After a long silence, he finally spoke: "Hey, are you drinking?"
Wu Buxu's white hair fluttered lightly. His head tilted slightly, as if he had perceived the shift in Chen Yi's inner state, but he only smiled.
Chen Yi stepped closer, reaching into the Square Land to retrieve a wine gourd and two wine cups.
"Are you drinking?" Chen Yi asked once more.
This ti, Wu Buxu finally turned his head, gave him a glance, and said:
"Drinking with ? You're not qualified."
Chen Yi seed unfazed and drank on his own, a faint blush rising to his cheeks.
Thunder roared, stirring up the centuries-old desolate air of the Sword Pool. No matter how the fierce winds surged, they could neither scatter nor disperse it; instead, the force seed trapped, crushed, ground into fragnts, and fused with the desolation itself.
The old man was among it.
"When did you start wielding a sword?" he suddenly asked.
Wu Buxu sat among the wild grass, his aged skin sagging on his face, exuding an air of antiquity. Beneath the flesh lay a sharp and imposing skeletal fra, the very essence of a sword reeking of bloodshed and death.
Chen Yi paused to recall. "Around twenty. I had just arrived in the Capital City, joined the Brocade Guard, and then began training with swords and blades."
Wu Buxu's white brows hung low as his gaze remained fixed on the sword. He said:
"I began practicing Sword Dao a year after entering the Shangqing Sect. By the age of twenty, there was no opponent who could best . So I left the sect to seek out masters far and wide. No one understood my choice, and I earned the title of Sword Maniac—half in admiration, half in pity.
That na stuck with for five years. Five years later, the Jianghu stopped calling that. But when idle, I think of it as a wine companion—there's so amusent in it."
The old man sat there, surrounded by swords, alone and solitary, his figure ant to evoke desolate isolation.
Yet Chen Yi saw that he was nearly one with the wild grass around him. He, too, seed like nothing more than a towering blade of grass.
Wu Buxu suddenly remarked: "You've touched Xiao Daoping's sword."
Just as the old man said, Chen Yi's hand had indeed rested upon Xiao Daoping's sword—the only sword within one zhang of Wu Buxu's surroundings over the decades in the Sword Pool.
Chen Yi fixed his gaze and said evenly: "To reach this point, he's stronger than everyone else."
The sword closest to Xiao Daoping's sword seed to mark an outer circle one zhang wide.
"When he drew his sword, he was leagues apart from other juniors."
Wu Buxu did not raise his head.
"But when I killed him, it was no different from killing anyone else."
Chen Yi remained silent.
After transmitting his heart through the sword, his mind was clear, devoid of extraneous thoughts. Chen Yi felt his state of mind rise to a higher level. He thought of Xiao Daoping, who had severed the Three Corpses, likened to transcending life and death; but now, looking back, even soone as matched to Xiao Daoping as himself could still be slaughtered like a chicken, their sword shattered in this place.
But… how much did he lack?
As if sensing the subtle shift in Chen Yi's inner state, Wu Buxu slowly spoke:
"When you first arrived here, your state of mind was indeed far inferior to where you are now."
"Hmm," Chen Yi acknowledged without surprise.
Wu Buxu plucked a stalk of wild grass with two fingers.
"At that ti, you saw like a frog in the well looks at the moon beyond the sky. Now it's different. You see like an epheral mayfly gazing at the vast blue heavens."
As the old man spoke, his montum subtly shifted, and from the pale, desolate wild grass erged a dazzling sharpness.
Wu Buxu hadn't moved his body, but his hand did, twisting the stalk of wild grass as he brought it forward.
Chen Yi's eyes narrowed slightly.
High atop the mountain ridge, the fierce whistle of the wind abruptly halted, like a fish slicing through ripples. In the old man's withered hand, a blade-like glint split the heavens and earth clean in two. Chen Yi's pupils contracted sharply as he instinctively stepped back, shivering in fear—only when thunder illuminated his face did he realize it was rely a stalk of grass.
It seed he had been mistaken.
Wu Buxu's eyelids remained crinkled with age as he held the wild grass gently in his hand, running his fingers along the barbed, blade-like bristles of its head.
After a mont of silence, he said, "Years ago, I lost to Xu Qi. I forfeited the title of number one under the heavens. He shattered my sword montum and my thunderous blade pool with an overwhelming mastery of martial force. Among the wreckage, I suddenly understood—not only had I been wrong before, many were wrong, both then and now. And if it's wrong, it must be burned to the ground, destroyed entirely. Therefore, I broke countless swords crafted by masters of Sword Dao in three different places. Countless nights passed. I once hoped I was wrong… but I remain, while those swords have long perished.
What is a sword that breaks through all laws? What of wielding flowers or leaves as a sword? Nonsense, all of it. A sword is straight, double-edged—it neither exists to kill nor to save. It is simply a sword. A sword is ant to be nothing more than itself, just as all things in this world are one with the heavens and earth. Only humans impart upon it excess aning. Yet a sword cannot stand in place of the heavens. A sword… is not Dao.
To let a sword be a sword… the so-called Sword Dao must be shattered and extinguished.
Sword Dao is nothing more than lifeless grass within a grave."
At that mont, Wu Buxu suddenly laughed.
"Even if you are another Xiao Daoping… you're still far from it."
With his words, Chen Yi's entire body trembled, a chill creeping up his spine.
The old man remained seated on the ground.
The towering Sword Intent lood like a crushing mountain over the heavens.
A lone, majestic peak.
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