Unsheathed

The cold was biting when the snow finally started to melt.

They could either walk along the muddy official roads or the small and quiet roads that were blanketed in snow that were crunchy underfoot.

According to the estimations of several earth immortals in Bamboo Scroll Lake, the region would receive an even heavier bout of snowfall before the end of the year. Apart from Bamboo Scroll Lake, that one-in-one-hundred-year snowfall would also cover the Stone Brush Nation as well as several other vassal states of the Luminous Vermilion Empire. The vagrant cultivators from Bamboo Scroll Lake were naturally happy to see this, while the vassal states of the Luminous Vermilion Empire were most likely going to suffer.

However, it was anyone's guess whether the three bouts of heavy snowfall would slow down the southward march of the Great Li Empire's heavy cavalry and therefore win some time for the Luminous Vermilion Empire that was employing a scorched-earth policy for the first time since its founding.[1]

In any case, the unstoppable trend of the world was seemingly of little consequence to the ordinary lives of cultivators in the mountains. After all, the world could be separated into those in the mountains and those outside the mountains.

After deciding to stay the night in the Daoist enforcer temple, Zeng Ye went outside to collect some firewood before lighting up a small campfire.

Chen Ping'an was still wearing a thick cotton robe just like he had on Cyan Gorge Island. However, he was no longer carrying Sword Immortal on his back, and he was instead adopting the style that Pei Qian had invented, carrying both a sword and a saber on one hip. The saber was one that he had crafted from bamboo, while the sword was the Great Replica Qu Huang that he had purchased from Ape Crying Street.

Chen Ping'an and Zeng Ye ate some dry rations. This was Zeng Ye's first distant trip from home, so compared to the taciturn Chen Ping'an, the youthful Zeng Ye was inevitably feeling slightly excited. Even going through the border pass of the Stone Brush Nation and handing over the official documents from the ancestral hall of Cyan Gorge Island to the guards was a very new and interesting experience for Zeng Ye. It was just that he didn't dare to let his emotions show. There was clearly something weighing on Mr. Chen's mind, and Zeng Ye wasn't blind enough or stupid enough to not see this.

There was almost no conversation between the two of them.

When Chen Ping'an finished eating, he unfurled a geomantic map of the Stone Brush Nation that clearly marked out the states and provinces. The southern region of the Stone Brush Nation was still intact, and only a small number of scouts from the army of the Great Li Empire were wandering around this region. Chen Ping'an and Zeng Ye had come across these scouts on two separate occasions.

Even though the southern region of the Stone Brush Nation wasn't engulfed in the flames of war, signs of chaos had already started to spread. A good example of this was the Daoist enforcer temple where Chen Ping'an and Zeng Ye were staying in right now.