Strictly speaking, Nuo Tao wasn't really from the Northern Territory.
The time she'd spent there was, at most, only a little longer than Gu Chengming's own.
So the Knight Dharma Sword's judging criteria were actually based on words and actions?
It had no real ability to tell where someone actually came from — it could only judge by what was said, and it enforced its regional discrimination with brutal consistency.
So a moment ago, it had simply heard Gu Chengming feeding Nuo Tao dumplings, watched one drop onto the table, and from that alone concluded: Northern Territory person, table, dumpling, humiliation successful.
Gu Chengming's expression turned complicated.
Wait, but why? Why would the Fate-Reversing Tribulation-Severing Sovereign's Dharma Sword carry such a bizarre sword intent — what even was this sword intent?!
Thinking back on it, he probably should have been on guard the moment Delirium Jìntian first rattled off that string of Dharma Sword names.
But the name "Knight" was just too misleading — it sounded far too dignified, so dignified that Gu Chengming had momentarily forgotten: a Knight lumped together with names like Thunder, Raptors, and Warriors probably had little to do with protecting the weak.
Looking at it that way, the Qingxin Formula really had called it right.
[Qingxin Formula, hiding a soft laugh behind her hand: Though I'd already guessed seven or eight parts of it, this sword's true meaning really does defy common sense — rather amusing, in its own way.]
Across the table, watching Gu Chengming stare off toward his own innocent pan-fried dumpling and sink into thought, his expression sliding from blank shock to something more complicated, Nuo Tao's heart quietly began to pound.
She drew the hand she'd pulled into her sleeve after "burning" it a little further back, silently fretting over whether her little act of pretend suffering had been too much.
How could a proper Third Realm thief-cultivator, true essence warding her body, possibly be brought to tears by a mere pan-fried dumpling?
Anyone with eyes could tell it had been an act. Was Brother Gu maybe thinking she was being overly precious right now, quietly writing her off in his head...?
The more she thought about it, the guiltier she felt, and she kept sneaking glances across the table out of the corner of her eye.
Just as she sat with her head bowed, privately imagining every miserable way she might have fallen out of favor, Gu Chengming suddenly looked up and spoke, quite naturally.
"Where are you from again, Miss Nuo?"
Nuo Tao blinked, then answered honestly. "My master picked me up and brought me into the Myriad-Theft Gate when I was very young. I don't really remember my birthplace."
She tilted her head and thought hard about it for a good while before adding, "But going by the Myriad-Theft Gate's territory, I suppose you could say I'm roughly from around the East Sea?"
Gu Chengming rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
He'd asked the question, naturally, to get a better read on how this "Knight" sword's judging mechanism worked.
That sudden spike in Unlock Progress a moment ago — was it targeted mockery aimed specifically at the Northern Territory, or indiscriminate carpet-bombing of everyone alike?
A single sample from the Northern Territory was nowhere near enough — a lone data point proves nothing, as the saying goes. He needed to test with someone from a different region before he could confirm whether this sword's "regional discrimination" was real.
And the East Sea girl who'd just introduced herself was, conveniently, the perfect subject for his experiment.
In the spirit of rigorous testing befitting any proper cultivator, he smoothly went along and tossed out his next question.
"So, Miss Nuo, what's your favorite food back in the East Sea?"
Nuo Tao froze for a moment at the question, and then her eyes slowly began to light up.
?? What did Brother Gu mean by this? Asking about her personal preferences? Why had the conversation suddenly turned so thoughtful?
Could it be that, far from being put off by her little act, Brother Gu had actually been charmed by her sweet, artless display, and was now using the excuse of talking about food to naturally work his way toward inviting her to dinner?
All manner of far-fetched thoughts went careening through her mind, round and round. Nuo Tao cleared her throat, struggling to suppress the smile tugging at the corners of her mouth, and answered with feigned restraint:
"If we're talking East Sea food, white-cut chicken is definitely what suits my taste best!"
She set down her water cup and gestured with both hands in midair, as if a freshly-sliced white-cut chicken had already appeared before her.
"With white-cut chicken, the most important thing is that the meat has to be tender, the skin smooth, and it can't be dry when you bite into it. The chicken itself has a faint natural sweetness, and paired with soy sauce that carries a light savory note, the flavor just comes alive."
"And ginger paste! Scallion oil works too! Just a little dip, and the aroma bursts open in your mouth right away — the skin's smooth and springy, the meat's fresh and tender, every bite is just so satisfying."
Having said all that, she added, "It's also my favorite thing to eat in the whole world!"
Gu Chengming nodded once she'd finished, then raised a hand to summon a mess-hall attendant.
"Please have the kitchen make a plate of white-cut chicken."
Stars practically lit up in Nuo Tao's eyes.
She'd only been fantasizing in her head — who'd have guessed Brother Gu would actually go and order it from the kitchen on the spot!
For a moment she didn't know what expression to wear to hide the giddy delight welling up inside her, and could only pretend to wipe away a nonexistent grease stain on the table, the tips of her ears quietly flushing red.
Just as she thought! The cute-act tactic — unbeatable!
Just as she was about to silently chalk up a great achievement for herself, she heard Gu Chengming speak again, adding one more thing.
"Also, bring over a small dish of the fresh-cooked strawberry jam while you're at it."
Nuo Tao: "...Hm?"
She looked up, not quite processing it yet, assuming Brother Gu simply wanted the jam as a dessert to go with the meal afterward.
After all, these days, particular diners often finished a meal with something sweet to cut the richness — a common enough refinement, nothing unusual.
Before long, the dish was set on the table.
The white-cut chicken arrived still steaming, its skin a glossy goose-yellow, the meat white as fat, sliced with precision and stacked up like a small jade mountain, its aroma drifting up on the heat and straight into the nose.
Beside it sat a small dish of strawberry jam, blood-red and glistening, its color alone tempting enough that just looking at it seemed to carry the scent of cooked fruit.
Nuo Tao stared at the plate of white-cut chicken she'd been longing for, nearly drooling despite herself.
She glanced at Gu Chengming, a fresh wave of secret delight rising in her.
Brother Gu was really so kind — knowing what she liked and going out of his way to have the kitchen make it for her.
She'd even started imagining it: Gu Chengming picking up a piece of chicken and saying gently, "See if it's to your taste," while she bit into it with feigned composure and offered a casual "not bad," all while secretly rolling around in delight inside.
She picked up her bowl, chopsticks poised to solemnly claim the first piece — ready to complete today's shining moment with all the elegance of a gorgeous gourmet heroine sampling her first bite — when she saw Gu Chengming across from her pick up the little dish of strawberry jam.
The chopsticks in Nuo Tao's hand froze in midair.
She blinked, trying to make sense of it. Was Brother Gu setting the jam aside for later, to use as dessert after the main meal?
But if he was just setting it aside, why pick it up like that?
A faint sense of foreboding rose in her, and then she watched as Gu Chengming's wrist slowly tilted — and the vivid red strawberry jam poured out like a breached dam, thick and heavy, sliding over the rim of the dish and pouring straight down onto that small white-tender jade mountain.
Meeting the heat, the jam instantly turned into a strange red sludge, winding its way across the skin, seeping into the white gaps of the meat and the golden folds of the skin, until the entire plate of white-cut chicken had been cast into some indescribable piece of postmodern art.
Red tangled with white, thick with tender, and the whole atmosphere froze solid.
On the table, only the ravaged plate of white-cut chicken still steamed away, letting out its final, silent lament.
"...?" A question mark practically hovered over Nuo Tao's head.
Gu Chengming picked up his chopsticks, plucked out a piece of chicken thoroughly coated in strawberry jam, and — under Nuo Tao's near-blank stare — put it in his mouth and chewed twice with a completely straight face.
Nuo Tao felt as though she'd just witnessed a murder.
The victim: the white-cut chicken. The murder weapon: strawberry jam.
The perpetrator: Gu Chengming, whose act was utterly merciless and showed not a trace of remorse.
Gu Chengming chewed slowly and swallowed, even nodding with an air of solemn consideration.
"Jam wrapped around tender, smooth chicken — the sweet-tart fruit aroma really brings out the freshness and sweetness of the meat."
He looked at Nuo Tao, his tone entirely sincere.
"Don't you think so?"
Nuo Tao stared at the plate of chicken, ruined beyond recognition, feeling as if her heart itself were bleeding. If it weren't Gu Chengming sitting across from her, she would have flipped the whole table right then and there.
Heresy! This is heresy!!
A person like this, back in the East Sea, would get chased three streets down by an angry chef with a cleaver!
Her lips moved, on the verge of saying something, but since this was Brother Gu's own doing, she forced her protest back down her throat.
Right on cue, the Sword Chess system's notification arrived.
[Action in accordance with the Knight's Sword-Dao completed — Unlock Progress +10]
Under Nuo Tao's gaze, thick with resentment and unspoken accusation, Gu Chengming, mouth still full of gluey strawberry flavor, swallowed the chicken with a face utterly devoid of expression.
Then the Knight sword offered its own commentary.
[So not a Northern Territory person, but an East Sea one — no wonder she's so short.]
[The Knight sword expresses deep satisfaction at your grand campaign of making enemies across every corner of the realm, north and south alike.]
Well. So it really was just plain, indiscriminate regional discrimination against absolutely everyone...
Privately, Gu Chengming lit a stick of incense for the chicken, as a token apology.
After the meal, Gu Chengming had the ravaged white-cut chicken and the pitiful dish of strawberry jam cleared away together, leaving Nuo Tao alone to stare mournfully at the empty plate, mourning the departed chicken.
The grief on her face was such that it looked as though what lay on the table wasn't a chicken at all, but a beloved family member she'd raised from childhood.
Gu Chengming glanced over from a distance, and tactfully chose not to intrude, turning instead toward his own courtyard.
Either way, Miss Nuo's resentment needed some outlet — better she stare blankly at an empty plate for a while than flip the table on the spot.
Back in his own courtyard, Gu Chengming reflected that he'd finally gotten a pretty solid read on this Knight sword's temperament today.
The regional discrimination was confirmed. As for what other hidden triggers it might have, that remained unclear for now.
This Dharma Sword's judging criteria were downright uncanny — left to puzzle it out alone, he could probably rack his brain for three days and three nights straight and still come up with nothing.
Better than shutting himself in and guessing blindly, he figured, would be to seek out a knowledgeable senior for advice — it might save him a great deal of trouble.
With that thought, he simply made his way over to the side courtyard where the Flowing Cloud Moon-Tracing Sovereign was staying, laid out the whole business of the Dharma Sword from start to finish, and finally presented the plain, ancient-looking blade to her.
"Senior, given how much you know, might you have some idea of this Fate-Reversing Tribulation-Severing Sovereign's background? Why would he forge such a bizarre Dharma Sword?"
The Flowing Cloud Moon-Tracing Sovereign picked up the sword, turning it over between her fingers, a slight furrow forming at her brow.
"The Fate-Reversing Tribulation-Severing Sovereign..." She thought it over for a moment. "He seems to be someone who came along a good several ages after me."
Gu Chengming blinked, mildly surprised. Given the Sovereign's seniority, he'd assumed every Sovereign in the entire cultivation world would be familiar to her — he hadn't expected this one to be someone who'd come after her time.
The Flowing Cloud Moon-Tracing Sovereign seemed to catch his confusion and explained. "Back then I was caught in the seam between time and causality. By the time this Sovereign rose to prominence, I still hadn't broken free of that seam."
She paused, then added, "Still, everything in this world is observed by the Unfettered River — anything the River's currents reflect leaves behind a trace of its own, automatically."
"And because of that, certain things the Unfettered River observes end up recorded within the Moon Within Clouds as well."
In other words, though she'd never laid eyes on the Fate-Reversing Tribulation-Severing Sovereign herself, the scattered records preserved within Moon Within Clouds still let her piece together fragments of his life.
The Flowing Cloud Moon-Tracing Sovereign closed her eyes and settled her mind, drew a moon-white jade slip from her sleeve, and brushed her fingertips lightly across it — a thread of moonlight slowly spread out from its surface.
She studied it for a moment, and her expression gradually grew complicated.
Gu Chengming waited beside her, and seeing her expression, felt his stomach give an uneasy lurch.
The Flowing Cloud Moon-Tracing Sovereign was normally the picture of composure, able to face even the most shocking events with unruffled calm — for her to display something as rare as this "complicated" look meant whatever the jade slip recorded had to be truly outrageous.
Sure enough, in the next moment the Sovereign put the jade slip away, raised her eyes to look at him, and spoke with a tone that suggested more than words could easily convey.
"Young friend, this Fate-Reversing Tribulation-Severing Sovereign's Dharma-Station situation seems to be rather... a mixed bag."
"A mixed bag?"
The Flowing Cloud Moon-Tracing Sovereign sighed softly. "Not only did he prove out an entire main trunk of Dharma-Stations, he went and plucked a handful of Dharma-Stations off every other trunk as well."
Gu Chengming blinked, thinking to himself that this was as good as sealing off everyone else's path to the Seventh Realm.
A Dharma-Station main trunk was always a single unbroken line of inheritance. The moment a Sovereign proved out the highest-ranking Dharma-Station on a given trunk, that trunk was effectively capped for good.
No matter how gifted or fortunate any other cultivator might be, they could only waste their whole lives beneath that ceiling, never able to advance another inch.
"Then wouldn't he have offended every Sovereign in the entire cultivation world?"
"Exactly that." The Sovereign nodded. "Any Sovereign hoping to advance even one more step first has to curse him in their heart."
"Then... how did no one ever come after him for it?"
By all rights, offending that many powerhouses should have gotten him strung up and left to dry outside some cave-dwelling long ago.
"They did." A faint, almost-not-a-smile crept into the Sovereign's tone. "Even an Eighth Realm Sovereign tried. Pity he couldn't beat him."
Well, damn. Not even an Eighth Realm cultivator could handle him — this Sovereign's raw power apparently matched his "enemy of the entire world" temperament perfectly.
"Then what did he stand to gain, doing something that amounted to provoking the entire cultivation world?" Gu Chengming finally couldn't resist asking.
By any reasonable logic, offending the whole cultivation world couldn't have been for a moment's satisfaction alone — there had to be some deeper design behind it.
The Flowing Cloud Moon-Tracing Sovereign shook her head, drew out another thread of moonlight from her sleeve, and said slowly, "Because what he wanted was never the Dharma-Stations themselves — it was sword intent."
"This Fate-Reversing Tribulation-Severing Sovereign loved the sword as much as life itself. What he pursued was never any single Dharma-Station for its own sake, but the singular, wholly personal sword intent that a Dharma-Station could nourish into being. He proved out that mishmash of Dharma-Stations simply to draw one thread of sword intent from each and feed it back into the swords in his own hands."
"And because his sword intent itself was already a boundless jumble, the Dharma-Stations that fed it ended up just as jumbled."
"And it was precisely because this Sovereign loved the sword so deeply that the Dharma Swords he forged in his lifetime rank among the finest the cultivation world has ever known."
The Sovereign's gaze swept briefly over the plain, ancient blade in Gu Chengming's hand. "Take, for instance, the one in your hand right now, young friend."
She paused. "This sword carries an outrageous ability. Legend has it that it can, unconditionally, counter every living being under heaven."
"Which is, frankly, quite unnatural. For a Dharma Sword to counter even a single category of being is already remarkable — take the Dragon-Severing Sword, for instance, forged with both its material and its sword intent built entirely around the character for 'dragon,' giving it extra suppressive power against dragon-kind specifically."
She paused again, and handed the sword back to him. "The very finest Dharma Swords might broaden that suppression to a wider scope — something like Evil-Severing, Demon-Severing, or Delusion-Severing, whose defining concepts are broader still, and so the range of beings they can counter grows larger too."
"But this Knight sword..."
Her brow furrowed a bit further. "I have no idea what method that Sovereign used back then, but this sword has broken entirely free of any ordinary Dharma Sword's mold — indifferent to race, indifferent to nature, indifferent to allegiance, granting equal suppressive effect against every living being under heaven, without exception."
Hearing this, Gu Chengming's expression gradually grew complicated as well.
He thought he might understand the reason why, after all.
Two more days passed.
He hadn't been idle during that time, occasionally taking up the Knight sword to run a few small experiments, trying to work out more ways to trigger Unlock Progress.
Unfortunately the sword's temperament was thoroughly uncanny — it worked sometimes and not others. Often he thought he'd hit on a new angle only for the system to give no response at all; other times some throwaway comment made without any thought would earn him a whole string of Unlock Progress instead.
He was in the middle of puzzling over whether the Knight sword had some other triggering mechanism, and whether he could unlock the rest of its sword intent any faster...
...when a knock suddenly sounded at the courtyard gate. Gu Chengming glanced up, sweeping his spiritual sense outward, and raised an eyebrow slightly at what he found: a rather familiar figure standing outside the gate.
Delirium Jìntian stood with her head lowered, cradling a small food box, looking even more restrained than she had the last time — kneeling on the ground begging for mercy in that abandoned Daoist temple.
The instant Gu Chengming opened the door, she flinched back half a step almost by reflex, then gritted her teeth and forced herself to stop, raising the food box and speaking with visible discomfort.
"Lord Gu, two days ago I was granted your mercy and spared my life. I've come today to offer a small token of thanks..."
Gu Chengming blinked, mildly caught off guard.
It wasn't that Delirium Jìntian's visit was particularly strange in itself — the Dao-foundation oaths still hanging over both their heads made a bit of eager deference on her part perfectly reasonable. It was just that this "former Eternal Life Sect elite mob's" current meek, cowering demeanor was worlds apart from the woman who, that day at the ruins of the Joy Palace, had nearly reduced every Fifth Realm cultivator present to a cowering shell with a single line — "let the world hold its tongue."
The contrast was so stark that it took Gu Chengming a second or two just to reconcile the meek, downcast figure before him with the murderous elite mob he remembered.
Not thinking too much of it, he let her in to the main hall.
But this "former Jìntian" walked from the gate to the hall with impossibly light footsteps, as if afraid that setting one foot down too hard on the tiles might offend her host.
Once seated, she dared perch only half her weight on the very edge of the chair.
Gu Chengming half suspected that if he suddenly slapped the table right now, she might actually drop to her knees in fright on the spot.
Just then, a subordinate came in from outside carrying two freshly warmed side dishes and set them down on Gu Chengming's side of the table.
Gu Chengming casually picked up a bite with his chopsticks, then glanced up and gestured, quite naturally, toward the former Jìntian across from him.
"Care to join me?"
After all, she'd come all this way and brought a food box besides — he couldn't just let her sit there watching him eat.
Little did he know, before the polite offer had even fully landed —
Delirium Jìntian waved both hands frantically. "No, no, no — how could I possibly share a table with you, Lord Gu? Please, go ahead. I'll simply stand off to the side and attend to you."
Gu Chengming: "..."
He'd meant to press her a little more, but before the words could even leave his mouth —
— right at that moment —
[Action in accordance with the Knight's Sword-Dao completed — Unlock Progress +5]
That familiar line of text surfaced at the bottom of his vision.
Gu Chengming's movement paused.
He could actually feel the plain sword hanging at his waist give a faint shudder, as if letting out a satisfied little hum.
The next line of commentary slowly appeared.
[That's right. Women don't belong at the table.]
Gu Chengming: "...?"
— So it was gender-discriminatory too, on top of everything else?!
[Zhouli's Heaven-Human Heart-Rectifying Method looks rather gratified]
[Zhouli's Heaven-Human Heart-Rectifying Method looks thoughtful — Zhouli's Heaven-Human Heart-Rectifying Method suddenly seems to understand]
[Zhouli's Heaven-Human Heart-Rectifying Method is currently contemplating a CG]
Damn it, there's a crossover effect too?!
____
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