Chapter 1433: Map on the Treasured Sword

Two people entered from outside the secret chamber: Yun Ji, who had finished settling Lü Wushuang, and Yuan Gang, carrying a confidential letter.

The two came in together and were both startled to find Shang Shuqing here, already face-to-face with Master Dao after he had removed his disguise. They exchanged a look.

Shang Shuqing was equally surprised to see Yuan Gang. “Master Yuan?”

She had heard something of what had happened. She knew Yuan Gang had become the Holy Son of the Demonic Sect, knew he had gone missing, and had even heard that one of his arms had been cut off.

Wasn’t he missing? Why was he here? And both his arms were perfectly intact. She realized the secrets hidden among the people here might go far beyond anything she had imagined.

Yuan Gang gave a slight nod in greeting. “Commandery Princess.”

Shing! Niu Youdao returned the treasured sword to its sheath and said to Shang Shuqing, “I hear the Commandery Princess built a cenotaph for me?”

Caught off guard by the question, Shang Shuqing nodded awkwardly.

Niu Youdao said, “I also hear that, remembering our old ties, the Commandery Princess often goes there to pay respects. Niu is grateful. Now that the Commandery Princess knows I am still alive, I hope you will continue visiting the cenotaph just as before, so no one becomes suspicious.”

Yuan Gang, Yun Ji, and Guan Fangyi instinctively exchanged glances.

They had all noticed it. Whatever meaning that cenotaph held for Shang Shuqing had been calmly reduced to nothing by Master Dao, or perhaps simply ignored altogether. None of them could imagine what Shang Shuqing must be feeling at this moment.

A strained smile appeared on Shang Shuqing’s face. “Don’t worry, Master Dao. Qing’er understands.”

Niu Youdao said, “It would be inappropriate for the Commandery Princess to remain here too long. That could also draw suspicion. I still have matters to deal with, so I won’t keep you.”

Shang Shuqing gave a soft acknowledgment and dipped into a slight curtsy. “Qing’er was presumptuous to disturb you. Qing’er will take her leave.”

Niu Youdao tilted his head in indication. Guan Fangyi immediately stepped forward to escort Shang Shuqing out.

With Shang Shuqing managing her, Yin’er remained fairly obedient. Although she did not want to leave Niu Youdao, she still let Shang Shuqing take her away. She left the same way she had come.

Niu Youdao held the sword horizontally before him and studied it, emotion churning in his heart. Barring some unexpected mistake, the key to the secret he had been searching for had been at his side all along.

Some things had escaped not only Shang Shuqing but him as well. She had overlooked the sword. So had he.

Looking back now, Dong Guo Haoran had given his personal sword to Prince Ning as a token, and Prince Ning had then instructed that the sword be returned to Shangqing Sect. Dong Guo Haoran had been one of the people handling the affair of the Crow Generals back then. It was entirely possible that he had hidden something concerning them inside this sword.

They had overlooked it. They truly had.

When Niu Youdao had questioned Shang Shuqing just now, he had merely wanted to change the subject. Guan Fangyi had asked her the same questions before and found no answer. He did not think Shang Shuqing was hiding anything, nor had he believed he could draw out something Guan Fangyi could not. Who could have expected that a question meant only as a diversion would accidentally uncover the very clue he needed?

Some things were perhaps inevitable. Even if he had not asked Shang Shuqing today, one day in the future he would certainly have asked again.

Yuan Gang moved closer. “Yin’er exposed you that quickly?”

Niu Youdao said, “I always knew that glutton was unreliable. I just didn’t expect her to be this unreliable. Everyone be more careful around her from now on.”

He plainly did not want to dwell on the matter. His eyes shifted to the letter in Yuan Gang’s hand. “Something happened?”

Yuan Gang handed it over. “Xi Haitang wants to meet you.”

“Did he say why?”

“No.”

Niu Youdao thought briefly. “He probably still wants to know what’s going on with Lü Wushuang. Reply that I don’t have time for now. Explain in passing that Lü Wushuang and I are currently cooperating. Nothing else needs explaining. Also tell him to keep an eye on the movements of the Six Sacred Venerables.”

A while later, Guan Fangyi returned.

Niu Youdao instructed her, “The kitchen at Nanshan Temple has a bellows for the fire. Go to Yuan Fang and make the preparations. Clear out anyone who has nothing to do with this. I’ll come over shortly.”

Guan Fangyi glanced at the sword in his hand and understood immediately. She nodded and left, anticipation equally strong in her own heart.

Niu Youdao did not explain anything to the others. He put Wang Xiao’s false face back on, then left with Yun Ji. When moving about Maolu Annex these days, it was more appropriate for him to use the identity of Yun Ji’s subordinate. Yuan Gang could not show himself openly and remained underground to keep watch.

“Whatever needs doing, let this poor monk handle it. How could we let the mistress of the house do a servant’s work?”

“Old Bear, are you ever going to stop? Get lost!”

Yun Ji and Niu Youdao had only just reached the outside of Nanshan Temple’s kitchen when they heard Yuan Fang currying favor inside.

With Master Dao supposedly dead and Yuan Gang missing, everyone at the present Maolu Annex had naturally begun treating Guan Fangyi as the one in charge. Yuan Fang especially was forever looking for a sturdy leg to cling to.

They reached the doorway just as a dejected Yuan Fang was being driven out. At once he bowed and scraped toward the two newcomers. “Mountain Lord Yun.”

“There’s nothing for you here,” Yun Ji reminded him, then entered the kitchen. Niu Youdao folded his arms and remained at the doorway.

Yuan Fang grinned ingratiatingly at Niu Youdao for a moment, then took his leave.

Inside, once the fire was burning strongly, Guan Fangyi called, “It’s ready.”

Niu Youdao checked the surroundings, then turned and entered. Guan Fangyi was already beside the stove, working the bellows hard.

Niu Youdao bent down and looked at the roaring flames inside the firebox. He drew the sword and tossed the blade straight into the furnace. It lay silent amid the fierce, hissing heat.

Yun Ji stood nearby without understanding what they were doing. She had asked Guan Fangyi earlier, but Guan Fangyi had told her not to ask questions.

Most weapons used by cultivators beneath Heaven came from Jin’s Qiyun Sect. Leaving aside sharpness, ordinary smiths had difficulty producing weapons that could withstand enough force. Against cultivators of sufficiently high cultivation, common weapons could easily be destroyed.

Whoever had forged Dong Guo Haoran’s personal sword, its ability to endure punishment was clearly extraordinary as well. They added several rounds of charcoal before the blade finally began glowing red.

Only then did Niu Youdao, who had been watching from outside the stove, make a grasping motion with spiritual power. The treasured sword flew from the furnace carrying its fierce heat with it and floated before him under the support of his art.

Guan Fangyi, who knew what they were looking for, immediately leaned closer. Yun Ji came over as well.

Niu Youdao rotated the red-hot blade slightly and held it suspended with both hands.

On the side engraved with the words “Loyal Heart, Martyr’s Blood,” black lines had appeared across the glowing red metal.

More precisely, they formed a map.

Guan Fangyi pointed. “Look.”

Niu Youdao had already seen it. He stared closely and found a landscape map of mountains and water, with a villa drawn within it. He immediately opened his Dharma Eye for a closer look.

The moment he made out the villa’s layout, he froze slightly.

He had actually been there before.

The villa was nowhere else but within Nanzhou, in Canglu County, Prince Ning’s former fief. It was the very Prince Ning’s Villa where Niu Youdao, Shang Chaozong, and the others had once stayed when they stopped in Canglu County.

There could be no mistake. He had lived there for quite some time and knew the layout extremely well. Even the slope of the mountain against which the villa had been built was identical.

And now that the sword itself had been tied back to Prince Ning, the possibility of coincidence became smaller still.

Niu Youdao grew doubtful.

Could that really be the place where the hundred thousand Crow Generals were hidden?

After thinking about it, he found the idea unlikely. They had stayed there for so long. A place capable of concealing a hundred thousand Crow Generals should have been saturated with yin energy. There was no way he would have sensed nothing at all.

He tried to inspect the map more carefully, only to find the red-hot blade slowly darkening. The black patterns were becoming impossible to see.

He immediately threw the sword back into the furnace. “More fire!”

Guan Fangyi understood and hurried back to the bellows, pumping it hard again.

Because the sword was already hot, it reddened much faster this time. Niu Youdao once again drew it out with spiritual power and left it suspended before him. The lines of the map reappeared.

This time he studied them with greater care and soon noticed something wrong.

The map showed a river.

But he had stayed at that villa before, and there was no river beside it at all, only mountain streams.

Then realization struck him.

The underground river!

There was no river beside the villa, but there was indeed an underground river beneath it. The river drawn on the map should be that underground waterway.

Was the target somewhere inside the underground river?

He immediately traced the river with his eyes and soon found something unusual. At one bend in the waterway was a tiny character, so small that without using his Dharma Eye and looking carefully, it would have been easy to miss.

The character was “Ning.”

He examined the river from beginning to end. There was nothing else unusual. The map did not even mark the route to the secret village. If one place stood out, it was the bend marked with the character “Ning.”

That mark was very likely the target location.

For now, however, Niu Youdao did not dare be completely certain. He would have to inspect the place personally before he could confirm anything.

The red glow of the sword began fading again. Niu Youdao suddenly caught the hilt with one hand, pressed two fingers of the other to the blade, and slid them along it.

A mass of flame was drawn from the sword as though pulled from empty air and flew into the furnace. The blade’s red heat vanished in an instant.

With a reverse motion, he sent the sword back into the sheath planted in the ground. Then he lifted the sheathed sword in one hand.

Seeing that he had finished, Guan Fangyi tried asking, “Did you figure it out?”

Niu Youdao gave a slight nod.

She immediately asked, “What place does the map show?”

Niu Youdao glanced sideways at her. “I know what I need to know.”

Guan Fangyi’s face instantly filled with disdain. She knew that if he did not want to say, there was no point asking again.

Never mind her. Yun Ji, who had been staring just as carefully, had not been able to make sense of the map either.

Someone who had never lived at that villa would see an abrupt map with no place-names, and beneath Heaven there were mountains and rivers everywhere. Who could possibly know which tiny stretch of landscape it showed?

Yun Ji had, however, recognized the sword as Niu Youdao’s old “Loyal Heart, Martyr’s Blood.”

It had followed him for so many years. Now he had suddenly heated it in a furnace and produced a hidden map from the blade. She knew there had to be some major secret behind it.

She also thought of Dong Guo Haoran, because she knew the sword had originally belonged to him.

Standing before the flickering furnace, Niu Youdao fell into thought as well.

He remembered what he had once heard when entering that underground river years ago. Supposedly Prince Ning had fought a campaign in that region in his early years, and soldiers under his command who had become separated from the army had stumbled upon the underground river by accident.

The battlefield had later become part of Prince Ning’s fief because Prince Ning himself had asked the Yan court to grant him that land.

Looking back now, Prince Ning’s request for that fief had probably never been arbitrary.

The secret village might not have been the only reason. In fact, that village may well have existed as deliberate cover for the day something went wrong.

Anyone who discovered the village would think they had uncovered Prince Ning’s secret. Naturally, there would be no reason to continue searching for another one.

That would have hidden the real reason Prince Ning wanted the land in the first place.

Put differently, the village was a sacrificial piece Prince Ning had prepared in case of disaster. Otherwise, no one would have established a village in such a sensitive location and deliberately increased the risk of exposure.

If this reasoning was correct, then what those separated soldiers discovered years ago had not merely been an underground river. There had obviously been something else, and Prince Ning had intentionally concealed it.

And when all these clues were gathered together, they likely explained why Dong Guo Haoran’s sword contained this map.

Prince Ning and his people had been cultivating an earth-shaking secret in that land all along.

[End of Chapter 1433]