Decaying World Chapter 228

Chapter 228

"Under normal circumstances, we'd take a boat out of Xingdao and spend roughly a month at sea—passing through the Jade Sea and the Crystal Sea along the way. There are dangers, but nothing unmanageable," Lin Hui said.

Wang Hongshi fell silent.

Little Hu, Huang Shan, Qiu Yiren, Chen Sui, and the rest sank into thought, each weighing what this ant for them.

Barely half a minute later, Qiu Yiren raised her hand.

"I want to go. Wherever the Dao Master goes, I go!" She fixed her gaze on Lin Hui, making no effort to conceal her admiration.

"What about your family? You'd just leave them behind?" Huang Shan couldn't help asking.

"My family listens to . They all ca out with the group this ti, so it won't be complicated." Qiu Yiren thumped her chest with a confident air.

She was the pillar of her family now, wielding absolute authority; her word was law.

Huang Shan said nothing. Her situation was different. Her family was large, and after so many years putting down roots in Xinyu Town, those roots ran deep. Walking away ant discarding everything her family had built through years of blood and toil.

Chen Sui was in the sa position, as were Chen Xiangzhi, Little Hu, and Zhao Jiang'an.

"Those willing to co along, compile a list and bring it to . I won't force anyone. As long as you still consider yourselves mbers of the Clear Wind Dao, you're welco to stay and hold the sect's ground here," Lin Hui said.

He had no intention of expelling anyone simply because they chose not to follow him.

Huang Shan, Chen Sui, and the others bowed in silence and withdrew, their minds unsettled. They needed to think this through and reach a firm decision—and in the anti, everyone had to be told.

In truth, Lin Hui's plan left room for both sides.

Black Cloud was far, but the city was prosperous, making it far easier to trade for rare dicines; going there was necessary. At the sa ti, the encampnt at the maze ruins, with the Purple Cloud Reishi dicinal garden now established, needed people to maintain it.

The disciples, unwilling to leave, could do exactly that—guard the encampnt and keep the ruins operational while he was gone.

Yun Xia, I'll be relying on you to hold things together here. Lin Hui transmitted to Yun Xiazi, who sat cross-legged at a distance, once Wang Hongshi and the others had left.

Understood. Rest easy, Dao Master. I'll have the Nine Dreams Sect keep watch. Yun Xiazi had no intention of leaving. Her roots were here, and for other reasons, she kept to herself; she neither could nor wished to go.

As for her pursuit of greater strength—ever since she had learned the Wild Wind Sword Technique, she had pored over it and trained without rest, treating it as sothing priceless, almost sacred in her reverence for it.

Her progress had been exceptional. Of course, "exceptional" asured against ordinary geniuses like Tao Xuehai. asured against Lin Hui and Xia Si, the gap between them was still the gap between ordinary people and sothing else entirely.

Even now, she had yet to complete her first Body Tempering; she had only mastered the forms.

"And you, Su Yaping?" Lin Hui turned toward the far end of the group.

A hundred ters away, Su Yaping sat cross-legged on a boulder, keeping watch over the entire periter. At the sound transmission, he opened his eyes.

"This subordinate left everything behind long ago. I have nothing and no one. My only desire is to reach the absolute zenith of martial arts."

Compared to Yun Xiazi, his drive was far simpler and far purer.

Yun Xiazi appeared just as devoted to power—ruthless about it, capable of sacrificing anything in its pursuit. But underneath that hunger lay another, deeper reason driving her forward.

Su Yaping, by contrast, was a genuine martial fanatic—nothing more and nothing less.

From what Lin Hui knew of him, Su Yaping had been far from solitary back in Xingdao. Yet now he claid to have no one.

"Your friends, your family, your disciples, your sect—what beca of them?" Lin Hui asked quietly.

"So fled. Others—because they betrayed , or stood in my way—I killed with my own hands," Su Yaping said, without a flicker of emotion.

Lin Hui had nothing to say to that.

Sothing significant had clearly happened in Xingdao. Without a breaking point, a person wouldn't kill the people closest to them. If all he'd wanted was to pursue strength, he could have simply left. Walking away was the easier choice—the selfish one, but the simple one. Slaughtering your own sect mbers, disciples, and kin required far more than indifference. Without a particular reason, no ordinary person went that far.

"Alright," Lin Hui said.

The list ca together quickly. Out of the entire Clear Wind Dao, only sixty people were willing to follow Lin Hui across the sea to Black Cloud.

These were people with no remaining ties—many had brought their families along on this journey already. They understood, with unusual clarity, how rare it was to follow an expert of Lin Hui's caliber. Their resolve set, they moved fast, persuading their families to cut their losses and press forward together.

The others, once they confird they could remain in the Clear Wind Dao and continue training the sword techniques here in Tuyue, chose to stay.

Lin Hui didn't mind. Everyone had their own path.

As for the Purple Cloud Reishi dicinal garden, he only needed to return periodically to harvest the herbs as they matured. With Yun Xiazi and the others guarding the site, there would be no serious problems.

Besides, while Purple Cloud Reishi was a valuable dicine, its worth to others was actually lower—and less rare—than herbs that directly aided cultivation. The market for what it produced was not especially large. The recent price surge had been driven entirely by his own aggressive buying. Once he left, prices would naturally drift back to their normal range.

Among those willing to go were Wang Hongshi, Xia Si, Qiu Yiren, and Little Hu. Together with their families, they ca to just over sixty people. The overwhelming majority of the core disciples had chosen to remain.

The sky began to brighten.

The crowd dismantled the fabric awnings and divided into their respective groups. Yun Xiazi gathered the Clear Wind Dao mbers who were staying behind. Together, they bowed farewell to Lin Hui, then held their ground and watched him go.

Among them were also servants and martial arts guards from the Lin Manor who had chosen not to depart. Counting both the Clear Wind Dao mbers and the Lin Manor staff willing to travel together, the departing group numbered just over a hundred.

The two sides parted. Yun Xiazi and her group watched Lin Hui's convoy slowly disappear into the Mist, their hearts slow to settle long after it had gone.

"The Dao Master is only going far away—it's not as if he won't return. We just need to hold this ground for him. There's no need for worry," Yun Xiazi said, turning to look at Huang Shan and the others.

"One more thing." She glanced toward a patch of Mist nearby, raised her hand, and tossed sothing into it. "The Dao Master instructed to deliver this to you personally. Make sure you take it."

In the Mist, Tao Xuehai reached out and caught the object cleanly. He looked down to find the jade box he had once used to deliver dicine to his master.

Inside, resting quietly on the base of the box, was a stalk of withered white grass emanating a faint green luminescence. Beneath it lay a folded slip of paper.

Extre Cold Withered Heart Grass: When consud alongside one tael of Dragon Source Incense, it can extend one's lifespan by twenty years and temporarily delay Corruption.

Tao Xuehai closed the box and drew a slow breath, tilting his head back and closing his eyes as a sharp sting rose behind them.

A mont later, he set the box down, sank to his knees, and kowtowed deeply in the direction Lin Hui had gone.

"This disciple... will absolutely not disappoint you."

The words fell, heavy as a vow. A soft breeze stirred, and Tao Xuehai was gone.

…

Three days later. A desolate bay on the Jade Sea.

The Clear Wind Dao mbers under Lin Hui's lead, together with the Lin Manor party—one hundred and thirty-seven people, including families—formally boarded the Black Cloud fleet that had co to receive them.

Han Xiaoyue was the only one there to see them off.

"Safe travels. Perhaps one day we'll et again." Han Xiaoyue stood on the shore, watching Lin Hui ascend the gangplank.

In the jade-green bay, over a dozen large ships flying black flags bearing the words Heaven-bestowed sat waiting, slowly drawing in their gangplanks and preparing to cast off.

Lin Hui stood at the rail, looking down at Han Xiaoyue's silhouette, faint and still amid the drifting Mist.

Why not co with ? He transmitted.

"I have a mission I must see through," Han Xiaoyue said, shaking her head. "We've known each other long enough to call it friendship. If you're willing, co back to find in Tuyue thirty years from now."

"Thirty years." Lin Hui narrowed his eyes. He had never learned why Han Xiaoyue had co to Tuyue, nor why soone of her standing as a Super-Adapter would travel thousands of li to a city as remote as this.

Within the Taisu Federation, Tuyue was considered peripheral at best.

Han Xiaoyue's position in Tuyue was strange in its own right. The Moon Tower looked the other way and kept her supplied with every comfort; in return, Han Xiaoyue genuinely lived as an ordinary person, spending her days in nothing but cultivation and reading.

From fragnts he had overheard from Han Sanmian, Han Xiaoyue and those with her had co here to fulfill so mission—sothing that concerned the Federation itself, not rely the city. But since Han Xiaoyue wouldn't speak of it, and no one else knew, Lin Hui could only speculate.

"If you ever need help, send soone with a letter to Number 41, First Class, Brimstone Quarter in Black Cloud," Lin Hui said quietly. It was the address of the residence his father had arranged.

"I will." Han Xiaoyue gave a firm nod. "Take care of yourself."

"You as well." He stood at the rail and watched as her figure grew smaller, then fainter, until the boundless Mist closed over her entirely.

He would undoubtedly return partway through to harvest the Purple Cloud Reishi. Yet for reasons he couldn't quite na, a faint lancholy had settled over him.

Han Sanmian's attack had co far too suddenly, forcing his hand and his true strength into the open to prevent any future complications. It had all moved too fast. But looking back clearly, the initiative had never been his—it had always belonged to Han Sanmian. From the mont that Blood Ancestor decided to strike and devour, Lin Hui had understood that the quiet life was over.

He turned away from the rail.

His father was chatting comfortably with a heavyset, full-bearded man—the fleet captain of the Heaven-bestowed Chamber of Comrce's fleet, Huang Dadan. The two of them were laughing easily, already thick as old friends. Knowing he had nothing close to that kind of easy sociability, Lin Hui decided to leave them to it.

His gaze moved across the deck.

The planking was a weathered brownish-yellow, discolored in patches to black and gray, with the remnants of massive gouges and cracks running through other sections. A few sailors had found corners to disappear into, quietly drinking and playing cards. The overall atmosphere aboard was notably lax.

Aside from the thirty-odd mbers of his group who had just co on deck, the rest were burly sailors in fitted gray waterproof suits—all male, without a single woman among them. At a rough count, there were fifty or sixty up here, not including whoever was below.

The ship itself was over a hundred ters in length—a genuine behemoth. Its hull was the sa brownish-yellow throughout, shaped much like a traditional galleon. But a low, steady vibration rose from the stern, suggesting a ans of propulsion beyond the sails. At the bow, sothing cleaved the Mist apart, keeping the entire deck clear.

As Lin Hui took stock of the ship, Liu Xiao ca to stand beside him without a sound.

"You didn't forget to have soone pass the letter to Big Brother, did you?" she asked quietly.

"Of course not." Lin Hui could already picture it. "I'm curious what his face will look like when he gets ho and finds the place empty."

The entire family had slipped away, leaving only Liu Wujun behind. But there was no helping it. On the Lin Manor's side, both he and his father had been exposed. If they stayed, they would draw serious trouble before long. Better to leave it all behind and start fresh.

"I'm a little worried..." Liu Xiao let a rare trace of vulnerability show.

"About what? Big Brother is an elite among High Divine Officers, and his master is the Vice Palace Master of the Rain Palace, which falls under the Federation's direct authority. As long as there's nothing that directly implicates him, it can all be sorted out," Lin Hui said.

"No—what worries is that Xia Si just formally acknowledged a master, and then we swept her up and ran. What sort of look is Palace Master Jiang Zhixia going to have on her face when she hears about this?" Liu Xiao said.

Lin Hui went still.

Frad that way, Big Brother's position really was sowhat awkward.

"I'll explain things properly when I go back," Lin Hui sighed.

Fortunately, cutting down Han Sanmian had deepened his grasp of the Typhoon Sword Technique considerably. Combined with over a year of relentless training, he could finally see a path to the final rank of Body Tempering. Once they arrived and found a stable place to settle, a month or two at most should be enough to push through it.

It reminded him, as it always did, that nothing sharpened cultivation like real combat.