Fairy, help me cultivate.

His long howl ceased, but the sound still echoed like the resounding drums and bells in the mountains.

"Not bad."

The man lifted his disheveled hair, wiped his face, which was so greasy that his features were obscured, and stared at Chen Yao's sword, shaking his head.

Chen Yao gripped the hilt of his sword tightly and watched the man silently.

He realized he couldn't see through this person.

The man stretched and with a flick of his finger, he grabbed a plump fish from the air and ate it alive with a crunching sound, his mouth full of blood.

"Many years ago, when I first saw this sword, it wasn't this sharp."

The man pulled out a fishbone, picked at it with his teeth, and casually reached behind him to pull out a sword similar to the one in Chen Yao's hand.

The sword sliced ​​through the air and landed in front of Chen Yao, sending dirt flying and vibrating with a "buzzing" sound.

"Who are you? What happened to the owner of this sword?"

Chen Yao glanced at the sword and confirmed that it belonged to the three Yu sisters.

The man rolled his eyes and looked up at the sky, as if pondering something from a past life. He remained like a statue for a long time before finally saying, "I don't remember..."

He furrowed his brow, which was stuck together with grease, and pointed through his teeth: "There's no taste of human flesh in your mouth, so you probably didn't kill them, right?"

"What about the one that just flew by?"

Chen Yao found it increasingly difficult to understand this person's background and suspected that he was related to Yu Ling's disappearance.

The man threw down the fishbone, jumped off the boulder, waded through the water, picked up the sword, and said, "Fine, I'll take you there."

"Where?"

The man didn't answer Chen Yao. Instead, he reached into his pants, picked up his sword, and headed towards the source of the stream.

Chen Yao didn't know whether she should follow.

“This man is extraordinary; follow him.”

Yun Jiang and Jiu Luo spoke in unison, a rare occurrence, and then gave each other a soft hum.

Chen Yao had no choice but to obediently follow that person upstream.

As the sun gradually sets, it scatters golden light across the mountains. The long stream, like a golden ribbon, echoes far and wide through the rustling trees.

In the woods where birds and animals occasionally called out, the footsteps of that person and Chen Yao echoed softly.

The man stopped again, scratching his head and looking around for a while before continuing to walk.

Throughout the journey, no matter how Chen Yao asked him questions, he ignored her completely, as if he were deaf.

Chen Yao was too lazy to waste his breath now. So far, the person hadn't shown any hostility, which was a good thing.

The man stopped again.

Chen Yao found that the sound of the stream had disappeared, and the two arrived at the source of the stream.

"Who could have imagined that a spring the size of a buttock could gush forth a great river stretching across the eastern part of the South China Sea? Nature is truly wondrous; how can man possibly resist such a miraculous event?"

The man stood by the pool with one hand behind his back, chest puffed out, stroking his beard. But his tangled beard pulled painfully, and he jumped up, instantly losing his inscrutable demeanor.

Chen Yao frowned: "Why did you bring me here? There's nothing here."

There were no living creatures here except for him and this person.

There wasn't even a single blade of grass.

The man suddenly turned to look at Chen Yao, grinned, revealing a mouthful of scattered yellow teeth, and chuckled strangely.

Chen Yao slightly raised the tip of the sword in his hand.

"The beauty you've been looking for is right here. Do you dare come down with me?"

With that, he leaped into the spring, seemingly merging into the water without splashing a single drop.

Chen Yao looked at the dark spring water and charged down on his sword.

The spring is not large, but it is extremely deep.

Chen Yao descended into the darkness for a long time, always following the faint aura in his consciousness, falling rapidly, but he could not catch up with the person no matter what he did, and he became more and more surprised.

A commotion erupted.

Chen Yao's eyes lit up as he fell out of the pool and landed on a soft, warm surface.

He looked up and realized that the path he came from was shaped like an extremely long and deep water cone, like the fangs of an endless dragon.

The man beside him rubbed his backside and stood up: "You always fall down when you get down, how do you stand up?"

Chen Yao ignored him, looked down, and found that what was under her feet was not soil, but soft, red flesh that was slowly wriggling.

What is this place?

He asked Yun Jiang.

After a long pause, Yun Jiang replied: I don't know, I haven't been here.

"Why did you bring me here? Where is the person you mentioned?"

Chen Yao looked around and found that the surroundings were hazy and dreamlike, like the sunlight reflecting off the walls and rooftops of a lake, but apart from the deep pool hanging overhead, there was no trace of mountains or water.

Above my head was just a hazy light, with no visible substance.

It was as if he had stepped into a bizarre dream.

"In dreams, one is unaware of being a guest..."

The man hummed and sang as he went down the fleshy slope.

Chen Yao had no choice but to follow suit, becoming extremely vigilant.

Chapter 203 Unaware of Being a Guest in a Dream

Yu Ling felt as if she had returned to her childhood.

At that time, she was a renowned sword prodigy in Mingyang. Her father and mother were still very much in love, and she and her two younger sisters felt that everything was so wonderful.

"Egg, what exactly is a sword?"

Her father would ask her this question every time he left the pass or returned from his travels.

"A sword is a sharp weapon."

"The sword is the way."

"Sword is a realm."

"The sword embodies temperament."

"The sword is selflessness."

"The sword is me."

"The sword is unstoppable."

"sword……"

Yu Ling recalled every answer she had given as a child, and suddenly blurted out:

"A sword is just a sword."

She looked down at the sword in her hand, and the sword turned into a wisp of mist and disappeared.

"Then do you still have a sword? If a sword is just a sword, then you have no sword left, right?"

Her father's figure suddenly appeared, his long sword thrusting forward. Even though they were still far away, Yu Ling felt as if the sharpness of the sword was piercing her eyes, making it impossible for her to open them.

She remembered that night, her mother had also died tragically at his hands.

The image of scalding blood splattering everywhere was uncontrollable.

He recalled the flames that were scalding hot yet turned cold, which had consumed his body.

At the same time, her hatred for him surged to the heavens. She forced open her eyes, which were streaming with bloody tears, and clutched the sword that was no longer in her hand.

"You old beast, go to hell!"

The sound of swords rang out, echoing from all directions.

The surging sword energy, like a long river and the setting sun, poured into the man's body.

The man looked at Yu Ling's ferocious face and smiled with satisfaction.

"The sword is life, it is your cursed life... daughter..."

His figure disappeared.

That sword, at some point, returned to Yu Ling's hands.

There was sticky blood on the sword hilt, like the blood of her mother that had been splashed on her body and face that night.

That night, the moon over the Mingyang Sect was red.

"Egg, what exactly is a sword?"

Her father asked her the same question again.

Yu Ling was in a daze, answering again and again.

He killed the phantom of his father time and time again.

Unbeknownst to her, with each release of overwhelming sword energy, her appearance grew paler, thinner, and her hair drier.

……

……

Where exactly are you taking me?

Chen Yao had lost all sense of time and didn't know how long he had been walking on this seemingly endless fleshy slope.

They even began to doubt whether the figure in front of them, which never seemed to move away or get closer, was real.

Yun Jiang and Jiu Luo haven't spoken for a long time.

The man muttered to himself, but Chen Yao couldn't hear him clearly.