The Reticent Blade-Chapter 62 - A Thousand Accusations are Meaningless to Me

"Where are we going now?" Chi Nanwei asked Ye Beizhi, who was walking ahead of her.

The two were now walking along a mountain path outside of Luzhou.

"Mm..." Ye Beizhi paused for a moment and grimly said, "The capital."

Chi Nanwei was surprised. "The capital? What are we going to the capital for?"

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In response, Ye Beizhi took out a letter and handed it to her. It was the letter he received in the Ma Family Village from the person who claimed to have saved him.

Chi Nanwei opened the letter, read it carefully, and frowned in deep thought. After a while, she said, "There's no proof... How can you be sure what the letter says is true?"

"I'm not sure." Ye Beizhi didn't turn his head and kept walking.

"Then why are you still—Besides, the person who wrote the letter clearly wants to shift the blame." Chi Nanwei seemed a little anxious. "He's treating you like a tool!"

"I know." Ye Beizhi took a bun from his bag and handed it to Chi Nanwei. The two had not eaten anything since they started walking.

Chi Nanwei didn't take the food and continued anxiously, "Even if... even if the escort agency incident is really related to the prime minister, what can you do about it?"

Seeing that she didn't take it, Ye Beizhi started eating by himself and said, "If it has nothing to do with him, he should know who left the letter. If it really was him... then it‘s much simpler."

"Simpler?" Chi Nanwei scoffed, "Let's not even talk about how you are going to meet him. Do you think you can just kill the prime minister? Dummy, are you crazy? Don’t tell me you want to die!"

Ye Beizhi glanced at the upset woman behind him and said, "No... I have a friend in the capital. He should know the whole story behind the escort agency incident... We're going to find him."

"Really?" Chi Nanwei raised her eyebrows.

Ye Beizhi handed a bun to Chi Nanwei. "Mm."

Chi Nanwei took the bun and left it at that. She began to chew on it slowly.

The bun had long gone cold.

***

In a small inn in a small town, Xiangxi.

"How are you so sure Impending Sword will help us?" Rao Shuang asked Tang Jinnian with a skeptical glance.

Tang Jinnian leisurely picked up a cup of tea and took a sip.

Hearing Flowerless Butterfly's question, he replied, "A teacher for a day is like a father for a lifetime. I avenged his father's death and he's not someone to owe favors. Worst case, we bring him some good food and drink, and he'll agree."

"Can such a sword master be bribed by food? Are you kidding?" Flowerless Butterfly clearly didn't believe it.

Tang Jinnian wasn’t annoyed. He held his cup and looked out the window. "What do you know? He’s all alone, tormented by sword qi, and can't even go to crowded places. How could he get the chance to eat something good?"

"When you put it like that..." Rao Shuang subtly frowned. "He’s a pitiful person too."

"Heh... pitiful?" Tang Jinnian said with a sneer, "The countless souls at the North Watching Pass wouldn’t agree."

Rao Shuang protested, "But he did it—"

"What? He didn't want to do it? Or he didn't mean to do it?" Tang Jinnian spat, "Ridiculous! Killing is killing. If it can't be undone, what’s the point of not owning up to it? Flowerless Butterfly, in this way, you aren't as good as him. At least he doesn't argue that he didn’t do it on purpose.

"But he's still not as good as me. If it were me, what does killing a few hundred people matter? Heh... if you aren't strong enough, you might as well die. You can only blame yourself for your weakness. Complaints? Blame? They're the cries of worms."

Rao Shuang looked at the man before her, her expression complex. After spending so many days together, she had clearly noticed something wrong with his character. He was indifferent to humanity. Or was it that he lacked humanity? Rao Shuang couldn’t say.

Seeing that letting him continue would only lead to more troubling words, Rao Shuang quickly found an excuse to change the subject.

"Since we’re going north to find Impending Sword, why are we detouring to Xiangxi now?"

"To fetch some medicine." Forsaken Phoenix's lips curled into a cold smile.

His smile sent chills down Flowerless Butterfly's spine. She wasn’t sure if she would be discarded once she helped Tang Jinnian steal the gourd.

"So... what medicine is it?" Rao Shuang asked cautiously.

"Have you heard of the Soul Locking Sunflower?" Forsaken Phoenix put down the teacup and took out his tobacco pipe, searching his pockets for a fire starter.

"The Soul Locking Sunflower? I've heard of it... It's said to be the treasured possession of the Five Gods Summit in Xiangxi... No way, are you going to"—Rao Shuang covered her mouth and leaned close to Tang Jinnian—"Steal a sect's heirloom treasure?!"

"Steal? How crude. I'll take it directly..."

Tang Jinnian found his fire starter, lit his pipe, and took a comfortable puff.

"The Soul Locking Sunflower is something I must have; it's one of the essential ingredients for refining the Transcendence Stone. Five Gods? Heh... More like Five Ghosts. They're just a bunch of corpse handlers. Their origins go back to a century ago when Xiangxi's corpse manipulation sect was thriving, and they mastered the art of controlling corpses."

Tang Jinnian leaned back comfortably in his chair, looking every bit the seasoned smoker.

He continued, "Most people in the martial world are afraid of the Five Gods Summit because their disciples deal with the dead, and have a sinister aura. People's natural fear of the dead only adds to their reputation."

Hoping to change Tang Jinnian's mind, Rao Shuang cautiously mentioned, "But I've also heard that the corpse-controlling techniques of Five Gods Summit are quite impressive. The corpses are immune to fire and water and feel no pain. They’re really tough to deal with."

"What's so difficult about that?" Tang Jinnian chuckled and gave Flowerless Butterfly a meaningful glance before saying, "Isn't it simple to deal with? Just turn all the controllers into corpses."

Rao Shuang felt he had completely seen through her little ploy with that glance.

She decided to be straightforward with her stance. "Openly seizing a sect's heirloom treasure... let’s not even talk about whether you can manage. Even if you do get it, aren’t you afraid of being universally condemned by the martial world?"

"Universally condemned?" Tang Jinnian blew a stream of smoke into her face. "What does that have to do with me?"

"Cough, cough— You!"

Rao Shuang waved the smoke away in disgust, glaring with irritation at the man in front of her.

Forsaken Phoenix Tang Jinnian ignored the woman's exasperated glare.

He tapped the ash from his pipe against the table and stood up.

"Let's go. It's time to hit the road... Come see for yourself... how impressive the corpse-controlling techniques of the Five Gods Summit really are."