CHAPTER 77: 77

"What the hell was that?" Inside his room, Yang Ze shivered in fright. He never thought he could be so daring. If Lin Yue wasn’t drunk...

"Hiss..." He didn’t dare to think what would have happened.

"Besides, it was she who made the first move." Even if she remembered it in the morning, he didn’t have anything to worry about. She was the one to poke the bear first.

Thinking like this, he consoled himself, trying to drift into sleep. But every time he closed his eyes, the events that had just taken place would play out in his mind.

No matter how hard he tried, he just couldn’t go to sleep. In the end, he just sat on his bed while thinking about how to get out of Heavenly Sword Sect.

"Tomorrow, I will leave this place." He had already made up his mind to leave this place. He just needed to find the right person to inform. As for the two women beside his room, he didn’t dare to talk to them.

Lin Yue dragged him from the Lin family to the Duality Sect before they ended up here. He didn’t think she was going to let go of him so easily. He could only find a different way.

Sitting in a daze, he didn’t even realise that it was already morning. It was the chirping of birds and the small butterfly on his shoulder, constantly sitting on his nose, that woke him up.

"Ugh." Stretching his body, he first walked out of his room before looking in the direction of both Lin Yue and Xiao Ruolan’s rooms.

The two of them were still practising in their room.

He didn’t dare to disturb them. After taking one last look around, he first glanced at the front door, thought for a moment, but didn’t go through it. Instead, he headed to the backyard and, after making sure no one was watching him, bent his knees, applied a bit of force and easily jumped over the five-meter wall.

"Success." The moment his feet landed on the ground, Yang Ze almost shouted in excitement.

He hastily looked around, afraid that someone might discover him, but thankfully, he was the only person there.

He followed the route that he had taken with Xiao Ruolan to the market and carefully made his way down.

Halfway through his journey, he met a few members of the Heavenly Sword Sect who all gave him a weird glance, but none of them blocked his way out.

Yang Ze didn’t know if this was a good thing or a bad thing. And at the moment, he couldn’t care less. Once he was out of this sect, the sky was the limit.

After almost an hour, he finally reached the market. Looking at the bustling sound of the women in the air, he just admired the scenery for a while before following the path down that reached to the end of the mountain peak where he was staying.

But before he could even leave the market, he was blocked by a woman wearing simple black clothes with a token on her waist, displaying her identity as a guard.

"And where do you think you are going?" She glanced at the man in front of her from top to bottom before asking with a smile.

"Umm..." Yang Ze didn’t know how to answer her. But after thinking for a moment, I decided to tell her the truth. It was impossible for him to escape the Heavenly Sword Sect without anyone noticing him. It was much better just to tell them that he wishes to leave.

Besides... he was just a normal person who had nothing to do with either the Heavenly Sword Sect or the Duality Sect. He was just an unfortunate person caught in the events.

"I want to leave the Sect."

His blunt answer stunned the guard, who simply raised an eyebrow in response.

"You are the one staying with those two women from Yuyang City, right?"

"That’s right." There was nothing to hide, so he simply nodded in response.

"What is your identity? And your relationship with them?"

"Nothing special. I am just a normal person who accidentally got caught in the crossfire." Yang Ze wasn’t going to tell her that he was a slave of the Lin Family who got dragged around by Lin Yue. If he dared to utter those words, the guard would simply grab him and then throw him back.

"And yet you were rescued by our Grand Elder!" The guard simply raised an eyebrow. She didn’t think that an ordinary person would be caught between the two sects’ war for no reason. And she definitely didn’t believe that Sword Sect’s Grand Elder would rescue a normal person for no reason.

"Must be out of the goodwill of her heart." Yang Ze could only reply with a smile.

"I bet." The guard just spoke in a flat tone before adding further. "Head back to where you were arranged. Unless the Grand Elder orders, you can not leave the Sect."

"But..." Yang Ze wanted to retort. What a joke... while he was thankful to the so-called grand elder for rescuing him, he wasn’t going to spend his life under her control. Not to mention, he had never even seen the other party.

"No buts." The Guard shook her head. "If not for the Grand Elder, I would have directly thrown you in prison for violating the Sect rule."

In the end, Yang Ze could only head back to the house with a defeated face.

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While Yang Ze failed his first escape attempt, a different scene was playing out on the other side.

An hour had passed since Heavenly Sword Sect’s carriage left the vicinity of Duality Sect, but the suffocating silence surrounding it never changed. There were only two people in the carriage, the sect leader, Jian Yu and the saintess of the Duality Sect, who has now inexplicably become a Grand Elder of the Heavenly Sword Sect.

In the eyes of the world, Cang Yue’s becoming a Grand Elder of the Heavenly Sword Sect was just the Duality Sect’s way of humiliating them.

After all, it was a clear rule that only those in the realm of Core Condensation could become Elders, and to become a Grand Elder, one needed to step into the realm of Soul Tempering.

But Cang Yue wasn’t qualified for either of those positions.

She might be the saintess of the Duality Sect... One of the most talented people there, but her realm was still that of Vein Expansion. For her to be appointed as a Grand Elder of the Heavenly Sword Sect... It was the Duality Sect’s way of keeping a leash on the Heavenly Sword Sect.

"You don’t seem too happy." It was at this moment that Jian Yu finally broke the silence.

"Aren’t you happy with your current position as a Grand Elder?"

Listening to her words, Cang Yue just snorted in displeasure. Instead of answering her, she spoke with a mocking smile.

"That was a pretty good performance the two of you did at the banquet."

How could she not understand that his mother and this old hag were merely acting in a play? What she couldn’t understand was why?

Why would the two of them act in such a way? What even was the benefit? The more she thought about it, the less sense it all made.

"Well, what can I say, I am a natural born actress." Jian Yue just replied in a flat tone.

"How long?" Ignoring her snarky remark, Cang Yue asked again. "How long have the two of you been working together?"

From her tone and the way she played her role perfectly, it was clear that she had been in chaoots with her mother for a long time. She just didn’t know how long the two of them had been in this together.

"Hmm... Let me think." Jian Yu raised her head a bit before answering, "Twenty years, I think."

"TWENTY YEARS?" Cang Yue almost jumped in shock.

The current Sect Leader of the Duality Sect, Yun Ning, her own mother has been working with this old hag for more than twenty years?

The two of them have been fooling the entire world for so long.

Even if she shouted till her throat turned hoarse, no one would believe her. After all, the concept of two supposedly mortal enemies from two opposing sects working together was something that was a joke.

And yet here she was... Watching it all happen in person.

"Why do this?" Finally, she asked the question that she was dying to know. She couldn’t understand why the two of them would go to such lengths.

"If it was killing the old Sect Leader of the Duality Sect, you had already accomplished it. There was no need to act in such a manner yesterday. What are the two of you planning?"

"Heh." Jian Yu just laughed at her question without speaking a single word.

"...."

Cang Yue wasn’t disappointed after not receiving any reply, but asked again.

"Who killed my sister?"

Jian Yu thought for a moment before finally looking at Cang Yue with a smile.

"What if I said it was me?"

Before she could even finish her sentence, she saw Cang Yue lunging towards her with a long, thin needle, attempting to stab her in the eye.

Looking at the thin needle that was about to pierce her eye, Jian Yue just let out a soft breath, and with that, Cang Yue’s body was plastered to the ground, unable to even lift a muscle.

"It is not so easy to kill this old lady." With a smile, Jian Yue continued. "Maybe step into the Soul Tempering realm first before trying this again."

"Hmm... How long would that be?" She kept on muttering to herself, completely ignoring the figure of Cang Yue, who was lying on the carriage floor face-first. If one were to look carefully, one would see Cang Yue’s lips bleeding due to her biting too hard.

"Fifty years? One hundred years? Two hundred years?"

Jian Yue kept on speaking as the smug smile never left her face.

"To tell you the truth, I don’t have too long to live."

"At most ten years."

"Maybe if you managed to step into the Soul Tempering realm in ten years, you can get your revenge."

"But till then..." She let out a gentle breath, and with that, the pressure on Cang Yue’s body disappeared as she regained her freedom.

"You should behave."

"....." Cang Yue didn’t speak a word but gazed deeply at the old woman’s back. She didn’t attack her again, after all, the difference in their realm was just too great. Even if by some miracle she managed to land an attack, it would be like tickling her with a feather.

She quietly lowered her head as the old woman’s words echoed in her ears.

’TEN YEARS.’

Not to mention her, even for the greatest prodigy that ever walked this Azure Dragon continent, it was an impossible task to even step into Core Condensation, much less Soul Tempering.

For others, it might have been a desperate thing. Something that they could never achieve, but not for her.

"TEN YEARS, RIGHT?" Her cold, emotionless voice rang in Jian Yu’s ears.

"WASH YOUR NECK CLEAN AND WAIT FOR ME."

She certainly couldn’t step into the Soul Tempering realm in ten short years, at least not by herself.

But...

Thinking till here, the figure of the boy with an immortal appearance flashed past her eyes before her lips curled up with madness.

With his help, she could definitely step into the realm of Soul Tempering. She could definitely get her revenge. She was going to make sure to flay this old bitch alive, and if her mother was involved too, she was gonna do the same to her as well.

They have taken someone extremely precious from her. She wasn’t going to let it slide.

"I like your confidence." Jian Yu didn’t put her words to heart. What a joke. She knew the difficulties of stepping into the Soul Tempering realm.

Even if Cang Yue were to do her best, she would at most be able to step into the realm of Core Condensation and that too after one hundred years or so.

For her to step into the realm of Soul tempering... It was nothing but a pipe dream. Especially with the death of her sister.

"...." Cang Yue didn’t reply but just closed her eyes and began to meditate. She would let the future her answer this statement.