Chapter Seventy-Five: Meeting Fate
The short sword gave off hundreds of different colored energies due to the strong vibrations which flew upwards and faced the mountain shadow coming down from the sky. The sword energies charged at the enormous shadow and exploded like fireworks at the bottom of the mountain.
The Demon Dragon Spear in Mo Ying’s hand started to shake, and then his body started to shake. His extremely solemn eyes were filled with a complicated emotion. He immediately understood the shaking was not due to the collision of power, it was not that Ding Ning’s sword was powerful enough to stop his “Demon Dragon Levers Mountain” but because inside of him, his own emotions were agitated. The emotion of the opponent’s sword intent was perfectly transmitted to his perception and mental world, and affected his heart.
At this moment, he was like a flying sword thrown out of its path. He could not avoid being affected. There were many scenes of reunion in his mind, like the sword had just left him appearing in front of him after many years. It caused him to think of the first time he met Yan Xinlan, and the first time he saw “Warm Spring”.
That was a very warm spring. In a certain battlefield in the south, the yellow canola flowers bloomed on the hills. He had been passing through the flowers with a bucket of blood stained bandages, to the stream to wash them. A woman had been washing her face there.
That had been Yan Xinlan.
She had a sword on each side of her waist, one was Last Flower, the other Warm Spring.
Yan Xinlan and the other swordsmen of the Ba Mountain Sword Field were the same, her presence like a sharp sword. Yet she did not wash the same way as ordinary women. Even when she sensed him coming, she did not change how she washed, slow and steady.
Many years later, he knew this was a calm mind, and also a stubbornness that would not change for others. He had been stunned back then. Yan Xinlan casually turned and said, “From your walking pace, breathing, and your power in carrying this bucket, you must be cultivating some of White Deer School and Huangchong Sword School, but were not taught, and just learned pieces. But you are a genius to have learned even this.”
He had been surprised for a long time. He did not know his own emotions. Later, he said, “Then could you teach me?”
She was noncommittal. But in the end, she did teach.
The world had been golden. The scene caused his mind to shake, his attention momentarily lost and even dazed.
This was enough to Ding Ning.
A sword shadow led Ding Ning out from the shadow of the mountain. The mountain fell behind him, the ground silently exploding with the sound not even having the time to spread. He had defeated Mo Ying’s spear attack.
Unrepressed gasps sounded among the camp like a tide. The cultivators could not believe their eyes. They did not believe that someone in the world could use a move to defeat another move, ignoring the rules of power to break such an attack.
“This really is a miracle.”
Mo Ying took a deep breath. The rippling emotions in his eyes were gone. His spear tip touched the ground, and the lingering power on the tip easily broke through the vibrations coming from the ground, and stopped the energy from affecting his body and vital energy negatively.
He was not in a hurry to attack and looked at Ding Ning, saying expressionlessly, “In the past, Wang Jingmeng fought all the sects, and knew the moves of all the sects, and most of the moves of the world. He did not know just how to use them, but defeat them, so he possessed the ability to fight beyond his level. I had not thought that you, his heir, can also do so.”
Ding Ning looked up slightly at his cold and murderous eyes. He did not answer, but lifted his sword, so Mo Ying could see more clearly. He asked softly, “Had you ever thought why she took you as her student?”
“Why?”
Ding Ning’s question did not make Mo Ying’s heart ripple as he had been preparing to attack and also on guard for Ding Ning’s attack.
At this moment Ding Ning attacked.
He released the sword hilt. The sword flew away out of his hand with a buzz, so fast the sword became a faint shadow. In the next moment, the tracks of the sword and the sword essence it gave off caused the flying sword to become even lighter, like it had disappeared into the air, but with an indescribable aura. It was like on a drunk night in early summer, one person came to the willow tree, and met a woman that he had met before and loved, but did not know where she was.
Ding Ning’s sword expressed this meaning fully. The move was called “Meeting Fate.”
Some things were called destiny, and that was solemn and grave. Some things were called “fate” and that usually was sweet and warm, or slightly bitter and sad.
Mo Ying’s spear gave off a loud sound like a dragon’s roar. As his power surged out, the spear tip surged with a red flow hotter than lava. This was the “Demon Dragon Roar,” a secret move from the cultivation records of that past aristocratic family that they gained from the ruins of the ancient sect.
The spear presence was powerful and unrivaled, with the power of the supposed dragon’s breath, and its great volume had the ability to enchant a cultivator’s senses and mind.
But at this time, as his move started, he was not able to affect Ding Ning because of Ding Ning’s previous words and sword essence, his mind once again sank into a violent shock.
Unconsciously, he had started to consider Ding Ning’s question. But the answer was like a pebble in the water, and floated out of the water when carried up by Ding Ning’s sword essence.
He was a talented cultivator. Otherwise, even with the true teachings of Ba Mountain Sword Field, he could not have become so strong so quickly. Yet Mo Ying, who understood Yan Xinlan and her personality so well, knew why she had taught him. One was that she had rarely left Ba Mountain Sword Field, rarely communicated with others, and she was very young. Because she was very young, when he mentioned her teaching him the sword, she had never had thoughts of having students before, so she had not taken on talented cultivators as students.
But the most important reason was because she was young enough to believe in fate. When one person was in a good mood, and on a spring day with blooming flowers, she saw a likeable young person. Then this slightly shy and dumb young man asked her to teach him so she did.
This was fate.
What else?
If there was, it was that he had been young back then, so his eyes were clear and he had no desires. He had just been an ordinary pharmacist.
Mo Ying received the answer. His emotions became more turbulent, and a hint of chaos appeared in the sound of the Demon Dragon Roar.
A light sword light passed through the red energy flames to fall towards his forehead. He was between being conscious and dazed. A hint of viciousness flashed across his brows. His left hand left his spread, and he grabbed the sword light with two fingers.
With a woosh, the sword slipped past his fingers like slippery loaches. His body slid back, the bottom of his shoes making rubbing sounds just like the sound of the flying sword and his fingers.
A sword mark appeared on his forehead, deep to the bone, and blood flowed down his nose.
