One person: Starting with the Snow Drinking Blade

The courtyard was quiet. A bicycle bell rang out from the alley outside the wall, crisp and short, quickly carried away by the wind.

"Crazy?" Zhang Chulan lowered his voice, as if afraid of startling something. "A dragon that has lived for thousands of years...crazy?"

"Think about it," Li Muxuan's voice wasn't loud, but every word sounded as if it had been sanded clean, "a person has lived for thousands of years, watching the same sun rise and set from the same ridge for thousands of years on the same mountain, while all their kind around them disappeared one by one, until only they remained. At first, they could hold on with their duty and beliefs—they were the guardians of Kunlun Mountain, and they had something to protect. But day after day, year after year, duty became habit, habit became routine, and routine eventually left only a blank."

He picked up the cup of tea and drank it all in one gulp, wiping his lips with his thumb: "When you get to that point, you're either heartbroken or—the string inside you snaps. It's the latter. It starts to lose the distinction between guarding and territory, between visitors and intruders, and begins to see every life that enters the Kunlun Mountains as something that needs to be eliminated."

"Zhang Sanfeng has been here," Nie Lingfeng said.

"It came." Li Muxuan nodded. "And Zhang Sanfeng spoke with it. Given Zhang Sanfeng's cultivation and reputation at the time, he was probably the only person in the world who could quiet Zhu Jiuyou and make it listen to him. They talked for three days and three nights. No one knows the specific content of their conversation anymore, but the result is clear—after Zhang Sanfeng came out, he used the dragon vein energy of Kunlun Mountain to form a seal, sealing Zhu Jiuyou deep within that ten-thousand-year-old glacier."

"Why not just eliminate it directly?" Wang Ye stood against the wall, his hands tucked into his sleeves, his voice calm. "With Master Zhang's skill, he shouldn't be helpless if he wants to destroy a dragon."

"Because that dragon's duty shouldn't be erased." Li Muxuan's eyes suddenly hardened for a moment. "The dragon vein of Kunlun Mountain needs someone to watch over it; this is what it has been doing since ancient times. If it's destroyed, then those things that have been sleeping beneath this mountain range for countless years will be left unchecked. Zhang Sanfeng saw further than anyone else—he knew that Zhu Jiuyou was dangerous when it went mad, but he also knew that if that mountain range were completely left unprotected, the consequences would only be more uncontrollable. That's why he used the dragon vein as a seal, imprisoning Zhu Jiuyou inside, while allowing its power to continue indirectly maintaining the stability of the mountain range."

"And now?" Zhang Chulan leaned closer, his tone tightening. "The seal is loosened, it's about to break free. Is it still insane?"

Li Muxuan glanced at him, a complex look in his eyes. "Crazy. Crazier than four hundred years ago." He took a swig of wine. "Four hundred years without sunlight only adds another twist to an already broken string. It now hates Zhang Sanfeng, hates humanity, hates every mountain ridge where sunrise and sunset occur. The first thing it will do when it emerges won't be to open its arms and embrace the sky—it will use all the power it can muster to turn this entire mountain range upside down."

"That's the power Qu Tong wants." Nie Lingfeng steered the conversation back to the main point, his voice low but firmly capturing everyone's attention. "She located the sealing array's core beforehand, corroded its foundation using some method, and then waited at a safe distance. Her goal isn't Zhu Jiuyou itself, but the dragon vein power that overflowed when it broke free—if that power is successfully guided and absorbed by an external force, and falls into the hands of someone knowledgeable enough about arrays, it can accomplish far more than simply increasing cultivation."

Li Muxuan stopped holding the gourd. He slowly turned his head to look at Nie Lingfeng, his bronze hand gripping the neck of the gourd, his knuckles tightening slightly.

"You—already know that the array's core has been passively activated?" His voice carried a seriousness he hadn't shown before.

"I know. Zhu Jiuyou told me herself. It said someone was helping it tear the seal from the outside."

Li Muxuan took a breath and slowly exhaled, leaning back against the stone table. He looked up at the sky above, fragmented by the branches of the locust tree, and remained silent for a long time. No one present urged him. A gust of wind swept in from outside the courtyard gate, lifting a corner of an old newspaper spread out on the stone table.

"The person you're talking about is Qu Tong's person." He finally spoke again, his voice deeper than before, "But her people did more than one thing—while activating the array's core, they also set up a reverse-extraction array within an array on the other side of the mountain. The moment Zhu Jiuyou broke free of the seal, the overflowing dragon vein energy was automatically gathered by that array within an array, flowing along a pre-laid channel all the way into a container at the foot of the mountain."

"What container?" Lu Linglong pressed.

"I don't know. I haven't been close to that side." Li Muxuan shook his head. "But I saw several large sealed iron boxes among the supplies they brought in—I've seen those boxes once before, outside Behemoth's laboratory. They're containers for solidifying high-density Qi. If I'm not mistaken, Qu Tong's real goal isn't to infuse the dragon vein Qi into people, but to put it into containers and take it away. In other words, she never intended to use it on-site in the first place."

The atmosphere in the courtyard grew even heavier. Wang Ye pulled his hand out of his sleeve, a copper coin that had somehow appeared between his fingers, which he was unconsciously turning.

"How much time do we have left?" Wang Ye asked.

Li Muxuan held up three fingers, then bent one down.

"It's been less than two and a half days. From the time you saw it until now, a whole night and a morning have passed."

Nie Lingfeng stood up. He didn't rise quickly, but everyone else followed suit, like chairs being pulled up around a table at the same time.

"Senior Li, on which side is the entrance to that reverse extraction array?"

Li Muxuan looked at him, and after a while slowly spoke: "You want to dismantle the formation?"

"First, remove Qu Tongbu's net. Block her air intake, so even if Zhu Jiuyou comes out, she won't be able to get what she wants."

"And what about the dragon itself?" Li Muxuan pressed. "It will still come out."

Nie Lingfeng met his gaze for two seconds: "When Zhang Sanfeng sealed it away, he left a contingency plan."

Li Muxuan's pupils contracted slightly.

How did you know?

"Because someone like Zhang Sanfeng," Nie Lingfeng said, "wouldn't take the key to solving the whole problem to his grave after he's gone."

Li Muxuan leaned against the doorframe, his gaze lingering on Nie Lingfeng's face for a long while, as if weighing the weight behind those words. Then he raised the dark red gourd in his hand again and took the last swig. The gourd was empty, and he poured the contents out a couple of times, with only a few drops falling onto the stone table.

"You're right." He slowly stood up, supporting himself on the edge of the table, tied the empty gourd back to his waist, and dusted off the dirt on his clothes. "He definitely had a backup plan."

"What backup plan?"

Li Muxuan raised his head, his gaze passing over Nie Lingfeng's shoulder and landing on the Kunlun Mountains in the distance beyond the courtyard wall, obscured by the skyline of Xining City. The afternoon sun was shining obliquely from above, casting his shadow as a long, thin, dark line on the blue brick ground.

"A sword," he said.

"A sword named 'Zhenwu.' Zhang Sanfeng forged it himself, and after finishing it, he sank it into an icy pool on the north side of the main peak of Wudang Mountain. The notes say that the sword is sealed with a seal, specifically used to suppress the malevolent energy attached to the dragon vein of Zhujiuyou. As long as you have that sword in hand, when the sealing array is reactivated, insert it—the dragon vein can be stabilized again."

"Is that sword still there?" Nie Lingfeng asked.

"It should be there," Li Muxuan said, "but the problem is you have to get it first. The terrain in that area has changed a lot in the last ten years or so. I haven't seen it with my own eyes, so I can't give you an exact route map—but I can tell you the general direction."

After speaking, he took out a map of Wudang Mountain. "It's this area. The pool is at the base of the cliff. The water is extremely cold, abnormally cold—the pool itself is formed from a portion of the residual energy of the dragon vein that Zhang Sanfeng sealed with an array years ago. The sword is at the bottom of the water."

Zhang Chulan leaned closer to examine the hand-drawn map; the dense mountain lines and arrows made his head spin. "Are Qu Tong's men guarding that place?"

"I can't be sure." Li Muxuan shook his head. "But according to my calculations, the deployment point of the formation within a formation should still be in Kunlun. Most of their manpower will be concentrated on that side. Besides, it's not easy for them to get into Wudang."

Nie Lingfeng said, "Then let's go get the sword first, and then come back to deal with the dragon soul!"

Wang Ye said: Let me tell my master.

"No need, let's give them a surprise!"