Chapter 95: Chapter 87: Blade Slashes the Body, Mind Slashes the Omen

That night.

Zheng Xiu brought out a new trick.

Feng Bei was impressed.

The two fought intensely for a whole night.

「The third day.」

The night was cold.

A heavy snow was falling.

The withered trees at the foot of the mountain were covered in crystalline ice flowers.

The frigid wind howled, slicing past like sharp blades, crying like wailing ghosts.

The young man arrived as promised, soaring into the air on outstretched wings and bringing his saber down in a single strike.

Feng Bei was still sitting before the bonfire, bored and alone on the silent, lonely peak. It wasn’t until Zheng Xiu’s saber came slashing down that a long-absent smile appeared on her face.

She stood up, shaking off the accumulated snow, and swatted forward with a black-gloved hand.

The young man’s progress was divinely fast, secretly alarming her.

At first, Feng Bei could still dodge with ease, but by the third day, she was forced to use her hands.

Simply using her feet and shifting her body was no longer enough to let the young man fight to his heart’s content.

So be it.

"Be careful!"

Feng Bei warned softly.

Tonight, Zheng Xiu’s saber was displaying a completely different kind of trick.

The Large Curved Saber had become semi-transparent, with distorted phantoms of light drifting across its surface. It seemed both real and illusory, and for a moment, Feng Bei couldn’t tell which it was.

She pulled back her right hand mid-motion and dodged to the side. The chain blade sliced through snowflakes, turning them to fine powder. A lock of hair fluttered past Feng Bei’s right eye, and within her strange pupil, the two characters "Ding Wei" slowly rotated.

"What kind of Magic is this?"

Feng Bei asked after a moment of silence.

His strike having missed, Zheng Xiu landed nearby without any surprise. Gripping his Curved Saber, he shook his head. "What a coincidence. You don’t know, and I know even less."

"You don’t know? Isn’t this your Magic?"

"I’ve only reached the Initial Path. My understanding is still shallow," Zheng Xiu explained, a bit embarrassed.

Last night, he had leveled up his [Intimidation] to "Entry".

Tonight, he had switched to [inspiration].

Zheng Xiu had no idea what effect embedding [inspiration] into [Purgatory] would have.

Grinding EXP off the Treasure Queen Feng Bei was fast, but Zheng Xiu planned to first test out embedding every possible effect to understand their specific abilities.

Feng Bei was now ninety percent certain that Zheng Xiu, like her, was an Innate Mystic who wielded an Omen.

It was for this very reason that she deeply suspected that the "Zheng Er" before her and "Zheng Shan" were the same person.

This was because an Omen, unlike a family bloodline, could not be passed down by blood.

It would be plausible if his father were a Mystic, but to say an Omen could be inherited by one’s child was utterly preposterous.

Absolutely impossible.

Every Deceitful Object was a unique existence between Heaven and Earth. A Deceitful Object corresponding to the same Path could never exist in two people at the same time.

Unless...

Zheng Shan was dead.

Pushing aside that impossible possibility, Feng Bei nodded, her expression as calm as ever. "Again."

Zheng Xiu attacked.

The sky filled with bending, overlapping chains, forming a cage that enveloped Feng Bei.

After training with Feng Bei for three days, Zheng Xiu’s proficiency with [Purgatory]—the kind of proficiency that couldn’t be measured on a panel—had skyrocketed. He could now wield [Purgatory] as if it were an extension of his own arm, striking wherever he aimed with perfect accuracy.

He adjusted the direction of his blades by vibrating the chains.

Two Curved Sabers slashed toward Feng Bei’s back from different directions.

This was a variation of the Coiling Dragon Eighteen Slashes: "Double Dragon Water-taking".

Feng Bei first dodged the first saber, but then she actively reached out to catch the second.

Seeing her move, Zheng Xiu was horrified. ’It’s too late to pull back!’ He could only watch helplessly as the edge of the Large Curved Saber sliced through Feng Bei’s forearm.

"Are you crazy? Why would you try to catch it?"

Their meeting here wasn’t a duel to the death; it was just for training. Seeing Feng Bei actually get "hurt," Zheng Xiu’s heart ached. Worried he had injured his Treasure Queen, he rushed forward to check on her. But when Feng Bei rolled up her sleeve, revealing her fair upper arm, Zheng Xiu froze.

Feng Bei’s arm was completely unharmed. The Curved Saber had passed right through it, leaving only a faint black line on her skin.

"This is a ’kind’ saber too?"

Zheng Xiu didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. It had all been a pointless scare. He retracted the chains and raised the Curved Saber to chop at his own hand. He confirmed it when he saw the saber pass through his arm as if it were air. [Purgatory], when equipped with [inspiration], was like a "kind" saber—all damage had been removed, leaving nothing but flashy special effects.

"This makes no sense!"

Zheng Xiu muttered in confusion, stabbing himself with the Curved Saber. ’Logically, the saber embedded with [Medical Principles] could both draw blood and heal, so it was always useful. Why is it that when I embed the [inspiration] I was so looking forward to, it doesn’t meet my expectations at all?’

As Feng Bei was pondering and just starting to form an idea, she looked up and saw the fearless, ignorant young man impassively stabbing himself with the saber.

"Don’t!"

Feng Bei wanted to stop his actions, but in her alarm, she remembered her hands carried the Omen. In her haste, she could only fly up and kick out.

THUD!

Zheng Xiu was sent flying as if headbutted by a ferocious heifer, rolling and tumbling through the snow until he became a snowball that tumbled all the way down the mountain.

"Zheng Er!"

’I kicked him too hard,’ Feng Bei thought. She strode to the cliff’s edge, only to see the young man fly back up on his single wing, fuming. "What did you kick me for! A dignified Upper Three resorting to sneak attacks? You think I’m an easy target, is that it?"

"No." Feng Bei turned her head. Seeing the young man covered in snow but otherwise unharmed, she couldn’t help but find it a little funny. She coughed twice, quickly regained her composure, and said nonchalantly, "This Magic of yours... it seems a bit peculiar."

Hearing this, Zheng Xiu perked up. "Peculiar how?"

’Peculiar? Peculiar is good!’ The last thing Zheng Xiu wanted to hear from Feng Bei now was the word "ordinary."

’How could it be ordinary? Who’s ordinary? What part of it is ordinary?’

"I need to test it again." Feng Bei was also curious now; she had never seen such a strange Miracle Technique.

Over the years, she had seen all sorts of Path Mystic Skills. That was how, back at the Immortal Maiden Temple, she had been able to discern the Paths of the three disabled individuals with just a glance.

But faced with Zheng Xiu, no matter how much she thought about it, she couldn’t figure out what kind of Path he belonged to.

Even an Innate Mystic, born with an Omen, would still correspond to a Path.

"Be more careful now. If you feel any discomfort, close your eyes immediately," Feng Bei warned again and again as dark patterns extended from her right eye, spreading down the right side of her delicate body.

Every time she used this move, Feng Bei would give a cautious warning, afraid of accidentally harming the young man.

Feng Bei stood her ground, her right palm held in an open grip.

The moment Zheng Xiu saw Feng Bei’s "Mountain Splitting" stance, his scalp tingled, and he took a step back.

BZZZZZ.

[Purgatory], embedded with [inspiration], began to tremble in Zheng Xiu’s hand, sending an almost imperceptible, buzzing vibration into his palm. 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

Zheng Xiu’s Incarnation wasn’t equipped with [inspiration], but perhaps because the concentration of the Ghostly Realm around Feng Bei was too high at that moment, Zheng Xiu vaguely saw a hazy figure behind her.

It was the [Executioner]!

Zheng Xiu’s breath caught. For a split second, the thought that Feng Bei wanted to hang him from a lamppost flashed through his mind.

"Go ahead and attack. It’s fine. I will hold back."

Feng Bei said.

Zheng Xiu was relieved to hear that.

Dodge, position, exert force, coil the dragon, strike.

He activated his [Step Technique], [Muscle Strength], [Coiling Dragon Eighteen Slashes], and [inspiration] all in one go. Extremely efficient.

The "kind" inspiration-saber transformed into a sky full of blade shadows and slashed down. Feng Bei nodded inwardly at Zheng Xiu’s move and lightly swung the afterimage of her right hand.

CLANG!

With a crisp sound, a sharp pain shot through Zheng Xiu’s brow. He could only watch as his Purgatory was chopped into black mist by Feng Bei’s strike.

But Feng Bei remained where she stood, looking at the young man in surprise.

"Your saber... it can cut an ’Omen’?"

Zheng Xiu sat down, the Chain Saber retracting with a series of clicks.

Clutching his forehead, Zheng Xiu understood Feng Bei’s words. Instead of feeling defeated that she had so easily destroyed his [Purgatory], he was overjoyed.

What mattered to Zheng Xiu was that [Purgatory], when embedded with [inspiration], could pass directly through tangible objects and cut intangible ones!

His Large Curved Saber had clearly collided with Feng Bei’s attack, creating a shower of sparks!

’This saber can cut Omens!’

"WAHAHAHA—"

The young man laughed triumphantly and, riding the momentum, extended his bone chains once more.

A single man and a lone woman, the young man and Feng Bei, with the great snow as their witness and Heaven and Earth as their judge, with Mao’er covering its eyes, they fought again until dawn.

At daybreak, the young man, utterly exhausted, hastily leaped off the cliff and fled.

"You..."

Feng Bei had just started to ask him to stay, but the young man had already vanished.

"He left Mao’er behind again."

Feng Bei sighed softly.

The Orange Cat was on the roof, covering its eyes. Before Feng Bei could say anything, it leaped into the house, curled up in a nest made of old clothes, and wept until the next night.

Go down the mountain, hunt, cook, feed the cat.

Sitting in the bathtub, Feng Bei watched the miserable, weeping Orange Cat and was once again lost in thought.