Not long after Shuang Feixue left fourteen years ago, the Great Liang court began its purge of the jianghu.
The reasons were lofty: chivalrous warriors using martial arts to violate prohibitions.
But in reality, it was to seize each sect’s secret martial manuals, weaken jianghu forces, and consolidate imperial power.
The Daoist sect bore the brunt.
Who made the Daoist sect the leader of the jianghu, holding the righteous path’s banner for centuries?
Who made the Daoist sect produce a traitor like Shuang Feixue, giving the court a perfect pretext to strike.
That day, three thousand imperial guards surrounded the mountain impenetrably.
The leading female official proclaimed the edict: the Daoist sect must surrender all secret manuals, register all disciples, accept court jurisdiction, and seek official approval for future actions.
Several elders drew their swords on the spot in fury, declaring jianghu matters for jianghu people—the court’s reach was too long.
The conflict erupted just like that.
In the end, thirteen disciples died, four stewards, one elder.
The imperial guards lost nearly a hundred.
Finally, the court branded the Daoist sect as rebels on charges of treason, posting wanted posters and launching a full purge.
Most disciples scattered: some hid their identities in the markets, others fled to Great Zhou to join relatives.
Several elders died fighting at the mountain gate; the survivors went their separate ways.
Before leaving, they told her: “Sect Leader, as long as the green hills remain.”
Only Leng Yanling stayed behind.
She was the sect leader; she couldn’t leave.
Before her master passed, he placed the sect leader’s ring on her hand, saying: “Yanling, the thousand-year foundation is entrusted to you.”
The Daoist sect’s roots were here: the mountain, the halls, the ancestral tablets.
If she left, the Daoist sect would truly perish.
But guarding an empty mountain, a sword that couldn’t be pulled, a library of dust-covered texts—what meaning was there in that?
“Master.”
Ji Zimo had approached unnoticed, standing half a step behind, maintaining the proper respect of a disciple.
The girl had washed the bowls and held her sword, the wrapping on the hilt somewhat worn—it needed replacing.
“Are you thinking about the past again?”
Ji Zimo asked softly, her voice tentative.
Leng Yanling didn’t turn, just gazing into the depths of the mist sea.
“Go practice your sword. Add two more hours today.”
“Yes.”
Ji Zimo acknowledged, but she didn’t leave immediately.
She hesitated, her fingers unconsciously rubbing the hilt’s wrapping.
“Master, yesterday when I went down to the town to buy rice, I heard some news.”
“What news?”
“The north… seems unsettled.”
Ji Zimo said, her eyes hiding a yearning for the world beyond the mountain gate.
“Zhou Kingdom is at war with the grassland barbarians. They’ve been fighting at Yanmen Pass for two or three months. Many jianghu people are heading there, saying chaos breeds heroes. Some say the Northern Zhou court lacks martial experts now; as long as you’re willing to serve, the treatment is good—houses, fields, and even official titles for merits.”
Leng Yanling turned, her purple eyes locking onto her disciple, chillingly cold.
“You want to go?”
“No!” Ji Zimo shook her head quickly, her ponytail whipping.
“I just… I just think it’s such a pity for our Daoist sect to be like this. Master, your martial arts are so high—you’re already at the entry-to-Dao realm. How many in the whole world have reached entry-to-Dao? I’m not as good as you, but I’m not bad either. If we could revive the Daoist sect, take in some disciples, pass on the sword arts…”
“Revive? Rely on the Zhou people? Even the Xia people’s nation fears us jianghu folk—let alone the Zhou people’s nation.”
Ji Zimo lowered her head, staring at her shoe tips. Those cloth shoes had been worn for over half a year, the soles somewhat thin.
“The jianghu is already dead.”
Leng Yanling gazed into the distance, her voice carrying an exhaustion she herself hadn’t noticed, sedimented over fourteen years, too thick to dissolve.
“From the day the court began the purge, Great Liang’s jianghu died. What’s left now can’t even be called chivalrous knights—hiding in the shadows, clinging to life, not daring to show their true faces.”
“The Daoist sect’s roots are here: the mountain, the halls, the sword. Leave, and truly nothing remains. Go to Northern Zhou, and is the Daoist sect still the Daoist sect? It would be rootless duckweed, living under others’ roofs.”
Ji Zimo said no more.
She understood her master’s persistence.
Over twelve years, she had watched her master daily sweep the halls, wipe the ancestral tablets, stand silently before the Hanyu sword.
Sometimes deep into the night, when she got up, she saw her master sitting alone on the steps before the hall, gazing at the stars, sitting for half the night.
That kind of loneliness suffocated her just to witness.
She felt this persistence was painful: guarding an empty mountain, guarding memories, guarding a glory long past, like guarding a grand tomb.
“Go practice your sword.”
Leng Yanling waved her hand, her tone betraying no sorrow or joy.
“Yes.”
Ji Zimo turned and left, her white figure soon vanishing into the bamboo path, her footsteps gradually fading.
Leng Yanling stood alone at the cliff’s edge, the wind lifting her purple hair, strands brushing her cheek, slightly itchy.
She didn’t brush them away, letting the wind blow. She recalled many years ago, right here, in a similar clear morning, when Shuang Feixue had pointed at the mist sea and said:
“Senior Sister, look—the mist gathers and scatters, scatters and gathers, much like the jianghu. Today you’re the strongest under heaven; tomorrow you might fall into ruin.”
“Today the sect thrives; tomorrow it might scatter like birds. Senior Sister, what’s important is the present, the people before you.”
At that time, Shuang Feixue was only fifteen, just entering the innate realm, yet already concerned for the entire jianghu.
Leng Yanling was three years older, already designated the next sect leader. Looking at her junior sister, she felt both pride and faint worry.
Her junior sister’s talent was too high, her personality too straightforward, loves and hates clear-cut.
Such a temperament in the jianghu would eventually lead to losses.
The jianghu wasn’t a place of clear black and white; great heroes existed only in books.
She had advised her junior sister: some things, turn a blind eye and let them pass. But her junior sister said:
“If everyone turns a blind eye, who will uphold what’s right? Who will correct what’s wrong?”
She couldn’t argue with her junior sister, only shaking her head.
Later, as she had foreseen, her junior sister met trouble.
After that trip to Qilian Mountains, Shuang Feixue returned changed, no smile on her face, no light in her eyes, shutting herself in her room all day, seeing no one.
Leng Yanling knocked, and when her junior sister opened the door, her eyes were red and swollen, voice hoarse: “Senior Sister, all five junior sisters died—to save me.”
Five direct disciples, junior sisters who grew up together, all dead.
Leng Yanling knew how devastating this was for her junior sister, but she didn’t know how to comfort her.
She could only pat her junior sister’s shoulder and say: “Those who live must live well.” Her junior sister looked at her, tears falling again: “But living is harder than dying.”
Then came the infant.
Even now, Leng Yanling remembered Shuang Feixue kneeling before her with the child.
It was winter, snow falling outside, no fire in the hall, cold enough for breath to frost.
Her junior sister knelt on the icy tiles, the swaddled child sleeping soundly, little face rosy.
Her junior sister said: “Senior Sister, I must raise this child. Please, let me take him and go.”
What had she said then?
Right, she had said this.
“You’re the Daoist sect’s holy maiden, the strongest under heaven. How many in the jianghu watch you, how many in the court fear you? Now, for a child of unknown origins, you want to betray the sect? Do you know what this means? It means abandoning everything!”
Shuang Feixue looked up at her, eyes bloodshot, but gaze exceptionally firm.
“I’ve decided. Before Master passed, he told me this child is fated to me—my tribulation, and my bond. I must take him, go to a place where no one knows us, raise him.”
“Who is that child? Worth this much?”
“I can’t say; speaking would bring him calamity.”
They argued fiercely, voices going hoarse. Finally, Shuang Feixue stood, holding the child, and bowed deeply to her.
“Senior Sister, thank you for the care these years. This junior sister is unfilial; today we part.”
The next day, Shuang Feixue left with the child, leaving the Hanyu sword and the words “In sixteen years, he will come to claim it,” then vanishing without a trace.
At the time, Leng Yanling was so angry she smashed half the hall, shattering the celadon vase left by their master.
Now, thinking back, perhaps her junior sister was right.
The jianghu, the Daoist sect—all just empty names in the end.
Guarding a pile of rules, a title, and in the end, no one by your side—what meaning was there?
Her junior sister at least had that child.
And her?
Leng Yanling looked down at her hands. These hands had gripped swords, killed people, helped up fallen junior sisters, wiped dirt from her disciple’s face.
Now they could only grasp emptiness, nothing to hold.
The palm lines were clear, the life line long—long and lonely.
“Master! Master!”
Ji Zimo’s voice suddenly came from the back mountain, urgent, accompanied by the sharp clang of metal.
Leng Yanling’s brows furrowed. In a flash, her figure moved, purple robes fluttering, already three zhang away.
With a few leaps, like a purple swallow skimming the sky, she reached the back mountain training ground in an instant.
There, Ji Zimo stood in the center of the clearing, sword tip trembling.
From the opposite woods, three masked figures slowly emerged, their steps so light they didn’t even crunch the fallen leaves.
“Who are you?”
Leng Yanling positioned herself in front of her disciple, her purple robes stirring without wind.
The air within three zhang around her seemed to congeal.
The leading black-clothed person clasped their fists, speaking respectfully, seemingly without malice.
“Sect Leader Leng, we’ve long admired your name. We come on the State Preceptor’s orders, inviting the sect leader to the capital for a discussion.”
State Preceptor?
Leng Yanling’s gaze chilled. The current State Preceptor, Feng Xuanyin, one of the instigators of the jianghu purge years ago—the Daoist sect’s blood debt included her share.
“The Daoist sect exists in name only now. What purpose in inviting me?”
Leng Yanling’s voice was calm, but the air’s temperature dropped a few degrees, her internal energy circulating within.
“The State Preceptor values talent. Sect Leader Leng’s martial arts are unparalleled; it’s a pity to be trapped guarding an empty mountain. If willing to serve the court, the State Preceptor can petition His Majesty to pardon the Daoist sect’s past crimes, reopen the mountain gate, continue the incense, and the court can allocate funds to repair the halls and recruit disciples.”
Reopen the mountain gate?
Leng Yanling’s heart stirred, like a stone tossed into a calm lake, but she quickly composed herself, the stone sinking, ripples fading.
How much could the court’s words be trusted? Likely a trap—enter the capital, become a caged bird, never to fly free again.
“And if I refuse?”
She asked, her right hand slightly lifting, cold light flowing at her fingertips.
The black-clothed person was silent for a moment, then spoke.
“Then we’ll have to offend.”