“Splash!”
A bucket of ice water was poured over her head, dragging the unconscious Jiang Ci out of the darkness. The cold felt like countless fine needles pricking her scalp, trickling down her neck and soaking through her thin sect uniform. Her eyelashes fluttered, and her lips parted, but she could make no sound. Before she could even adjust to the sunlight of the Northern Border, she was hoisted straight up.
The escorting disciple grabbed her collar, dragging her up from the ground like a sack of cargo. Her feet dragged twice against the dirt, unable to find purchase, her entire body as limp as a tattered rag.
“Wake up, Senior Sister. If you keep sleeping, I won't be able to complete my task.”
With a look of impatience, the disciple let go and left her to stand on her own. She could not hold herself up; she swayed twice, her knees buckling as she began to fall again. He reached out and grabbed her arm, his tone growing even harsher.
“Hurry up and get out of Beizhou City so I can finish the task the Immortal Venerable gave me. After that, you can die wherever you want.”
Jiang Ci had only just awakened from her daze, and her vision was still blurry. The harsh sunlight of the Northern Border made her eyes sting. She squinted, taking a long moment to clearly see the person before her—a young man in his early twenties, dressed in the uniform of an outer disciple of the Sword Sect, possessing a Foundation Establishment cultivation. She had seen him before on the Sword Sect's martial arena, among the crowd that bowed their heads whenever she passed by.
She could not recall his name.
“...Beizhou City?” Her voice was very soft, as if drifting from a great distance.
“Once you leave Beizhou City, you'll be in the Northern Border.” The disciple raised his hand and pointed toward the distant city gate. “Senior Sister, you probably understand what kind of place that is better than I do. The Immortal Venerable's decree is for you to fend for yourself in the Northern Border. After you, Senior Sister.”
He stepped aside and made a mocking gesture of invitation, his face devoid of respect, showing only impatience and a faint, malicious pleasure.
Jiang Ci did not look at him. She lowered her head and felt her waist—her storage bag was still there. Sending her divine sense inside, she found it completely empty, save for a single sword. Qinghan.
The blade was ice-cold, with dried blood still staining its edge—her own. This sword was bound to her bloodline; unless she died, no one else could use it. This was the only thing she had left.
Gripping the hilt, she pushed herself off the ground, standing up bit by bit. Her knees shook, her legs trembled, and her entire body shuddered. Clenching her teeth, she used the sword as a crutch and limped toward the city gate.
Behind her, the disciple watched her retreating figure, his expression shifting.
He recalled ten years ago, when she stood on the Heavenly Punishment Platform to receive the sect's commendation. At that time, she had just formed her Golden Core, her entire being like an unsheathed sword, sharp and brilliant. He had stood in the crowd, looking up at her with nothing but awe in his heart.
Now, this sword was broken.
A different kind of emotion welled up in his heart. It was not sympathy, nor was it pity—it was excitement. A twisted excitement that had been suppressed for far too long.
“Senior Sister.”
Jiang Ci did not stop. She kept walking, slowly, never looking back.
“Senior Sister, if you accompany me for a couple of nights, then as for your travel expenses on this journey...”
The storage ring on his index finger flashed, and several low-grade spirit stones appeared in his hand. He tossed them into the air and caught them steadily. The spirit stones gleamed faintly in the sunlight, clinking against one another with a crisp sound.
His voice carried a teasing note, filled with an uncontrollable thrill. To make this former darling of heaven his plaything—such a feeling was something a Sword Sect disciple who had been overshadowed by her for twenty years could not have even dared to dream of.
Jiang Ci kept walking.
Her steps did not falter, her back did not stiffen, and she did not even turn her head. It was as if she had not heard a single word, as if his proposition had absolutely nothing to do with her.
The smile on the disciple's face froze.
“Senior Sister?” he called out again, his voice raising a fraction.
A few passersby stopped. The streets of Beizhou City were not crowded, but there were always busybodies who, upon hearing words like “Senior Sister” and “travel expenses,” could not help but steal a few glances.
Jiang Ci still did not react.
She kept walking. Limping, step by step, like a wound-up machine, moving forward mechanically.
The disciple's face darkened.
The stares of the surrounding people pricked him like needles. Some were whispering, others were snickering. He could not hear what they were saying, but he could feel the meaning behind those looks—they were laughing at him.
He did not dare to lay a hand on her.
Immortal Venerable Zixiao's order was to “leave her to her fate, dead or alive,” but Immortal Venerable Qingwei had spent quite a few spirit stones and treasures to smooth things over. Though those items had been entirely pocketed by the elders and senior brothers above him, leaving him with not a single cent, that connection still remained. Someone who still had the protection of a Void Refinement level existence was not someone he could touch.
If she threw herself at him, that would be his own skill. But if he dared to take the initiative to lay a hand on her...
He shuddered.
Those soul refiners in the Soul Hall were not to be trifled with.
“Pah!”
He spat on the ground, his voice not loud, but clear enough for everyone around to hear.
“What a bitch. Acting so high and mighty, do you really think you're still the Azure Cloud Sword Heir?”
He stared at Jiang Ci's receding back, the unquenchable anger in his chest burning even hotter. His gaze swept through the crowd and locked onto a reasonably pretty young woman—dressed in coarse cloth with her hair pinned up by a simple wooden hairpin, looking like a refugee from out of town.
Terrified by his gaze, the woman shivered and turned to run.
He grabbed her wrist and, amidst the gasps of the crowd, leaped into the air and vanished.
“Let me go! Let me go!”
The woman's screams faded into the wind. No one pursued them, and no one spoke up to stop him. The surrounding pedestrians lowered their heads and hurried away, pretending they had seen nothing.
...
Jiang Ci felt utterly lost.
As she walked, she tried to think with her newly awakened mind: where should she go?
The world was vast, yet she seemed to have nowhere left to go.
The Northern Border was freezing. Even though spring had arrived and the Qingming Festival had passed, snow still drifted occasionally. The cold wind pierced through her thin, tattered sect uniform, howling as it stripped away her body heat, forcing her to keep moving.
She could only think as she walked. But after pondering for a long time, she realized she truly had nowhere to go. She had no relatives or friends in the Northern Border, and she did not have a single coin to her name. Let alone finding a place to stay tonight, even getting food was a problem.
Having practiced inedia for several years, she had long grown accustomed to not eating. But now, a long-forgotten hunger welled up from her stomach, twisting her gut like a clenching fist.
Survival was her greatest challenge now.
She stopped and stood in the middle of the road, looking at the fork ahead. One path led east, the other west. She did not know what lay to the east or what lay to the west. She did not know where there were people, where there was water, or where she could find shelter from the wind and rain.
She stood there for a very long time.
The wind blew from the north, piercing her thin sect uniform. She began to tremble, not from the cold, but because she suddenly realized something.
She had nowhere to go.
She could not return to the Sword Sect. The Central Continent had no place for her. And she had no one in the Northern Border.
She swallowed hard and continued forward. No matter which direction she took, she had to keep moving first.
She walked into a pawnshop.
The shop was tiny and dusty, sandwiched between a coffin shop and a sundry stall. Behind the counter sat a thin, middle-aged man with triangular eyes and a goatee. He wore two jade rings on his fingers, immediately marking him as a shrewd and slippery businessman.
Jiang Ci placed her storage bag on the counter.
“How much can I get for this?”
The shopkeeper picked up the storage bag, weighed it in his hand, and scanned it with his divine sense. He looked up, sizing her up from head to toe—her tattered sect uniform, the chains on her wrists, her body covered in wounds, and her limping posture.
“Fifteen taels.”
Jiang Ci's pupils contracted slightly.
A two-cubic-meter storage bag, especially after the destruction of the Formation Sect, was worth at least one hundred and fifty high-grade spirit stones on the market. Converted to silver, that would be over a thousand taels.
Fifteen taels. It was not even a fraction of its true worth.
She opened her mouth, wanting to say something. But looking into the shopkeeper's eyes, she suddenly found herself unable to speak.
She looked down at herself—her tattered clothes, her wounded body, the chains on her wrists, and her inability to even stand steadily.
Dressed like this, the fact that they had not thrown her out like a beggar was already a courtesy extended solely because of the storage bag.
“Fine,” she said.
The shopkeeper was somewhat surprised. He raised an eyebrow, pulled out fifteen taels of broken silver from beneath the counter, and pushed it toward her.
Jiang Ci did not take the money immediately. Holding the storage bag in both hands, she pushed it back toward the shopkeeper and looked into his eyes earnestly.
“I will redeem it.”
Her voice was soft, but deadly serious.
The shopkeeper looked at her, his lips twitching as if he wanted to laugh but couldn't. He lowered his head, swept the storage bag into the counter, and muttered indifferently, “Suit yourself.”
Jiang Ci placed the fifteen taels of silver into the hidden pocket of her sleeve and turned to leave.
She did not look back. But she knew those triangular eyes were staring at her back, watching her as if she were a joke.
It was getting late. The sun was sinking in the west, painting the city walls of Beizhou City in a dull gold.
Jiang Ci stumbled toward the city gate. Beizhou City was a fortress city guarding the border between the Central Continent and the Northern Border. Once she crossed this gate, she would be in the Northern Border.
The gate was crowded with people. They were not people entering the city—they were those who could not escape.
Refugees.
They camped along the city walls, using rags, straw, and branches to build low shacks. Packed tightly together, they looked like a sprawling field of gray graves. The air was thick with the smell of smoke, the stench of excrement, and the odor of death.
Jiang Ci had heard of the fall of the Northern Border. She had read about it in the Sword Sect's mission briefings and heard it in the confessions of the Northern Border missionaries. But hearing about it and seeing it with her own eyes were two completely different things.
A month ago, another of the Northern Border's four remaining fortresses had been breached by the spirit tide. Of the original nine fortresses and eighteen cities, not even half remained. Barely ten years had passed since the destruction of the Formation Sect, yet the Northern Border, which had been guarded for five thousand years, had already mostly fallen, turning into a hunting ground for the Ice Spirits to run wild.
These refugees were the ones who had escaped from that breached fortress.
Jiang Ci forced herself not to look.
She lowered her head and quickened her pace, trying to slip past the edge of the sea of refugees.
Then, she heard crying.
It was not a suppressed, quiet sobbing—it was a wail. A heart-wrenching, agonizing wail.
She turned her head.
A child was hugging a woman, crouching by the roadside. The woman was already dead, her face pale green, her lips purple, her eyes half-open with dilated pupils. The child held her, burying his face in her chest, trembling as he wept.
The people around them did not look. Perhaps they had seen too much of it, or perhaps they were close to death themselves and lacked the strength to care about others.
Jiang Ci stood there, her feet feeling as if they were nailed to the ground.
She fished out two taels of silver, walked over to the child, squatted down, and pressed the money into his hand.
“Take this.”
The child looked up at her through tear-blurred eyes, as if he did not understand.
“Go buy something to eat,” Jiang Ci said softly.
The child looked down at the silver in his hand, then looked back up at her. His lips parted, wanting to say something, but nothing came out. He simply gripped the silver tightly, his knuckles turning white.
Jiang Ci stood up and turned to leave.
But then, she found she could no longer move.
It was unclear who noticed first—perhaps an observer in the shadows, or perhaps someone had shouted, “She has money!” The refugees surged from their shacks, from the roadsides, and from all directions like a school of fish smelling blood.
They knelt before her, stretching out their hands, some silent, some begging, some wailing.
“Miss, please have mercy...”
“Give me a little, my child hasn't eaten in three days...”
“Please, I beg of you, please...”
Jiang Ci clenched her teeth and pulled out all the silver in her sleeve. Fifteen taels, plus what she had left before, totaling less than twenty taels. She gave it all away.
It still was not enough.
Even more people swarmed over. The more she gave, the more people gathered. Someone pushed forward from behind, nearly knocking her over. Some tugged at her sleeves, while others grabbed her hem.
“There's no more,” she said. “There's really nothing left.”
No one listened.
A hand reached out, groping toward her sword.
She dodged.
Another hand reached out, grabbing the scabbard of Qinghan. It was a withered, bony hand with dirt caked under the fingernails and an unhealed scar on the wrist.
Jiang Ci drew her sword.
The sound of the blade leaving its scabbard was very soft, but the surroundings instantly fell silent. The outstretched hands retracted, and the wailing stopped. The people stared at her, at the sword in her hand, at the chains on her wrists, and at the bloody footprints on her feet.
She slashed at the reaching hands. Not targeting vital areas, she only caused superficial flesh wounds. Blood splattered onto the dusty earth, quickly absorbed.
Wails of pain erupted within the refugee camp.
Some screamed, some cursed, and others retreated while clutching their bleeding hands. The crowd that had just been packed together parted like split water, backing away to both sides.
The people looked at her, and their eyes had changed. No longer filled with greed or supplication, they were filled with fear and wariness. They looked at her as if she were a wolf.
Jiang Ci stood there, holding her sword, with blood still dripping from the blade.
Looking at those expressions, she suddenly felt a strange urge to laugh.
Just moments ago, they had been kneeling before her, crying and begging for alms. Now, they looked at her as if she were a wolf.
She did not laugh.
She sheathed her sword, turned, and continued forward.
Behind her, the crowd closed back in. No one pursued her.
Jiang Ci walked a long distance before finally stopping.
She crouched by the roadside, driving her sword into the ground, leaning on the hilt as she hung her head and gasped for breath. It was not from exhaustion—it was... she did not know what it was.
The pale sun slowly sank below the horizon. The light dimmed bit by bit, and the wind grew even colder.
She looked up, staring at the sun.
She did not know where she should go. She did not know where she would sleep tonight. She did not know where her next meal would come from.
The travel expenses she had sacrificed everything to get were gone. Her kindness had been utterly defeated by this cruel, dog-eat-dog world.
She stood up, pulled her sword from the ground, and held it in her hand.
And then, she fell into an even deeper state of bewilderment.
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