“What castration? What are you even talking about?”
Yang Mi pushed the door open carrying a fruit platter, catching the tail end of Jiang Nian’s muttering. She couldn’t help but give him a suspicious look.
“Nothing, I just finished reading the script and got a little emotional, that’s all.”
Jiang Nian took a deep breath and pointed at Lin Pingzhi’s script.
“Oh, I see…” Yang Mi nodded knowingly, a quiet wave of relief washing over her. For a second there, she’d worried that she’d been asking for too much lately and that Jiang Nian was starting to feel resistant.
She picked up a piece of jackfruit from the platter with her fork. “Want some?”
“Nah, I’m heading out to the yard to practice some martial arts first.”
Ever since he and Yang Mi had made up a few days ago, she’d had him move into her villa. No more trudging all the way to the park just to train.
Yang Mi gave a little nod. “Alright, I’ll go watch some TV then.”
“Mm.”
Jiang Nian acknowledged her with a soft hum and headed out to the yard, where he began recalling the contents of the Evil-Warding Sword Art from Lin Pingzhi’s memories.
Aside from that catchy little line—“To master this divine art, one must first castrate oneself”—and the boastful claim that “at its peak, it reigns supreme under heaven,”
the actual cultivation incantation for the Evil-Warding Sword Art was only forty-eight characters long:
“The thirteen postures—never take them lightly. Sink your qi to the dantian. Let your heart follow the form, your intent rest on the sword’s tip. The waist is the lifeline. Motion born of stillness—strike with a single hand. The tailbone must align—energy channels down from the crown. The sword’s will connects with the heart; flesh and bone move as one.”
At first glance, it didn’t seem all that difficult.
Those forty-eight characters spelled out the essentials—just follow them, and you’d be fine.
That’s what Jiang Nian thought at first, too. But as he dug deeper into the practice, he slowly began to realize something was off.
There’s a saying that’s always gone around in Daxia: The fewer the words, the bigger the trouble!
And these forty-eight characters of the Evil-Warding Sword Art were a perfect example.
Sure, the author Jin Yong probably had no clue what any of it actually meant, nor how the sword art was supposed to be practiced—he’d written it purely to give the technique an air of mystique.
But the thing was, Jiang Nian had the system, and the system had absorbed the Evil-Warding Sword Art.
So those forty-eight characters that Jin Yong had casually tossed out became, after being processed through the system, incredibly complex and elusive.
“Is this because my comprehension isn’t high enough?”
Jiang Nian frowned—it seemed like a pretty plausible explanation.
After all, Lin Pingzhi’s required comprehension was 5, while he only had 3. He’d unlocked the character by force, so it made sense that he couldn’t quite grasp it now.
It couldn’t possibly be because he hadn’t castrated himself, right?
If the system strictly required him to follow the art’s original conditions, then back when he first practiced the Shaolin Boy’s Art, he’d have exploded on the spot—he wouldn’t even be alive right now.
The system patched up those flaws, so it definitely wasn’t that.
But if the issue was that his comprehension was too low to understand the technique…
Jiang Nian thought it over and decided to grit his teeth and keep at it anyway.
“I already paid for it.”
“I refuse to believe that with Lin Pingzhi’s memories in my head, I still can’t figure this out!”
He closed his eyes and immersed himself in Lin Pingzhi’s memories, studying them with painstaking detail.
Back at Mount Hua,
after his castration, Lin Pingzhi began trying to cultivate the Evil-Warding Sword Manual.
Though he’d only just started,
whether it was because Lin Pingzhi was naturally gifted or because the drive for vengeance fueled him,
he managed to get the hang of it in an astonishingly short amount of time.
Unlike Jiang Nian, who’d stared at it for ages and understood nothing,
Lin Pingzhi simply held the kasaya, pondered it carefully for a while, and unlocked its mysteries.
“The techniques from the Sunflower Manual are truly exquisite beyond compare!”
Lin Pingzhi murmured in excitement—and the sheer terror of the Evil-Warding Sword Art began to reveal itself.
With sword in hand, Lin Pingzhi struck with blinding speed, his movements wildly unpredictable.
Every move was bizarre to the extreme. At first glance, it looked like a single strike, but upon closer examination, it seemed to contain dozens of variations. Once you started deducing them, it became overwhelmingly intricate.
Jiang Nian couldn’t help but compare it to his own skills.
And then he realized—even though he’d maxed out all of Yu Huatian’s abilities and had received one-on-one training from him during his breakthrough,
if he were to go up against Lin Pingzhi, he wouldn’t stand a chance!
Not even three moves—Lin Pingzhi would only need one, and that unpredictable swordplay would slice him to ribbons.
Of course, that was assuming they were purely using swordsmanship.
If they brought internal energy into the mix, given Jiang Nian’s current level of inner power, even if he couldn’t win, he wouldn’t lose quite so miserably.
“Damn, that’s insane. The Evil-Warding Sword Art really is one of Jin Yong’s most top-tier martial arts!”
After making that comparison, Jiang Nian grew even more eager to master it, his resolve solidifying by the second.
So he kept watching, kept learning, kept experimenting, kept correcting.
He lost count of how many times he swung his sword.
All he knew was that the motion had become completely numbing.
The sound of slicing air never stopped. Every swing sent ripples of force through the air,
bending the flowers and plants Yang Mi had planted in the yard back and forth.
The rustling never ceased.
“Did the wind pick up?”
Hearing the commotion from the yard, Yang Mi stepped out curiously.
She was about to call the housekeeper to bring in the laundry and tend to her precious plants,
but then she spotted that the source of all this chaos was actually Jiang Nian.
Even though she already knew Jiang Nian tended to make quite a ruckus when practicing, she was still taken aback.
“He looks so impressive~”
Noticing that Jiang Nian seemed different from before, Yang Mi let out a surprised hum, genuinely amazed.
She didn’t interrupt him, just stood off to the side and watched.
She noticed that the sword technique Jiang Nian was practicing had incredibly strange moves.
And yet, at the most unexpected moments, he’d suddenly thrust forward, sending gusts of wind howling.
His swordplay grew faster and faster.
The gusts grew stronger and stronger.
Even though Yang Mi was several meters away, she could feel the fierce wind from his swings stinging her face.
It was absolutely unreal to her.
Martial arts this powerful actually existed in real life.
“Oh no, my flowers.”
But then, a sense of dread washed over her.
If even she felt uncomfortable from the wind Jiang Nian was kicking up, there was no way her precious flowers in the yard would fare any better.
She looked closely—and sure enough, many petals had already been blown off by the gale.
Yang Mi’s heart ached.
These flowers had cost her a fortune to import from abroad.
They were usually kept in the greenhouse, but since the weather had been so nice the past couple of days, she’d decided to bring them out for display. She never expected them to suffer such an unforeseen disaster.
She was about to step forward and stop Jiang Nian.
But just then—
“Whoosh—”
A strong gust swept through.
And then, the scattered petals, as if drawn by some unseen force, weren’t falling to the ground—they were swirling upward, drifting toward where Jiang Nian stood.
The cultivated, refined petals shimmered in all sorts of dazzling colors under the brilliant light.
Tiffany blue, Schönbrunn yellow, Titian red…
These breathtaking hues gathered like a rainbow at the tip of Jiang Nian’s sword, moving with it, flowing with it!
“!!!”
At the sight of this, Yang Mi froze completely.
Her eyes went wide, staring blankly at the scene before her, her face a mask of sheer astonishment.
For a moment, she even forgot to mourn her flowers.
As for Jiang Nian, who was completely absorbed in his training—he had no idea.
All he noticed was that in the blink of an eye, the sky had gone from day to night.
Even as a first-rate martial artist with formidable internal energy and physical condition, he was now too exhausted to even lift his arms.
The reason for that, when it came down to it, was that the Evil-Warding Sword Art placed an enormous strain on the body.
But at the same time, it also gave Jiang Nian a great deal in return.
So after finishing his practice, he pulled out a notebook and started jotting down new insights.
——
Time flew by.
In the blink of an eye, a week had passed. Jiang Nian had already filled an entire notebook just recording the key training points for the Evil-Warding Sword Art.
His efforts paid off.
Finally, on this particular afternoon—
[Proficiency +1]
[Evil-Warding Sword Art «Unranked» (1/10)]
“Yes! I finally freaking did it!”
Hearing the system’s notification, Jiang Nian was overjoyed.
Hearing him from inside, Yang Mi walked out with a puzzled look. “Did what?”
“I mastered the martial art!”
Jiang Nian let out a long breath and said.
He felt as cheerful as a kid greeting the New Year’s morning in his birthday suit.
Two words summed it up perfectly: satisfying!
Even better, Jiang Nian had confirmed one thing—you didn’t need to castrate yourself to practice it!
Yang Mi didn’t really get it.
But she could tell Jiang Nian was thrilled, so she suggested, “Wanna celebrate?”
“Celebrate! Absolutely!”
Jiang Nian beamed, then swept Yang Mi off her feet and carried her inside.
After he’d put his clothes back on, thoroughly content…
Suddenly—
[Proficiency -1]
[Evil-Warding Sword Art «Unranked» (0/10)]
The system notification dropped.
The smile on Jiang Nian’s face froze mid-air.
“???”
“Wait, hold on—what the hell is this?! Where’s my proficiency?!”
“Why did it reset to zero?!”
“You’re scamming me out of my proficiency, aren’t you?!”
Seeing that notification, Jiang Nian truly lost it.
He’d already been stuck with only 1 proficiency per training session because he’d force-unlocked Lin Pingzhi.
But how could the proficiency decrease?!
Then what was all that grueling practice he’d done before?
What, did it count as him just having too much energy and stamina to burn?!
“The hell is going on?”
“Did I mess something up?”
After a brief moment of bafflement, Jiang Nian started to seriously think about what was happening.
The system was endlessly useful—everything Jiang Nian had achieved so far was thanks to it.
They were in this together.
There was no reason for the system to just arbitrarily deduct his proficiency.
And since the system wasn’t sabotaging him,
there was only one possibility left—the martial art itself!
“Is it a problem with the technique?”
Jiang Nian muttered in surprise, then quickly focused his mind. After a moment, sure enough, he spotted something fishy within the Evil-Warding Sword Art!
