INE Chapter 90: Peach Blossom Immortal

Yue Qianqiu was a rather laid-back sect master. For no particular reason, just that, when she transmigrated into the game and received this character, the account was already max-level.

At the peak of the Jueyi realm, there really wasn’t anything left to cultivate. Even if she casually fiddled around with the account, nothing could go too wrong.

Whenever she got tired of flying on her sword, she’d start teaching Gong Yu formation techniques. She was hoping that, as an expert in talismans, Elder Gong would one day set up countless teleportation arrays for the Wanjian Sect, so she’d never have to fly again.

Gong Yu had a natural talent for formations and picked things up quickly. After each lesson, she would humbly seek guidance, review, revise, and learn all over again.

One day, Yue Qianqiu had just finished sketching a formation diagram when a paper crane flew in through the window.

The crane was covered in glowing formation nodes. As it landed in her hand, it burst into a small firework, sparkling like a star.

Yue Qianqiu paused, surprised, only to see Gong Yu walk in with a smile. “Master,” she said, “I heard from Changli that you like fireworks. Pretty, isn’t it?”

Yue Qianqiu remembered the first time she saw Gong Yu, and how she had hesitated to take her in as a disciple.

After all, Gong Yu had once poisoned her, and had driven herself mad in pursuit of becoming the “Sword Saint.” Maybe, if she hadn’t accepted her as a disciple, all of this could have been avoided.

But then she recalled her sister’s words: “You should do what you believe a ‘Sword Saint’ would do, comprehensively and with caution.”

Now, holding that little paper crane, Yue Qianqiu couldn’t help but laugh softly. She reached out and gently patted Gong Yu’s head. “Thank you, Ayu. I really do like it.”

Gong Yu, dressed in white with long ink-black hair, held the crane shyly and said, “As long as Master likes it. I know you don’t like walking or sword flying, so I’ll build you lots and lots of formations. That way, you’ll never have to walk again.”

Yue Qianqiu: “…”

Are you seriously trying to turn your master into a terminally lazy couch potato?

When she had nothing else to do, Yue Qianqiu would take time to instruct Chu Changli, who never wanted to study. Even though this girl’s body housed Gu Baiyi’s soul, making her a sword prodigy and a two-time Demon Lord, she just didn’t enjoy learning.

Yue Qianqiu demonstrated a sword technique and had Chu Changli follow along. The kid had clearly watched carefully just moments ago, but now she was hacking away with awkward, twisted movements.

With patience, Yue Qianqiu demonstrated again, but still, Changli couldn’t get it.

A little exasperated, Yue Qianqiu took her hand and guided her through the technique.

But once they were done, not only had the sword moves gone off track, the third disciple’s brain seemed to have, too. Her ears were tinged with a suspicious shade of pink.

Yue Qianqiu thought to herself: Why on earth are you blushing just from practicing swordsmanship? You’re still a kid, for crying out loud.

The next day, Yue Qianqiu stood outside the Sword Practice Courtyard, watching her disciples train from afar.

The eldest disciple's movements were fluid and graceful. The second disciple lagged slightly behind. But the third disciple, who had barely been able to hold a sword yesterday, now radiated fierce sword intent, even surpassing the eldest in insight.

Yue Qianqiu: “…”

Chu Changli truly was Gu Baiyi reborn. That acting… she could’ve won an award.

Soon after, Yue Qianqiu noticed that her fourth disciple, Bai Yushuang, was missing again, probably off chasing crickets somewhere instead of attending lessons.

After some thought, she realized her disciples were all growing up. It was time they started worrying about grades and academic credits like normal students.

So she set up a formal curriculum with courses in pill refining, swordsmanship, talismans, and more. All inner sect disciples were required to complete a certain number of credits. Fail, and they’d be demoted to outer sect status.

But even after implementing this system, her disciples were still goofing off as usual, studying when they wanted, playing when they felt like it.

Only then did Yue Qianqiu realize: there were no actual outer sect disciples in the sect. Without that threat, no one felt the pressure of “study or perish.”

She figured it was time to find a genuine outer sect disciple to shake things up and foster some healthy competition.

The one who gave her the least trouble was Mei He, so she sent her out on the search.

Sure enough, Mei He returned with a sword cultivator named Ye Yizhou. He arrived carrying a black sword, and though he was only in his early teens, his expression was downright stormy.

He said, “Miss Mei told me your sect has lots of books and sword techniques.”

Yue Qianqiu had copied a fair number of texts over the years, and she led Ye Yizhou to the scripture library to browse the Wanjian Sect’s collection.

Afterward, Ye Yizhou commented flatly, “Too few.”

Yue Qianqiu: “…”

He thought for a moment and added, “But your sect looks rich. I’m sure there’ll be more books in the future.”

And with that, Ye Yizhou stayed on, becoming the Wanjian Sect’s one and only outer sect disciple.

Now that they had Ye Yizhou as a benchmark, Yue Qianqiu promptly instituted a final exam: the sect assessment.

Any inner sect disciple who failed would be demoted. Conversely, an outer sect disciple could climb up with excellent performance.

She also created a bank of a thousand test papers, based on the game’s storyline. Of course, she did the reading, Mei He did the copying.

When underachiever Bai Yushuang whined that there were too many papers, Yue Qianqiu relented and switched to randomly drawing 300 papers for each exam. The goal? To make her disciples fear standardized testing.

In the first year, Bai Yushuang got demoted. Ye Yizhou was promoted.

In the second year, Bai Yushuang was still at the bottom.

The third year, the fourth year…

Eventually, Bai Yushuang had had enough. She ran to the sect leader’s quarters and begged, “Master, can you please take in more disciples? I don’t want to be an outer sect disciple anymore.”

Yue Qianqiu tapped her pen against Bai Yushuang’s not-so-bright head.

You think I don’t want that too? But with no results to show, how am I supposed to start recruiting? And even if I could, who would want to come?

But Mei He believed everything was ready, they just needed the final push. After discussing it with Yue Qianqiu, she took a Penglai boat with her three junior sisters and Ye Yizhou to participate in the Heroes’ Tournament.

The disciples at the tournament were all fresh talents from major sects. Most had been raised on their sect’s techniques since childhood, but even so, they couldn’t hold a candle to the five from Wanjian Sect, whose innate talents were off the charts.

What’s more, except for Bai Yushuang’s occasional goofing off, the group had trained hard for years. They swept through the competition with ease, scoring high across the board.

In the end, their rankings were impressive: Chu Changli took first place, Mei He was ranked third, and the rest of the team made it into the top ten.

With that, the Wanjian Sect’s fame skyrocketed. Many aspiring disciples came knocking, eager to learn.

However, there was a small incident during the tournament.

When Chu Changli stepped onto the stage, a disciple from the Huanhua Palace, still bitter over a past spat, asked his senior brother to teach her a lesson.

That senior brother was none other than Yan Haiyao, the young palace master and top disciple of Huanhua Palace. Known for his gentle and kind nature, he normally wouldn’t stoop to such things.

But faced with his junior’s persistent pleading, he finally agreed to go up and "exchange a few moves."

After all, in the realm of young cultivators, he believed few could even withstand one strike from him, let alone fight him.

To everyone's surprise, even after exchanging dozens of moves with Yan Haiyao, Chu Changli still showed no sign of falling behind. In fact, she seemed to be growing more and more formidable as the fight went on.

Yan Haiyao, who was deeply devoted to martial arts, fought with great delight. But by the end of the duel, he hadn’t expected to find himself steadily losing ground to an unknown sword cultivator.

He was generally mild-mannered and gracious to others, never one to seize the upper hand, except when it came to martial arts. In that, he was obsessive and would never concede easily.

Seeing that he was about to lose, Yan Haiyao grew anxious and, in a moment of desperation, unintentionally activated a divine-grade life-preserving artifact given to him by a senior elder of the Huanhua Palace.

By the time he realized he had unleashed the “Seven Kills of the Huanhua Palace” it was already too late.

With his current level of cultivation, there was no way to retract such a deadly technique. He could only watch helplessly as a torrent of sword energy surged toward Chu Changli.

Gasps of alarm erupted across the arena.

Disciples of the Wanjian Sect turned pale, their eyes wide with horror. Mei He flew forward, trying to rescue Chu Changli, but was stopped by the magical barrier around the stage.

Just when everyone believed Chu Changli was doomed, a brilliant red figure descended from the sky.

She landed on the dueling platform, placing herself directly in front of Chu Changli.

Sword in hand, she faced the overwhelming sword force like a mountain bearing down, and gently unleashed a single stroke.

The silver blade swept down like frost, sharp and chilling, summoning a storm of peach blossoms that danced through the air.

The blossoms, clear as snowflakes, drifted onto her dark hair. Her crimson robes fluttered as she turned around, expression cool and distant, as though untouched by the mortal world.

As the disciples watched in awe, this celestial figure sheathed her sword, looked at her fallen disciple on the ground, and slightly furrowed her brows.

And with that tiny crease between her brows, the hearts of the disciples trembled.

A moment later, the otherworldly figure knelt down, gently picked up her stunned disciple, and asked softly, “Are you hurt?”

Held in Yue Qianqiu’s arms, Chu Changli was stiff with disbelief.

After all, her master had always carried an air of aloof divinity, cold and indifferent. She never imagined her master would embrace her like this in front of everyone.

After a long pause, she finally lifted her hand to wipe the blood from her lips, shook her head, and said, “I’m fine, Master.”

Below the platform, all, including the disciples of the Wanjian Sect, were stunned speechless.

That spiritual barrier could only be broken by someone at the Moonstep Realm or higher. Not to mention, the "Seven Kills of the Huanhua Palace" was a technique created by the previous Palace Master of the Huanhua Palace. Its power was on par with a full-strength attack from a Chasing the Clouds Realm cultivator.

Yet the woman had dissolved it with a single, graceful strike. That kind of strength was terrifying.

Watching the peach blossoms fall over the martial arena, someone murmured, “Is that the Peach Blossom Immortal?”

“Such beauty and power... she must be a true immortal. How fortunate we are to witness one walk among mortals.”

“It’s the Peach Blossom Immortal. It must be her!”

But the woman, now referred to as the Peach Blossom Immortal, simply held Chu Changli in her arms and looked across at Yan Haiyao.

Her brow furrowed again as she asked with a puzzled tone, “You again?”

Even a hundred years later, when people recalled this legendary moment, no one ever figured out what Sword Saint Yue Qianqiu had meant by those words.

Among those who came to the Wanjian Sect seeking the Dao, half were genuine cultivators. The other half came merely to catch a glimpse of the famed Peach Blossom Immortal.

Tired of the constant attention, Yue Qianqiu left all matters concerning new disciples to Mei He and went to Qingluan Peak to practice her swordsmanship in peace.

On the left side of Qingluan Peak, the maple forest stood crimson against a backdrop of drifting snow.

The area was full of massive boulders. As she walked through, she heard the babbling of a stream, found it pleasing, and casually slashed at the rocks with her sword.

A few steps further, she saw a grand bodhi tree. She raised her sword again and struck at a nearby boulder.

Looking up, she spotted Chu Changli sitting on a branch, sword in hand, hesitating to strike.

By now, Chu Changli had grown tall, her legs dangling from the tree like flowering branches of a crabapple. The wind stirred them gently.

She grinned down at Yue Qianqiu and said, “Master, I want to practice swordplay with you.”

But before that wish could come true, disaster struck.

She had broken into a forbidden area of Qingluan Peak by forcefully breaching the warding formation, hoping to secretly watch her master train. As punishment, Yue Qianqiu tied her up and hung her upside down from a tree for two full days and nights.

Suspended by a rope, Chu Changli’s jet-black hair flowed like a waterfall to the ground.

With her large, sparkling eyes, she called out to Yue Qianqiu, who was leaning against the bodhi tree reading a book: “Master, let me down. I know I was wrong.”

Yue Qianqiu glanced up and saw her disciple’s pitiful, deliberately sweet expression. That familiar act of playing the victim reminded her of someone from the past.

She asked coolly, “What did you do wrong?”

Chu Changli replied, “I shouldn’t have gone into the forbidden area to watch you train.”

But Yue Qianqiu shook her head. “Your mistake was treating your own life as if it meant nothing. If you had hidden behind the rocks and I hadn’t noticed you, I might have killed you with one strike.”

Chu Changli blinked her beautiful eyes and said, “If I died by your sword, I’d be willing. It wouldn’t be a meaningless death.”

It sounded like a joke, yet Yue Qianqiu couldn’t bring herself to laugh.

Under the starlight, she stared at Chu Changli for a long while before finally letting her down.

Then, without sparing her a glance, she turned away and said coldly, “Nonsense.”

With that, she flicked her sleeve and walked off.