The girl dressed in splendid attire in mid-air reminded Wang Jiu of something he had seen a very long time ago.
Kite.
It was during a lull in the Immortal Demon War, at the main camp behind Fengzhou, where everything still retained the peace and prosperity of pre-war times—the main battlefield was far from Fengzhou. Children often held strings to fly kites, colorful and varied, dragonflies, swallows, magpies, divine dragons...
Among the many styles of kites, none could be more beautiful than the exquisite, delicate, and splendid kite before his eyes.
Wang Jiu turned his head, his eyes hidden beneath a fashionable cloak, focusing intently on the girl in mid-air.
Besides beauty, he saw in the girl a trace of an old friend's bloodline. However, compared to the old friend whom everyone hailed as Jiuzhou's most talented, with Yin Yang Dual Pupils capable of breaking all techniques, this girl was pathetically weak, her cultivation roughly at the Initial Tier of the Rain Cover Realm. Yet, from her scattered True Essence, it was evident that her Spiritual Sense Cultivation was severely lagging, making her real combat ability one realm lower.
This should count as severe bloodline degradation, but it was evident that the old friend's mad breeding frenzy at the war's end wasn't in vain, as his bloodline did indeed continue, regardless of the war's outcome.
Lingering slightly on old memories, Wang Jiu returned to reality, wrote a note, and tossed it over.
"Who are you?"
In the air, Lu Xin's face stiffened immediately.
"I've even called out your name, and you still want to play the mysterious figure?!"
Wang Jiu thought for a moment, then wrote another note: "Old friend, who are you?"
"You!?"
Lu Xin was genuinely a bit angry. She descended, her exquisite soft-soled embroidered shoes landing on the stone path beside the graveyard with a crisp sound, indicating her force.
"Li Qingming, I can tolerate you acting as a mysterious figure with profound arithmetic skills, earning large sums from your Thirteenth Uncle far beyond your years without hurting your pathetic self-esteem. I can even tolerate you being a family child yet living in solitude, standing out. I can even tolerate you ignoring me, the Lady Li! (At this moment, Wang Jiu awoke with a start, realizing this was the vicious woman Lu Xin, whom Li Qingming gnashes his teeth at!) But to indulge in this role-playing, dressed as a clown, writing in such eye-burning handwriting—tsk, are you writing with your left thumb and pinky!?"
Wang Jiu waved the letter in hand, then with a paper sword note: "This is written with the left thumb and pinky, want to see?"
"I have no interest in watching your lunatic performance!"
Lu Xin casually used True Essence to crush Wang Jiu's paper sword note, her two delicate eyebrows twisting into a knot.
"Li Qingming, have you forgotten even the basic manners now? Even if you dislike me, I am still your elder! Show your true appearance!"
Wang Jiu thought it over and agreed, gestured to wait a moment, then took out paper and pen, quickly drawing a portrait of Li Qingming. His techniques were innovative, his skills superb, the woman in the drawing appeared vividly lifelike, her facial features animatedly real.
Handing over the drawing, Lu Xin was still immersed in the shock from the novel drawing technique, subconsciously admiring: "What fine skill..."
After a moment, she suddenly awoke, her expression instantly turning grim: "What are you doing!?"
Wang Jiu hurriedly wrote a note explaining within the cloak: "This is Li Qingming's true appearance."
"I know what you've drawn!" Lu Xin felt her intelligence being insulted, especially the handwriting resembling a two-finger Zen style, which infuriated her further. "Li Qingming, do you think you're fully feathered and can do whatever you please!"
Wang Jiu thought for a moment, then began writing another note...
"Enough! Can't you just speak?"
Wang Jiu wanted to, but with the lone Wind Gathering Array in Sword World, being too far from his mount and for too long, his options were quite limited.
While Wang Jiu was in a dilemma, Lu Xin could not suppress her anger, operating the True Essence within her Rain Cover Realm, turning into a swift wind blowing upward at Wang Jiu, intent on lifting his cloak.
Wang Jiu reacted swiftly, not resisting the fierce wind directly, but instead turning the sword body, using the Shape Manipulation Array to stabilize the cloak. Riding the wind, he soared dozens of feet upwards and then descended slowly. During this, the cloak seemed glued to him, unmoving.
Seeing this, Lu Xin was greatly surprised, but then she frowned. Gathering her True Essence to her fingertips, it turned into scorching heat accompanied by a breath from her cherry lips, transferring directly to Wang Jiu's side, aiming to ignite his cloak.
This Golden Crow Flame, though merely a trick-like Minor Immortal Technique, used by a Rain Cover Realm expert, had an unstoppable power. Though the target was just the cloak, any newcomer from the Wind-Rising Realm at this moment would find it hard to prevent the cloak from burning. The inexperienced wouldn't even see the Golden Crow Flame, being burned of attire before they could comprehend.
Wang Jiu was certainly no Wind-Rising Realm novice. Although the power available in Sword World was limited, the oncoming Golden Crow Flame had many flaws.
A pure white sword body suddenly thrust out from the cloak's seams, directly pointing to the void ahead, where at the sword's tip, an invisible suction force expanded abruptly, drawing the surrounding Heaven and Earth Spirit Wind to a point.
The invisible Golden Crow Flame surrounding the robe was immediately stirred by the Spirit Wind, directing it towards the sword tip.
This kind of invisible fire requiring precise control, once pulled by external force, instantly became agitated and tumultuous. The mana collided and reverberated, turning the invisible into visible, igniting golden flames!
Lu Xin was greatly shocked, not expecting Li Qingming to trigger such a change. However, at this point, the situation was already out of control. Once the Golden Crow Flame erupted, it spared no one, and what burned was no longer just the robe, but...
She merely intended to intimidate Li Qingming, never intending to truly harm him. Now, shocked and anxious, she was at a loss.
But in the next moment, she saw the Golden Crow Flame about to erupt in the air, drawn by that White Sword, converging to the sword tip and then infused into the sword body. A red glow flashed on the pure white Sword Body, as with a virtual slash downward, the flames split left and right, shooting out fiercely.
The person holding the sword and his robe, however, remained completely unscathed in the center.
Below, Lu Xin watched as her mouth hung open, stunned by such exquisite Sword Stance manipulation. Of course, she had witnessed it before—her husband, Li Fengyun, had performed countless even more incredulous demonstrations of Swordsmanship.
But the little person inside the robe was not Li Fengyun, it was Li Qingming, who was only 14 and had just broken the Wind Barrier!
After the fleeting shock, Lu Xin thought of more, her face turning grim.
"Li Qingming, where did you learn that swordplay just now?! Both inside and outside the Main Courtyard, no one has ever taught such Fire-Breaking Swordsmanship!"
Wang Jiu was utterly bewildered; what did this have to do with any Fire-Breaking Swordsmanship? He merely guided it with the flow, a natural movement, something even before he reincarnated as the Divine Sword, he could effortlessly conjure in the Wind-Rising Realm.
So he wrote on a slip of paper: "Self-taught."
"Ridiculous!" Lu Xin sneered, "If you really had such comprehension, you should have broken the Wind Barrier with Swordsmanship at age ten!"
Wang Jiu tried to recall his hazy human world memories. It seemed he broke the Wind Barrier at... five or six? Indeed, he was not the talentless person who only broke it at 14.
But now, they were discussing Li Qingming, so Wang Jiu had little choice but to write, "Alright, actually, there were too many flaws in that Golden Crow Flame just now..."
"What did you say?!" Lu Xin's face suddenly flushed red, the blush extending down her slender neck, "You, what do you know about the Golden Crow Flame!?"
Before Wang Jiu could earnestly explain the essence of the Golden Crow Flame, Lu Xin recalled the main issue, her face turning stern, "Have you recently been practicing some evil and unconventional Cultivation Technique? I was already puzzled; according to expectations, you might only break the Wind Barrier at 15. Even if it were early, there should be signs. Moreover, you suddenly mastered the Illusion Technique Array and mathematics, almost as if someone else had taken over your body!"
Wang Jiu thought it over and realized these matters were hard to deny, so he wrote: "The Li Family Cultivation Technique is unsuitable, so I switched to another..."
Before he could finish writing, Lu Xin flew into a rage, "You, being of the Li Family, inheriting the most noble and pure Li Family bloodline, actually say the Li Family's Cultivation Technique is unsuitable for you?! Don't you find that laughable!"
But the next moment, Lu Xin suppressed her anger and said, "The Li Family is one of Xiangzhou's Seven Great Noble Families, second only to the Saint Sect, not inferior to any noble family or Sect in the world. The family's thousands of years of accumulation are extraordinary. You belittle yourself due to a bottleneck in the past few years, looking down on the Li Family's Cultivation Technique inheritance; it's sheer foolishness!"
Mentioning this, Wang Jiu had no choice but to explain to Lu Xin, "In fact, compared to the other families, the Li Family's Cultivation Technique should be considered relatively weak..."
"You!" Lu Xin was so furious that she saw stars before her eyes, "You, a Cultivator of the Wind-Rising Realm, dare to presumptuously judge the family, Li Qingming you really are too arrogant, what makes you think so? Just breaking the Wind Barrier, ah, even in the Li Family Inner Sect, breaking the Wind Barrier at 14 is not exceptional, even I was... well, in any case, I broke the Wind Barrier before 14 too!"
Wang Jiu wrote, "Sorry to interrupt, don't you think your standpoint actually proves the weakness of the Li Family's Cultivation Technique? The bloodline comes directly from the Patriarch, the cultivation attitude is evident, yet the achievements are hardly remarkable, which obviously can only be due to the Cultivation Technique."
"..." Lu Xin was taken aback, realized the logical contradiction, immediately was at a loss for words, moments later her face flushed red, "Adults are talking, children should not interrupt!"
Wang Jiu looked very suspiciously at this so-called adult, whose height was roughly similar to Li Qingming's.
Just when Lu Xin was feeling awkward, another person slowly descended from the sky, tall and slender, charming and extraordinary, eyes shining like stars, implicitly containing stern Sword Intent, but his face was weathered, showing some signs of aging. It was Li Family's Patriarch, Li Fengyun.
"Sorry, Xin'Er, I just suddenly thought of a problem, so I came late..."
Lu Xin, seeing her husband in this hasty manner, was amused and annoyed, just about to speak, when she saw Li Fengyun raising an eyebrow, his gaze turning to "Li Qingming", then smiling and saying, "Who are you?"
Wang Jiu wrote a note and sent it over: "I am Li Qingming, and you?"
"Oh, I am Li Fengyun."
"Hello."
"Hello."
Watching the two communicate with such composure, Lu Xin's beautiful eyes widened, feeling like she was about to explode.