Chapter 481: Prelude

A faint, cold rain shrouded the City of Yuanxiang, and the originally mild climate inexplicably gave rise to a sliver of bleak, chilling air.

This was truly a rare sight of wretched weather for this ancient city.

Raindrops coursed down along the eaves of the glazed roof tiles, pooling into brooks beside the road, then following the ditches to merge into the city's artificial river.

A silhouette, like a phantom, appeared here at some unknown moment—or perhaps materialized out of thin air—holding an ink-black paper umbrella as it stood upon the stone bridge, gazing down at the rushing waters beneath, where a few withered twigs and ruined leaves rolled with the current, drifting into the distance as they rose and sank.

"What of the Wentian Sword Palace?"

"Rest assured, now that those few swords have emerged, even if we do not meddle in this matter, they will find themselves unable to restrain their impulses; the ambition of those fellows has never been small." The voice seemed to come from the rushing river beneath the bridge, yet also seemed to come from the overcast rain filling the sky.

"The mortal world is like a boat, and those who cross are but chaff drifting and sinking; those who blindly dare to cross the sea of suffering, only..." Those indifferent eyes stared at the ruined twigs and ruined leaves drifting and sinking in the river water, as if disregarding the rise and fall of all living beings, and the voice of the umbrella-bearer seemed to dissolve into this blanket of rain, gradually growing indistinct.

...

"Why did it suddenly start raining?" Jiang Xiaoyuan complained, stepping into the shop while holding a small, flowered umbrella.

"Isn't it just a bit of rain? Achoo!" Behind her came several other girls who had arrived together, evidently all having just finished school; Mu Qing, who had not used an umbrella, remained perfectly clean, untouched by even a shred of rainwater.

Suddenly sneezing, she muttered, "Why does the rain today feel so bleak and chilling?"

"A cup of milk tea, please!"

A new day began with delicious milk tea.

"Boss!"

At this hour, Owner Fang had actually, for once, not gone online to play games, but was instead sitting on the sofa in the lounge area.

Perhaps gazing up at the sky at a forty-five-degree angle.

"Bo... ss...!" Jiang Xiaoyuan’s fair, delicate little palm waved back and forth before Owner Fang’s eyes for a long time.

"Hmm?" Only just coming back to his senses.

"Boss, what are you dazing off for?"

"Are you worried about the matters of the Nangong Family?" Li Ranruo asked with a trace of anxiety.

"What matters of the Nangong Family?" Owner Fang was completely bewildered.

After all, the Nangong Family had never suffered such humiliation, which was no longer just a small grudge; it already concerned the very survival and standing of an ancient clan, and Li Ranruo had recently been feeling somewhat uneasy: "I always feel that their current lack of movement means they might be secretly plotting some conspiracy."

"True enough." Not far away, Mu Qing, who was sipping her milk tea with sharp ears, also caught Li Ranruo's words and chimed in, "After all, the Wentian Sword Palace has always been domineering and arrogant; for thousands of years, they have only ever killed others, and there has never been a rule where anyone could kill them."

Next, what Owner Fang had to face would likely be a thunderous strike from the Wentian Sword Palace, which might very well employ those powerful, long-preserved trump cards; this was the foundational heritage upon which a massive clan relied to stand, and they would not need to use all of it at all—revealing just a mere speck of it at random would be enough to reduce a sect to ashes.

"Ah...?" Owner Fang looked at the few of them with a face full of perplexity, "This boss was just thinking that some words are hard to voice, and I don't know what you all would think if I said them."

Beside him, Li Ranruo kept her head lowered, sipping the milk tea in her cup in tiny mouthfuls without uttering a single word, evidently at a loss for what to say.

Her pretty face was almost buried beneath the sofa, terrified that she might have spoken out of turn and caused trouble.

"Boss! If you're scared, you can just say it!" Mu Qing seemed to dearly wish to see Owner Fang look cowardly; after all, since she couldn't beat him, she could only jabber.

"What do you mean scared or not scared?" Owner Fang said, "I just wanted to ask, what do you all think about livestreaming? If you all could livestream as well..."

On Owner Fang's system panel, an additional task had appeared:

New Task: To Stand, One Must Establish Authority (II)

Task Description: Please establish your authority once more so that the players in the shop can use the internet with peace of mind (method unrestricted)

Task Completion: Being able to complete this task indicates that the host is already a qualified internet cafe boss capable of holding his own, with the right to unlock more privileges

Task Reward: Lucky Wheel, privilege upgrade, unlocking Penguin E-sports and Penguin Livestream (viewing can be done by downloading Penguin's Communication Jade; opening a membership allows free downloading of Penguin)

"We can livestream too?" Jiang Xiaoyuan was so pleasantly surprised she could practically leap in the air; having been in the shop for so long and watching Owner Fang livestream every single time, her heart had long been itching for it, and she had never expected that she could livestream as well!?

Though she didn't know how Owner Fang managed his outdoor livestreams, even if it was inside the shop, being able to let everyone see her own sharp operations would be incredibly exhilarating.

After all, Owner Fang showed off his operations every day, while Jiang Xiaoyuan could only watch every day...

"When will this princess be able to be like the boss...?"

As for anything else, she hadn't thought about it at all.

"Oh...?" The others looked at one another, saying in pleasant surprise, "Can we really do it too?"

...

At this very moment, within the Wentian Sword Palace.

Beneath that gloomy burial ground of swords, in the endlessly deep subterranean depths.

Originally, there was no light underground, making it as profound as a dark nether underworld.

With a low, somber murmur, a deep and dark crimson glow suddenly lit up in the depths of the earth.

Accompanied by the sound of chains dragging across the ground and non-human low growls, crowds of young and old bound in iron shackles could be seen kneeling upon the earth, as if prostrating before their deities.

Those ruined ancient tombs seemed to harbor one true god after another, yet also seemed to hold one man-eating demon after another; as the dark, gloomy light flickered, the divine light within their eyes flickered along with it, and those bursts of somber roars caused one to instinctively feel their hair stand on end.

That was an ancient and distant aura that had endured through endlessly long eras; far from succumbing to the erosion of time, the immense sword intent remaining within the swords seemed even more terrifying than the darkness within the abyss.

The markings upon the tombs were nearly worn away, yet the archaic engravings and the sword scars upon the tombs—all of it—seemed to narrate a glory from a distant, ancient age.

As that dark light lit up, looking further inside, what lay within those tombs were indeed ancient and archaic longswords; some were already rusted through, their original appearances indiscernible, while others had endured unknown battles, covered in hideous marks from various weapons, looking as if they would shatter into a floor of fragments in the next moment.

But no one dared to disregard the terrifying sword intent within them; that sword intent, akin to a frenzied demon, required only a single strand to arouse the deepest fear in a person's heart.

"Have you felt it?!" A wild roar echoed through the grand hall of the Wentian Sword Palace, a laughter so arrogant that it seemed to hold nothing in the world in its regard.

Or perhaps, before long, absolutely everything beneath the heavens would indeed no longer need to be held in regard, because...

Crack!

A pitch-black bolt of lightning struck down, and beneath the sword burial ground, a black sword light that connected heaven and earth soared straight into the sky!

"I wonder which ancestor has descended upon the world..."

"We respectfully welcome the Ancestor's holy arrival!" All disciples of the Wentian Sword Palace knelt toward a single direction, and even Nangong Lin was no exception.