Chapter Ninety-Nine: Life Is Truly Lonely as Snow

Xiao Nan hurried home as if he were fleeing for his life. He truly could not endure all that blazing enthusiasm from the little girls.

Being handsome was such a nuisance.

Still, apart from that, he was in high spirits.

Although his plan had been frustrated and he had not learned the summer triple sword forms from the Yuan River Four Seasons Sword Hall, during the duel, under the pressure of Jiang Lin's sword intent, he had nurtured a thread of thunderous essence from the life force of the spring triple sword forms.

When the hibernation thunder stirs, dragons and serpents wake, and grass and trees turn to ash.

That was the true essence of the final lightning sword move.

Looking back afterward, he had more or less figured out what had happened.

The senior who created the Four Seasons Sword Art had indeed been wonderfully ingenious, with the beginnings of a philosophy drawn from nature itself.

From that perspective, the root of the matter was clear: if one wanted the sword intent to become complete, it could not be broken apart. It had to be a whole.

The cycle of the four seasons, spring bloom and autumn harvest, summer heat and winter chill, turning and returning without end.

That was the real Four Seasons Sword Art.

If one merely used a single sword move by itself, it was a kind of severance. One might still vaguely sense the incomplete true intent within it, but it was far from perfect, let alone formidable.

Yet when he perfectly integrated the three spring sword forms, a new essence was born.

That essence fused with all things in the world, drawing in the primal qi of heaven and earth and giving rise to life.

In such a state, thunder naturally came into being.

When spring thunder rolled, all things sprouted.

There ought to be violent rain and wild wind here, and also the blazing sun of midsummer.

When life withers and splendor draws its curtain, amid frost and slaughter there comes a cold, barren stillness.

Frozen in severe cold... buried deep beneath the earth, and then another year of gentle spring.

...

If someone asked what he had gained today, Xiao Nan would answer without hesitation: the foundation, the very root of an ultimate art.

No wonder Jiang Yu had looked at him as though he were a priceless treasure and had been so eager to invite him to join.

That had not been lusting after his looks. It had been cherishing talent. That distinction had to be made clear.

Unfortunately, my ambitions lie elsewhere.

The more he thought about it, the more regret Xiao Nan felt.

Could he really have both fish and the bear's paw?

His swordsmanship was already sufficient for the moment. What his body needed now was vital energy, blood essence, and elixirs.

As for what the bronze mirror space needed to obtain, or rather what his spirit needed to obtain, it ought to be the souls of powerful creatures, or those golden patterns left behind when sacrificial monsters were slain...

The energy gained from killing ordinary wolves was merely consumable. What he got from killing that sacrificial monster was energy of a higher order.

Even activating the bronze mirror's analytical function and its recording function required this extremely special energy.

It was not impossible that there existed some treasures that could directly bring him enormous benefit, without requiring him to hunt powerful creatures every time.

When Zhang Woodhead had been droning on and on, he had understood it clearly: the acquisition of resources was in fact indispensable.

It mattered far more than simply learning a single ultimate art.

He would eventually learn swordsmanship sooner or later. For now, it was already enough to use. What he urgently needed was a first-grade meridian-opening pill, and quite a few blood-essence pills.

Of course, abundant vital energy and spirit crystals would do as well.

Only then could he temper his skin and flesh at the fastest possible rate and enter the realm of a first-rank martial artist.

Take those martial artists in society, for example. Each time they broke through a bottleneck, many of them would remain stuck for a very long time. Most of the time, it was not because their talent was mediocre, but because they lacked sufficient resources.

So they could only make up for it with time, spending countless laborious years on painstaking effort before finally achieving a breakthrough.

And when they grew old and their talent was exhausted, they would no longer be able to advance.

As for which faction currently possessed the most resources in the empire, it was naturally the two great powers: the Higher Education Alliance and the military.

Backed by the empire, they produced masters in endless succession, occupying many mines, medicinal gardens, and secret realms.

They even had the courage to raid other worlds and plunder heavenly materials and earthly treasures.

Thus, the answer was self-evident: whether one would rather join a sect and improve through its influence, or be admitted to a martial arts university and advance faster in cultivation.

...

"Xiao Nan, Xiao Nan, have you learned it? What sword art did you study today?"

It was still noon, and Xiao Bei had no idea when she had run back home again...

This girl would skip class whenever she pleased, with absolutely no sense of being a student.

"Hmm?"

Xiao Nan put on a stern face.

"Brother... I only came home for lunch. I still have class this afternoon. Just teach me, please. At most next time, I'll ask Fang Luoluo to come over and play at our house again."

The little girl tugged him down to sit, calling him affectionately, while not forgetting to use her plump little hand to massage his shoulders.

Very considerate.

But what did inviting Fang Luoluo to their home mean?

Could it be that she thought he had some kind of feelings for Fang Luoluo?

Xiao Nan could not begin to guess the bizarre logic in the little girl's head.

So he didn't try.

"Here, in the middle. Yes, use more force here, a little more..."

He had just finished sword practice and was a bit tired. Enjoying the little girl's special service really was quite comfortable.

Only when Xiao Bei's hands grew so tired that she could barely lift them anymore did Xiao Nan finally feel satisfied. He nodded and smiled. "Today I taught you the move 'Withering Blossoms' from the Three Spring Sword Forms. Let me tell you, if you practice it well, it becomes extraordinary."

"How extraordinary?"

"Words alone don't prove anything. I'll demonstrate, and then you'll understand."

Xiao Nan wanted to test something: just how astonishing was his sister's talent, exactly?

He also wanted to know whether his grasp of the fused spring essence, which had caused life force to emerge, was due to his affinity with swordsmanship and keen sensitivity to vital energy, or because of the bronze mirror space's analytical power.

Under the little girl's expectant gaze, Xiao Nan's sword light spread out like a spring breeze.

Unhurried, warm, and gently fragrant.

Like the rain of March, the wind of February.

Amid a faint sheen of waterlight, blossoms opened and withered.

The waterlight, of course, was only Xiao Nan's own sensation.

Others could not see it. What they saw was a threefold curtain of vital-energy swords.

Cool strands of vital energy slipped into the pores like silk and thread, making one feel refreshed and at ease while blood and qi surged.

"Ah, so many circles! Let me try too! Xiao Nan, do that final sword again. I didn't see it clearly."

Xiao Bei began chattering excitedly.

In her exhilaration, the two caterpillar-like brows above her eyes alternated between bending into a straight line and curving into an S-shape.

It really was an expression of delight.

Xiao Nan found it amusing, but he was also somewhat pleasantly surprised.

"So she really can feel it."

Her talent in swordsmanship was truly extraordinary. The life of a cheat needed no explanation.

He recalled that old man with the graying hair, a third-rank martial artist, who had not been able to see through it.

And all those little girls at the sword hall, including Zhang Xiaorou, had also failed to notice the extra "rings of light" around him.

Yet Xiao Bei had seen through it at a glance.

She was born able to sense the essence of sword intent, and could even see fluctuations in vital energy.

There was really no logic to argue with.

At first, he had also been puzzled: how could the same father and mother produce such a gifted sword prodigy in Xiao Bei, while this body was a total waste in martial arts?

Later, after careful thought, he understood.

Even in his own world, some children took after their fathers, while others took after their mothers.

It was obvious that Xiao Bei had inherited their father's talent and bloodline.

Their father, Xiao Zhenjiang, regardless of what sort of person he had been, or whether he had been somewhat neglectful of the family, had unquestionable talent in martial arts.

Born poor and never admitted to a martial arts university, he had simply drifted around among the ranks of freelance martial artists.

And yet, before the age of thirty, he had already reached the sixth rank, the Blood Exchange realm.

Such talent far surpassed even that "divine being" Zhang Yi, in Zhang Woodhead's eyes.

Zhang Yi was formidable, and in his youth he had managed to get into Lijiang University to receive systematic training...

But now, in his forties, he had only just barely stepped into the fifth rank. He could not compare with Xiao Zhenjiang at all.

The little girl Xiao Bei had probably inherited precisely this kind of talent. As for him, of course, he had inherited more of his mother Tan Qiuyi's genes.

And there were advantages to that too.

Tan Qiuyi had been very beautiful when she was young. Even now, without powder or paint, without shaping her brows, with crow's-feet already formed at the corners of her eyes, she still carried herself with such graceful loveliness that her looks scarcely needed mentioning.

More than that, Tan Qiuyi came from a scholarly family, and she was actually very intelligent.

As a widowed mother raising one son and one daughter, she had still managed to bring them up very well, with no one coming to covet them, and she had not even attracted any enemies seeking revenge or trouble.

Her intelligence and emotional intelligence were both top-tier.

No wonder the original Xiao Nan had also done well in academic studies.

As he remembered it, he had spent ninety percent of his energy every day on the martial path he was not good at in the slightest.

And yet his academic performance had only been a little worse than Sun Kai, who had devoted himself entirely to literature.

That was rather frightening.

At once, Xiao Nan decisively taught the improved version of the Three Spring Sword Forms to the little girl.

She learned the three improved sword moves astonishingly quickly.

The first time was a little awkward. The second time became smoother. By the third practice, once the sword intent changed, a faint ring of light emerged.

Vital energy had been stirred.

Xiao Nan's brows twitched wildly.

Whether this phenomenon happened to himself or to his sister, he could never help being stunned every time he saw it.

Cheat-like talent was just that outrageous.

He cautiously extended his wooden sword and touched the sword aura surrounding Xiao Bei. The wooden sword drifted aside, drawn into a slanting deviation.

It really worked.

Dispersing force, shifting force, and defense.

He had truly fused the essence of the three swords, Threaded Blue Silk, Slanting Drizzle, and Withering Blossoms, into one furnace.

"Huh? Why is there only one ring of vital energy?"

Suddenly, Xiao Nan noticed something was off.

"Yeah, why do I only have one circle?" the little girl said miserably.

She had initially been dancing around happily, but after a while she became dissatisfied.

She had learned it, yes, but it did not work nearly as well as Xiao Nan's.

And the rings of light around her were two fewer, making it look less gorgeous.

"Did you feel something entering your body, cool and refreshing, and your mind becoming much clearer?"

Xiao Nan asked tentatively.

"Nope."

The little girl looked blankly confused, thinking, Are you lying to me? Can sword practice really make something enter your body? Are you telling a fairy tale?

"If you didn't feel anything, then that's right. It proves you're not a genius, and your swordsmanship is only average. From now on, you need to work harder and not get full of yourself, understand?"

"Got it."

Xiao Bei drooped her brows and eyes, her face full of disappointment.

In the past, she had been so much stronger than Xiao Nan, but now she was lagging behind by so much. The older she got, the less capable she seemed to become.

Sigh, life really is lonely as snow.