She wiped her hands and stood up, adjusting the position of the marker bag inside her sleeve to conceal its outline within the folds of her clothes.
Seven. This was not a small number, certainly enough to tempt those who were still hovering around three or four markers.
As she pushed through a patch of low shrubs and stepped onto a slightly wider forest path, two people approached her from the opposite direction.
Both wore the disciple robes of the Biluo Immortal Sect. They were a man and a woman, both with swords at their waists. The female cultivator walking in front let her gaze linger on Lin Zhiyue for a moment and did not make way.
Lin Zhiyue stopped as well, her eyes sweeping over their positions. They stood to the left and right, spaced perfectly to block her path forward.
When the female cultivator spoke, her tone was polite enough, but her meaning was clear. “Junior Sister Lin, we don’t want to fight, but you have too many markers. Give us half, and we can go our separate ways.”
Lin Zhiyue did not answer.
Her right hand hung by her side, her fingertips already brushing against her hilt, but she did not draw it yet.
The male cultivator added from the side, “You're traveling alone. Carrying seven markers makes you an easy target for an ambush. We only want three. Let's both take a step back.”
Lin Zhiyue looked down at the position of the marker bag at her waist, then raised her eyes to look back at the two before her.
Without a word, she simply drew her Azure Scale Sword.
A clear, resonant ring echoed as the blade left its scabbard, and Frostcold condensed into a thin layer of white vapor on its surface.
Seeing her action, the female cultivator did not wait for an answer. She drew her sword and charged forward.
The swordplay of the Biluo Immortal Sect favored light, agile, and sharp movements, and the coordination between the two was more seamless than Lin Zhiyue had expected.
The female cultivator launched a frontal assault while the male cultivator harassed her from the flank. Working in tandem, they forced her back half a step.
After Frostcold flashed through the air several times, Lin Zhiyue grasped the rhythm of their transitions. At the exact moment the female cultivator's strike spent its force and before the male cultivator could cover her, Lin Zhiyue slipped into the gap between them. Her Azure Scale Sword swept upward from below, scraping along the spine of the female cultivator's sword and severing the force running through her arm for a split second.
The female cultivator was forced to retreat. Lin Zhiyue did not give chase, turning instead to face the male cultivator on the flank.
They exchanged several blows amidst the flashing swords. Refusing to get bogged down, she waited until the male cultivator stepped in too deep, then sidestepped the blade. Using the spine of her sword, she deflected his weapon before lightly tapping his elbow joint with her hilt. The force of her strike was controlled with extreme precision, causing his grip to instantly loosen.
Before the male cultivator could stabilize his balance, he was pulled half a step by her blade. His sword slipped from his hand and hit the ground with a sharp clang.
The female cultivator had been about to strike again, but her blade froze three inches away from Lin Zhiyue. She saw that her companion's sword had already fallen, and Lin Zhiyue was standing right in front of him with her sword tip lowered slightly.
Lin Zhiyue stood there, the edges of her hem bearing a few slender cuts from the sword light. The shallow tears in the fabric resembled the tattered edges of leaves tossed by the wind.
Her chest rose and fell slightly with her breath, her fingers still firmly gripping her sword.
The female cultivator remained stationary a few paces away. The male cultivator bent down, picked up his sword, and sheathed it.
The two from the Biluo Immortal Sect exchanged a look. Without another word about sharing the markers, they bypassed Lin Zhiyue and departed the way they came.
Their footsteps grew fainter on the leaf-strewn ground, soon swallowed by the rustling wind and the distant sound of flowing water.
Lin Zhiyue did not sheathe her sword immediately. She stood in place for a moment, double-checking the position of the marker bag in her sleeve, before finally sliding the Azure Scale Sword back into its scabbard. She resumed her journey in her original direction, her pace steady but slightly faster than before, as if eager to leave this area as quickly as possible.
Not long after, she bent down to pick up an eighth marker talisman from beside a tree root. After confirming no one was around, she tucked it into her sleeve.
Now she had one more in her marker bag—eight in total.
She continued forward, passing through the shrubbery and heading toward a slightly elevated slope.
Less than half an hour later, Lin Zhiyue encountered three more groups of people.
The first group consisted of two disciples wearing the robes of different sects. However, they walked in unison, clearly having formed an alliance.
Spotting her from dozens of paces away, they exchanged a glance. Without stopping, they shifted their direction slightly, heading straight toward her.
Lin Zhiyue did not wait for them to get close. With a thought, she changed into the Dusk Rose outfit. The dark red dress flashed through the woods as three clones dashed in three different directions. Meanwhile, her real body used the cover of an afterimage to leap onto a tree canopy thirty feet away.
Standing among the branches, she looked down. While the two were still trying to figure out which clone was the real one, she had already leaped over the canopy to the other side of the slope and continued on her way.
The second group was a trio from the Sacred Sword Pavilion, whom she happened to encounter by the stream.
Upon seeing her, their movements visibly quickened, as if they recognized her as yesterday's top-scorer.
Before they could surround her, Lin Zhiyue switched to the Forest Spirit's Verses. The light green woven gauze coat and delicate wings shimmered in the sunlight. She rose into the air and glided toward the southeast, skimming just above the treetops.
The disciples of the Sacred Sword Pavilion gave chase for a short distance before giving up. They stared up at the retreating light green figure, murmuring to each other as the wind carried away most of their voices.
The third group consisted of two female cultivators from the Piaoyin Sect. Having somehow learned of her route, they blocked her at the exit of a narrow valley.
Lin Zhiyue glanced at their positions on both sides of the valley exit. Without stopping, she directly switched to Flowing Green Satin.
The pale green qipao and folding fan conjured a mist of green gauze in the dim light of the valley. As the fan fluttered, the two women were momentarily dazed by the illusions. By the time Lin Zhiyue closed her fan and walked past them, they were still standing in place, trying to figure out which of the green afterimages was the real one.
Sometime in the afternoon, she faced another ambush.
Too lazy to even fight, she immediately changed into the Mist-shrouded Verdure outfit and used her Mist-shrouded Steps to dash through the path. Before her opponents could react, she had already cleared the area.
Over the course of the day, her actual clashes were few and far between. Most of the time, she relied on her various dharma robes and skills to quickly disengage.
Outside the secret realm, the spectators on the stands of Wanxian City fell into a collective silence for quite some time.
Someone pointed at the rapidly moving figure in the water mirror and muttered in a low voice, “How many outfits has she changed into by now?”
The person beside him counted on his fingers. “The emerald one, the light green gauze one, the moon-white dress, the green silk one, the dark red one, and that silvery-white one that glimmers like starlight... I've lost track.”
Another spectator leaning against the railing stared at the water mirror, his gaze locked onto the figure darting through the woods. “Just how many dharma robes does she have? What kind of background does she come from?”
Someone nearby chimed in, his tone a mix of admiration and bewilderment, “I want to know how she does it too... but haven't you noticed?”
“Noticed what?”
“Those dharma robes are absolutely gorgeous...”
Lin Zhiyue had no idea what was happening outside the secret realm.
After shaking off yet another group of pursuers, she stopped beneath an old banyan tree. Pulling out her marker bag to count, she found she had gained three more.
She tied the bag tight, tucked it away, and switched back to the Jinyao Fairy outfit. She continued along the stream, searching for where the next marker talisman might be.
The wind swept over the stream, fluttering the hem of her dress before it settled back down. She quickened her pace.
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