Chapter 173: The Protagonist (11)

A chubby little child, with short arms and legs, stood waving a toy wooden sword that was longer than she was tall. There wasn’t a trace of menace in her, only overwhelming cuteness.

The new disciples watched Qian’s swordplay, murmuring in confusion.

“Is Little Junior Sister’s Heavenly Evolution Sword Art… a little strange? It’s not like what we’ve been taught.”

“Did she get it wrong?”

Qian’s ears were sharp. The moment she heard someone say her movements seemed off, she reacted like a cat whose tail had just been stepped on. Whipping her head around, she declared, “I didn’t get it wrong! My mother taught me this!”

Everyone had already heard that she was Gongxi Yue’s daughter. Their hearts still hadn’t calmed from the excitement of that news, and now seeing her speak with such righteous conviction, earnestly explaining herself in that serious little tone, a wave of doubt swept through the crowd.

That’s right—she’s the biological daughter of the genius Lonely Moon Sword Monarch, personally taught from a young age. How could she possibly get even the sect’s basic Heavenly Evolution Sword Art wrong?

Either they had all learned it wrong, and Little Junior Sister’s way was the correct one… or Little Junior Sister was practicing some incredible secret version!

And so, one by one, the disciples humbly sought her guidance. Before long, under Qian’s completely mistaken instruction, everyone’s sword forms started going askew.

One after another, all of them went off track.

And Qian, ever eager to play the teacher, would rush over to correct anyone whose stance she deemed “wrong.”

“You have to swing like this! Turn your foot here! Hold your wrist like this!”

She patted the leg of a Senior Disciple in front of her, then stood on tiptoe to grab and adjust his sword-wielding wrist. After this flurry of utterly misleading adjustments, she transformed his once-standard posture into an unrecognizable mess.

The disciple’s face flickered with hesitation. He opened his mouth as if to speak but held back. It just didn’t feel right… but seeing Little Junior Sister’s confident and stern expression, he didn’t dare question her. He could only think: such a young girl, and already showing signs of inheriting her mother’s fearsome presence.

And indeed, Qian was imitating her mother’s usual sword-teaching demeanor down to the letter.

Be fierce!

Qian patted her own cheeks, internalizing her mother’s expressions and mannerisms with startling precision—the only area where her learning ability could truly be called exceptional.

By the time Duan Yuanlang finished training the older disciples next door and came over to check on the new ones, he was greeted with the sight of the once-promising group now completely in shambles.

And at the center of it all, enthusiastically offering “guidance,” was Qian.

The moment Qian saw him, she ran over and tugged at his robe, looking up at him with wide, pleading eyes. “Second Martial Uncle!”

“They all have real swords. I don’t want to use a wooden one.” The child dragged her wooden sword along the ground as she spoke.

It was Gongxi Yue’s decision that Qian wasn’t allowed to use real swords. After multiple failed attempts to properly teach Qian how to handle one—first once, then twice, three times, four—this genius sword cultivator finally locked up her entire personal sword vault in a fit of frustration, declaring: “Until you learn proper swordsmanship, you’re not worthy of using a real sword.”

Not only was Qian barred from her mother’s sword collection, but she wasn’t even allowed into her master Jing Lingzhao’s sword vault. Gongxi Yue had also sternly instructed everyone else: under no circumstances was anyone to give Qian a real sword.

But children are like that—the more you forbid something, the more they want it.

Qian had grown up wanting for nothing, spoiled by a whole circle of doting elders. Now, seeing everyone around her with their own swords while she alone was left with a wooden toy made by her Second Martial Uncle to placate her, the unfairness gnawed at her.

In her little heart, this wooden thing wasn’t a real sword at all.

So she often pestered for a real one. Whenever her mother wasn’t around, she would chase after anyone she could and beg for their sword.

From her Grandmaster and Great Uncle Jing Lingzhao’s famed life-bound sword “Youling,” all the way down to random junior sisters’ standard-issue blades from the Artifact Hall—none were safe from her attempts.

Of all the swords in the sect, Duan Yuanlang’s sword, “Wangshu,” was the one she badgered for most frequently.

He’d been scolded more than once about this by the Senior Sister he admired, yet every time the child clung pitifully to his leg, Duan Yuanlang couldn’t bring himself to refuse.

His hand drifted to the sword strapped at his waist. With practiced ease, he unfastened it and handed it over to the bright-eyed, expectant child.

Qian snatched it up without hesitation, shoved her wooden sword into Duan Yuanlang’s hands in exchange, and happily dragged his real sword back to the cluster of new disciples, eager to play swords with them.

Every spiritual sword, once its master achieved Sword Heart, would awaken with its own sword spirit. Duan Yuanlang’s “Wangshu” was no exception.

Whenever the blade was drawn, it carried the sensation of a full moon rising into the night sky—cool, gentle, and luminous.

Surrounded by the disciples, Qian kept drawing the sword out, then sheathing it again. Out, then in. Out, then in.

With every metallic clang-clang of the blade leaving its scabbard, the surrounding disciples burst into fresh waves of amazed gasps.

In the midst of this joyful play, Qian suddenly heard a voice drift over from afar—chill as ice against her ears.

“Gongxi Qian.”

Whenever a mother called her child by their full name, everyone within earshot instinctively sensed trouble brewing.

Qian’s eyes went wide and round in an instant. Like a wary little animal, she poked her head out from the crowd.

Upon seeing the slender figure just landing at the edge of the cliff, she immediately burst out of the group of disciples. Her two short legs pumped as fast as they could go as she rushed over, shoving the real sword back into Duan Yuanlang’s arms and quickly snatching up her wooden one.

Then, hiding both hands behind her back, she stood there pretending as though absolutely nothing had happened, looking up innocently at the approaching Gongxi Yue.

Holding his own sword again, Duan Yuanlang stood awkwardly at Qian’s side, scratching his head as he muttered, “Senior Sister, just let it go, let it go.”

Gongxi Yue shot him a glare. “Step aside.”

Duan Yuanlang immediately dropped his head and shuffled a few steps away, giving Qian a worried, sympathetic look.

Qian, facing her mother’s sharp gaze, lunged forward and hugged her leg, rubbing her head against it.

“Mother, I missed you so much. I haven’t seen you in days.”

Resting her chin on Gongxi Yue’s knee, she tilted her head to look up, cheeks squished round and puffy, her little body wriggling as she spoke, sticky and clingy as ever.

As the sect’s chief disciple, Gongxi Yue had endless duties requiring her presence. Just days ago, she had led a team to eliminate a particularly fierce beast. Having finished the task early, she returned ahead of schedule.

While she’d been away, the child had been left in her master’s Zhaoming Palace to be looked after. As soon as she got back, she went there to pick her up.

But when she entered the room, the child was nowhere to be found. Not a single character of the homework she had left behind had been touched.

Gongxi Yue had instructed her master to make sure Qian got up early every morning for sword practice. Yet upon asking, she learned that hadn’t happened either.

When questioned, her master simply said that the child had been staying up late and couldn’t wake up in the mornings… so they hadn’t forced her to practice at all.

When asked why she stayed up so late at night—what had she been doing? Oh, it turned out she’d been pestering her Junior Sisters to sneak down to the market at the foot of the mountain to play, refusing to come back until deep into the night.

…

The moment she left, the child became utterly unmanageable. Not a single person around could keep her in check. Gongxi Yue had lost count of how many times she felt like this little one was dragging her down.

“Oh? You missed me? Then did you happen to think of the homework and tasks I left for you?” Gongxi Yue pinched her daughter’s chubby little cheeks—so similar to her own—her tone icy.

Qian rubbed her fingers together, let out a guilty little grunt, then hurriedly lifted her wooden sword and said, “I practiced swordplay with them.”

“Did you now? Then let me see how you’ve all been practicing.” Gongxi Yue hugged her sword and motioned for Qian to stand among the disciples and demonstrate.

The other disciples were thrilled, their spirits high as they earnestly recalled the instructions Little Martial Sister had just given them, determined to show the Lonely Moon Sword Monarch their swordsmanship talent.

Gongxi Yue, however, took one look at the group’s utterly bizarre postures and couldn’t help but close her eyes.

She already had a strong suspicion of what had happened, but still she asked, “Who taught you all this?”

All the disciples turned in unison to stare at Qian.

The culprit was still smiling at her—adorable and full of feigned innocence.

In the end, after personally correcting every disciple’s sword form, Gongxi Yue picked up the child by the collar and carried her off.

The child’s wails echoed across several nearby peaks as she clutched her backside.

With teardrops still clinging to her eyelashes, her voice trembled with lingering sobs as she sat on her Granduncle’s knee, gnawing on a cloud cake. After two bites, she pitifully patted her sore bottom and whimpered, “Mama… hit me… my butt…”

Jing Lingzhao, holding a plate of cloud cakes, patted her little head. “How could your mother hit you?”

“She wouldn’t… let me eat…” Qian’s little chest heaved, insisting on filing her grievance.

“How could she not let you eat?” Granduncle said again, full of tender concern.

“Shifu.” Gongxi Yue stood in the doorway, looking at the two of them with an expression dark and deep as a well.

The two—one big, one small—who’d just been complaining moments before, immediately fell silent, both casting guilty glances her way. One was obviously guilty, the other not so much.

The not-so-guilty one even put on airs. “Qian is still so young. How could you punish her over something like sword practice? I’ll teach her myself.”

Gongxi Yue had long wanted to hand this matter over to her master, but was he really teaching the child swordsmanship? No—he was using that as an excuse to take her to play in the sword vault! Accompanying her to play was all he was doing!

Qian wielded her sword like it was a stick. Gongxi Yue had once placed her hopes on her master, hoping he could help correct the child’s terrible form—but no matter what they did, the child wouldn’t learn.

In the end, her master even said: “Why does she have to use the sword like a sword? She can create her own stick-style sword technique.”

Gongxi Yue: Master, do you even hear yourself right now?

Jing Lingzhao: I’m a Sword Immortal. Do you really think you know better than I do?

With an overindulgent grandparent figure—who only got more unreasonable with age—hovering overhead, Gongxi Yue, already not the best at teaching children, felt her burden multiply.

And the worst part? This wasn’t the only overindulgent elder she had to deal with.

Ever since Qian was born, every New Year, the Gongxi Family back home would start urging Gongxi Yue well in advance to bring the child back.

At first, they still coaxed her, asking her to bring the child home with her. Later, they dropped all pretense and bluntly said, if she really didn’t have time to return, just send the child back alone.

One year, her Uncle Gongxi Yao personally came to pick Qian up, and Gongxi Yue, with no other choice, relented and let him take the child home for the New Year.

Somehow, it became a habit. Now, with another year-end approaching, Gongxi Yao had already sent word far in advance, saying that this year, he was sending the child’s uncle and aunt to fetch her.

Half a year ago, her younger sister Gongxi Wenxing had finally been declared “fully recovered.” With Gongxi Yue’s reluctant approval, she was allowed to return to the family.

Having narrowly escaped the daily grind of training under her elder sister’s watchful eye, Gongxi Wenxing, though reluctant to leave Qian, had packed her bags and rushed home as soon as her head cleared.

Now, with Gongxi Yao tied up and unable to come himself, he’d specifically asked her and her younger brother to come together to fetch Qian.

Returning to this familiar place, Gongxi Wenxing’s mind was filled only with memories of those grim, sunless days of training under her sister. After paying their respects to their uncle and exchanging greetings, she scooped up the child and was ready to leave as fast as she could.

Gongxi Yue’s cultivation was reaching a critical juncture. Soon, she would enter Closed-door Cultivation to break through to Soul Severing Mid-stage, and couldn’t accompany the child home this time.

Before parting, Qian sat in her aunt’s arms, waving goodbye to her mother with great reluctance.

It would be a while before they saw each other again. Gongxi Yue’s expression softened, a rare sight, as she reminded her daughter not to run off causing trouble. Then she gave her brother and sister each a few more instructions.

All three listened obediently, each more well-behaved than the last.

The moment they crossed the Yunyin Immortal Sect’s boundary, Gongxi Wenxing immediately bounced Qian in her arms and said cheerily, “Qianbao, this year Auntie’s taking you somewhere fun! Are you excited?”

“Excited!” Qian threw up her arms and bounced with joy.

The Yunyin Immortal Sect never celebrated the New Year—its air steeped in cultivation, the place cold and quiet except for special occasions.

But the Gongxi Family was different. It was lively all year round—especially during the New Year. There would be endless fun and delicious food!