Supreme Emperor of Swords

“Morning, Head.” Ding Hao and the others quickly saluted.

Yin Zuimo, the head of the Heavenly Sound Valley, was a middle-aged beautiful woman who looked like she was only in her thirties. Her figure was graceful and her temperament, extraordinary. With beautiful hair worn in a bun and a light makeup, she looked well-mannered. She had an excellent maintenance. Her skin was as white as creamy. On the left side of her forehead, there was a red butterfly tattoo, which looked extremely enchanting and added some charm to that noble woman.

“Is he Ding Hao? The Heavenly Son of your Swordsmanship-seeking Sect who has amazing talent?” Yin Zuimo’s soft sight passed Ding Hao’s body with a hint of curiosity in those calm eyes.

That day, as soon as she returned from the Heaven Battlefield, she received news that the Piao Yao had been revived. Qin Ying, her junior sister, and Li Wushuang, her personal disciple, began to vividly describe what happened on the arena that day. Li Wushuang even tried to play the incomplete Questions and Answers of a Fisherman and a Woodman. Upon hearing it, Yin Zuimo was shocked.

After repeatedly confirming that the spirit of the zither had indeed been revived, Yin Zuimo didn’t blame her sister for making the promise to visit the Swordsmanship-seeking Mountain Villa that night on her behalf; instead, she couldn’t wait to head over.

When she arrived at the Swordsmanship-seeking Mountain Villa, she saw Li Jianyi, the Sword Intent King, and had a brief chat with him. She became a little anxious, because she didn’t see the genius Ding Hao. She proposed to walk in the villa, but in fact, she was moving all the way toward the Strolling in the Moon Palace.

She finally met Ding Hao halfway.

“Nice to meet you, Head Yin,” Ding Hao replied politely.

“You’re indeed a man of striking appearance, a dragon among men.” Yin Zuimo’s admiration was heard sincerely. She glanced over the scroll in Li Wushuang’s hands. Moved, she asked, “Is this the full score of the Questions and Answers of a Fisherman and a Woodman?”

“Yes, Head.” Li Wushuang passed it to her respectfully.

When Yin Zuimo listened to the incomplete version of the Questions and Answers of a Fisherman and a Woodman before, she was amazed for a long time; just like an addict who smelled the peerless wine fragrance, she was eager to see the magic of the full version of the song. And at the time, she immediately opened the scroll and watched it firmly, disregarding Li Jianyi and the others on the side.

The elders of the Swordsmanship-seeking Sect, including Li Jianyi, all had a smile on their faces.

In all honesty, they didn’t expect that Ding Hao could make such a big noise after just two contests between ordinary young disciples. With the single-minded practice of musical skills, the Heavenly Sound Valley valued the cultivation of mood and mind the most. What kind of divine music did Ding Hao make? One which was able to make Yin Zuimo, such a musical master, forget herself…

Thinking of the benefits gained from the assassination a few days prior, as well as the long-troubling challenge to form an alliance with the Heavenly Sound Valley that had been achieved due to Ding Hao, even Li Jianyi began to wonder if Ding Hao was really a blessing that heaven had bestowed upon the Swordsmanship-seeking Sect.

……

…

By the mirror lake, there was a quiet temple hidden between mountains and rivers. Made of blue bricks and green tiles, surrounded by fogs, it suffused a hermitic aura.

The scale of the temple was not small, covering a land of hundreds of acres, with waterside pavilions and majestic Buddha statues. Although it was late autumn, a strange power was enveloping the entire temple. The climate within the red wall was like spring. The pond was full of holy white lotuses swaying gently in the evening breeze. There were also vague Sanskrit sounds in the wind.

The Mahavira Hall located at the center of the temple was majestic and magnificent. As the core building of the temple, it had twelve floors and four eave corners; from each, a lamp with a Buddha statue was hanging. The faint bell tone came from the small square facing the Mahavira Hall.

There were more than thirty female nuns in black clothes standing quietly on the lotus blue bricks.

Among them, a young nun was sitting cross-legged on a Buddha futon, one of her hands making the Buddhist gesture and the other was erect before her chest to gently move the beads. Eyes closed; she looked solemn. She was a disciple of the Zero Thought Sect, the Sweet Sound Nun.

At the side of Sweet Sound, five kind-hearted white-browed old nuns were also sitting on the futons. Surrounded by the Buddhist halo, they possessed deep Qi in their bodies. Eyes closed, they were chanting the Buddha, and numerous golden Sanskrit characters were flying out from the mouths of the five. They were quickly spinning around Sweet Sound, trying to slowly penetrate into her body…

The surrounding nuns, older or younger, were watching the scene nervously.

Lei Tingchan, the Little Buddha was among them.

Suddenly—

The golden Sanskrit characters seemed to have suffered some terrible backstabs, and began to explode in the void, turning into a mass of golden flames. Then, they disappeared, and a vague Buddha image was projected from Sweet Sound’s body, about to cover the entire Mahavira Hall. The surrounding golden statues within a hundred meters all shivered slightly, even including the Buddha’s golden body inside the Mahavira Hall. Feeling the telepathic connection, it gave out a slightly golden Buddhist halo!

The five older white-browed nuns were all forced to shake and give a grunt.

For a long time, the Buddha image in Sweet Sound gradually dissipated, as if relapsed into a deep sleep.

“Amitabha!” The leading nun looked more than a hundred years old. She was the Head of the Zero Thought Sect, the Zero Thought Immortal Nun.

Her white eyebrows fell down to her cheeks, and her skin was wrinkled like a dry riverbed. She wore a black robe with hundreds of patches of different colors and different sizes. After chanting the Buddha, she opened her eyes and stood up, with shock in her cloudy eyes.

The other four old nuns were also shocked.

“What a profound Sutra. It’s not something that we can search. It actually led to a Buddhist vision, making the hundred Buddhas to resonance and to shine, which is what we can’t conjecture,” the Zero Thought Immortal Nun said while confused, “Is Ding Hao really the incarnation of an ancient Buddha? The Sutra he planted in Chaner’s body was striking enough to alert the Buddhist Holy Land. Even the Big Leiyin Temple has sent people here. Unexpectedly, the one he planted in Yiner’s body is even more incredible…”

“The Magic Skills of our Buddhism are all in a word ‘truth’. A Sutra is a Buddhist truth, a Buddhist doctrine. Many Buddhist saints, ancient Buddhas, and Bodhisattvas, in the long years of cultivation, realized the Buddha-nature of the heaven and earth to get a Sutra, which is the inheritance of their own mantle.” Another elder of the Zero Thought Sect sighed and said, “Chaner and Yiner are both deeply connected to the Buddha, that is why they can obtain such deep Sutras. With them, their future is limitless!”

“Ding Hao is not a Buddhist disciple, how did he know such Buddhist Sutras? Is he really the incarnation of an ancient Buddha? Or did he receive them from a certain ancient Buddhist heritage?” Another elder was also confused.

The Zero Thought Immortal Nun chanted the Buddha and said, “This matter involves the Swordsmanship-seeking Sect, and we can do nothing. Let’s wait for the arrival of the sage from the Big Leiyin Temple in the Western Desert, and then we’ll decide what to do. No matter what, our Buddhism pays attention to fate. Ding Hao is certainly a genius who has a great fate with our Buddhism. We must get on well with him, we can’t offend him.”

The others all replied loudly, “Yes, Head.”

After a moment of pause, the Zero Thought Immortal Nun said again, “Zero Heart, Zero Desire, Chaner and Yiner, follow me to the Swordsmanship-seeking Mountain Villa. Now that a chaos is approaching, we can’t wait and remain alone. We have to make a choice.”

Hearing that, the Zero Heart Immortal Nun was shocked, and then replied, “But the Tranquility Academy and Mu Tianyang…”

“Don’t worry. Ding Hao’s three Sutras are shocking and horrifying, which is the guidance of the Buddha. When the sage of the Big Leiyin Temple arrives, he will also agree with me. The world is unsteady like a tide. We can’t judge someone by the surface alone.” The Zero Thought Immortal Nun was adamant.

As the Head, since her attitude was so firm, the Zero Heart Immortal Nun no longer persuaded and nodded. She said, “Then, I’ll immediately ask a disciple to make an appointment.”

……

……

Yin Zuimo, the Head of the Heavenly Sound Valley, and her entourage stayed at the Swordsmanship-seeking Mountain Villa for an hour and then left.

During those days, since the chaos was prevailing, the movements of the major sects were extremely noticeable. So, they couldn’t stay there for too long.

But before their leaving, Yin Zuimo once again confirmed Ding Hao’s trip to the Heavenly Sound Valley after the Grading Meeting through Li Jianyi’s mouth. Ding Hao’s successively composing the two holy songs, the Moon Over a Fountain and the Questions and Answers of a Fisherman and a Woodman, made the Heavenly Sound Valley regard him as a Treasure Vault of hidden objects. They hoped to rely on him to realize the revival of the Heavenly Sound Valley.

Even Yin Zuimo, again and again, enthusiastically asked whether he had a marriage contract. Her locking eyes had frightened him.

It seemed that, if he was willing, he could choose any young female disciple of the Heavenly Sound Valley to be his Taoist partner to practice together, even including Li Wushuang, the most outstanding saintess of the sect. The previous tradition of the Heavenly Sound Valley that saintesses would never marry had already been broken.

But that was a helpless move made by Yin Zuimo.

Over the years of painstakingly governing the Heavenly Sound Valley, she had traveled almost all over Snow Province to look for talented disciples. Unfortunately, the hope of the sect’s revival appeared in a disciple of another sect. Letting him be a guest elder was not enough, but to recruit him as the son-in-law of the sect was a great idea. In addition to being so talented, Ding Hao was such a dragon among men; it was not a grievance for those beautiful girls in the valley to marry him…

Seeing Yin Zuimo and her entourage off, Ding Hao finally breathed a sigh of relief.

But before he returned to the Strolling in the Moon Palace, a disciple in the villa quickly reported that the Zero Thought Immortal Nun, the Head of the Zero Thought Sect, was visiting with her disciples Lei Tingchan and Sweet, including five more Buddhist experts.

Li Jianyi and Tang Folei threw each other a faint smile.

Yin Zuimo had just left, and the Zero Thought Immortal Nun was then at their door.

It seemed that both the Heavenly Sound Valley and the Zero Thought Sect had made a choice.

“Junior Brother Ding, you’re really the lucky star of our Swordsmanship-seeking Sect,” Li Jianyi praised sincerely, “To tell you the truth, the sect has gotten a lot of benefits from the assassination last time. You’ve done a lot and can obtain a quarter from them. The first batch of one thousand black crystals over Mid-Grade will be sent to the Strolling in the Moon Palace soon. Here’s a list of all the rare things of the Tranquility Academy and the Leiyin Sect. Mark those you want, and I’ll try my best to help you get them.”

Ding Hao took the list and was truly shaken.

Li Jianyi was really bold, having made such a list.

There was a total of more than 20 kinds of wonderful things and grasses. 99% of them were in the top five of the various lists in Snow Province. They were treasures that couldn’t be bought with money, such as the Turning into Dragon Pill, the God Praised Immortal Gold, the Light-splitting Heart Grass, the Taiyi Immortal Sand, etc. Most of them were cherished by the Tranquility Academy and the Leiyin Sect as their top treasures. Currently, Li Jianyi actually wanted to grab them from those two sects. Why was he so daring?

It was like pulling a tooth from the tiger’s mouth.

Ding Hao finally knew what the two sects would pay for the assassination that night.

It was simply a massive loss.

“Don’t hurry. This is only the first step. There are benefits you’ve never dreamed of waiting for you. Junior Brother Ding, you can take it back, select slowly and tell me when you make the choice.” Li Jianyi and Tang Folei turned around and left to receive the group of the Head of the Zero Thought Sect.

Ding Hao had quite a big grin on his face.

He had a lot of black crystals in the Black Serpent Ring, but many of the treasures on the list were materials he needed to refine the Black Lightning, the flying motorcycle, and the other cultivation and healing pills. That time, he could have a good discussion with the Saber Master and the Sword Master to make a good choice.

What a fortune he would gain!