My Husband’s Ascension Ch 15
Chapter 15 Facing His Blade
Northwest, where mist drifted and mountains rose in layered ridges.
At some point, the snowflakes whirling in the wind had vanished, replaced instead by the fragrance of flowers and grass at her nose tip. Birds trilled beneath the clear sun, while thawed springs rushed over jagged stones at the creek’s bed.
The farther they went, the lighter Zhao Zhao felt. Every pore seemed to drink in the moist air, soft and comfortable as it unfurled.
When she asked the person beside her, Dao Lord Tianshu explained, “The northwest holds the Qi of wood and metal. For practitioners of Divine Farmer Dao, it is an excellent place to cultivate.”
Zhao Zhao nodded in understanding.
Then, in surprise, she glanced at him again.
Huh?
She had been ready to praise Shi Lanyan’s usual mixture of explanation and scolding, but… why hadn’t she called her stupid this time?
“That piece there is Fushan jade (符山玉).”
Dao Lord Tianshu, catching her probing look, suddenly lifted a finger and pointed at a dark stone in the distance. Zhao Zhao’s attention was instantly diverted.
“Where, where?” She ran in the direction he indicated. “This stone just looks pitch-black, no different from the others.”
He smiled and replied, “Your soul is attuned to wood—naturally, you wouldn’t notice.”
Zhao Zhao circled the stone a few times, then pulled a shovel from her storage pouch to dig it out.
Who would have thought—after just two strikes, the shovel’s edge warped, and on the next swing, the head of the shovel flew clean off.
“Ores are extremely hard. And since it carries metal Qi within, ordinary tools cannot pry it loose.”
Hearing this, Zhao Zhao grew anxious.
She blamed herself for not preparing beforehand. Now, with a heavenly treasure right before her eyes yet impossible to take away, how could she not feel unwilling?
“Then what can dig it up?”
The young woman crouched by the stone, tilting her head upward. Her brows, usually open and relaxed, now knit together in rare frustration, as though she wished she could shovel up the very earth itself.
He replied with a faint smile, “Tools forged from ore imbued with metal Qi can.”
“…”
So to mine metal Qi ore, one needed tools made from metal Qi ore… but to forge those tools, one needed the ore in the first place. Wasn’t that a paradox?
As Zhao Zhao fretted, nearly tugging at her hair, her gaze suddenly froze on Dao Lord Tianshu’s waist.
She blinked, then looked up and gave him a smile so sweet and radiant it was almost disarming.
Zhao Zhao: “Could you perhaps—”
Dao Lord Tianshu: “No.”
He needed only to glance at her eyes to know what she was plotting. Before she even finished speaking, he smiled faintly and denied her unreasonable request.
But Zhao Zhao had never been the sort to back down just because “Dao Lord Tianshu” rejected her. After all, she often made impossible demands of Shi Lanyan. So, without a trace of intimidation, she only brightened her smile and pressed, “The most generous, most beautiful Miss Immortal Lanyan in the whole cultivation world—I only need to borrow this sword at your waist for four hours. If that’s too much, just two will do. I promise to treat it with the utmost care, and I absolutely won’t damage it.”
Her bright eyes gazed up at him, soft fingers tugging lightly at the corner of his robe, swaying with a playful, spoiled motion.
The youth’s face, cold as jade, ought to have remained unmoved.
…Ought to have remained unmoved.
Yet in that instant, his consciousness seemed to sink into the long river of memory, and the clarity of his mind slipped into a moment’s weightless void—
When he came to himself again, the sword that had accompanied him for thousands of years—Single Intent Sword (一念剑)—was already in Zhao Zhao’s hands.
His warm countenance shifted as his eyes sharpened immediately.
What had happened just now?
Why had his consciousness faltered, even for the briefest breath?
“I knew it—there’s no cultivator in this world more magnanimous than Miss Immortal Lanyan!”
Zhao Zhao’s delight nearly overflowed as she clasped the sword, wholly oblivious to the shadow in his gaze.
She unsheathed the sword, and a glint of cold, moonlit light flickered across her eyes. As steel slid against scabbard, she seemed to hear a clear chime—like the cry of the sword spirit itself.
Even Zhao Zhao, who knew next to nothing about swords, could feel at once: this was a peerless weapon.
…But in Zhao Zhao’s eyes, for Shi Lanyan to lend her a sword so generously just to dig up ore, it must only be one among the many fine blades in her possession.
She didn’t think too much about it. Gripping the long sword that felt a little heavy in her hands, she swung it straight down at the piece of Fushan Jade—
Clang!
She felt almost no resistance. Just like slicing through vegetables, the Fushan Jade split cleanly into two.
“Wow!” Zhao Zhao exclaimed in wonder, praising herself without the least bit of shyness, “My very first sword strike, and it sliced so perfectly! I’m incredible!”
Dao Lord Tianshu lowered his gaze in silence, eyes falling on the blade through his silk cloth. There, barely visible, was the faintest of nicks.
Years ago, when he quelled the Ghost Realm uprising and cut down hundreds of thousands with this very sword, the damage Single Intent Sword bore was nothing beyond this.
Though he did feel some pang of regret for his treasured blade, since he had lent it out with his own hands, he would never go back on his word.
Thus, as the two of them ventured deeper into the Ink-Washed Mountains (洗墨山), whenever they came across a rare ore, he pointed them out to her one by one:
“This is Moonlight Stone (月辉石)—it can be used for a sword’s scabbard.”
“That is Dragonflame Iron(龙焱铁)—mix it in during forging, and flames will wreath the blade with every swing.”
“And here, Celestial Steel(天极钢)—good for crafting a heavy sword, with the might to cleave mountains and rend seas.”
Zhao Zhao listened with eyes sparkling, like a mouse that had fallen into a vat of grain.
This one sounded incredible, that one looked too precious to leave behind—who knew what kind of sword Yao Ling might need in the future? Best to just take them all.
With her harvest bountiful, Zhao Zhao walked lightly at the front. The light within the ore cavern was dim, with only a few shafts piercing down through cracks overhead.
The young woman stepped squarely into those streaks of light, as though playing some game of hopscotch.
One step, then another—looking as if she would never fall into the darkness.
“Miss Immortal Lanyan, you’ve been with me searching for ores for so long. Why don’t we end it here today, and go complete your task instead?”
The ores they had gathered were already more than Zhao Zhao could count. Though Shi Lanyan had not voiced any complaint, Zhao Zhao was not the sort to press her luck; this felt the right moment to stop.
Yet the “Shi Lanyan” behind her replied, “It’s no matter. If there’s anything else you want, I’ll see that you take it all today.”
After all, this was likely to be their final meeting.
Dao Lord Tianshu’s mind turned back to that fleeting instant just moments ago, when his awareness had slipped beyond his control.
It had been but the briefest heartbeat, yet he sensed it—that something in his very blood and flesh, the part belonging to Xie Lanshu, had stirred restlessly.
Cultivation was not only a tempering of the body, but also of the heart.
For ordinary mortals, memory was but a haze. For cultivators, memory resided tangibly within the spiritual consciousness.
Those three years as Xie Lanshu existed apart, severed from the rest of his true self. Thus, even after regaining them, they could not merge with his original consciousness; they lingered, suspended within his consciousness.
In principle, such fractured years should have remained forever suppressed beneath the vast weight of his true self, with no chance of surfacing.
And yet, in that single moment—
Dao Lord Tianshu knew it was not that Xie Lanshu had seized control of him, but that his own mind had, for that instant, run in accord with Xie Lanshu’s.
What he thought, was what Xie Lanshu thought.
…Absurd.
He could never allow such a thing to happen again.
Zhao Zhao, unaware of the turmoil in his heart, lowered her head in silence for a while before softly speaking, “You’re really kind to me.”
Pulling himself back to the present moment, her hushed words struck him, and Dao Lord Tianshu’s heart tightened sharply.
But almost at once he realized—she wasn’t speaking of him, but of Shi Lanyan.
He recalled vividly how, outside Separation’s Regret Heaven, Shi Lanyan had confronted her in a blaze of fury.
And yet, in scarcely a few months, the two of them had become so close.
“…I remember that back at Separation’s Regret Heaven, I even raised my hand against you. Why would you still think me kind?”
“Because at Separation’s Regret Heaven, if not for you giving me those pills and artifacts, I might never have had the chance to cultivate. I would’ve been forced to slink back to the mortal world in defeat.”
On her cultivation journey, if not for the protection of the Karmic Fire Lotus Parasol, Zhao Zhao would have perished countless times already.
Even though Shi Lanyan had once harshly treated her, after all that had transpired since then, Zhao Zhao still felt grateful toward her.
And since she felt gratitude, Zhao Zhao could not allow deception to persist. Even if she could not predict Shi Lanyan’s reaction upon learning the truth, these words…she had to speak them.
With her head lowered, as though she had wrestled with the thought for a long time, Zhao Zhao said softly, “So, I don’t want to lie to you. The rare ores you found for me… I will use them to forge a sword.”
The snow-white lashes beneath the silk covering trembled faintly, as though stirred by her words.
“What kind of sword do you wish to forge?”
Within the shadowed cavern, a single shaft of light pierced through the drifting motes of dust and settled upon the young woman’s amber eyes.
She drew in a deep breath and enunciated each word, “I will forge a sword… one that can slay Dao Lord Tianshu.”
The world fell into silence.
In the damp, chill air, a single droplet fell from the cavern roof, striking the stone floor with a clear note that echoed endlessly through the cave.
“Ah…” The jade-like young man spoke slowly, his tone carrying a strange inflection. “You want to kill Dao Lord Tianshu?”
Zhao Zhao had yet to realize just who it was she now faced. Her heart was a knot of unease, tinged with a trace of regret. What if, upon learning that she intended to kill the man she loved, Shi Lanyan severed ties with her altogether?
And yet she knew, if she did not confess, she would never be able to return with these things in peace of mind.
“Yes. I must kill him.”
Dao Lord Tianshu fixed his gaze upon the young woman before him.
She wanted to kill him.
His wife of two years wanted to kill him.
The woman Xie Lanshu adored to the brink of madness wanted to kill him!
The longsword in her hand let out an uncanny resonance. Zhao Zhao lowered her eyes, only to see faint golden light blooming along the blade of Single Intent Sword. As if summoned by its true master, it suddenly tore itself free from her grip and came back into the possession of the white-robed Dao Lord.
Only then did Zhao Zhao sense something was terribly wrong.
Polaris Confucian Sect cultivated Confucian Dao, and most of its disciples’ souls bore water-element excess.
Yet the radiance upon this sword was clearly of metal essence!
The one before her was not Shi Lanyan, it was—
Golden radiance rose like the morning sun, pure Qi gleamed like the moon’s brilliance.
With a ringing clang, Single Intent Sword leapt from its sheath, and in an instant a violent gale roared forth. The cavern trembled as though shaken by the earth itself, dust and stones cascading from above. Zhao Zhao could scarcely keep her footing, and was unable to discern his expression.
But sword Qi could never deceive.
He was angry.
Though his lips still curved in a smile, he was indeed angry.
Across untold millennia, those who had sought his life were as countless as carp crossing the river. Some were born his enemies, bound by stance to oppose him; others had once received his grace, yet still repaid him with betrayal, seeking his death.
He had been hunted, and he had slain; the dead beneath Single Intent Sword were innumerable. Never once had the act of killing stirred his wrath—
Except now.
For he knew she was not speaking idly.
From the moment she left Kunwu, she had entered an immortal sect, devoted herself to cultivation, concealed her name, and journeyed to the Blessed Land of Langhuan. Not to catch a few fleeting glimpses of him—
But to borrow the ground he claimed, in order to temper herself.
All for the sake of one day… killing him with her own hands—
“I never thought of taking your life, but you’re… planning to take mine?”
The figure holding Single Intent Sword stood wreathed in shadow and falling dust, each step toward Zhao Zhao measured and slow.
Regret bit into her heart. Why had she not seen through his disguise sooner?
Yet now, rooted to the spot, she found not even the thought of fleeing.
He was the Dao Lord of the cultivation world, its foremost sovereign.
If he wished her dead, he need not even draw his blade.
Had she noticed earlier, she would never have bared her intent before him. But the words had already left her lips—there was no taking them back.
…Should she now abase herself and beg for mercy?
Her gaze fixed upon the Dao Lord before her, noble and untouchable as clear skies after rain. The scenes of Separation’s Regret Heaven flickered one by one in her mind.
“If you want to kill me, then do it.”
Zhao Zhao did not retreat. She even stepped forward, meeting the edge of his sword head-on.
Even if no path of survival remained, she would not bow her head before him.
The young woman’s gaze blazed like fire, fierce and unyielding. The gulf between their strength was vast, utterly beyond comparison—yet the tip of Dao Lord Tianshu’s sword remained fixed in place.
His eyes fixed upon her, fathomless and unwavering, as he spoke the same words once more, “I have never… thought of taking your life.”
The cold edge hovered so near her neck she could feel its chill seep into her skin.
In that moment, she recalled a long-ago winter night, snow and ice blanketing the world, and the lone figure who had stood outside the hut, sword in hand, guarding against all foes.
Back then, she had felt only safety and peace. She never imagined that, as time turned and fates shifted, the day would come when she herself would stand beneath the point of his blade.
So this was what it felt like—to be his enemy.
So it was true—she had already become his enemy.
“And what of it?”
Zhao Zhao gazed at him with calm, wordless resolve, her eyes tracing the countless tender memories that still lingered between them. Her voice was soft, almost like a sigh.
“Now, it is I who wants to kill you.”
