Chapter 11: The Decisive Battle in the State of Wei - Section 6: Bestowing Favor

Section 6: Bestowing Grace

Bu Jingxian had long anticipated that Wu Fei would be forced to resort to a desperate measure. With his divine sight clearly reading the extent of Wu Fei's declining stamina, he had been waiting for her to block horizontally with her sword. He immediately employed a revolving force to pull Wu Fei crashing toward him, followed swiftly by driving his knee into her lower abdomen while simultaneously seizing her slender, delicate neck, using the momentum to pin her down into the snow and ice.

Choked by the neck and suffering a heavy blow to her abdomen, Wu Fei was utterly devoid of strength, and as her head struck the frozen ground, she instantly lost consciousness.

Suspecting that the pursuers from the Wei State would sooner or later search the area, Bu Jingxian clutched Wu Fei's delicate neck and used one hand to execute the ultimate sealing technique of the Northern Spirit Sect. Pressing his fingers against her crown, he moved them down across her forehead and brow, over her head, face, neck, and chest, all the way down to her lower abdomen. This was the Northern Spirit Sect’s most formidable acupoint-sealing technique, capable of completely severing an internal martial artist’s meridian flow. Even those with extremely profound internal cultivation would find it exceedingly difficult to force open the sealed nodes.

Bu Jingxian let out a long breath of relief, picked up Wu Fei's Frost Treasure Sword, slid it into the scabbard hidden within her umbrella, hoisted her onto his back, and strode away into the distance.

An hour later, Bu Jingxian had already brought Wu Fei to a ruined, deserted temple ten miles away from the fierce battlefield. He set up a campfire and boiled the dried meat he carried with him into a soup.

He had studied Wu Fei's umbrella for a long time, discovering that the material of the canopy was extremely peculiar, capable of neutralizing powerful impact forces, and impervious to ordinary swords. By triggering a mechanism in the umbrella shaft, it could even fold in reverse and extend a sharp blade, transforming into a long spear. The ingenuity of its craftsmanship was breathtaking and made one reluctant to put it down.

He had long since searched Wu Fei's person, finding a piece of umbrella paper inside her small pouch, upon which a landscape ink painting was drawn. The material was identical to the pink umbrella paper.

He also discovered that the top of the flowered umbrella could rotate, and small interlocking rings were designed within the ribs. Upon triggering the handle mechanism, the pink umbrella paper naturally detached, making it very easy to attach the white umbrella paper bearing the landscape ink painting. Although the umbrella looked light, it actually weighed over thirty catties, and when closed, it could completely double as a short staff.

The more Bu Jingxian looked at it, the more he liked it.

"A trophy, taken." He simply tucked the pink umbrella paper back into Wu Fei's pouch, placed the Frost sword and the umbrella by his leg, and claimed them as his own.

In the end, he rummaged through Wu Fei's other belongings. Her purse contained a fifty-tael gold ingot, along with ten taels of silver, some broken silver pieces, and copper coins. Bu Jingxian placed them back beside Wu Fei, having no intention of taking them.

There was also a booklet. Flipping through it casually, he found it to be the *Tao Te Ching*, with a piece of paper tucked into the back page. Opening it, he saw it was an ancient secret manual of the Northern Martial Sect.

"Presumably you've already memorized it, but this is a trophy too."

He shoved it straight into his tunic, finding nothing else of interest. He then picked up Wu Fei's intimate change of garments that had tumbled out of her pouch and tried to fold them, but no matter what he did, he could not fold them back to the tiny size they had been when first pulled out. As he tried repeatedly, his interest grew with every failure. Before he knew it, a long time had passed, and he finally managed to fold them into a round bundle the size of a finger.

Only then did he stop, letting out a long, deeply satisfied breath of relief.

It was then that he noticed Wu Fei had already awakened. Meeting his gaze, she hurriedly looked away, her face flushed crimson.

Bu Jingxian was long accustomed to women's garments, so when he had searched through them and folded them back just now, he had thought nothing of it. Seeing Wu Fei's expression, however, he suddenly remembered that she was a young maiden, and having her intimate garments handled by a man right before her eyes was inevitably awkward and mortifying. Knowing that saying too much in the present situation would be useless, he simply acted as if nothing were the matter, neatly packed away Wu Fei's little pouch, and went back to tending the meat soup over the fire.

After enduring her humiliation for a moment, Wu Fei suddenly said in a cold voice, "As someone who holds the supreme dignity of the Northern Lord, you are actually so shameless!"

"How am I shameless? Since you were subdued by this lord, it is only natural for this lord to search your person for spoils of war; I was merely kindly returning your garments to your pouch. What does that have to do with being shameless?" With that, Bu Jingxian took out some dry rations and handed them to Wu Fei. She refused to take them and instead asked him, "Why didn't you kill me? Are you going to take me back as a prisoner?"

"It is freezing cold, and on the way back we will inevitably encounter searching troops and horses from the Wei State. We must eat and drink our fill. As for you, this lord never thought of killing you. Someone with your extraordinary martial arts talent would be far too great a pity to die here; this lord cherishes talent. Rest for the night, and when we leave tomorrow, I will unseal several of the acupoints restricting you. With your internal strength, you are bound to break through the remaining seals within two hours."

Wu Fei asked with considerable surprise, "You intend to let me go?"

"This lord cherishes talent. Since I cannot bear to kill you, naturally I have no choice but to let you go."

"I am afraid the Northern Lord is wasting his efforts. Although such magnanimity is indeed worthy of admiration, I, Wu Fei, will never defect to the rebel army on that account. If the Northern Lord releases me, for the sake of my country's standpoint, the next time Wu Fei will still go all out against the Northern Lord. At that time, the Northern Lord may not be able to brilliantly turn the tides as you did today, and I fear the Northern Lord will live to regret it."

Wu Fei spoke with resolute determination, while Bu Jingxian found it both amusing and admirable. If she were smarter, she actually wouldn't have said such things; she spoke thus purely out of gratitude, unwilling to be accused of ingratitude and unfaithfulness later, and chose to state the worst-case scenario that might happen in the future right from the beginning. Such a magnanimous and open-hearted stance of clearly distinguishing between principle and grace naturally made Bu Jingxian secretly admire her.

"If the Wei State is destroyed in the future, the Sword Mountain Sect will either submit to the Zheng State or scatter in all directions to seek their own futures. If that day truly comes, and if Heroine Wu Fei should aid this lord at that time, it will certainly not be out of a surrender to secure a livelihood. This lord firmly believes it will surely be because of—mutual appreciation. Before that, should we happen to encounter each other by chance, feel free to strike at this lord. National affairs come first; for the sake of your country's standpoint, striking at this lord is entirely without fault, and naturally no one will say you shouldn't."

Seeing that the meat soup was ready, Bu Jingxian scooped some into a tile shard that he had cleaned and scrubbed with snow and handed it to Wu Fei. This time, she was willing to accept it, and she also picked up the dry rations to appease her hunger. After the two of them finished their dinner in silence, Bu Jingxian gathered Wu Fei's long hair into her outer robe and helped her put on her cotton cap. They each rested right where they were, dressed in their clothes.

The cold wind was biting, and the ruined temple could not keep out the freezing gale. The heavy snow fell with increasing urgency, piling up right to their feet. Bu Jingxian repeatedly got up to clear away the accumulated snow, and seeing that Wu Fei lacked internal energy to protect herself, he took off his outer coat and draped it over her. At first, Wu Fei did not dare to fall asleep at all, but watching everything he did, her worries gradually subsided, and she believed that he would not actually do anything to her.

Seeing him lying on his side with his knees bent, sleeping peacefully, she always felt that his well-proportioned physique and handsome appearance bore no resemblance whatsoever to the legendary, invincible-against-ten-thousand man endowed with divine might. Nor was he as fierce, malicious, and ruthlessly venomous as the people of the Wei State whispered.

The people of the Wei State all said that Zuo An, the rebel leader of the Undying Soul, had slaughtered countless innocent lives, and that the Undying Soul rebels cruelly oppressed and humiliated the occupied citizens of the Wei State, committing every imaginable evil. They also claimed that the Northern Lord Zuo An stood a zhang tall, with an ugly, ferocious visage, tiger-like back and bear-like waist, and terrifying evil powers, and that he loved nothing more than to snap people's necks with his bare hands and crush their skulls. They even said that the Northern Lord's subordinate, Lady Zhao, was a female demon with a sturdy, man-like build, as well as an ugly and ferocious appearance.

Thinking of these things, Wu Fei inevitably pondered upon the rebels of the Undying Soul, and then thought of her adoptive mother, Madam Li. Eventually, she unknowingly grew drowsy and drifted off to sleep, closing her eyes.