Wuxia: Become the 100-Victory Sword King at the Beginning

Chapter 400. The Dream of the Ghostly Palace Shattered, the Howl of Jackals, the Deceptive Array, the Conspiracy, the Blood Moon Hanging High.
The Cold Fragrance Pavilion of Yihua Palace was bathed in moonlight, and the water droplets hanging from the eaves dripped with a clear sound in the stillness of midnight.

Shi Feiyang curled up behind the artificial hill and, through the dappled bamboo shadows, saw the Palace Mistress Lianxing sitting alone in the pavilion. Her white skirt spread out like moonlight, and the snow-white satin wrapped around her left wrist was seeping with specks of crimson.

He held his breath, watching as Lianxing's slender fingers gently untied the ribbon, revealing a hideous old wound on her forearm—a deep, bone-revealing sword scar that snaked from her wrist to her elbow in a spiderweb-like pattern of pale purple lines.

Her fingertips were condensed with azure true energy, and she was carefully injecting cold energy into the wound, but her brows were slightly furrowed due to the intense pain.

"So the so-called 'relapse of old illness' on the seventh day of each month was just a pretext; in reality, it was a secret treatment." Shi Feiyang stroked his chin, chuckling to himself. After a moment's thought, he suddenly jumped out and clapped his hands in praise, "Sister Lianxing's 'Ice Silkworm Bite Injury' treatment is far superior to the 'Snake Venom Arrow Removal' I learned in Persia!"

Lianxing suddenly looked up, her jade flute already held across her chest. But when she saw Shi Feiyang holding the oil paper package in both hands, smiling brightly, she relaxed her guard: "Don't worry! I brought you some Western Region pain-relieving powder. Mix it with honey and apply it to the wound. It will definitely be more effective than Mingyu Gong!"

He suddenly leaned closer and lowered his voice, saying, "Besides, have you ever seen a gossip live a long life?"

Lianxing tapped his shoulder with her jade flute, but not hard: "You smooth talker! If you dare to tell anyone..."

"I swear!" Shi Feiyang held up three fingers, then suddenly noticed the old wound on her wrist. "But sister, this wound... wasn't it from when you saved Palace Master Yaoyue back then?" He regretted his words as soon as they left his mouth. Lianxing's smile vanished instantly, and the cold air at her fingertips immediately condensed into frost.

He hurriedly smiled apologetically and pulled out a small wooden figurine from his pocket, depicting Lianxing playing the flute: "Look! I carved this myself, even the eyelashes are lifelike!" Seeing that her expression had eased slightly, he added with a grin, "From now on, when you are healing, let this little figurine keep watch for you. It's guaranteed to be more loyal than the Twelve Beauties!"

Lianxing looked at the wood carving and finally smiled, but she didn't notice the heartache that flashed in Shi Feiyang's eyes.

Autumn always arrives exceptionally early at Yihua Palace. The osmanthus trees in Lengxiang Pavilion have just begun to bud, and Shi Feiyang, already wrapped in a stolen fox fur coat, is squatting on the eaves of the kitchen, dangling from the corner. He has a blade of grass between his teeth, watching Lianxing teach the flower servants to brew flower dew under the corridor. Suddenly, he takes out a copper coin and throws it at the jade hairpin in her hair.

With a soft "ding," Lianxing looked up and saw Shi Feiyang hanging on the eaves like an upside-down bat: "Sister Lianxing! I've just learned a skill called 'telekinesis,' would you like to try it?" As he spoke, he opened his palm, revealing a glistening dewdrop.

"You're being silly again." Lianxing turned away, suppressing a laugh, but her jade flute trembled slightly in her sleeve.

Since the incident at Lengxiang Pavilion last month, this man has been finding all sorts of ways to get closer to her, either stealing honey-preserved grapes from the Western Regions or carving exquisite little animals with his Xuanshuang Blade. At this moment, the wind swept under the eaves, making his fox fur puff up, making him look like a plump bird with outstretched wings.

"Sister, look what this is!" Shi Feiyang suddenly jumped down, and a pile of strangely shaped wooden carvings fell from his arms—there was a fairy playing the flute, a swordsman carrying a sword, and even a rabbit with a crooked mouth.

He picked up the rabbit and handed it to Lianxing, "This is modeled after your snowball eagle, doesn't it look like it?"

Lianxing looked at the rabbit's missing ear and finally laughed out loud: "If you had put this much effort into martial arts, you would have been invincible long ago." Even so, she reached out and took the wooden carving, her fingertips stroking the rabbit's fluffy tail.

Shi Feiyang suddenly leaned closer, smelling the jasmine scent from her sleeve: "Speaking of martial arts, is your left hand injury any better, sister?"

Seeing her slightly startled expression, he immediately waved his hand, "I don't want to pry into secrets! I just wanted to help you find some medicinal herbs."

Lianxing's gaze softened, but at that moment, a summons from Palace Master Yaoyue came from afar.

She quickly hid the wooden carving in her sleeve, and twirled the jade flute in her palm: "Today I'm going to teach you how to make 'Drunken Flower Wine,' so don't sneak a sip of cooking wine and mess things up again." With that, she took a graceful step, and the tassel on the jade hairpin in her hair brushed against Shi Feiyang's hand, tickling him so much that his heart trembled.

That night, Shi Feiyang, carrying osmanthus sugar cakes he had smuggled from the kitchen, sneaked into the Cold Fragrance Pavilion.

Under the moonlight, Lianxing sat under the osmanthus tree, her jade flute resting on her lap, the snow-white satin wrapped around her left wrist tighter than usual. He quietly put down the sweet cake and was about to leave when he heard her whisper, "Actually... I hurt myself."

When Shi Feiyang turned around, he saw that she had untied the ribbon, revealing the intricate scars on her forearm. There were dozens of scars, some old and some new: "Back then, when my sister was practicing the Mingyu Gong, she went into a qi deviation and I shielded her from 30% of the cold energy... Later, fearing that she would blame herself, I said that she was injured by an enemy."

"Silly girl." Shi Feiyang squatted down and took out a bottle of wound medicine from his pocket. "I should have gone to Miao territory to steal some snow ginseng paste. I heard that stuff can even set broken bones." His fingertips gently brushed over her wound, and suddenly he activated the Mingyu Gong, and a gentle blue light emanated from his palm. "Try this, my improved 'Frosty Jade Warmth Technique'."

Lianxing felt a warm current spreading along the wound, and the pain was indeed relieved quite a bit.

When she looked up, she saw Shi Feiyang's focused expression—this man, who was usually playful and joking, had put away his smile at this moment, and his eyelashes cast delicate shadows under his eyes, softer than the shadows of the osmanthus tree under the moonlight.

"Alright!" Shi Feiyang suddenly looked up. The two were so close that they could almost hear each other's heartbeats. He hurriedly took a half step back, but tripped over a tree root and hit the back of his head on the osmanthus tree, causing all the osmanthus blossoms to fall.

Lianxing chuckled at his disheveled appearance, picked up a piece of sweet cake, took a bite, but suddenly frowned: "Why is it so salty?"

Shi Feiyang touched the tip of his nose: "Perhaps...perhaps she mistook salt for sugar." He stared at the sugar crumbs on the corner of her mouth, then suddenly reached out and gently wiped them away for her. "But the fusion of sweet and salty is just like this world of martial arts—seemingly absurd, yet impossible to let go of."

Lianxing gazed at the osmanthus blossom on his fingertips, and the scene from earlier that day in the kitchen flashed through her mind—the image of him secretly adding saffron to her soup. A gentle breeze swept through the Cold Fragrance Pavilion, blowing the last few fallen leaves down. She softly suggested, "Tomorrow... come with me to see the Ice Lake. The moonlight there is brighter than anywhere else."

Shi Feiyang was stunned, then revealed his signature mischievous smile: "Yes, sir! I will do my best, I'll even prepare three hand warmers for you!" He suddenly remembered something and pulled out an oil paper package from his pocket, "That's right! This is a newly learned 'Mandarin Duck Pastry,' take a bite and you'll be pleasantly surprised!"

Lianxing unwrapped the oil paper and saw two shortbreads lying intimately side by side, with a crystal-clear dewdrop sandwiched between them. She suddenly realized, and her ears instantly burned—it turned out that he had used the Mingyu Technique to condense the dewdrop he had thrown during the day into a sugar bead.

“Shi Feiyang, you…” She hesitated, but then she saw him leap onto the wall, the moonlight casting an exceptionally long shadow of him.

As he turned around, the osmanthus blossoms on his fox fur coat fell like a golden rain.

"Meet me at the Ice Lake at 3:45 PM tomorrow!" He waved, his voice carrying a tenderness he himself didn't realize. "If I'm late, I'll punish myself by sweeping the osmanthus trees for you for three months, how about that?"

Lianxing watched him disappear into the direction he went, the mandarin duck pastry in her hand radiating warmth.

In the distance, the faint sound of the Moon Palace Mistress's icicles could be heard, but it failed to break the sweet atmosphere permeating the Cold Fragrance Pavilion. She gently touched the scars on her wrist and suddenly felt that the long-standing coldness seemed to gradually melt into spring water in this absurdity and warmth.

Three days later, late at night, Shi Feiyang was carrying a jar of peach blossom wine across the Nine-Bend Bridge when he suddenly heard suppressed groans coming from the direction of the ice room.

He approached stealthily and, through the crack in the door, saw that the Palace Mistress of Yaoyue was bare-armed, her fair skin covered with a mix of old and new wounds. An icicle from her fingertip was piercing her heart, and drops of blood on the ice had congealed into the shape of a bewitching red plum blossom.

"So the ninth level of the Mingyu Gong requires feeding ice with blood..." Shi Feiyang gasped, accidentally kicking over the copper basin at his feet.

Yaoyue suddenly turned her head, her eyes filled with killing intent like a drawn blade, and the ice shards in her palm were already piercing through the air: "You know, a living person can't keep a secret."

Shi Feiyang yelled and used "Shifting Flowers and Receiving Jade" to create a vortex of true energy with his palms, sending the ice shards flying toward the roof.

Amidst the sound of shattering ice crystals, he retreated with a forced smile: "The Palace Master's 'Ice Heart Weeping Blood' technique is truly masterful! If I were to reveal this, wouldn't it bring disaster upon the Yihua Palace?" Yaoyue did not reply, but the chill around her suddenly intensified, and transparent ice patterns appeared on her skin.

Shi Feiyang felt his breath catch in his throat and quickly activated the "Sword Intent Ruins" of the Nine Heavens Sword Manual. Thousands of sword energies transformed into peach blossoms that fluttered down, but they shattered when they touched her ice shield.

"Well done!" He spun around and swung his sword, the Xuan Shuang blade drawing a dazzling arc of light as the "Sword Aura Calamity," but it missed by three inches just before it was about to strike.

A look of surprise flashed in Yaoyue's eyes. Taking advantage of his weakened attack, she pressed an ice shard against his throat: "Why didn't you dodge?"

Shi Feiyang grinned, blood dripping down the icicles: "Because... I can't bear to."

He suddenly reached out and grabbed her wrist, the vortex of his palm pulling her closer by half a step. "Does the Palace Master know that when you are angry, you are more beautiful than the ice lotus in the Rebirth Pool?" Yaoyue's pupils shrank, and the icicles clattered to the ground.

Taking advantage of the opportunity, Shi Feiyang used his amazing "Deeds Done and Departs" lightness skill to leap onto the roof, but before leaving, he threw out a joke: "I'll keep the Palace Master's secret for you! But next time before you hurt yourself, remember to call me—my apple-peeling technique is spot on!"

The night wind lifted his blue robe and swept past the Cold Fragrance Pavilion, where he saw Lianxing standing in the moonlight, her jade flute at her lips but not yet played.

Shi Feiyang waved to her, and the blood droplets from his fingertips splattered on the peach blossoms, like falling petals.

(End of this chapter)