Chapter 22: The Pinnacle

Inside a rustic village schoolhouse, a simple thatched cottage without a signboard, the middle-aged scholar Qi Jingchun was sitting idly, contemplating a chess game. It wasn't a legendary match passed down through the ages, nor a rehash of a contest between national grandmasters.

He was about to place a white piece on the board when he sighed. The location where the piece was destined to land, once certain, now left the scholar hesitant. He retracted his hand, yet the piece remained suspended in the air, hovering an inch above the board.

Qi Jingchun remained sitting upright, an upright and proper man. As the contemporary sage responsible for guarding this place, a former head of the Cliff Academy, one of the seventy-two Confucian academies, even after being demoted here to atone for his sins, Qi Jingchun was still an undeniable paragon of Confucianism.

To the common folk of the town, time passed like the seasons, withering and flourishing in a year, a cycle of sixty years fleeting by in an instant. The schoolteachers had changed several times, differing in appearance and age, but the indescribable aura of a scholar remained the same: rigid, demanding, taciturn, and generally uninteresting. No one suspected that the schoolteachers who came and went were actually the same person. Moreover, in the vast world beyond the town, the reclusive Mr. Qi once held a transcendent and lofty position and possessed unparalleled supernatural powers of righteous energy.

In the next moment, Qi Jingchun's primordial spirit detached and journeyed afar, like a snow-white celestial being, instantly breaking free from the confines of its corporeal prison, drifting towards an alley in the town.

In a flash, Qi Jingchun arrived at the alley. First, he looked at the woman lying in a pool of blood, Cai Jinjian of Cloudglow Mountain, her three souls and seven spirits wavering and dissipating like a flickering candle in the wind.

After a moment of contemplation, Qi Jingchun finally arrived beside the two figures.

The young master of Old Dragon City, adorned in a tall hat and wide sleeves, leaned slightly backward, his face in utter disbelief. Upon his jade-like handsome face, a complex expression unfolded, a mix of shock, confusion, and despair.

The youth maintained his fierce posture of leaping forward, his left hand gripping a sharp piece of porcelain like a blade. Even in this critical moment between life and death, the airborne youth retained a resolute gaze and calm demeanor, bearing no resemblance to an ignorant boy born in a humble alley and raised in the mountains. Perhaps the only thing that betrayed his youth was the helplessness hidden deep within his eyes. This helplessness was not unfamiliar to the scholar who had spent many years away from his study and academy. It was like watching a farmer who depended on the heavens, squatting on a barren, parched field during a drought, looking up at the scorching sun. There was no heart-wrenching emotion, only a deep sense of helplessness and bewilderment.

As the temporary master of this realm, Qi Jingchun naturally knew the entire story of Chen Ping'an and his family, even tracing back hundreds or thousands of years. Even if he hadn't personally seen the youth's ancestors, he could roughly deduce and infer their history. The logic was simple, like a county magistrate who, if he wanted to know the background of his people, only needed to go to the registry office to check the records, clear at a glance.

After more than three thousand years of procreation and development, the town had spread its branches and leaves beyond its borders, deeply intertwined. Because each generation had produced a few outstanding talents, who, although unable to return home in glory, could support their families through secret channels, eventually creating the four prominent clans that flourished in the town today.

Chen Ping'an's family also had a long history, and his ancestors had once been prosperous and wealthy. However, after two major upheavals, they gradually declined and faded into obscurity in the Eastern Treasure Continent, a land of countless vassal states and dynasties, yielding to other surnames. Over the millennium, their fortunes had waned. By the time of the youth's father, the Chen clan in this town had almost completely declined in the entire Eastern Treasure Continent. Not to mention the Great Li Dynasty, where the town was located, it was as if the family had been decreed by the monarch to "never hold office for generations," with no possibility of revival.

After Qi Jingchun came here to preside over the operation of the grand formation, he adhered to the four principles of "uprightness, righteousness, balance, and harmony" for over sixty years, never arbitrarily changing the fate of the townspeople based on personal preferences. Otherwise, in the eyes of this scholar, who had once been filled with hatred for evil, there was too much filth in the high-ranking families of the town, and too much poverty in the humble households of the alleys. However, after observing with a cold eye, Qi Jingchun saw that the prominent families also had their futility and helplessness, and the humble households also had their desperation and wickedness. Over time, Qi Jingchun became like a lofty idol, neither enjoying incense offerings nor accepting favors, but simply sitting with his hands in his sleeves, indifferent to the affairs of the world.

Qi Jingchun was slightly surprised. He stepped forward, looked closely, and nodded gently. It turned out that the imposing, impoverished youth, who seemed determined to kill in this attack, would not stop until he killed Fu Nanhua. But in reality, judging from his current posture, the youth's wrist would only slam heavily on Fu Nanhua's neck, a much better outcome than Cai Jinjian's fate. Fu Nanhua should be knocked sideways into the wall by the heavy blow, and then the youth would grab his neck with one hand and hold the porcelain shard against his abdomen with the other.

Qi Jingchun was curious as to why the youth didn't strike a fatal blow this time. A golden opportunity, fleeting and with endless potential for trouble. Qi Jingchun was a paragon of Confucianism, adhering to etiquette, but not rigidly clinging to dogma. He wasn't the kind of pedantic scholar who only knew how to shake his head and quote from books. He was all too familiar with the likes of Fu Nanhua, whether in terms of talent, disposition, or temperament. Even if he was temporarily forced to give up revenge by the youth's threat in today's alley, this matter would definitely be a rare humiliation in the young man's life, even bordering on a demonic obsession. When the time came to settle accounts with the youth, it wouldn't just be Fu Nanhua himself, but the entire Old Dragon City, the master of the South Sea.

Qi Jingchun had some selfish motives in coming here to stop the youth from killing continuously, but it was also for the sake of fairness. The town was now like a cracked piece of porcelain, which would explode sooner or later. Qi Jingchun had to delay this inevitable process as much as possible, and try to arrange a way out for more people. The best scenario would be to hand it over to the blacksmith "Master Ruan" safely and steadily, and to survive the last sixty years. Only then could it be a happy ending for everyone: the people on the mountain would get their opportunity, and the people at the foot of the mountain would be safe and stable. You had to know that, with the former's consistent character, whenever paths collapsed, the old gave way to the new, opportunities arose, and eternal life was within reach, what did the lives of hundreds or thousands of ants at the foot of the mountain matter?

The ruthlessness of the secular dynasties was nothing compared to the impersonal nature of the Great Dao advocated by many cultivators.

After pondering for a moment, Qi Jingchun quietly concealed his figure.

The operation of heaven and earth flowed smoothly and unimpeded.

The previous stagnation was quietly shattered.

The youth's wrist "finally" slammed heavily on Fu Nanhua's neck, causing the latter's head to shake and fall sideways against the alley wall. The enormous force made him dizzy. After landing, the youth swiftly closed in, delivering an elbow strike to Fu Nanhua's abdomen.

Fu Nanhua didn't stand straight against the wall, and the youth's elbow strike almost made him vomit bitter water, causing his body to instinctively bend over.

The youth grabbed Fu Nanhua's neck with one hand and held the porcelain shard against the young master's abdomen with the other.

Fu Nanhua found it hard to imagine why the frail youth, who was a head shorter than him, had such tremendous strength in his fingers. In particular, the sharpness and coldness of the porcelain shard against his abdomen made the young master of Old Dragon City feel the approach of death once again. A line separated him from the boundary between yin and yang.

Fu Nanhua certainly wouldn't know the astonishing potential unleashed by a child who had to search for medicinal herbs all over the mountains since he was young, due to a stronger desire to survive than his own.

When that youth accidentally ingested medicinal herbs and writhed in pain on the ground in the alley, that desire could even make a child who was supposed to be studying in a village school think of crawling back home, so that he could put the life-saving herbs in the bamboo basket.

After that, chopping firewood, burning charcoal, firing ceramics, pulling clay, digging mud, and tasting soil—none of these things didn't test the youth's physical strength and endurance.

Outside the town, Fu Nanhua could easily crush a hundred or a thousand youths by simply using a little immortal magic. But choosing to face life and death with him within the town was truly the end of his good fortune; he had kicked an iron plate.

Fu Nanhua was overwhelmed by the double blow of pain and humiliation, and his mind was clouded. He said with a ferocious expression, "If you kill me, you're dead! If you don't kill me, you'll still die! You little bastard, you're doomed anyway!"

Chen Ping'an looked up slightly, staring at the man's crazed face. He said, "You know, I don't want to kill you. I have no grievances with you. I'm just retaliating because you wanted to harm me."

Fu Nanhua sneered, "A little bastard like you dares to reason with me, Fu Nanhua?!"

He emphasized, "Are you worthy?!"

Chen Ping'an was silent for a moment, then asked, "Are you determined to kill me?"

When Fu Nanhua saw the dark youth's eyes, he suddenly calmed down.

Fu Nanhua's face, his neck gripped tightly, was flushed, soon turning blue and then purple. In fact, the youth's fingers hadn't increased their strength, but it was enough to suffocate a strong man to death.

Fu Nanhua struggled with difficulty, "Do you believe me if I say I won't kill you?"

He struggled violently.

But almost at the same time, the youth increased his strength, causing Fu Nanhua's arm, which had been moving slightly, to droop weakly.

Chen Ping'an shook his head.

Fu Nanhua became increasingly dizzy, and although he wanted to smash the bastard's head into pieces, he still tried to be as friendly as possible, adding, "What if I swear to heaven? People like us can't swear casually."

Fu Nanhua played a trick. Making great vows in Buddhism and swearing oaths in cultivators' hearts did have a great binding force. But obviously, Fu Nanhua only told half the truth. Even if he swore, he would only make verbal assurances, not a solemn oath that was "without written words, but no different from inscribing them on the walls of the elixir chamber in the heart." So whether he kept it later depended only on his mood. Moreover, there were ways to break a cultivator's oath, but the price varied. Generally speaking, the price depended on the cultivator's realm and the gravity of the oath's content.

Unexpectedly, the youth in straw sandals still shook his head.

Fu Nanhua, who was finding it increasingly difficult to breathe, had lost the energy and spirit to haggle, and was somewhat absent-minded for no reason.

Was he going to die?

Just like that poor wretch Cai Jinjian, was he going to die at the hands of a little bastard?

When the bad news reached Old Dragon City, would it become the laughingstock of the entire city?

He didn't even have the chance to reach out and trigger the secret mechanism on the jade belt around his waist. The white jade belt he wore was actually a remnant spirit of a terrestrial dragon.

"That's enough."

A heavenly voice rang in their ears, which was like heavenly music to Fu Nanhua, but he had just fainted, and he wasn't sure if it was his hallucination.

Chen Ping'an turned his head in astonishment.

As a result, he saw a shimmering, ethereal Mr. Qi.

The latter smiled without saying a word.

Chen Ping'an's eyes returned to their resolute determination, and his right hand never loosened its grip.

Qi Jingchun wasn't annoyed that his good intentions were unappreciated, nor was he gratified as if he had seen a promising talent. He simply waved his sleeve lightly at the youth in straw sandals, as if he was "scooping up" an item into his hand.

The Confucian sage opened his palm and looked at it, and couldn't help but laugh.

It was a mass of filth like ink.

It turned out that the intent someone had planted in the youth's body was dim and lifeless, and had clearly died long ago.

Looking up at the youth Chen Ping'an again, Qi Jingchun was somewhat regretful, and sighed, "No wonder the master said that for those who achieve great things in the world, extraordinary talent is secondary; a tenacious and unyielding will is paramount. Chen Ping'an, you have taught me another lesson for the master. It's just a pity that I, Qi Jingchun, no longer have the opportunity to accept a close disciple."