“You dare!”

When Li Chi said he intended to strike his Mysterious Blade against the Sage Blade of the Master, Jieyi’s face went green.

He struggled upright and let out a roar — had Cen Xiaoxiao not kicked him flat, he would have thrown himself forward with every last ounce of his strength.

Li Chi said, “It seems this blade is indeed very important.”

He looked at Jieyi. “Does this blade have a name?”

Cao Lie pointed at the Sage Blade of the Master. “There’s an inscription on the other side.”

Li Chi: “…”

Li Chi said, “You’ve disrupted my interrogation rhythm.”

Cao Lie said, “I figured you genuinely hadn’t seen it.”

Li Chi flipped the blade over, and sure enough, on the other side of the blade body were two characters: *Bu Chu* — *Does Not Draw*.

“Does Not Draw?”

Li Chi found this somewhat strange.

In truth, this was the Sage Blade’s real name. The Master’s blade was called precisely that — *Does Not Draw*. Only with the passage of time, and so few people having ever actually laid eyes on the Sage Blade of the Master, the stories had grown increasingly outlandish. People said all manner of things about it. Some claimed the blade was called Sacred Righteousness, others said Sacred Heart, still others said Divine Might, and some went so far as to call it Heaven’s Seal.

But in reality, when someone had gifted this blade to the Master long ago, the Master had simply given it a casual name: the Master Does Not Draw His Blade. The rough meaning being: a weapon as rare and lethal as this, even in my hands, will not be a lethal weapon — because I do not draw.

“I remember now.”

Li Chi looked at Jieyi. “You’re from the Sacred Blade Sect.”

Hearing this, a flash of visible panic crossed Jieyi’s eyes, and Li Chi no longer had any need to ask whether that was true or not.

So Li Chi had already surmised: this man’s appearance in Yuzhou City, and the fact that he had gotten into a fight with the people Yang Xuanji had dispatched, was most likely sheer coincidence.

Though this coincidence did carry a certain interest. This man, wielding the Sage Blade of the Master, had managed to wound the Fourth in the World — proof enough of his true capability.

Then again, thinking on it further — when the Fourth in the World had crossed blades with this man, he had already sustained injuries inflicted by Master Ye. So this man’s strength likely placed him below the Fourth in the World, while Master Ye and the Fourth in the World were an even match.

“Does Not Draw — I never imagined a name so deeply ironic.”

Cao Lie cast a cold eye toward Jieyi. “I heard the story of the Sacred Blade Sect a long time ago. Care to guess who told me?”

There had once been a man within the Mountain-River Seal organization — known as the Tyrant Blade.

Jieyi forced himself to sit upright. Standing was already beyond him. He looked toward Li Chi and said, “If you intend to kill me, then kill me and be done with it. Humiliating a man — that is no act of a hero.”

Li Chi asked, “Let me ask you one thing first. Did you come to Yuzhou to kill someone?”

By this point, Jieyi had nothing left to guard. He said loudly, “I did indeed come to kill someone — the Prince of Ning, Li Chi.”

Li Chi nodded. “That would be me.”

With a turn of his wrist, he reversed the Sage Blade of the Master, handle outward, and held it out to Jieyi. “Since you’ve seen me at last, you might as well try.”

The moment these words left his mouth, everyone present tensed.

Jieyi looked at the blade, then looked at Li Chi. Then, with a sudden reach, he took the long blade — and swung it straight at Li Chi.

But in his current state, this slash was nothing like the strike he had used to wound the Fourth in the World.

Li Chi kicked the flat of the blade. The Sage Blade of the Master spun through the air and struck the pillar nearby with a resounding thud, the blade driving clean through the pillar — a pillar thick enough to need two arms wrapped around it.

Li Chi stepped forward, pulled the blade free, and held it out to Jieyi again.

Jieyi took it through gritted teeth and brought it down at Li Chi once more.

Li Chi reached out and gripped his Mysterious Blade — and then the room erupted in a burst of light. With a tremendous clang, the Mysterious Blade and the Sage Blade of the Master crashed against each other with tremendous force.

Every eye in the room snapped wide open in that instant. These were two of the most priceless blades in the world — calling them divine artifacts would not be an overstatement.

Yet Li Chi seemed entirely unconcerned. He had truly, with two such priceless treasures, simply smashed them together.

*Clang!*

The sound was enough to split the eardrums.

Both blades shattered.

Under the force of that blow, Jieyi’s arm was shattered as well — his forearm folded backwards, snapping in half.

Yet in that moment he seemed to have forgotten the pain entirely. His eyes, filled with utter despair, stared at the Sage Blade of the Master. His eyes had gone bloodshot, as though on the verge of weeping tears of blood.

“This way, your Sage Blade of the Master returns to what it always should have been… Does Not Draw. I suspect — if the Master could have done this back then, he would have done it.”

Li Chi did not seem to feel the slightest twinge of regret.

Cao Lie did.

Li Chi pointed at the woman called Yanzhi. “Send her back to the Tingwei offices.”

Cao Lie said, “This woman has seduction techniques. Whoever interrogates her should be on their guard.”

Li Chi said, “Hand her to Zhang Tang.”

Cao Lie was taken aback, then let out a sigh. “You are truly ruthless.”

Li Chi said, “You didn’t say I was truly ruthless when I split those two blades apart, so what you just said was clearly an act — you’re saying I’m ruthless because you think it’s a shame. You called this woman’s beauty barely good enough to be worth interacting with, and yet now you’re calling me ruthless. Clearly, you feel sorry for her.”

Cao Lie said, “When you split those two blades apart, that wasn’t being ruthless, that was—”

He had been about to say *that wasn’t something a human being does*, but he swallowed the words.

Li Chi looked toward Jieyi. “Give him a horse. Release this man, and let him go back and tell the Sect Master of the Sacred Blade Sect that the Sage Blade of the Master was destroyed at my hands. He is welcome to come to Yuzhou and find me.”

After Li Chi finished speaking, the color shifted in Jieyi’s face again. His eyes filled with utter disbelief. He didn’t believe Li Chi would truly release him — he was certain there must be some cruel follow-up scheme still in store.

He looked at Li Chi and called out, “If you have any more ways to humiliate me, use them now. Why play tricks?!”

Li Chi crouched down and looked Jieyi in the eyes. “If the Sage Blade goes unbroken, will the Sect Master come?”

He told Jieyi his purpose directly, without a shred of artifice.

He had broken the Sacred Blade Sect’s sacred blade specifically to make their Sect Master come personally to kill him.

Two of his personal guard soldiers came forward, hauled Jieyi up, and brought him outside. True to Li Chi’s word, they found him a horse. Jieyi looked back at Li Chi one last time, and said through gritted teeth, “You will regret this.”

Li Chi paid him no mind. He looked at the broken blade in his hand, then turned and grinned at Cao Lie — a grin that made Cao Lie’s skin crawl.

He said to Cao Lie, “I just heard you say that Cen Xiaoxiao’s older sister Cen Jianjia is a master artisan of extraordinary skill?”

Cao Lie: “Ugh!”

He looked at Li Chi and asked, “What if she can’t reforge them?”

Li Chi smiled. “Then I’ll go steal a good one.”

—

One hour later. The former Plum Garden — now the Tingwei offices.

Two Tingwei officers hauled Yanzhi into the interrogation room, bound her to a wooden post, then withdrew.

Yanzhi looked around at the instruments of torture nearby and couldn’t suppress a shudder.

Just then, the door creaked open, and a man who appeared to be not particularly old, with a grim and sullen expression, stepped inside.

This man was not especially handsome, nor especially powerfully built, yet there was something uniquely unsettling about his manner — something that made anyone who looked at him feel a chill creeping up their spine.

Yanzhi did her best to make herself look as pitiable as possible. She knew how great her allure was, and she knew there were precious few men who could remain unmoved in her presence.

“Revolting.”

Zhang Tang glanced at her and frowned.

Yanzhi froze.

Because she could see it plainly: the contempt behind this man’s brow was not an act. He genuinely found her revolting.

How could there possibly be a man in this world who found her revolting? Even the man who had slapped her could not have been entirely unmoved.

Yet the man standing before her now simply opened a small cloth bundle in silence, and Yanzhi saw inside it a collection of small blades in all manner of strange shapes.

The next moment, a scream of agony rang out from the interrogation room.

—

In the main hall of the Tingwei offices, Cao Lie was leading in a woman who appeared to be around twenty-eight or twenty-nine years of age, radiating a quality of mature, composed elegance from every inch of her bearing.

She was tall and slender, dressed in plain cloth garments that looked to have been worn for years — visibly old, yet clean and spotless.

Even the way she walked seemed quiet, as still and self-contained as an orchid blooming alone.

Yet somehow — inexplicably — Cao Lie, that devil-may-care little lord who turned the world upside down wherever he went, seemed faintly ill at ease in her presence. A nervousness that seeped through even his best efforts at composure.

Cen Xiaoxiao followed along behind, suppressing a smile.

He had never quite understood why the little lord seemed to get nervous every time he saw his sister.

That was because Cen Xiaoxiao was not particularly perceptive in such matters. Had he been even slightly more perceptive, he would have understood exactly what was going on.

“I’ve asked you here because there is an urgent matter,” Cao Lie said, exercising a measure of careful delicacy as he spoke. He led the woman inside and gestured toward the table. “Two exceptional weapons have been damaged. I’d like to ask whether you might try — whether you could smelt and reforge these two blades into a single new one.”

This woman was, naturally, Cen Xiaoxiao’s older sister: Cen Jianjia.

She had at first only glanced at them with an air of indifference — but then gave a slight start. A moment later she quickened her pace to the table, picked up the broken blades, and examined them carefully. The longer she looked, the more troubled her expression became.

“Who did this?!”

She wheeled around to look at Cao Lie.

“I may not recognize the one, but the other I know immediately as the legendary Sage Blade of the Master. Who would so desecrate a divine artifact!”

Cao Lie immediately took a step back. “It wasn’t me!”

Cen Jianjia’s eyes went wide. “In this entire world, who but you would do something so wasteful? Apart from you, who would take two such divine artifacts and simply bash them against each other!”

Cao Lie took another step back. “It truly wasn’t me. Even I wouldn’t do something like this — and besides, I am not the only wasteful person in this world…”

Cen Jianjia said furiously, “Tell me who it was! Have them stand before me this instant!”

Just at this moment, Li Chi arrived at the doorway. Hearing this, and then seeing Cao Lie’s reaction — cowering like a frightened rabbit — Li Chi made an immediate decision: he turned on his heel and walked away.

Cen Xiaoxiao quickly went to his sister’s side and, lowering his voice, said, “The one who broke these two divine artifacts really wasn’t the little lord. It was the Prince of Ning…”

He explained the matter in full detail.

Cen Jianjia was momentarily stunned. She looked at Cao Lie, then at her younger brother, then said through clenched teeth, “Even if it was the Prince of Ning, destroying two such divine artifacts…”

Before she could finish, Cao Lie hurriedly said, “Which is precisely why I have brought you here. Think on it: in all the world, who besides you could smelt and restore two divine artifacts such as these? And even for you, this may be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity — you may never again have a chance to work on a pair like this.”

Cen Jianjia’s eyes sharpened. “A second time?”

Cao Lie waved his hands rapidly. “No, no, absolutely not, there cannot be a second time… But if you could extract the essence of both blades and forge them together into one — the result would be the supreme blade in all the world. Nothing could ever break a blade like that.”

This argument genuinely moved Cen Jianjia.

She looked back at the two broken blades. Her eyes were full of heartache — yet a gleam began to appear within them as well.

If she could truly smelt a new treasure blade from these two, it would indeed be an unrivaled supreme blade, the finest in the world.

She examined the other blade carefully — Li Chi’s Mysterious Blade — and studied it for a long while without being able to identify it.

This was because the blade had been reshaped twice over. Before it came to Li Chi, it had been a Western Regions curved blade; General Dantai had commissioned a master smith to reforge it into the style of a Central Plains war blade.

After studying it for some time and still unable to place it, Cen Jianjia turned back to Cao Lie. “What is the other blade’s name? That it could cleave the Sage Blade of the Master in two.”

Cao Lie swallowed. “Before I tell you… can you promise you won’t lose your temper? Can you promise I’ll be safe?”

She couldn’t actually hurt him — but his fear was genuine.

Cen Jianjia: “Tell me.”

Cao Lie swallowed again. “It is… the Great Zhou Son of Heaven Blade.”

Cen Jianjia’s eyes flew open.

Using the Great Zhou Son of Heaven Blade to cleave the Great Zhou Master’s Sage Blade — what kind of person could possibly be wasteful enough to do something like that?

—