Fairy, Please Let Me Explain

Patter--

The heavy rain gradually stopped, but the rain curtain still covered the Tianyuan Mountains. The rain washed over the winding bluestone steps, forming small streams flowing down the mountain.

Ran Qingmo held an umbrella in one hand and climbed up the cloud-like steps. His plain white mourning clothes rustled in the wind, and the pendant on his waist tapped lightly on the scabbard with his steps, making a clear sound.

After walking for an unknown amount of time in the drizzle, Ran Qingmo looked up at the half-tilted memorial archway on the top of the mountain. The two large gilded characters "Five Elements" were covered with moss. She remembered her master saying that every tile and every blue brick in the Sword Sect's mountain gate carried countless histories.

During the heyday of the Tianyuan Sword Sect, there were thirteen sword masters. After thousands of years, only six of the thirteen remained, and the remaining seven peaks had declined over time.

The people of the past have passed away, but the old place remains. However, things and people have changed. The Tianyuan Five Elements Sword that once made all the cultivators in the world yearn for it has now fallen into decline and turned into a sleeping hall for receiving distinguished guests.

The white hem of her skirt swept across the puddles in front of the steps. Ran Qingmo walked out from the rain and mist holding a bamboo umbrella, looking ahead with a pair of black eyes. A young girl had been waiting for a long time under the former Five Elements Hall.

“You’re here.”

Tian Yan squatted on the stone steps in front of the hall, holding his cheek with one hand as he looked at the woman walking up the bluestone steps from the mountains. His deep golden eyes contained no emotion. The saint's robe, which was carved with intricate patterns with gold edges, spread flat on the ground, like a blooming snow-white rose with gold edges.

Ran Qingmo walked with an umbrella several feet away from Tianyan and stopped. The rain slid down the ribs of the umbrella in her hand and the exquisite and magnificent eaves of the hall to form a curtain, like two water curtains lying between the two of them.

The sound is very quiet, the rain falls silently.

Ran Qingmo stared at Tian Yan and broke the silence:

"Why are you looking for me at this time?"

Tian Yan did not stand up, but raised his eyes slightly and looked upwards, his sight seemed to penetrate the clouds in the sky:

"According to your Sword Sect's competition schedule, it will be our turn in half an hour."

Ran Qingmo didn't know what the other party wanted to say:

"Well, so what?"

"Admit defeat, Ran Qingmo."

Tian Yan stated directly, his golden eyes showing calm indifference: "There is no need for a fight between you and me, and there is no suspense."

“.”

The rain was pouring down. Ran Qingmo tightened his grip on the umbrella, which was painted with a blue lotus in ink. He did not answer immediately.

Enter the three realms of Tao, one world per step.

Ran Qingmo had practiced against elders in the Transcendent Realm before, so she knew very well that it was impossible for her in the Origin Realm to defeat Tian Yan, who had already reached the Transcendent Realm.

but

"I am the first disciple of the Sword Sect."

Ran Qingmo's voice was very soft.

"I don't mean to look down on you, nor do I mean to humiliate you."

Tian Yan stood up slowly. "On the contrary, I made this suggestion to you because I value you. I went to observe your previous competition. Your Taoism made me, as Tian Yan, feel it was difficult."

Ran Qingmo pursed his lips and repeated:

"I am the first disciple of the Sword Sect."

Tian Yan did not show any emotion because of the other party's repeated rejections. He just glanced at the direction of the mountain where Xu Yuan lived and said:

"You should know that he has already arrived at the gate of your Sword Sect."

“.”

Although Tian Yan did not specify who he was talking about, Ran Qingmo's grip on the umbrella handle became even tighter, and even the umbrella surface began to tremble slightly:

"Of course I knew about the huge commotion that day."

"I went to see him last night."

"Ah? ..Oh."

Ran Qingmo subconsciously wanted to ask what happened when she went to see him last night, but he forced himself to hold back because she was the first disciple of the Sword Sect.

Amid the drizzling rain, Tian Yan's figure floated into the air, his snow-white dress fluttering in the air, his pair of golden eyes looking down at the girl's dilemma:

"As the chief disciple of the Sword Sect, you should go and meet him."

“.”

Ran Qingmo raised the umbrella slightly, looked at the saint standing in the air, blinked his dark eyes, and hesitated:

".Why?"

"Because he is the son of the prime minister and the next head of the Xu family. You can get a lot of important information from him."

“.”

Ran Qingmo bit his lips lightly, subconsciously lowered his umbrella, blocking the two people's sight, and whispered in a muffled voice:

".Is that why you went to see him?"

"Um."

"What's the result?"

"Failed." Tian Yan did not hide anything.

"I see. Since you failed, I should go too."

"No."

Tian Yan interrupted Ran Qingmo and said, "My failure was intentional. At this stage, Jiantian Pavilion doesn't have much information to obtain from him. Testing his attitude towards me is more important than obtaining intelligence."

"Attitude?" Ran Qingmo was puzzled.

Tian Yan's golden pupils were indifferent, and his voice was almost cold-blooded:

"Will he hesitate towards me at some critical moments? For example, will he show a momentary flaw in a life-and-death struggle?"

“.”

Hearing this, Ran Qingmo felt a tightness in his chest, but he couldn't respond.

Tian Yan did not wait for her to reply, and continued:

"Ran Qingmo, you should have gone earlier. The Sword Sect is different from the Jiantian Pavilion. Now the entire Hongnong is under the sword of the Xiangfu. You urgently need the information provided by Xu Changtian."

It is a consensus across the world that Hongnong is about to be engulfed in war.

The two behemoths, the Prime Minister's Mansion and the Zongmeng, were like two reckless gamblers, constantly throwing bets and chips crazily in the Hongnong area.

Given the system of the Prime Minister's Mansion, Xu Yuan, as the legitimate heir, would inevitably know a lot of secrets, and these things could potentially become clues to saving the Sword Sect.

Ran Qingmo was aware of this, and therefore she remained silent once again.

In the silence of the two girls, the rain gradually subsided. The cold wind tore the dark clouds rolling in the sky, creating cracks in them, and the sunlight poured down to the world. Ran Qingmo put away the umbrella, looked at Tian Yan, and whispered stubbornly:

"I don't want this."

“So you don’t qualify.”

He is unqualified to be the first disciple of the Sword Sect.

The words were like arrows, making Ran Qingmo feel even more lost and guilty.

Tian Yan's pair of golden pupils scattered dazzling light, and he pressed forward step by step, saying:

“I don’t know whether the elders of the Sword Sect have told you the true situation in the Hongnong area, but I can tell you that your Sword Sect is only one step away from destruction.

"I set out from Jiantian Pavilion and headed north. The places I passed through were all areas under the actual control of the clan alliance, but I could see constant human disasters. Under the leadership of the imperial court, official roads in these areas were destroyed, canals were bombed, demons attacked villages, and there were frictions between officials and the public. Unrest was almost endless. But when I really arrived in Hongnong, all the above voices fell silent. Do you know why?"

“.”

Ran Qingmo nodded in silence.

The master and his mistress had always protected him and kept him from getting involved in those dirty things, but after the master died, Uncle Liu and the others bypassed his mistress and made her read a lot of Sword Sect secrets, so she knew the reason.

Although Dayan did not have such amazing military formations as "When there are more than ten thousand people, it is boundless" as Xu Yuan said, it did have statements like "When the number of soldiers reaches one hundred thousand, heaven and earth are silent."

She lowered her eyes and replied in a low voice:

"Because...under the people and might of the army, all the reconnaissance methods of both sides are ineffective and unable to detect, so naturally there is no sound."

Tian Yan nodded slightly, raised his eyes, and looked from the top of the mountain to the vast land in the distance:

“Yes, it is impossible to detect.

"Humans have loved war since ancient times. Wars have been going on for thousands of years. There are more than a thousand ways of investigation in Da Yan, including investigation array technology, specially cultivated investigation monsters, and countless skills developed for investigation. But all of these will become ineffective the moment the military array condenses into absolute power. The military array's beyond-visual-range strike capability makes it impossible for all kinds of methods such as human investigation, animal investigation, and weapon investigation to get close to the military array camp.

"In my past experiences, I have seen many strong men who could resist the might of military formations with their physical bodies, such as Sword Saint, Dragon Emperor, and Wen Xinyun. But the military formations they faced were only prototypes. Even the might of Wen Xinyun, who was forced to retreat by Li Junwu at the cost of his life, was only the prototype of a military formation.

"The military formation is the most absolute violence in the world. No matter how strong an individual is, he will become as weak as a baby in front of it."

“.”

Listening to the words, Ran Qingmo's breathing became slightly rapid, and he refuted in a low voice:

"This does not mean that the Sword Sect will be destroyed, but our sect alliance also has an army that can compete with Xu Yuan's Black Scale Army. Now our Sword Sect has gathered more than 100,000 soldiers, and the number is still increasing."

"Are the top leaders of your Sword Sect raising pets?"

Tian Yan interrupted again.

Ran Qingmo blinked and reacted quickly:

"Are you talking about me?"

"otherwise?"

Tian Yan, who looked calm and composed, seemed to have inherited the habit of being sharp-tongued, but his voice was indifferent: "Even at this point, your elders are still concerned about your feelings."

Speaking of which,

Tian Yan looked at the emotion in Ran Qingmo's eyes and suddenly paused, then said:

"It seems they are right. Now is not the time for you to know the truth. If you go to see Xu Changtian in your current state, he will probably trick you into revealing the truth. It is better to keep it from you for now."

"."Ran Qingmo's eyes dropped.

"But none of this matters anymore."

Tian Yan walked slowly towards Ran Qingmo and whispered softly:

"Ran Qingmo, I can tell you that, including the 40,000 disciples of your Sword Sect, the sect alliances in Hongnong have now gathered nearly 240,000 soldiers."

Ran Qingmo's bright eyes slightly widened, his long eyelashes trembled slightly, with a hint of hope:

"so much"

“But there are more Xiangfu.”

Tian Yan casually uttered a number that shocked the world: "Judging from the unusual movements reported from various places, together with the elite troops and second- and third-line auxiliary troops, they have already gathered nearly 400,000 troops in the north of Hongnong."

Four hundred thousand.

Ran Qingmo's pair of dark pupils swayed gently, his chest rose and fell, and his icy face gradually revealed a childish helplessness.

Ever since she could remember, spiritual practice was everything in her life. She was ignorant of the greater good of her country and family, nor did she know the petty pursuits of profit. She even lacked some common sense in life. But at this moment, she suddenly understood what her master's wife had said in that helpless and guilty voice.

[Qing Mo. Family and country are ruthless, and there is no love between children and parents]

When traveling around the world, she always saw people calling cultivators "immortals". Even cultivators with the lowest levels of cultivation would be respectfully called immortals by them.

Today,

These immortals as mentioned by ordinary people have become the vanguards in the face of the general trend.

This is a battle involving the fundamental interests of two giants.

It's a life-and-death fight with no room for compromise or negotiation.

Hundreds of thousands of people are confronting each other, hundreds of thousands of families are eagerly waiting, and behind it all are the rise and fall of hundreds of millions of people.

So childish.

Ran Qingmo's tightly bitten lips oozed out strands of blood, which turned into copper rust and filled his mouth.

In the face of such a macro trend, she is really so naive.

A ray of sunlight penetrated through the gap in the clouds and sprinkled on Ran Qingmo's flawless face. After holding it in for a long time, she murmured softly:

"I see."

"It seems that you are finally willing to face reality."

"Um."

Ran Qingmo's little hands were clenched tightly under her sleeves.

Tian Yan's girlish voice is still clear and pleasant:

"In this case, you should know that Xu Yuan is both very rational and ruthless. He will always put the affairs of the country first. Even if he will fulfill his promise, it is based on not harming the fundamental interests of the Xiangfu."

Ran Qingmo frowned slightly, and said with a hint of cold anger in his voice:

"Did he tell you about that promise?"

Tian Yan shook his head, recalling the memories in his mind, and said truthfully:

"As far as a confidante is concerned, Xu Yuan is very stubborn. He rarely mentions other women in front of me. But have you forgotten that it was me who asked you to get in touch with him in the very beginning?

"You tried to capture him for the survival of the Sword Sect and the lives of those 40,000 disciples, but in the end you changed your attitude and chose to protect him. It's not hard to guess what happened during this period, isn't it?"

".It seems so."

Ran Qingmo murmured in a low voice, and was silent for a moment. Her slender hand gently touched the ink sword at her waist, raised her eyes and asked:

"But Tianyan, in war, it is not necessarily the people with more numbers who will win, right?"

"That's the theory."

"theory?"

"No military strategy ever lasts forever."

Tian Yan's voice was clear and patient:

"The number of troops gathered by the Prime Minister's Mansion in Hongnong makes us dare not send people to explore. Once we run into them, even those above the level of Saints will die. The entire Hongnong area has fallen into a dead silence. If we want to find out the intelligence, we can only use the organized military formations to bump into and test them little by little, and use the limited information to guess the reality of the other party's deployment of troops."

Ran Qingmo thought for a moment, then suddenly asked, his voice gradually becoming cold and clear:

"For Xu Yuan and the others. No, the same is true for the Xiangguo Mansion."

Tian Yan leaned over and landed in front of Ran Qingmo. The rain water on the white jade bricks in front of the hall evaporated and dried instantly, and his sleeves were mopping the ground.

She looked up at the girl who was nearly a head taller than her and whispered:

"That's right, but when both sides are trapped in the fog of war, the side that has the initiative to attack has an almost unparalleled advantage. However, due to the limitations of the clan alliance system, it is impossible to take the initiative in the early stages of a war."

Ran Qingmo's voice seemed to be asking himself, but also seemed to be asking her:

"Is it because of the internal fighting in our clan alliance?"

Tian Yan did not answer this question, but the answer was already in Ran Qingmo's heart.

The clan alliance is bloated and chaotic, and there are internal constraints from all sides. Even though the court's sword has been drawn, it will still take a lot of time to get its machine running.

Although the large amount of money and food provided by the Jiantian Pavilion in southern Xinjiang and the Jiangnan aristocratic families controlled by Wen Xinyun accelerated the process, these things still had to be negotiated, and then the price had to be exorbitant and the money had to be paid back at a low price.

They need to integrate the various weapons production lines through negotiations.

It is necessary to integrate the cutting-edge array technology of each sect through exchange of interests.

Even the foundation for waging war - military formation techniques - would require a great deal of time for the sect alliance to integrate.

Whose technique do you use?

How to divide the command authority and responsibilities?

Then the skills will be distributed to the grassroots level, and the soldiers will be asked to practice the unified military formation skills.

All of these require time, and the court, or the prime minister's office, will never give them this time.

As he pondered over these petty intrigues, Ran Qingmo's originally complicated brows gradually returned to a cold and pure expression:

"Why did you specifically tell me this?"

"The Jiantian Pavilion will need an ally in the next few decades. The Sword Sect is qualified, but you, as the future sect leader, are not qualified, so we can only change you from now on."

"Shameless and filthy."

Ran Qingmo felt a little disgusted.

Tian Yan shook his head and sold Wen Xinyun out directly:

“You don’t have to be so hostile to me. Sect Master Ran’s death was planned by Wen Xinyun, and Jiantian Pavilion only returned his body to the Sword Sect on his behalf.

"As for forcing your Sword Sect to become a vanguard to resist the Xiangfu troops, that was your own choice. People are always like this. As long as there is a glimmer of hope, they will hold on to it. This is the price your Sword Sect has to pay for wanting to continue to hold the position of the old leader of the sect alliance."

As he spoke,

Tian Yan took out a crystal clear jade slip from the Xumi Ring:

"There is a military formation technique stored in it, which can be used to command the elite troops of the Xuantie Sect and the Tianxu Sect to come to Hongnong. It also shows the sincerity of my Jiantian Pavilion to cooperate with your Jianzong."

Ran Qingmo frowned slightly. She knew clearly what this jade slip meant. She said:

"What does the Sword Sect need to do?"

"I don't need Jian Zong to do anything. I just need you, Ran Qingmo, to do one thing."

"What."

"Today's Tianyuan Competition consists of two rounds. I need you to admit defeat in today's competition with me, and then..."

At this point, Tian Yan paused for a moment, and glanced sideways at the residence he had been to last night. The girl's voice was as clear and melodious as ever, but the content was as pleasing as falling into an icy cave:

".When I was fighting with Xu Yuan,

"Use your Dao Yin to kill him together with me."