Chapter 637 – Behind the Curtain, Blade Laid Bare - Part 1

The little town was called Herderton.

Herderton had sprung up around horse pastures. It was a place for raising horses, though the ranches here weren’t run by the government. They belonged instead to a great merchant by the surname Huyan.

Huyan Shu was that merchant’s son.

The old generation of merchants had all seen the glory of the old Central Capital. They knew, in their bones, how terrifying true martial cultivators could be. Not a single one of them dared straighten their backs in front of officials. Whenever they dealt with the authorities, they were nothing but humble and deferential, bowing and scraping, letting others take what they wished from them.

Fortunately, the one sitting on the throne these days was a ruler who genuinely cared for his people and had the strength to protect them. Under such a sovereign, even lowly bailiffs didn’t dare to be too greedy. Otherwise, these merchants would’ve been gnawed clean long ago, not even a splinter of bone left.

All of this came from things that youngsters now liked to dismiss as exaggerated nonsense, but which the older generation remembered all too clearly.

What use is having a lot of people?

they would say.

No matter how many you have, you still can’t overturn the heavens.

”

Let alone the ragtag armies of today. Back then, even proper battle formations, those terrifying lines of men whose momentum was unified and whose strength was fused into one, could be crushed under the hand of a single true expert.

They didn’t even need to reach too far back. Just 20 years ago, in the Battle of Swan Pavilion, the He faction was toppled entirely because of a single man.

The young people who heard tales like that, when they heard them at all, mostly assumed the stories were blown out of proportion.

After all, in the Central Plains as it existed now, even ninth rank meat fields were rare. In most martial schools, anyone still capable of displaying ninth rank strength would already be called a

master

, while those who could unleash eighth rank power were rarer than phoenix feathers and qilin horns.

Those high rank experts who could escape to the Eastern Sea had already done so. The ones who stayed behind had watched their realms plummet.

Along with that came the return of natural lifespan. Those sixth rank and fifth rank powerhouses who had already lived past a hundred and yet still lingered on, once their cultivation fell, they aged all at once. Their skin withered, their organs shriveled, and they dropped dead in quick succession.

Heaven and Earth had changed. The tides of spiritual energy had surged and ebbed; the waters had receded. The Eastern Sea was now the last remaining puddle, and all the fish and shrimp stranded on the other shores had long since died.

𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

So the spirit of the times twisted into something new: the old generation grew timid and self-effacing, while the young strutted about in fine clothes, angry horses under them, brash and overbearing.

Huyan Shu was one of those young men.

He was full of doubt about that not-so-distant era when great experts supposedly split mountains and overturned seas with a wave of the hand.

And even if those stories were true, he didn’t particularly care.

Because of who he was, he’d heard a little about this so-called Great Upheaval of Heaven and Earth. Those old monsters belonged to a bygone age; they ought to stay buried in it and never show their faces again.

After helping Zhangsun Sanniang pick out a fine house, Huyan Shu enthusiastically led her around to purchase a few maids and servants. Only then did he finally take his leave.

The house didn’t come with a secret chamber, but Li Yuan forced one into existence anyway.

He had the secret art steles moved from the carriage into the new chamber, those that recorded the techniques for Heaven and Earth Soul cultivation, and the arts for creating Wolfmothers, jade husks, and nine-headed direwolves.

When his gaze fell on the Gate of the Beast Path, hesitation stirred in Li Yuan’s heart.

He’d been planning to take that gate with him.

But the gate was simply too big, several meters tall and wide. Carrying it on his back would be like walking around with a city wall. Impossible not to draw attention.

On top of that, he still needed to bring the Life Star Art stele.

After thinking it over, he dug out another secret chamber beneath the first one and placed the Gate of the Beast Path down there.

Then he sealed both underground chambers shut with molten iron, one after the other. Afterward, he only told Zhangsun Sanniang that he had left something hidden beneath the house and that he would come back for it someday.

Zhangsun Sanniang agreed again and again, promising that if she ever married and had children, she would pass this secret down to them. And if she never married or had children, she would entrust it to someone she absolutely trusted, and have them wait, generation after generation, for Li Yuan to return.

Li Yuan then asked, “Have you felt Han Feng trying to come out lately?”

Zhangsun Sanniang’s body went rigid. She shrank back slightly and stammered, “S-she hasn’t...stirred in a long time.”

Li Yuan said, “Then just live your life properly. In the first half of your life, you got dragged into far too many things you never should’ve been part of. Let the second half go back to the right path. As for those things, just keep them as secrets buried in your heart. If even now Han Feng hasn’t come out, chances are...she won’t be coming out again.”

“Yes.” Zhangsun Sanniang answered respectfully. Then, all of a sudden, she dropped to her knees and knocked her head three times against the floor. “Thank you, Benefactor.”

She had never imagined she would be able to return to the mortal world alive. Even less did she expect that someone like the Primordial Emperor would remember a casual promise he’d once made to her.

“Thank you...”

Tears streamed down her face. Compared to anyone else, her life had been dazzling, utterly unique. Fortunately, after all those disasters, she’d managed to return to peace. That alone was a gift from heaven.

“Thank you....”

She had no other words left.

Li Yuan looked at this little Wolfmother and thought of the one who had once watched the sunset with him. For things to end like this, it wasn’t exactly a perfect full stop, but it was a full stop all the same.

He helped the woman up and studied this pitiful little Wolfmother who had followed him all this way. Smiling, he asked, “So, what are your plans now that you’re here?”

Zhangsun Sanniang said, “When I went with Young Master Huyan to buy the house and servants, he also took me to see their horse pastures. I realized I’m actually very good at the kind of work they do. I...could work with him. His family are great merchants, rich and powerful. If I cooperate with him, I should be able to gain a foothold here fairly quickly.”

Li Yuan’s mind was already on other matters. Seeing that Zhangsun Sanniang had her own ideas, he didn’t press further. He just nodded. “All right then. As the lady of the house, it’s about time you

sent us back to our hometown to report your safety to the old madam

, don’t you think?”

Zhangsun Sanniang hesitated, as if wanting to say something.

Li Yuan said, “Speak.”

Zhangsun Sanniang said, “Just now when I went outside, the whole town was hung with lanterns and decorations. I also saw drums beating in front of a temple dedicated to Yan Yu, with pigs and sheep laid out for sacrifice. From the looks of it, the New Year is coming. Would you...would you like to stay at least until after the New Year before you leave?”

Yan Yu’s temple?

Li Yuan slowly closed his eyes.

He knew the faith in Yan Yu would live on in these lands. But hearing that name again so suddenly still felt like something from another lifetime.

Time, however, wasn’t about to wait for him. He couldn’t stay.

So Li Yuan simply shook his head. “I’ll come visit you if I get the chance.”

Only then did Zhangsun Sanniang send the two of them off.

In the eyes of outsiders, this was nothing more than a young lady sending her servants out to run some errand.

When Zhangsun Sanniang returned, she sat alone in the main hall for a long time, still unable to quite believe that she was actually free. It wasn’t until a maid came in to report that Huyan Shi was requesting an audience that she finally snapped out of it.

Zhangsun Sanniang rose to her feet.

In front of Li Yuan, she was as insignificant as an ant, but only in front of Li Yuan.

Out in the wider world, forget this little town, even in a radius of hundreds or thousands of kilometers, she could absolutely be counted among the elite standing at the tip of the pyramid.

Her body had been transformed by the bonfires of the Western Extremes, giving her the physique of a sixth rank expert.

As for horse-taming...let alone horses, she’d tamed high ranking direwolves.

The transcendent power she’d once possessed as a jade husk had weakened a great deal, but these were just horses, not demonic beasts.