Beichen Sword Sect's Headmaster's Secret Records

Chapter 361 Refugees
He watched as the peerless sword circled three times in the sky before slowly landing in front of him, its light shimmering and its soft, mournful cry echoing as if it were showing him affection.

Huangfu Yi was momentarily lost in thought, clearly feeling the mutual attraction between himself and the sword, as if an invisible thread was connecting his brow to the hilt of the sword, as if they knew each other.

Even within his inner Qi Sea, the two external true Qi that had been fiercely battling like dragons and snakes, churning and entangled in his lungs and meridians, seemed to be intimidated by the sword's pressure. They immediately separated, shrinking into clusters like hedgehogs, locking together in his lungs and dantian, locked in a stalemate. There was even a hint of them joining forces, clearly showing their wariness towards the divine weapon that was tugging at his brow and faintly whistling within Huangfu Yi's divine court.

This is destiny...

"It really is a flying sword..."

Ren Feiluan was also fortunate to have the opportunity to witness such a sharp and divine weapon for the first time thanks to Huangfuyi, and he couldn't help but look envious.

After all, who wouldn't love a celestial treasure, especially a divine weapon like a celestial sword, crafted specifically for battles between immortals? It's just a pity that the fate of mortals is like a candle flickering in the wind; a gust of evil wind like that just now could easily extinguish countless mortals. Getting too close to such a blazing fire will only lead to self-immolation.

Ren Feiluan then came to her senses, looked at her fallen comrades, bit her lip, and pointed to the southwest.

“That evil Taoist flew over there. If you are truly capable, cut off his head and bring it back to offer as a sacrifice to our fallen brothers.”

"it is good."

Without further ado, Huangfu Yi took up his flying sword, led a horse, and galloped out of the camp, heading straight southwest.

Needless to say, Pei Yuhan is the true apple of the Pei family's eye. To secure a chance at immortality for her, her father was even willing to give up a flying sword. If she were lost or died, her whereabouts unknown and her fate uncertain, how could the Pei family possibly let her live alone?
Moreover, the evil Taoist priest had driven demons to commit violence and harm, killing countless people, which had aroused Huangfu Yi's anger. He immediately disregarded everything else and relied on his flying sword to follow closely behind, probing the black wind in the sky and the remaining demonic aura, chasing after him, afraid that if he was even a little late, the evil Taoist priest would escape and disappear without a trace.

Fortunately, tracking demons was a skill that Huangfu Yi had mastered, and the flying techniques of cultivators did indeed leave traces.

After all, although the mountain man's escape technique is extremely fast and far-reaching, making him impossible to catch, the true essence of escape techniques is rarely known, and it is a secret to escaping in combat, so few people use it for daily travel.

Ordinary cultivators, if they do not have mounts or magical treasures to ride, usually fly through the air by riding clouds and controlling qi. However, excluding a very small number of colorless and soundless Dao qi, most cultivators will leave behind colorful smoke and mist when they fly, which are very easy to distinguish.

So Huangfu Yi rode after them on horseback and soon caught up with their whereabouts.

Previously, that evil Taoist priest had concealed his identity as a cultivator by wearing a mask and hiding his true form, using the demonic wind of the bat demon to launch a sneak attack. Now that he had succeeded, he first used the demonic wind to escape ten miles to the southwest, and then quietly changed to a wisp of yellow smoke, running straight to the southeast. He was quite careful.

The demon probably didn't expect that among the trash he had casually wiped out, there would be someone who would dare to chase after him so quickly and seek death. Therefore, he didn't bother to hide his whereabouts by escaping underground or anything like that. Huangfu Yi secretly followed him and gradually closed the distance.

They chased each other for a day and a night, until they emerged from the forest and saw settlements of people on the plains. It was probably a village or town that the yellow smoke finally stopped to rest. It must have needed to drink some water and catch its breath after flying for so long.

So Huangfu Yi wrapped his sword in his cloak, held it tightly to his chest, and spurred his horse straight toward the populated area, circling around to assess the situation first. What he saw shocked him.

Goodness, there are so many people.

Looking out over the hill, all I could see was a dense, overwhelming mass of people. They were a dark, swarming mass, like ants covering the hills, obscuring even the horizon.

Where did this army come from? Why are they marching and setting up camp without even setting up a stockade or raising a flag?

So Huangfu Yi inspected the area again carefully and realized, well, they weren't regular troops, they were a group of refugees.

In those chaotic times, with bandits, rebels, and monsters everywhere, anyone without some skill or protection, without having thirty or fifty guards or a caravan of several hundred people traveling together, would be courting death if they rode alone. Refugees fleeing famine and begging for survival would naturally band together, bringing their families along, and follow the crowds of refugees, going wherever there were the most people.

It's not that everyone is a refugee and everyone will lend a hand, but if there are enough people around, when being chased by bandits, thieves, or demons, you don't need to outrun horses or demonic winds; you just need to outrun the unfortunate souls around you. Even if a demon is terrifying and can eat a hundred people in one meal, with thousands of people here to feed it, it's not going to be stupid enough to eat itself to death.

Thus, under such a poor, miserable, yet practical survival strategy, the number of refugees would grow larger and larger, sometimes reaching tens of thousands. Occasionally, they would band together to become bandits, attacking prefectures and counties to plunder grain and military pay. It was common for them to be eventually wiped out by troops sent by local warlords. At least half of the Huangfu family's military strategy was about suppressing such bandits, so Huangfu Yi was naturally very familiar with it.

What? Why would you join a rebellion? Can't you go to the city to work? Are you kidding me? Do you think we live in an era of urbanization?

Besides, the city guards aren't blind. They might not dare to recognize the real evil spirits, but surely they can see that you're an honest but incompetent person?

These days, if you're incompetent, you deserve to be killed. If you dare to enter the city, they really will dare to chop off your head with a single blow, make you the leader of the bandits, and throw your body into the moat and roadside ditch to feed the dogs.

Those who could live in high-walled compounds were either soldiers or bandits. Those with families, relatives, friends to rely on, abilities, strength, and even a bit of beauty would never have fallen to such a state; they would have been captured and divided up by various forces long ago.

The remaining old, weak, sick, and disabled were, frankly, unwanted trash. Besides wasting food and energy, they were utterly useless, destitute wretches with no right to enter the city or village, not even to be robbed by bandits. They were left to be slaughtered, driven away, and devoured by various evil spirits and heretics, wandering aimlessly through the mountains like headless flies.

At this time, the army of refugees was stationed outside the forest, and it appeared that they were clearing land, logging, hunting, and farming. Because there were so many of them, they had cleared almost all the nearby mountains.

There's no other way; people will die if they don't eat. It's currently mid-summer to early autumn, the weather is warm, the mountains and forests are lush with vegetation, and monsters roam freely—it's the perfect time to gather food. Otherwise, when it gets cold and the monster tide sweeps south, and the chaotic battles rage, wouldn't everyone starve to death without winter reserves?

After observing for a while, Huangfu Yi thought for a moment, then dismounted, untied the saddle and reins, and let the horse go. He covered his cloak with dust, picked up a bundle of branches, and hid the flying sword in his arms before blending into the crowd and infiltrating the refugee army.

There were refugees everywhere, and no one paid him much attention, which allowed Huangfuyi to sneak into the camp smoothly.

Judging from their accents, these people are from Gen Kingdom; they probably couldn't make a living there anymore.

In fact, there are refugees every year and in every place. Natural disasters, famines, man-made disasters, and monster tides make ordinary people, whose lives are like mayflies, living only a day and dying at night, too easily fall into the situation of losing their families and homes, leaving their hometowns, and fleeing to beg for a living.

However, the country of Gen was relatively prosperous in the past. Even if the people in the border areas suffered from war, were plundered by the northern barbarians, encountered famine and poor harvests, or were beset by monsters, the refugees could still escape to the towns in the south to beg for food. If they were lucky, they could find a place to cultivate the land or sell themselves to powerful landlords to make a living.

If such groups of refugees were to grow to thousands or tens of thousands, the local government would inevitably react and organize a reactionary alliance of powerful clans, gentry, and landlords. Whether it was to pacify or suppress them, some rules would be established to prevent a group of lowly people from roaming around, polluting the environment, disturbing the gentry's enjoyment, ruining crops, and delaying the following year's harvest.

But now the South is also suffering from war. The Northern army has been in rebellion for sixty years, ravaging the world, killing without end, and not engaging in production. Even the local powerful families are struggling to survive, let alone ordinary people.

The chaotic soldiers under Shi Jiao's command were even more terrifying than demons when they killed people. Demons, in the end, only wanted to fill their stomachs; once they were full, they would defecate. But the Hu cavalry and wolf soldiers dragged the elderly by their horse tails, impaled infants on spear tips, and hung women on targets to shoot—that was purely for fun. Which was more terrifying? Of course, it was humans.

In addition, the frequent wars between the regional military governors in recent years have led to the breaching of dikes and the flooding of cities. Furthermore, demons have entered the world, and countless dragons and snakes have taken advantage of the chaos to become spirits and build nests, breaching the river defense dikes and causing frequent floods in the Gen River. Each flood has resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of people and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of others.

As famine and war worsened, no matter how many people gathered, it was impossible to swim across the Gen River to the land of Henan. As a result, more and more people wandered around Genzhou, causing chaos, looting and begging for food. Driven by hunger and death, they even managed to brave the attacks of demons, cross towering mountains and the Xuan Nu Mountain Range, and wander into Qianzhou to seek survival.

Huangfu Yi was momentarily confused.

To be honest, although he grew up in the freezing cold, lost his parents at a young age, and relied on the charity of others for survival, he had no wealthy background whatsoever. However, he received a military aristocratic education. Every day, he practiced martial arts, diligently trained in boxing and gymnastics, and studied military texts. Whenever he thinks back, he remembers the words his uncles and elders used to say every day: slay demons and monsters, bring glory to the family, be ennobled and appointed generals, and serve the court.

Therefore, Huangfu Yi and the Pei family are roughly on the same page. That's why he accepted their invitation and went to such lengths to rescue the young lady of the Pei family.

But when the boy stepped over the refugees' shacks and saw the corpses of the starving everywhere, and smelled the stench of the sick and rotting old and weak, he was momentarily lost in confusion, as if something in his heart had been shaken.

Exorcising demons...

But the demons are still sealed off outside the pass by the immortals of Emei. Can these people's current predicament really be blamed on the demons...? "A wise teacher! A wise teacher!"

"The wise teacher is back!"

Suddenly, the crowd around them, who had been on the verge of death and had been lifeless, came to life. As if the dead had risen from the ground, they suddenly got up and burst out with an incredible will to survive. The crowd surged up and rushed towards the east.

Huangfu Yi was startled and turned his head to look. He saw streaks of yellow energy coming from the horizon, covering the sky and the sun. The golden light was dazzling and the sky was full of rosy clouds, as bright as the ears of wheat in the rice field and as bright as the morning sun. It almost covered the clear sky in the east, creating a strange phenomenon as if two suns were descending from the sky!

This! A monster!? A demon god!?

Huangfu Yi was greatly surprised. He could clearly see that the golden light and yellow energy that was emanating was similar to the escape technique used by the evil Taoist priest before. However, the scale and range of the energy were simply terrifying!
No way! That Core Formation stage cultivator was already this powerful! Could this be their sect leader, a Nascent Soul stage being?!
Huangfu Yi was filled with trepidation, but he still took a deep breath, held the Yao Guang Sword Talisman in his hand, hugged the sword to his chest, and squeezed through the crowd to watch.

From a distance, one could see the crowd parting to make way for a large open space, kneeling around the hill and chanting praises to their wise teacher.

At the foot of the hill, a group of yellow-robed cultivators were maintaining order, while on the hillside sat a yellow-robed Taoist priest, his body shrouded in yellow qi, making it difficult to see his face. However, golden light was clearly piercing the sky above him, fluttering like a flag. All the golden clouds in the sky were released by this Taoist priest.

What are they doing? Are they performing a ritual?
The surrounding refugees stopped and watched the Taoist priest Huangfu Yi for a moment.

The Taoist priest appears to be treating someone's illness.

It really was a medical consultation. Sitting among thousands of refugees, every now and then, a yellow-robed man, who looked like a disciple or servant, would bring up people who looked quite ill, and they would line up to ask the yellow-robed Taoist to treat them and take their pulses.

The other men in yellow robes formed a circle and distributed talismans, meat broth, rice porridge, and herbs to the crowd that gathered around them.

Is it that cultivators are engaging in worldly cultivation, providing medical care and medicine, and accumulating good karma? Or are they using this opportunity to examine everyone's potential and select those with a destiny for immortality...?

Huangfu Yi watched for a while. He had never seriously cultivated immortality and couldn't recognize what kind of talisman the other party was using. However, the patients swallowed the talisman water with thin porridge, their faces were flushed, and their spirits visibly improved, so there seemed to be no problem.

Seeing the refugees kneeling on the ground, kowtowing in gratitude for the great kindness of their wise teacher, it seemed that the teacher's influence was indeed somewhat effective. He also understood why this group of refugees had been able to stay together and even cross the Xuan Nu Mountain to get here.

Regardless, these people did do some good deeds; otherwise, many of the refugees here probably wouldn't have survived to this day. However, it's unclear what grudge they held against the Pei family, or why they kidnapped their young lady…

"Hmm? Sniff, sniff..."

Suddenly, a yellow-robed Taoist priest who had been casting talisman water nearby frowned, seemingly smelling something strange. He shrugged like a dog and approached Huangfu Yi.

Huangfu Yi was startled, not knowing where he had slipped up. While hiding in the crowd, he couldn't help but sniff his clothes.

No problem. After chasing for a whole day and night, I was covered in sweat and even rolled around on the ground to cover up the smell... Hmm?

Then he smelled it too, coming from behind him, a sweet scent of candied fruit...

"call"

The next instant, as if pricked by needles, Huangfu Yi followed the crowd in front of him, lowered his body, and knelt down.

"boom!"

The next instant, a palm strike came from behind, grazing his scalp and catching the yellow-robed cultivator off guard! A direct hit! Half of him was shattered in the waist and chest! Along with the surrounding refugees, they were all caught in the blast and instantly reduced to a shower of minced meat!

"Zhi!"

In that instant, without the slightest hesitation, the young man stretched out his arm and flicked the short sword hidden in his bosom behind him! A flash of light appeared in the air, and the sword pierced out from under his armpit, heading straight for the face of the person who had been stealthily attacking from behind!

"call!"

The man remained silent and invisible, but suddenly shifted his position, instantly creating a gust of wind! He dodged the sword thrust as if he had teleported and flashed in place! At the same time, his palm force changed instantly, and with a clench of his five fingers, the palm wind that had just shattered the man was reversed!

"Wow!"

The limbs and flesh that had just been scattered and exploded into the air were all crushed by this harmful power! The palm wind, wrapped in blood and flesh, condensed like a wall of qi and smashed down on him! In an instant, it came head-on as if a rain of blood had fallen! It drenched the boy from head to toe! It sent him flying!

"Ah!"

However, Huangfu Yi possessed a century's worth of internal energy protecting him! Although struck by the force of the palm strike, feeling as if he had been run over by a carriage, he still managed to withstand it with all his might! He even used the force against him! In an instant, he unleashed a flying sword thrust! He simply slapped the sword talisman in his palm onto the sword in his hand! Instantly, the sword light flashed! The Yao Guang Sword was unleashed!
With a flick of Huangfu Yi's wrist, two sword flowers burst forth! The two swords combined in a single strike! They clashed directly at the sweet fragrance in the air! Amidst the flashing sword light, it was as if a sword were cutting through water! It pierced the air, tearing through layers of water mirrors! It even shattered the opponent's illusionary invisibility technique! It forced the masked man to reveal himself!

"The Sword of Exorcism!!"

"Mysterious Yuan Break!!"

The young man before him wielded his divine weapon with fierce determination! His blade energy surged like the wind! Sword light protected him! Even the mere glint of his sword could pierce through his protective true qi. The masked man, still holding Pei Yuhan with a talisman on her head, dared not be careless! Not only was he forced to reveal himself, but he was also targeted by the sword light and compelled to unleash his true secret technique! He inhaled and gathered power! A finger pierced the air! Mystic waves surged! He would shatter the sword light!
"Oh!"

This attack, a beam of profound energy, was unleashed! It was infused with the masked man's life's worth of power! The power concentrated in one point was simply terrifying! Even with a century's worth of internal energy protecting him, Huangfu Yi couldn't withstand it! With just one strike, his flying sword was knocked out of his hand! His shinbone snapped, and his arm bones shattered! He was sent flying backward!

"die!"

However, at this critical moment, the masked man struck again, about to kill Huangfu Yi on the spot!

Suddenly, a hand grabbed the masked man's wrist from the side. Another hand supported his arm, neutralizing the force from Huangfu Yi's body and catching him as well.

Huangfu Yi was beaten so badly that his blood and qi were churning, he was dizzy and in excruciating pain all over his body, and he almost fainted in the blink of an eye.

The masked man was surprised that he was so easily captured, and that he was unable to move after being torn apart. He was shocked and angry, and glared at the yellow-robed Taoist who was holding him.

"Demonic path! Let go!"

"Shh!"

Then, with a flash of light and a swirling sword beam, the man's head was severed by the flying sword.

So the Taoist in yellow looked at him and loosened his grip.

The headless corpse collapsed to the ground, its head rolling around like a ball, tumbling down the hillside into the dust.

(End of this chapter)