Li Jianqiu stood beneath the giant boulder, motionless. Only the flames of the Flame Sword flickered in the mountain wind.
Jiang Wang walked to his side and clearly saw the inscriptions on the stone.
"The twelfth year of Yongtai. Fought a hundred bloody battles, unrivaled with hands behind my back. I leave these words for future generations to admire!"
The signature was Wu.
It seemed unfinished, as there was a vertical stroke beside it, clearly just the beginning of a character.
Yongtai was the era name of the current ruler of the State of Zhuang; it was now the fourteenth year of Yongtai in the Zhuang calendar, or the year 3917 of the Dao calendar.
In other words, the words left on this stone carving were from two years ago. This was precisely the time when Vertical Brush Peak had first been cleared out.
After slaying the ferocious beasts, Li Jianqiu neither boasted of his achievement nor summarized the battle, nor did he continue forward. Instead, he stopped before this stone carving that clearly held a story, remaining silent.
This atmosphere caused even the usually flighty Huang Azhan to shut his mouth.
After a moment of silence, Li Jianqiu dissipated the Flame Swords in his hands. For the first time in front of Jiang Wang and the others, he slowly drew the sword from his waist.
This was the first time Jiang Wang had seen this sword unsheathed.
Bright, brilliant—the first adjectives that came to mind were ones that should never suit a weapon, yet for this sword, they were perfectly appropriate.
Holding the sword in one hand, Li Jianqiu added a few strokes to the stone carving.
Wu Shan.
The name was ordinary, but this must be the senior who appeared to possess the potential for invincibility.
Li Jianqiu moved the blade, starting a new line on the carving: "A junior has come to admire!"
Then, he started another line and wrote the signature: "The profligate hound, Li Jianqiu."
Stone powder fell in a rustle, as if burying some emotion within the dust.
"Let's go," Li Jianqiu said, turning around. "We're heading to the summit."
Bypassing the giant boulder, the group stepped over broken branches and decayed leaves, advancing through the jagged rocks.
There might have been a path here once, but after two years, it had returned to its original state.
There was no road in the mountains, but the road lay beneath their feet.
"I noticed your sword was broken earlier. By completing the cleanup of Vertical Brush Peak on our own, we can exchange for a dharma-tool longsword. I'll give it to you," Li Jianqiu said casually.
"How can I do that?" Jiang Wang waved his hand. "I wasn't the only one putting in effort for the mission, and you were the main force, Senior Brother..."
As a cultivator accustomed to using a sword, Jiang Wang's longing for a good blade went without saying. If it had been only him and Zhao Rucheng on this trip, he wouldn't have felt bashful. But after all, his relationship with Li Jianqiu, and even Huang Azhan, hadn't reached that level of intimacy.
Li Jianqiu patted the longsword at his waist. "I have Peach Branch. I don't need any other sword."
So this sword was named Peach Branch. What an apt name, so bright and brilliant, Jiang Wang thought.
Li Jianqiu added, "A dharma sword of this grade should be worth around six hundred Dao Medals. You can just give us a hundred Dao Medals each."
Calculating it this way, Jiang Wang still came out ahead. But for the others, it wasn't a loss either; after all, Dao Medals were hard currency, and they might not have a use for the physical items exchanged from the mission.
"Alright." Jiang Wang stopped hesitating.
The other two naturally had no objections.
Li Jianqiu then turned to Huang Azhan and said, "Judging from your Dao arts, you seem to follow a similar path to Shen Nanqi. It's just that one is the Metal element and the other is Fire."
Huang Azhan scratched his head and smiled. "I just tinker around on my own; it's not a systematic approach."
"Fire-element Dao arts are violent; you need to focus more on the control of the art itself. Take the Flame Bullet art, for example." Li Jianqiu casually formed a hand seal, creating a Flame Bullet.
"When it explodes, how it explodes, its scale, its speed—you must be able to control it all at will." Under Li Jianqiu's manipulation, the Flame Bullet surged forward and backward, expanding and shrinking, before suddenly accelerating and smashing a mountain rock to pieces.
"I have learned much." Huang Azhan bowed formally to express his gratitude.
Li Jianqiu waved it off and spoke to Zhao Rucheng: "You are very clever. Earlier, I said that among you few, Du Yehu had the highest combat talent; I didn't expect to overlook you. Your combat talent is not inferior to his, but he relies on innate combat intuition."
He tapped his temple with a finger. "You rely on this."
Zhao Rucheng laughed it off. "Is that so? I wouldn't have known if you hadn't said it."
Huang Azhan pondered for a moment. "Wait, Senior Brother Li. Does this mean that out of the three of us, I'm the only one who needs guidance?"
Li Jianqiu smiled but said nothing.
The fact that he knew every detail of everyone's combat during such an intense fight proved how effortless it had been for him.
Yet, for some reason, he hadn't shown a performance matching this strength during the Three Cities Dao Discussion.
A wolf-hair brush: the handle was vertical and straight, the brush head plump and round, and the tip sharp as a fine awl.
If one inverted it, it would be the general shape of Vertical Brush Peak.
After passing the mountainside and ascending a bit further, they reached the position of the brush head. This was the widest cross-section of the entire peak.
This was also the stronghold of the ferocious beasts of Vertical Brush Peak.
Even from a distance, the group could hear the roars of the beasts. As they drew closer, some restless beasts charged out.
This seemed to be a signal; immediately, like a disturbed hornet's nest, various strangely shaped beasts swarmed toward them.
Wind Centipedes, Rock Snakes, Tiger-Jackals, Mountain Spiders...
Even in this situation, Li Jianqiu had the leisure to give a rough count. "Not bad, less than a hundred. Far from forming a true scale."
He took a step forward, and Peach Branch left its sheath!
The sword light was dazzling, the sword qi vast.
Enveloped in a magnificent crimson hue, he plunged into the beast tide.
It was as if spring had arrived and peach blossoms had bloomed.
The peach blossoms were the color of blood; what bloomed were life-souls.
Li Jianqiu was like a red tide, sweeping through the beast tide.
Jiang Wang and the others didn't even have a chance to strike; they watched the scene in stunned silence.
As the red tide receded, all roaring and howling ceased.
Only Li Jianqiu's lean figure remained standing.
One man, one sword, and a ground covered in beast corpses.
Such a scene—what a magnificent piece of freehand ink painting!
"Se... Senior Brother Li." Huang Azhan was beyond shocked, forgetting even to flatter him. "If you're this strong, why did you even bring us along?"
With Peach Branch in hand, Li Jianqiu looked toward the mountainside and suddenly let out a long, loud howl amidst the corpses of the beasts!
The sound shook the high cliffs and echoed through the distant mountains.
It was as if a long-held congestion had finally vanished, an indescribable feeling of liberation and boldness!
Only after his howl ended did he sheathe his sword and say, "The person who left the words on the stone carving loved showing off in front of others and boasting of his achievements. I brought you along just to fulfill his dying wish of being admired by junior students."
Jiang Wang asked hesitantly, "Was that Senior Brother Wu Shan... also a student of our Maple Forest City Dao Academy?"
"Counting it, he should have been in the same year as Senior Brother Zhu, but his strength was far inferior. His strength back then was far below mine now." Li Jianqiu shook his head, his expression an ambiguous mix of nostalgia and bitterness.
"I told you, didn't I? All my teammates died."
Li Jianqiu paused, then continued, "They died under his leadership."
He turned to look toward the summit of Vertical Brush Peak, or perhaps he simply wanted to turn his back to Jiang Wang and the others.
His voice rang out through the peak: "He was incredibly weak. But when the beast tide suddenly erupted and broke through the defensive line, he stood in front of it. He said that the people of our Maple Forest City Dao Academy could not let the people of the Three Mountain Cities look down on them."
"They all stood in front of the beast tide. I ran."
Jiang Wang and the others looked at his back—a back that seemed exceptionally lonely under the billowing mountain wind. They suddenly understood the signature he had carved: *The profligate hound, Li Jianqiu.*
That line of text had likely been carved into his heart for two years, for over seven hundred days and nights.
And only after he truly carved those words into the stone wall and slaughtered every beast on Vertical Brush Peak could he finally reconcile with himself.
(End of Chapter)