Chapter 68: The Battle of Marriage

A few days later, outside Hanzhou City, a figure was rapidly shuttling through the dense forest in the mountains, leaving afterimages from time to time. A horse was like a snail compared to him.

This figure was too fast, too fast. It was only because he avoided the official road that he did not cause a sensation.

Swoosh!

The figure suddenly stopped and stood on a high cliff, looking into the distance. He saw that the fireworks in the distant city were in full swing, and the hustle and bustle of noon came with the wind. Even here, he could still hear a little, which showed the prosperity.

Restaurants, teahouses, theaters, bookstores, brothels, yamen, carriage companies, livestock departments, and so on, all made different noises, intertwined.

Further away, he could vaguely see a bit of the golden yellow of the great desert…

Ning Xuan stretched his body and yawned.

The horse’s speed was too slow to carry his arrow-like heart.

Besides, his constitution had already reached the level of a second-grade martial artist. Who would still ride a horse?

At this time, it was late autumn, and the sun was just right, so right that it fell from the sky, not warm, not hot.

In Tianyouzi’s nightmare world, Ning Xuan had really learned one thing, that was to cherish the ordinary things in front of him. He stretched his body, stretched his body in the autumn sun, and squinted to feel the light and wind of the world, and listened to the rustling of the leaves in the mountain forest. He felt that nothing was happiness.

But, today, there was actually a happier and more anticipated thing waiting for him.

Immortal Aunt Yaozhen had told him.

His father had already found him a good match. This good match was the youngest daughter of the Jiedushi of Suizhou Dao, surnamed Lu, named Xuezhi, eighteen years old this year, and also one of the candidate generals for this Divine General Plan.

In the geography, Wangyue Prefecture belonged to Hanzhou, and Hanzhou belonged to Suizhou Dao.

For the son of a prefect to be able to marry the daughter of the Jiedushi of Suizhou Dao, he had already burned who knows how many high incense sticks.

You know, even if a prefect continued for two or three generations, he would at most be considered a small aristocratic family, but a Jiedushi was a large aristocratic family.

The reason why a Jiedushi would not die in the second generation was also because of his inextricable connection with the royal family. To put it more bluntly, many of the forces where the Jiedushi was located were directly controlled by the Son of Heaven.

All successive Jiedushi who wanted to succeed had to be sent to the imperial palace from a young age to become the crown prince’s study companion, that is, the Heavenly Master who was divided by the crown prince’s dragon qi, and was loyal to the crown prince. In this way, when the crown prince ascended the throne, he could return to his fiefdom, disperse the dragon qi, and succeed the Jiedushi. In this way… it was not an exaggeration to say that he was a pillar of the country.

Of course, this was also risky, because not all crown princes would become the Son of Heaven…

In the current world, the crown prince was originally the eldest son of the empress, but… the Son of Heaven valued personal ability more, so he would give the other princes some opportunities, in the hope that the successors would do better.

Although the Son of Heaven had a short life, his power was supreme. One word could decide a person’s life, and one word could decide a person’s death. Everything in the world was for his use and for his possession. Who didn’t want to fight, who didn’t want to be?

Ning Xuan did not think that the Son of Heaven was a puppet of the Zixia Temple’s Taiyin Ghost Cultivators. The reason was very simple. His father had told him: those who gathered dragon qi, although they had no magic power, but where the dragon qi gathered, all evils would not invade.

Therefore, even demons like the White Mountain Zen Master and the Xuan Yin Fox only thought of ways to become prefects, not to turn a prefect into a puppet.

The royal family’s struggle for the throne was another troublesome matter.

However, Ning Xuan was still quite happy.

Because…

Immortal Aunt Yaozhen also said.

Lu Xuezhi was different from him, who had become a general “halfway through.” The girl was a martial arts prodigy when she was a child, the kind of monster who awakened the qualifications of a general while practicing. Her heart was firm.

She hid her identity and traveled in the Jianghu. She had a nickname, “Snow Viper Boy.”

The snow viper was a highly venomous snake that lived in the cold land.

In the Jianghu, there were only wrong names, not wrong nicknames.

For a boy to be named after this, it was enough to see his viciousness.

However, Lu Xuezhi was a standard righteous hero. The two words “snow viper” did not refer to her heart, nor did it mean that she was good at poisoning, but her leg skills.

A lightning kick, like a snow viper’s bite, a leg out meant life, and a leg back meant death.

Lu Xuezhi’s legs were very terrifying, and her movement skills were naturally terrifying. When she was fourteen, the demons were not as rampant as they were now. One day, she got the news of a great robber and chased after him. As a result, she was ambushed. In the ambush, she fought back and killed the entire group of great robbers.

She did this not for fame, but simply because she hated the evil committed by those great robbers.

So, even though she had killed the entire group of great robbers, she did not say it. It was only after a hunter accidentally found many corpses in the mountains and reported it to the officials that the constables investigated their identities and then found out.

After Lu Xuezhi became a general, she was naturally a life-attribute general. Her life in the past six months or so was also legendary.

First, her strength was identified. As soon as she became a general, she was already a first-grade martial artist. After the demon-reflecting mirror in the imperial capital determined that her demon form was a “crane,” the Zixia Temple happened to have a second-grade demon pill of the “crane class.” The Jiedushi personally sought connections and paid a price to get this demon pill for her.

Now, Lu Xuezhi had already taken this second-grade demon pill, and her strength was also a second-grade martial artist. Not only that, but she was also very lucky to have absorbed the demon art from the demon pill. You know… this kind of thing was basically one in a thousand, that is, only one out of a thousand people who ate the demon pill could awaken.

After that, she fought everywhere, and also fought hard battles, and solved powerful demons.

This woman, it was not an exaggeration to say that she was a proud daughter of heaven.

The proud daughter of heaven naturally had high standards, and Ning Xuan’s reputation during this period was not low.

Ning Xuan himself might not have felt it, but he was also a legendary figure outside.

Before the age of sixteen, he was a martial arts prodigy who hid his strength with the mask of a dandy.

At the age of sixteen, he awakened the talent of a general. In the battle of Manfeng Mountain, he fought his way out of a desperate situation of “demons, Heavenly Masters, and Taoist boys,” and killed all the targets. It could be said that he became famous in one battle.

After that, he demarcated the boundaries, temporarily stabilized the Frozen Hell, and solved the demons everywhere;

Then he requested to reduce his fiefdom, refused to marry into the General Qin’s residence, and protected himself wisely, taking a step back to find a broader world;

And the several killing plots of the “demon Zhuangyuan Lang” were all broken by him, so much so that Great General Qin finally spoke up and wrote a memorial to the throne, “I implore Your Majesty to order General An Yuan Ning to abandon his old grievances with that Huang Cihe and go to the demon disaster together.”

And his general talent was also very special. He was a dual cultivator of life and nature. Both his nature attribute and life attribute were first-grade.

This son, it was not an exaggeration to say that he was a proud son of heaven.

After Ning Xuan reported the “Divine Eagle Covering the Sky Art” and the “Lingyan Small Group Art” of the Hehuan Sect, the Son of Heaven also paid attention. After all, he was a seed player of his “Divine General Reserve Group.” In addition, Old Master Ning visited everywhere and sought marriage alliances everywhere. This was a coincidence that he was connected to Lu Xuezhi.

A second-grade martial artist girl…

Ning Xuan was quite satisfied.

And also quite looking forward to it.

In the heart of the Mingzhu Lake in Hanzhou, there was a painted boat.

In the painted boat, there was a girl in a red dress and white shoes, with her bangs neatly trimmed to her eyebrows.

The girl sat upright.

Her face was very white, snow-white. The high-collared red dress surrounded her snow-white neck, and her chin was held high, showing a bit of grace and nobility.

Her legs were very long, and the tips of her feet made her white shoes taut. In this way, even the insteps of her feet became a part of her legs, and thus longer, like a pair of quiet and unreleased killing spears.

She was not sitting cross-legged, but sitting with her legs together at an angle.

Her expression was very calm, and her eyes were deep because of this calmness, with a kind of frosty coldness.

Outside the painted boat, figures would land from time to time, and report something through the curtain.

This was Lu Xuezhi’s personal guard.

These personal guards were reporting on the merchants and nobles in Hanzhou who had connections with the Great General Qin’s residence and had made their fortunes because of it.

Some of these people knew how to restrain themselves, and even sold their property and retired. Some thought that they had no relationship with the Great General Qin’s residence, so everything was as usual, without restraint, and they acted tyrannically, bullying the weak and fearing the strong.

The personal guards were reporting on these people.

Lu Xuezhi listened with a calm expression, but did not deal with it. She just let the personal guards collect the crimes, organize them into a book, and then store them one by one.

Golden light surged around her, and a middle-aged female Heavenly Master with wrinkles on her forehead and crow’s feet in her eyes appeared.

This female Heavenly Master was named Chaoyinzi. Her relationship with Lu Xuezhi was like that of Immortal Aunt Yaozhen to Ning Xuan.

Chaoyinzi said, “Junior Sister said that he should be arriving soon.”

Lu Xuezhi asked, “How did he come?”

Chaoyinzi said, “He ran all the way here. He didn’t ride a horse, didn’t take a carriage, and didn’t ask Junior Sister to send him.”

Lu Xuezhi asked, “Why did he run all the way? And why didn’t he ask Immortal Aunt Yaozhen to send him?”

Chaoyinzi’s expression was strange, “Junior Sister said that he didn’t want to miss the scenery on the way. He felt that it was always a happy thing for a person to be able to run, and it was better than not moving at all.”

Lu Xuezhi propped up her chin slightly, her pretty face facing the distance, her bangs slightly tilted, and a bit of a smile appeared in her eyes.

At least he was an interesting person.

A young general who was a dual cultivator of life and nature?

She was quite looking forward to it.

In the evening.

The sun was about to set, and the lake was sparkling.

The ancient city near the Western Regions had already started to have an evening wind. The evening wind scattered the water and light, and messed them up, making the lake water a dark red chaos.

Lu Xuezhi was sitting quietly in a painted boat on a chaos.

And in the distance on the lake, another painted boat was coming here.

Chaoyinzi reminded, “He’s here.”

Lu Xuezhi said, “Tell him to get ready, rest well, and then board the boat. A long journey is exhausting, so there’s no rush. Today, tomorrow, or even two or three days later is fine. At that time, I will suppress my strength to the first grade and fight him. If he can’t even hold on for a few moves, then this marriage is off.”

After speaking, she added, “I won’t use a weapon, he can do as he pleases.”

Chaoyinzi nodded, and then began to communicate with Immortal Aunt Yaozhen, who was with Ning Xuan on the opposite painted boat, through the “whisper chain.”

“Junior Sister, so it is. Do you understand?”

“But, Senior Sister, you chose to be on the lake. This is not a terrain that General Ning is good at. This is not fair.”

“When they fight, we will retreat and watch the battle from the sky.

Two painted boats are enough for General Ning to perform.

What’s more, General Ning also has an advantage. He is a dual cultivator of life and nature, and both are first-grade. General Lu is suppressing her strength, which is already a loss. If she doesn’t have an advantage in terrain, it’s not fair, right?”

“That’s true.” Immortal Aunt Yaozhen nodded, and then said, “Senior Sister, you still like water as much as you did in the past?”

Chaoyinzi said, “Let’s catch up when we get to the sky.”

As soon as the words fell, Immortal Aunt Yaozhen’s exclamation came from the whisper chain.

“Senior Sister, let’s go to the sky.”

Chaoyinzi was stunned for a moment.

Immortal Aunt Yaozhen said, “General Ning is not resting, he is going to make a move.”

Chaoyinzi blinked and reminded, “Junior Sister, you should let him rest for a while.

General Lu has seen the Hehuan Sect’s cultivation method, and it can be cultivated, but the threshold is very high.

It’s not easy to have a pair of generals who can become Daoist partners. Don’t let this good thing go wrong.”

Immortal Aunt Yaozhen said, “I can’t persuade him.”

Chaoyinzi frowned and said, “Are young people so impulsive?”

Immortal Aunt Yaozhen was not happy, and said, “Senior Sister, although General Ning is young, he is not impulsive. He said he can fight, so he can definitely fight.”

Swoosh!

Swoosh!

The two second-grade Heavenly Masters floated up and slowly rose above the lake in the evening wind and setting sun, leaving only the two painted boats below slowly approaching.

Ning Xuan walked out of the cabin of the painted boat.

The evening wind was vast, and the lake was sparkling.

He was in a good mood.

After he finished fighting this woman, he wanted to have a couple of drinks at night. He wanted to order some side dishes. They didn’t have to be big fish and big meat, but they had to be well-fried and well-cooked.

As for not being able to win…

Didn’t he still have the Ruyi Saber and the golden body statue? That woman said she wouldn’t use a weapon. At worst, he would just be shameless and use the Ruyi Saber to turn one into a thousand, and use the golden body statue to hide his form. He didn’t believe that he couldn’t solve the battle.

General Lu, you are still too arrogant.

However, from another perspective, it was normal. The girl was here to test whether he was qualified, not to use all her trump cards and fight to the death.

He looked at the painted boat not far away and did not speak, but just cupped his hands from a distance.

Then, he bent down, squatted on the edge of the painted boat, raised his hand to touch the water, and his five fingers swayed back and forth in the clear lake water that reflected the setting sun. Then he suddenly retracted them and pressed down.

With this press, the lake surface suddenly sank, as if it had been swallowed by a giant monster.

Instantly, the two painted boats were suspended in the air.

Swoosh!

Lu Xuezhi walked out. She stood in the air. This was the power of the demon pill she had swallowed, the demon art of the crane demon.

After she walked out, she actually cupped her hands towards Ning Xuan.

In this way, the two of them had both paid their respects.

The sinking of the lake water instantly caused the two sides to rise wildly, creating a huge wave like the vast sea.

The painted boat fell into the lake.

Ning Xuan took a step back and retreated into the water wave. He pushed out with his left palm, and with a sharp swallow’s cry, his power was released.

The lake water was not a treasure. Under his power, it instantly exploded into a water mist, but the exploded water mist accelerated and pushed horizontally towards the opposite side, scattering into an indiscriminate attack, and completely covering it.

Swoosh!

Lu Xuezhi suddenly pulled out an afterimage and suddenly appeared in front of him.

In mid-air, without any foothold or point of force, her body tilted slightly, and her right leg was raised at a dreamlike speed, turning into a sharp leg spear.

The long leg was straight as the body of the spear, and the beautiful and delicate tip of the foot turned into the tip of the spear.

The scarlet long dress was like a burning fire, and it was raised back. The spear pointed at Ning Xuan’s throat in an incredible way.

Thud!

The tip of the spear hit a fist.

Ning Xuan’s right fist had appeared in front of him at some point.

Time seemed to stand still. The two looked at each other, and as if they had a tacit understanding, their flesh and blood wriggled, and the second layer of power in them exploded.

Boom!!!

The first layer of power collided.

It formed a spreading wave of power.

Ning Xuan was about to continue to use his power, but he felt that the second layer of power from the opposite side was connected in a way that was extremely fast.

Thud!

This force was not heavy, but it was enough to kick Ning Xuan away at this moment.

Ning Xuan was kicked away, and his body lost its balance.

He turned into a meteor and “thudded” into the lake water that was rising behind him.

But Lu Xuezhi did not stop. Her face was expressionless, and her bangs were scattered.

Her long legs seemed to not need to stop. After the first leg, the second leg spear fiercely stabbed at his chest.

Her body was moving at a super high speed. Her first leg was her right leg, and her second leg was her left leg.

A chain of kicks!

This time, she was no longer just testing the waters. Each of her kicks contained a “dual power” similar to Ning Xuan’s “Swallow’s Union.” But the key was that after her dual kicking power, there was also a short and rapid small power, which was hard to guard against, like the tail of a scorpion, a poisonous snake turning its head.

Ning Xuan almost instantly realized… this woman had a martial arts inheritance, and it was an extraordinary martial arts inheritance. It was even very likely related to the sects that had disappeared a hundred years ago.

He fell into the water.

Lu Xuezhi followed him into the water.

Their hair was like water plants, dancing gracefully upwards.

Ning Xuan made a move, and another Swallow’s Union was blasted out.

Lu Xuezhi did not dodge. She was still approaching. In this time and space where time had almost been slowed down, Ning Xuan’s fist was already within half a zhang of her.

She suddenly raised her leg.

Her thigh went from bottom to top, and hit Ning Xuan’s forearm in the middle of the way.

But Ning Xuan was not a pushover either. The power of the Swallow’s Union was released as he wished, and he changed from rushing to falling.

Boom!

A violent impact, and a spreading impact ball was created in the lake water.

The next moment, the two were naturally separated by the force.

But, another accident happened.

The two were not separated, because Lu Xuezhi’s long legs were like a spirit snake, and with a twist and a wrap, they wrapped around Ning Xuan’s right arm.

A force when she twisted, and another force when she wrapped.

Just now, her leg was like a fierce and unparalleled long spear, but now it had become a soft sword. The sword wrapped around the enemy’s body, and the tip of the sword sealed the throat.

Ning Xuan, who was he?

In the nightmare world, he had rolled around in life and death again and again.

At this time, even if it was not a life-and-death battle, he could completely react to this kind of scene.

His arm’s power was released, and a Swallow’s Union on the left, and a Swallow’s Union on the right, met the force that had exploded in the short-range combat of the twist and wrap.

Boom! Boom!

Two more impact balls spread out on the lake surface.

At this time, he and Lu Xuezhi had already fallen into the water.

The two painted boats were also.

Before the painted boats had time to surface, they were completely blown up by the aftershocks of the two’s power.

The hull, the deck, and the cabin slowly showed cracks in a “slow time,” and slowly cracked.

Lu Xuezhi’s sword tip had already bypassed Ning Xuan’s defense and was pointing at his throat, like an assassin whose dagger was revealed at the end of the map, containing the power of destruction.

The next moment, a golden light suddenly appeared, and the water surface was suddenly propped open. Lu Xuezhi was shaken and flew back, flying out of the water surface, and with a roll, she landed on the palm of a golden body Bodhisattva that had already been extended.

The Bodhisattva broke out of the water, its golden light shining, more than ten zhang high, and it was holding the girl in red.

Lu Xuezhi’s red clothes were all wet, but with a shake, they all turned into a water mist and scattered. She raised her head and looked down, her eyes filled with frost and the arrogance of a martial artist.

The Bodhisattva opened its mouth and asked, “Did you hold back?”

Lu Xuezhi said, “Didn’t you only use your nature-attribute golden body at the end?”

Ning Xuan sincerely praised, “Amazing.”

Lu Xuezhi swept her gaze over him, and after a moment of recalling the appearance of the young man she had fought in the lake water, she replied calmly, “We’ll get married tonight.”