Chapter 72: A Gentle Sword

On the arena stage.

Lin Yuchu estimated that the timing was about right, so with one direct strike, he sent Ming Yushu’s sword flying from his hand. He looked at him, his expression calm, and said in an indifferent tone, “You lost.”

Yet Ming Yushu, who had been defeated after his sword was knocked from his hand, only looked back at him. There was not the slightest trace of unwillingness, resentment, or dejection on his face. It could be said that the heavy, obscure mood from when the match had first begun had been swept clean away. With excitement on his face, and even a few notes of agitation in his voice, he said to Lin Yuchu before him, still wanting more, “Yes, I lost!”

Before this, even Ming Yushu himself had never imagined that he would speak of his own defeat in such a calm and unconcerned tone. Clearly, he was the person who hated losing most, who resented it most, who was most unwilling to lose.

As for why this time was so unusual, perhaps it was because he had fought to his heart’s content.

More than that, it was because he had not sensed the slightest contempt, disdain, or belittlement from the person across from him, from this person called Lin Yuchu. The other party had even less so spoken to insult him.

This made Ming Yushu feel much better. He even felt at ease.

From the other party, he had felt respect, and treatment as an equal.

That was something Ming Yushu had never felt all this time.

“I lost.” Ming Yushu put away his sword and gave the cold-faced youth before him a relieved smile. “Many thanks.”

After saying that, he turned and stepped down from the arena stage.

Lin Yuchu watched his departing figure. On that fair, handsome face where a youth’s sharp contours were just beginning to show, his expression was cool, his gaze calm.

A long while later.

He withdrew his gaze, lifted his eyes to look ahead, pointed the sword in his hand forward, and said in a cool voice, “Next!”

…

After his defeat, Ming Yushu came down from the arena stage in an exceedingly rare good mood. There was even a smile on his face.

When the loyal servant of the Ming family saw his family’s young master, who had swept away the lifeless gloom and resentful indignation from before going onstage and instead wore a bright smile, his expression cheerful and relaxed, he was instantly horrified.

He hurriedly said, “Young-young-young Master, are-are-are you… Could the blow have been too great, so great that you’ve lost your mind and gone mad?”

“Calm down, calm down! You absolutely must calm down, Young Master!”

Ming Yushu, who had been ridiculed by his own loyal servant, instantly restrained the smile at the corners of his lips. He lifted his head and glared at him fiercely, then said irritably, “What kind of way is that to talk?”

“Your young master is perfectly fine. Is there anyone like you, cursing your own young master to be unwell?” Ming Yushu said.

Hearing him say this, the loyal servant of the Ming family looked even worse. He muttered, “It’s over, it’s over. Young Master really has gone mad. He can actually—actually speak properly now!”

“…” Ming Yushu.

He was so angry he could die.

Once they got home, he would dismiss this blind fool immediately!

“Young Master.”

The loyal servant of the Ming family stood beside him, looking at him cautiously, and asked, “Are you really all right?”

“What could possibly be wrong with me?”

Ming Yushu said irritably.

“But you lost!” the loyal servant of the Ming family said. Whenever his young master lost, when had he ever not stamped his feet in anger, furious and unwilling? How could he possibly be this calm and ordinary?

This absolutely was not his family’s little tyrannosaur of a young master!

After hearing his words, Ming Yushu rolled his eyes and said, “It would be strange if I didn’t lose, all right? That guy.”

He pointed at Lin Yuchu and said, “He’s someone who can even defeat Ye Li. If I could beat him, would I still need to come here? I would have gone off to do whatever I wanted long ago.”

Ye Li was that genius from someone else’s family whom people often brought out to praise and commend among the many Sword Path great clans.

As for Ming Yushu…

He was the piece of rotten wood people often shook their heads and sighed over, the rotten wood that could not be carved.

After hearing his words, the loyal servant of the Ming family wore a somewhat strange expression. Looking at Ming Yushu, he said quietly, “I understand the reasoning…”

It was just, Young Master, when did you become so reasonable?

His family’s young master had always set his sights higher than the heavens, except his strength was… limited. Every time he was provoked into a sword duel by those people in the clan, once they used goading tactics, he was bound to fall for it. He lost every time, and every time, he was half-dead with anger.

Ming Yushu glanced at him and said, “You don’t understand.”

After saying that, he lifted his head and glanced toward the arena stage ahead. Looking at the youth who stood above it, slender and straight, like a tall bamboo in a luxuriant forest, he said softly, “He’s different from other people.”

“…” The loyal servant of the Ming family.

Even in the end, he still did not understand what exactly the difference in his young master’s words referred to.

He stared at his young master’s figure and muttered, “People are different from each other to begin with. Young Master, your luck was just bad before. The ones you met were all scum, that’s all.”

…

The battle between Lin Yuchu and Ming Yushu was also broadcast live through the Thousand-Li Mirror to the immortal lords of the Immortal Alliance.

How should one put it…

Seeing the young Rain Emperor go so easy on that youth from the Ming family, the immortal lords of the Immortal Alliance were not at all surprised.

The Rain Emperor was precisely this sort of person, gentle and full of feeling.

It seemed as though he was born with an extra share of compassionate gentleness compared to others, a warmth toward all living things. When he met strength, he became strong, but when he faced the weak, he did not excessively use his power to oppress them.

How did that saying go again? A gentle sword?

Once upon a time, the Rain Emperor’s way of doing things had been called posturing by those who opposed him. But compared with those many people who, because of the Rain Emperor’s warmth, had been won over and followed him wholeheartedly, those voices instead became unimportant.

As for Ming Yushu, the immortal lords of the Immortal Alliance did know of such a person.

It had nothing to do with what he himself was like. It was only because the disputes he later stirred up, and the people those disputes implicated, caused this originally unimportant person to become known to most people in the cultivation world.

Ming Yushu came from a famous Sword Path clan, the Ming family, an ancient great clan with a long inheritance.

But Ming Yushu’s talent in the Sword Path was not good. In order to have a successor with outstanding talent, the Ming family Family Head continuously took concubines and had children.

Therefore, although Ming Yushu was the Ming family’s only legitimate son, he had no small number of younger brothers born of concubines, and every one of them was fiercely ambitious.

In short, the Ming family was a muddy pool.

Ming Yushu was mired deep within it.

In every previous cycle, Ming Yushu would come to participate in this Sword Path Grand Competition because he wanted to prove himself, but he had not received an invitation to the Sword Path Grand Competition sent out by the Sword Alliance.

His invitation was something he had exchanged for with 100,000 spiritual stones and one high-rank pill from a youth. That youth was called Wen Yu.

The name Wen Yu was not prominent at present, but a hundred years later…

Together with Lu Qingyuan, he would be known as one of the Twin Emperors of the Demonic Path.

A prodigy of the Sword Path by nature, yet he just had to fall into the demonic path.

This was what the many righteous cultivators of the cultivation world said in pity and regret for the Red Feather Demon Emperor. Everyone in the world said that if not for the Ming family’s relentless pressure, if not for Ming Yushu’s death, perhaps our righteous path would have gained one peerless Sword Emperor, rather than the demonic path gaining one more Demon Emperor.

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