Chapter 1 Regret

When the sword's edge sliced across Liu Xilai's throat, only the word "regret" remained in his heart.

Attachment breeds regret.

What Liu Xilai was attached to was not his own life.

More than twenty years ago, the moment he was defeated by the "Purple Bamboo Hermit," he had already considered himself a dead man.

And when he had lost everything, the Xie family extended a helping hand, allowing him to live like a human being again.

Therefore, the life that followed, Liu Xilai did not live for himself, but for the Xie family... for the sake of repaying their kindness.

Compared to his own life, Liu Xilai cared more about the Xie family's honor, disgrace, gains, and losses.

Unfortunately, he still failed to protect Xie Wuhua.

Liu Xilai was indeed old. Before the age of forty, "having eyes and hands that reached the heavens" never led to a misjudgment. His only miscalculation of an opponent's strength occurred after he turned forty; and that one oversight directly led to the end of his career in the martial world.

Today, he misjudged the situation once again, and this time the mistake… was even more serious.

Before Leng Yuqiu uttered the phrase, "Where to strike, when to strike, and who to kill… are all my freedom," Liu Xilai still believed that the situation was under control.

But when those words were spoken, Leng Yuqiu's aura changed…

At that moment, he no longer concealed his surging sword intent, nor did he hide his killing intent.

It was also at this moment that Liu Xilai discovered something, a terrifying thing—Leng Yuqiu's martial arts cultivation was much higher than he had estimated… far higher!

From the moment he arrived... Leng Yuqiu had not been meditating on the bed, but practicing his sword.

Perhaps some would wonder, can a person sitting on a bed, with legs crossed and eyes closed... be considered practicing the sword?

Generally speaking… no.

But Leng Yuqiu was clearly not within the scope of "generally speaking."

When a person's martial arts reached a certain realm, their method of practice was no longer bound by form; for such people, the cultivation of "form" was less efficient than the cultivation of "intent."

Of course, such people were rare, truly a phoenix feather or unicorn horn in the entire martial world; even Xie Xiuwen, the current head of the Xie family, had not yet reached this realm.

However, Leng Yuqiu, this man who appeared to be only around thirty years old, already possessed such cultivation.

Thus, having understood all this, Liu Xilai quickly changed his attitude, trying to escape; he thought… with the Xie family's reputation and his own humble attitude… the other party would not strike because of such a level of offense.

However, Leng Yuqiu's next words made Liu Bo feel as if he had fallen into an ice cave.

Not only did he not let the two of them leave, but he also explained the reason for killing Ma Dahu, which was because the latter had disturbed him "practicing his sword."

These words, to the naive young master Xie Wuhua, were merely somewhat strange; but falling into Liu Xilai's ears… they were like the tolling of a death knell.

At this point, Liu Xilai chose to kneel… His last sentence was a declaration that he was willing to give up his life and dignity to save Xie Wuhua's life.

However, even this request was not granted by Leng Yuqiu.

Perhaps… Xie Wuhua was relatively fortunate; until his death, he did not understand what had happened in this room. He did not have to experience shock, fear, pain, despair like Liu Bo, and ultimately leave this world with regret.

He simply died in surprise, quickly and without much pain.

…………

The corpse fell to the ground, and the precious sword returned to its sheath.

Leng Yuqiu sat back on the bed and took a deep breath.

His sword killed without staining blood.

But he, as a person, was somewhat bloodthirsty.

He liked to smell the fresh scent of blood near those who had just died.

This scent was something that only the victor could enjoy, and it reminded Leng Yuqiu… of the price of failure.

"You're still the same..." Suddenly, another person's voice sounded in the room, a gentle and deep male voice, "As long as you can find even the slightest reason to convince yourself, you can't wait to kill."

When Leng Yuqiu heard this voice, he actually smiled.

It wasn't a cold smile or a sneer, but a sincere, joyful smile.

"Heh... you came really fast." Leng Yuqiu laughed.

As he spoke, another person had appeared in the room—a masked man in all black.

The doors and windows of this room had not been opened, and there were no beams or cabinets in the room where someone could hide; even Leng Yuqiu didn't know how this person had entered.

But he had entered, and he had come silently.

"Two unexpected helpers appeared, allowing the mission to be completed ahead of schedule, so I arrived half a day early." The masked man replied.

"Helpers?" Leng Yuqiu frowned slightly upon hearing this.

"Don't worry, these two are definitely reliable." The masked man said.

"To actually hear the words 'definitely reliable' from your mouth…" Leng Yuqiu murmured, "Could it be… they are…"

"Yes." The masked man knew what he was going to say, so he interrupted directly.

"I see." Leng Yuqiu nodded, "Then… the plan remains the same?"

"Of course, but…" the masked man said, looking down at the two corpses on the ground, "You really know how to cause trouble for people. Do you know who these two are?"

"I know." Leng Yuqiu replied calmly, "Aren't they the young master and steward of the Xie family..." He paused, "Once tomorrow passes... the entire martial world will be against us. Is it necessary for me to specifically worry about whether there will be a few more people with the surname Xie?"

"Sigh..." The masked man sighed, "Oh well... what you said is also the truth."

Before the sigh had ended, he had already stepped forward and picked up the sword beside Xie Wuhua's body.

"Leave this Lilac Sword to me, it might be useful." The masked man picked up the sword and turned to Leng Yuqiu.

"Well, if you could also dispose of the corpses, that would be even better." The introverted Leng Yuqiu seemed very relaxed in front of this person (and he didn't want to kill anyone at the moment), and was actually speaking to the other party in a joking tone.

"Dream on, find a way yourself, or you can let them sleep with you." After saying this, the masked man disappeared from the room, as silently and invisibly as when he had arrived…

…………

At the same moment, on the first floor of the inn, the room directly below Leng Yuqiu's room.

"Uh… is this blood…"

[Rampant Shadow Sword] looked up at the ceiling, watching the drops of blood seeping through the cracks in the wooden planks, and muttered with a depressed expression.

He originally wanted to eat some of the food from the script to replenish his strength, but he didn't expect that just as he was about to pick up his chopsticks, his food was drizzled with some free "sauce."

"Looks like something happened upstairs." [Not Afraid At All], who was also sitting at the dining table, glanced at the ceiling and chimed in.

"How about… we go up and take a look?" Sword Lad thought for a moment, then said.

"Since we can't eat this meal anyway, let's go up and take a look." Don't be fooled by the fact that Sword Lad is in the management of "Jianghu," in this two-person team, the Not Afraid At All girl is the "leader," and they have to listen to her instructions on how to act.

"Okay." Since the leader had spoken, Sword Lad didn't say anything else and got up to leave.

The Not Afraid At All girl also left the room with him, and the two of them turned a corner and went up the stairs to the second floor.

Rampant Shadow Sword wasn't Xie Wuhua; he didn't care about the "courtesy" of the martial world. As soon as he arrived in front of Leng Yuqiu's door, he began banging on the door.

"Is anyone there?" Sword Lad not only knocked on the door, but also called out. After finishing the first half of the sentence, he felt it wasn't appropriate, so he immediately added, "Are there any living people there?"

Leng Yuqiu inside the room was also stunned, thinking, "What's going on? The martial artists in the town should all know I'm staying in this room, and they wouldn't knock on my door like this. But his voice and attitude don't sound like the inn's staff; could it be… an ignorant constable?"

As he speculated, he walked towards the door.

Since he couldn't sense any inner force from the person outside the door, Leng Yuqiu was quite confident in his conclusion of "ignorant constable." Although such a person posed no threat to him, the method of not opening the door wouldn't work on this type of person.

Squeak—

A few seconds later, Leng Yuqiu opened the door.

A young man and woman appeared before his eyes, and they were clearly dressed as martial artists (as with most martial arts world-view scripts, the system had adjusted the players' images in the eyes of the NPCs).

Leng Yuqiu's problem flared up. After opening the door, he just stared silently at the two players, without uttering a single word.

Sword Lad and Not Afraid At All immediately noticed the corpses in the room, and then exchanged a look.

Logically speaking, the person inside the room should speak first at this moment, but Leng Yuqiu just wouldn't open his mouth. And so… the scene fell into a deadlock, and the atmosphere was slightly awkward.

"Just killed?" After about ten seconds of silence, Rampant Shadow Sword couldn't help it. He asked Leng Yuqiu as if he was just making conversation.

Leng Yuqiu was also wondering what was going on. These two didn't seem to recognize him, and they didn't show much surprise or fear about the corpses in the room.

"Mm…" Leng Yuqiu pondered for a second and nodded.

"Oh…" Sword Lad also nodded, "Well… the blood from the corpses leaked downstairs, so we came up to take a look."

"Oh." Leng Yuqiu replied, without any further expression.

"What do you mean 'oh'?" At this time, Not Afraid At All couldn't stand it anymore, "Our food is covered in blood, and there's blood on the floor of our room. You just say 'oh' and think that's the end of it?"

Leng Yuqiu really didn't expect that the other party wouldn't be afraid, and would instead adopt such a tough attitude. He thought to himself, "These two… are probably rookies who have just entered the martial world, so they don't know who I am… and they don't recognize that the dead people on the ground are Xie Wuhua and Liu Xilai…"

Thinking of this, he suddenly found these two a little amusing.

"Then according to you, miss…" After a moment, Leng Yuqiu opened his mouth to reply, "What should I do?"

"Nonsense, pay up!" Not Afraid At All said righteously.

Leng Yuqiu calmly replied, "Oh… then how much do you want?"

"That's hard to say." Not Afraid At All said, "Logically speaking… the compensation should be enough for us to change rooms, right?"

Leng Yuqiu nodded, "That seems to make some sense." He said that, but he stood there without moving. After five seconds, he spoke again, "But I want to know, if I don't pay, what can you do?"

Leng Yuqiu had money.

Even if he didn't have money, there was enough money on the bodies of the two people lying on the ground.

Moreover, Leng Yuqiu had never been a person who loved money. For someone like him, the driving force that money could produce was close to zero.

Therefore, his reaction was definitely not because he was reluctant to pay.

At this moment, Leng Yuqiu was acting purely out of interest.

Of course, he didn't plan to kill anyone. He felt that, whether it was in terms of people or things, these two didn't need to die yet.

Leng Yuqiu just wanted to give these two "newly entered the martial world" men and women a lesson, to tell them—the martial world wasn't a place where logic and reason prevailed.

In a way, he wanted to "help" the two people in front of him: letting a person understand the unfairness of this world and the importance of strength sooner was indeed a good deed.

People who had never experienced shamelessness would never understand true nobility, and morality that was detached from reality was just another form of stupidity.

Originally… that was indeed the case.

However, Leng Yuqiu had encountered not clueless martial arts rookies, but ferocious interdimensional travelers…

"Huh?" Seeing the other party's arrogant attitude, Rampant Shadow Sword immediately felt a little unhappy.

That's right, he didn't recognize Leng Yuqiu.

If he did recognize him… at that moment, he might have chosen to remain calm, thereby triggering a storyline that involved cooperating with Leng Yuqiu.

But there was no such "if"…

These two in Jianghu were relatively average at gathering intelligence, but they were definitely not ambiguous when it came to going head-to-head.

As soon as Rampant Shadow Sword heard the other party ask such a question, he blurted out, "Then I'll teach you how to write the word 'pay'."