68: Chapter 68 The Way of the World

As if clutching at a life-saving straw, he pointed at Su Chen.

"Customer, that blade is a piece I made for practice in my early years."

"The heat went too high, and the body has cracks; I'm afraid it won't be of much use."

"If you are in truly urgent need, I can sell you this sword at a cheap price..."

Ye Yuan "looked" in Su Chen's direction and remained silent for a moment.

No expression could be seen on his face, which was covered in bloodstains and dust.

But Su Chen could feel a powerful Divine Sense sweeping over his blade.

"Cracks... Hehe, cracks are good..."

Ye Yuan suddenly began to laugh. In the pitch-black night, his laughter sounded desolate and bitter.

"In the current state of Great Ning, where is there not a crack?"

"Hearts are cracked, the mountains and rivers are cracked, and the line between loyalty and treachery is cracked."

"What does a single cracked sword matter!"

Fumbling, he pulled a handful of broken silver from his robes.

Without even looking, he slapped it onto the table beside him with a 'pa' sound.

The force was so great that the table shook.

"This is the one."

"How much? I'll buy it!"

As he paid, he seemed unable to suppress the stifled emotions in his heart.

He cursed hoarsely.

"This godforsaken world."

"I, Ye Yuan, a Sixth-Rank Sword Immortal, served uprightly in the Xuntian Division."

"Slaying demons for the imperial court and protecting the region."

"And the result?"

"Hahaha!"

"My colleague, Zhao Feng."

Upon hearing the name 'Zhao Feng', the Old Divine Craftsman's expression changed.

"You know Mr. Zhao too?"

"I haven't seen him in a long time. How is he doing now?"

"Dead."

"It was precisely from Zhao Feng that I learned your name and came to find you for a sword."

Ye Yuan said flatly.

"What?"

The Old Divine Craftsman's face turned ashen, but Ye Yuan ignored him and continued to speak to himself.

"Half a month ago, Old Zhao took an imperial order to fight to the death to slay a calamitous wolf demon at Cangyun Ridge in Youzhou, and he was gravely injured."

"In the blink of an eye, he was framed as a major criminal who colluded with evil spirits and slaughtered villages."

"Arrest warrants are posted everywhere."

"I received the court's decree to go and capture Old Zhao."

"But after so many years of friendship, I didn't believe he would collude with demons."

"I went to investigate, and I saw it with my own damn eyes."

His voice suddenly rose sharply.

"The people in that village weren't commoners at all."

"They were all monsters—half-human, half-demon—planted with Demon Parasites."

"It was those beasts in human skin within the imperial court who made a deal with the demon race."

"Using living people as sacrifices to trade for God knows what hellish thing!"

"Zhao Feng was originally a sacrifice the court sent to the demons. Now that he's discovered the truth, he has to be silenced."

"When I found him, he only had one breath left."

"He told me to leave, saying this imperial court is rotten to the core."

"We tried to escape, but the pursuers came too fast."

"The hounds of the Xuntian Division, accompanied by a thick demonic aura."

Ye Yuan's voice lowered.

"Zhao Feng."

"To get me out, he self-detonated his Dantian."

"My eyes were also injured during that time."

"My sword is broken, and I've become a wanted criminal. Hehe, hehehe..."

He took Su Chen, who was wrapped in coarse cloth, from the Old Divine Craftsman's trembling hands.

He gripped it tightly in his hand.

"I'm leaving. There are still many imperial hounds chasing me."

"Shopkeeper, if anyone asks, just say you haven't seen me."

"I'm going to Donglai Prefecture. It's surrounded by the sea on three sides with poor transportation, and they say sea demons haunt the area... the court's influence should be a bit weaker there..."

Having finished, he did not linger.

Leaning on the sword that Su Chen had become, he used it barely as a cane.

Limping step by step, he blended into the darkness outside the door.

The Old Divine Craftsman looked at the blood-stained silver on the table, then glanced at the empty doorway.

He let out a long sigh and hurried forward to barely close the dilapidated door panels.

...

The place where Ye Yuan stayed temporarily was an abandoned courtyard at the foot of a mountain outside the city.

With ruined walls and overgrown weeds, it was quite hidden.

As soon as he entered the house, Ye Yuan could no longer hold himself up.

He collapsed onto the ground and spat out several more mouthfuls of blood.

Fumbling, he placed the 'su chen sword' beside him.

Then he tore open the clothing on his abdomen and began the difficult task of treating his wounds and applying medicine.

When everything was finished, he finally had the chance to examine Su Chen's appearance.

He had to admit that although Su Chen's blade was full of cracks,

there was one good thing.

It seemed the Divine Craftsman's new forging method really worked; the blade was still quite sharp.

"Not bad..."

Ye Yuan lifted Su Chen's blade and cut a wound into his own palm.

Su Chen could feel the warmth of Ye Yuan's palm and the hot blood staining his blade.

[Blood-Bonding Ownership condition met.]

[Daily transformation time (one hour) unlocked.]

The system's notification sounded in Su Chen's consciousness.

Ye Yuan seemed to have finished treating his wounds and was exhausted.

He leaned against the wall and fell into a deep sleep, his breathing heavy.

The opportunity had come.

With a thought from Su Chen,

the next moment, the blade flashed with a faint light.

A tall young man dressed in simple green robes quietly appeared under the cold moonlight.

This was Su Chen's human form.

Currently, he was contracted to Ye Yuan.

What he needed to do was use his one hour of transformation time each day to quickly find the two investment targets for this session.

One was the sword-wielding girl Ye Jingjun, and the other was the Mermaid Maiden Cang Mingyue.

According to the information currently known, Ye Yuan would later head east to Donglai Prefecture.

That was a place where sea demons appeared.

The Mermaid Maiden was most likely there as well.

As for Ye Jingjun...

There were indeed many female swordsmen in the Great Ning World.

But Su Chen always felt that since he had become Ye Yuan's sword under the system's arrangement,

Ye Yuan, Ye Jingjun...

there must be some kind of connection between the two.

He stretched his limbs, feeling this long-lost "freedom."

Su Chen looked around the courtyard.

Though dilapidated, the moonlight was like water, flooding the courtyard and giving it a unique sense of quietude.

Just as he was preparing to familiarize himself with the environment,

from the other end of the courtyard, he faintly heard the rhythmic, subtle sound of a sharp blade cutting through the air.

Someone is here?

Su Chen's heart tightened. He suppressed his aura and quietly followed the sound.

He saw a small figure enveloped in moonlight like a thin veil under the half-withered Old Locust Tree in the corner of the yard.

It was a young girl who looked to be about eleven or twelve years old.

She was wearing a set of coarse cloth clothes that had been washed until they were white.

Her figure was so thin it looked as though a gust of wind could knock her over.

In her hand, she held a wooden sword that was not much shorter than she was.

She was practicing the most basic thrusts, slashes, upward parries, and downward blocks, over and over again.

The movements were still a bit stiff, and the strength was far from enough.

But every movement was extremely serious.

Her small face was tense, and her lips were pursed into a line.

The moonlight illuminated half of her cheek.

Only then did Su Chen notice that her skin was so fair it was almost transparent, and her features were as exquisite as a jade carving.

At such a young age, she already had the makings of a beauty who could topple nations.

Her eyes were stunningly beautiful,

filled with stubbornness and sorrow.

Fine beads of sweat broke out on her forehead and the tip of her nose.

Her breathing was also somewhat hurried; she had clearly been practicing for quite some time.

But she showed no intention of stopping.

She simply repeated those basic sword forms tirelessly and incessantly.

Su Chen stood quietly in the shadows, watching this young girl under the moonlight who was as beautiful as a jade carving yet practiced her swordplay with such fierce determination.