghu, sure, you run into fun and exciting things. But most of the time it’s just grueling, exhausting, and dangerous. Nothing compares to staying home at the sect."

Ding Songyan listened quietly and then asked in a thoughtful tone, "Senior Brother Wan, you’re from Jiangping County, if I recall correctly?"

Jiangping County was one of the northern counties of Dingjiang Prefecture and likewise fell under the Brightnight Sect’s cooperative defense jurisdiction.

Among Tao Wenshu’s six disciples, the eldest, Xu Julong, was from Alpine Lake Town with both parents being Brightnight Sect members. The fourth disciple, Xue Xian, was the same. Wan Guhong and Lin Shuyue had been recruited through the annual intake, one from Jiangping County and the other from Linjiang County.

"That’s right." Wan Guhong gave a small nod.

Weakness had a way of bringing on nostalgia, and Wan Guhong was no exception.

"I was lazy as a child and always got scolded for it. Back then I figured that was how my life would always be. Who would have thought I had some martial talent in me after all, and the sect would pick me."

Ding Songyan smiled and said, "Senior Brother Wan, when you go back to Jiangping County for the New Year this time, stay as long as you like. Leave for the jianghu whenever the quiet finally makes you restless."

What does that mean? Wan Guhong was about to ask, but on reflection some suspicion came to him and he fell into thought.

"Everyone’s nature is different. The path may be the same, but some prefer walking left, and some prefer to weave like a snake." Ding Songyan rose from his chair, picked up the bag of buns, and strolled out of Wan Guhong’s bedroom.

Wan Guhong mulled it over carefully. When he finally came back to himself, he found the room was empty. Junior Brother Ding had already left and taken the buns he had brought to visit him.

Wait—weren’t those buns for me?

I can’t eat them myself, sure, but he could have given them to the servants looking after me!