Chapter 434: The Vanished Sword Hut

Chapter 434: The Vanished Bashan Sword Sect

The autumn pools swelling with night rain in Bashan, which he had once suggested Tang Wanzhuang go see, were finally reached when it was early summer.

The time could not match the scenery of the famous verse, and Zhao Changhe expressed that the ink in his belly had run dry, unable to piece together a poem.

He wondered if, besides the Sword Sect, there was another Daoist Gu in Bashan who knew the forty-nine stances of the Willow-Dancing-in-the-Whirlwind Sword Style?

Leading his horse out of Kuaiji and traveling all the way out of Tang Buqi's sphere of influence, whenever he met court officials or martial artists who recognized him and the great broadsword on his back, everyone showed immense respect. Whenever he rested in towns, the receptions he received were grand.

Especially around Xiangyang... The Blood God Cult had returned immediately after the war, but they didn't go back to their own Wushan, remaining stationed in Xiangyang instead. It felt as though they were a bit addicted to these days of wearing official skins to kill and level up. When Zhao Changhe passed by, he naturally went inside to visit Sect Leader Xue and Instructor Sun, and the hospitality he received was like an emperor on a royal tour.

Yet for some reason, Zhao Changhe felt it wasn't as comfortable as before the challenge, when Sect Leader Xue used to stare at him warily.

Now, having moved past Xiangyang, he was entering territory with little connection to his previous spheres of influence, and people along the way could no longer recognize him easily. It felt like a dragon returning to the great sea, much more free and easy.

The moment he stepped onto Bashan, he felt as if he had returned from the wider world to the martial arts world; the ecology began to change, and it felt like this was his true home.

Perhaps he was just a glutton for hardship...

Speaking of which, the so-called petty thugs along the way really did not exist now... The south was in a state where a chaotic situation had just been stabilized, and the presence of various military factions was very strong. They were "clearing out the remnants of Maitreya" everywhere, with the result that no mountain bandits or robbers dared to show their faces. Zhao Changhe's primary mode of travel was by boat, only disembarking to rest in a few cities like Xiangyang, so everything was calm and peaceful, and nothing happened.

However, as far as the eye could see, there was a desolate scene of war and chaos, and no one knew when recovery would come.

There was an even higher probability that it would not recover within a few years, because the situation of various warlords carving up territory was already very obvious. The southern gentry had spontaneously resisted Maitreya, leading to the current situation where the strength in each faction's hands exceeded normal bounds. Right now, it was because the Tang family's performance in this war was too outstanding that they could still suppress them, and everyone was wary of the Tang family. Once anything went wrong with the Tang family, this chaotic state would likely be more troublesome than the Maitreya uprising.

When Tang Wanzhuang was not with him these past days, she was always "discussing Jiangnan matters" with Tang Buqi. What was she busy with? After the eighteen regional lords aligned against Dong Zhuo disbanded, wasn't it pretty much exactly like this...

It felt as if, following this deduction, one could wonder if Tang Buqi might say, "If there were no lonely soul like me in the world, who knows how many would declare themselves emperors and kings"...

Fine, why was his mind still revolving around these things? Look at Bashan, look at Bashan.

Why were there no guards at Bashan, making it so his heart couldn't return to the martial arts world...

Huh...

Zhao Changhe suddenly frowned and slowly walked closer.

Ahead, the eaves of a wooden hut were faintly visible, still looking a bit damp after the early summer rain. This should already be where the Sword Sect was located... But why, listening closely, was there not a single sound of human voices?

Zhao Changhe walked over slowly, and indeed, a cluster of wooden huts appeared ahead, low-key and plain, looking like the dwelling of a group of ascetic cultivators.

Sword marks could frequently be seen on the surrounding trees, all inadvertently left behind from sword practice.

But the wooden huts were empty, devoid of any sign of life.

The Sword Sect was empty? Where were the people?

Zhao Changhe braced his mind and slowly walked toward what appeared to be the main house.

The doors were tightly shut. He reached out to touch them; there was no dust... They shouldn't have left for very long.

Zhao Changhe pondered for a moment, then suddenly unleashed his inner energy, bursting through the door.

This was a rather large hall. On the front wall hung a massive character for "Sword," its brushstroke sharp, stern, and murderous. Other than that, there were no decorations, only ordinary tables and chairs, utterly plain.

It should be the main hall of the sect...

There were no corpses, no smell of blood, but the people were gone... Had the entire Sword Sect relocated?

Zhao Changhe smacked his lips in annoyance. Judging by the amount of dust, they shouldn't have moved long ago. If he had come this way first while in Xiangyang, he would likely have met them. Unfortunately, with important matters at hand, he truly couldn't come... Missing them this time, who was he supposed to look for to find that Sharp Edge Grass?

He wondered if they had cleared out their inventory...

In a normal relocation, important items would surely be moved cleaner than if a dog had licked them. Harboring a shred of hope, Zhao Changhe searched around and found the tightly locked warehouse in the back, breaking the door to enter.

The warehouse was somewhat messy. Quite a few uniform clothes and standard longswords were tossed aside at random, and rice and flour could still be seen... As for money and valuables, it was truly cleaner than if a dog had licked it, not a single copper coin left behind. It looked like a typical moving scene where important things were taken away and ordinary things were left behind after consideration, nothing special.

Searching carefully around, he found the medicine storage, which was likewise completely empty, leaving behind only some scattered, ordinary medicines for mosquito bites and the like.

Zhao Changhe uncorked a few bottles to sniff them, tossing them aside in great disappointment.

It really was a large-scale, normal relocation, with no anomalies to be seen... Zhao Changhe shook his head and left, casting a lingering glance back once more.

This single glance suddenly made him freeze.

Among those clothes piled to one side, why were there night-suit garments?

He strode back to take a look. They were night-suits, and moreover, they were large quantities of uniform night-suits, not just one or two pieces.

A group of silent, solemn swordsmen, and their sect's standard equipment actually included uniform night-suits?

The words "Listening Snow Tower" floated into Zhao Changhe's mind.

Could the Bashan Sword Sect be the Listening Snow Tower... During this period, he hadn't heard of this assassin organization, once detested by gods and demons alike, committing any cases. Could it be they encountered some trouble?

Previously, Yue Hongling had mentioned coming to visit the Bashan Sword Sect. If the Sword Sect were a normal swordsman sect, they would highly welcome the "Setting Sun Divine Sword" coming to exchange skills and communicate. But if the Sword Sect were the Listening Snow Tower, then it would be trouble... Because Yue Hongling obviously had a bounty on her head for assassination. The people she offended by acting righteously were by no means few, and various bounties and rewards were hung high on the underworld side, her bounty even higher than his, Zhao Changhe's...

It was just that Yue Hongling was similar to him, her tracks unpredictable and hard to find, so how could assassinating her be easy? But if she ran into the headquarters of an assassin syndicate herself... Zhao Changhe could almost imagine the scene where Yue Hongling realized something was wrong, immediately fled, and fought her way out of the siege. Heroine Yue was very sharp-witted.

Could the relocation of the Sword Sect be related to this? They failed to kill Yue Hongling, which led to the exposure of the organization, forcing them to move?

The possibility existed.

If that were the case...

Zhao Changhe suddenly turned and went out the door, darting into the forest away from the normal mountain paths.

If there was a battle, they would surely leap up and dart straight into the woods, then scatter through the forest instead of taking the normal mountain roads, which was why nothing could be seen when he came up... Inside the forest, there would definitely be findings.

Sure enough, before searching long, he saw the extremely obvious signs of battle with broken trees.

Further ahead, he even saw a corpse...

Zhao Changhe crouched down to examine it. The person had been dead for quite a while, already foul-smelling and breeding maggots. Yet one could still see a sword piercing the throat, neat and swift—it was the mark of Yue Hongling's sword technique, recognizable even if turned to ash.

Zhao Changhe swiftly followed the tracks all the way, seeing several corpses along the path, with a trail of long-dried blood leading out of the mountain, abruptly disappearing after reaching the outside.

Zhao Changhe looked at the road ahead, silently pondering.

If he guessed correctly, this was a Ferghana horse waiting nearby to assist, and Yue Hongling had left wounded.

The Master of the Sword Sect, Shi Wuding, might have been absent at the time, so no one could stop Yue Hongling. Upon returning and realizing what happened, he decisively ordered the entire sect to relocate, while he himself probably followed the tracks to hunt down Yue Hongling.

The basic outline should be like this.

Then here came the problem: Hongling was injured, and Shi Wuding was high on the Earth Rankings.

If she were caught up to, would she still have her life?

But the event had already happened a long time ago, and there was no news of anything happening to Yue Hongling on the Chaotic Times Rankings...

Zhao Changhe finally couldn't hold it in: "Hey, are you there?"

Dragon-Sparrow: "?"

"Not calling you, fortune-teller!"

The blind woman did not respond.

"Damn it, don't pretend, I know you know! I'm just asking if anything happened to ease my mind, not asking you to reveal anything. For a matter like this, we're so familiar, can't you grant a convenience? Anyway, you can tell fortunes, it's not like you saw it..."

The blind woman finally spoke testily: "Nothing happened. Find her yourself. Don't ask me."

Zhao Changhe let out a long sigh of relief: "Thank you."

The blind woman froze, and her voice vanished.

If Hongling fled, where would her direction be?

Without a word, Zhao Changhe returned to the area beyond the normal mountain path, mounted his black steed, and galloped away toward the southwest.