Comprehending Myriad Techniques as Woodcutter

Chapter 186: Chapter 159: Since We’re Already Here

The towering mountain ahead, with its iconic, cloud-piercing main peak that seemed to ascend to the heavens alone, was none other than the most famous mountain in all of Yunzhou: Cloud Mountain.

Based on their direction and the distance they had traveled, they figured they should be at the foot of Cloud Mountain.

"We’ve made it to Cloud Mountain without even realizing it."

Xie Yuan murmured, looking at the bustling town nestled at the foot of the mountain ahead.

The town was situated in a mountain pass, making access difficult. However, its location at the very foot of Cloud Mountain meant that disciples of the Cloud Mountain Sword Sect often stopped here to rest. This, combined with the endless stream of young people drawn by the Sect’s reputation and hoping to join, had turned it into a large and prosperous market town, far bigger than Panlong Town.

Mu Chaoyun glanced down at the Eight Trigrams Plate in her hand one more time before putting it away.

"Let’s enter the town first and get some rest," she said softly.

Xie Yuan nodded, and he and Mu Chaoyun entered Cloud Mountain Town hand in hand.

Even before entering the town, they saw it was teeming with people. The narrow streets were bustling with pedestrians, and the cries of street vendors hawking their wares on both sides could be heard from outside the town limits.

"Osmanthus cakes! Get your osmanthus cakes! Made with osmanthus from Cloud Mountain itself! The taste of the Sword Sect, a Cloud Mountain specialty..."

"Sir! Need a swordsman’s outfit? Guaranteed to be seventy percent similar to what the Sword Sect disciples wear, just without the Sect’s insignia!"

"Martial arts manuals, supreme swordsmanship techniques, Profound Skill diagrams! Please, step inside and take a look..."

Xie Yuan and Mu Chaoyun squeezed through the streets, feeling the extraordinary liveliness of the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd. From time to time, Sword Sect disciples on patrol would pass by, maintaining order and shooing away vendors who were skirting the rules by selling fake cultivation techniques. Many here used the Sword Sect’s name to swindle tourists, but none dared to outright impersonate the Sect; they all just toed the line. As long as they weren’t causing any major harm, the Sword Sect disciples couldn’t very well force them to leave—after all, you can’t just forbid people from selling white swordsman outfits, can you?

The two looked at the surrounding clamor, exchanged a glance, and turned into an inn.

"What do you mean, you’re out of rooms?"

Xie Yuan said, raising an eyebrow.

The Shopkeeper, with his hands tucked into his sleeves, smiled politely.

"Sir, just look at the commotion outside. Our inn’s rooms were fully booked a month ago!"

Xie Yuan glanced outside and asked,

"Is the town always this lively?"

"Of course not. It’s usually crowded, but not like this. I presume you two are also here to join the Sword Sect? Heh heh, for the past month, the Cloud Mountain Sword Sect has been opening its gates wide to accept new disciples. That’s why our little town has become so packed."

The Shopkeeper explained.

’The Cloud Mountain Sword Sect is opening its gates wide?’

Xie Yuan had a flash of realization. He remembered that back in Yunzhao, Cui Zhi had mentioned that it was the season for the Sword Sect’s mass recruitment of disciples. He’d been so busy fleeing for his life these past few days that it hadn’t registered.

His eyes darted around for a moment before he asked,

"Are there any other inns in town?"

"There are only a few inns, and they’re likely all full. However, you could try asking around at the private residences. Most of them offer lodging, so you should be able to find a vacant room."

Xie Yuan cupped his hands in a salute to the Shopkeeper, then left with Mu Chaoyun. Sure enough, they found an empty room in a small courtyard at the edge of town.

Inside the small room, Xie Yuan and Mu Chaoyun looked at each other, speechless.

"They just referred to us as a married couple. Why didn’t you correct them?"

Mu Chaoyun said, looking uncomfortable.

Xie Yuan gave a hollow laugh.

"It was the only room left, wasn’t it? Lodging in Cloud Mountain is tight right now, and it was hard enough for us to find this place. Even if we had explained, we wouldn’t have found a second room. A single man and a single woman sharing a room would just draw more strange looks..."

"So you’re saying you did it for my sake?"

Mu Chaoyun said coolly.

Xie Yuan gave a dry laugh.

"Desperate times call for desperate measures. Besides, it’s not like we haven’t shared a room before..."

Mu Chaoyun’s brow twitched. She couldn’t help but feel there was something strange about the way he said that.

Xie Yuan looked around. The small room contained only a single bed, a table, and a set of chairs, and nothing else. He could only shake his head.

"The conditions are limited, so we’ll have to make do for now. We can heal our injuries here. This place is so crowded, I doubt even Lu the Third would dare to act recklessly at the foot of Cloud Mountain."

Mu Chaoyun nodded slightly, sat cross-legged on the bed, and began silently circulating her Profound Skill to heal her injuries.

Seeing this, Xie Yuan said in a low voice,

"I’ll go to the apothecary and get some medicine."

With that, he left the room and hurried to the town’s apothecaries. Using the silver notes he had taken from Deng Wan, he bought the high-quality Spiritual Medicines they needed from two different shops to avoid drawing attention.

The two of them had long since run out of supplies. Now that they had a chance to rest and had suddenly come into a small fortune, it was only natural to stock up.

When he returned to the small courtyard, he greeted the landlord, borrowed a stove and a medicine pot, and went to his room to brew the medicine.

The Celestial Concealment Skill didn’t consume Blood Qi or Inner Strength, which was why Xie Yuan had been able to maintain it for so long, but he was still extremely exhausted. Fortunately, covering their tracks up to this point was good enough. He just needed to maintain a basic level of concealment to prevent ordinary people from noticing their dispositions and appearances, making them seem like just two more ordinary young people among the thousands who had come to seek apprenticeship. That much wasn’t too difficult.

「A night passed.」

In the early morning, Xie Yuan slowly opened his eyes on the bed and looked at Mu Chaoyun beside him.

Mu Chaoyun’s eyes were shut tight, her long eyelashes like little fans, dark and curved. Her complexion had returned to a snowy white, as if devoid of blood or warmth—so white it was almost translucent and seemed to glow. Paired with her coolly beautiful features, it made Xie Yuan’s heart stir no matter how many times he looked at her, and he didn’t dare to stare.

He turned his head away and thought,

’This is the first time we’ve ever slept in the same bed... Well, not "slept together," just... slept in the same bed.’

Although the bed wasn’t large, it was big enough for two people to sit cross-legged on it without a problem.

Yesterday, for some reason—perhaps she felt the floor was too cold—Mu Chaoyun had told Xie Yuan to rest and heal on the bed, so he finally didn’t have to sleep on the floor.

If he hadn’t been so tired, exhausted, and injured, being so close to Mu Chaoyun and smelling the faint fragrance wafting from her side probably would have made him mess up his healing. In any case, after a night of stable meditation supplemented by the medicine, his spirit had recovered greatly. Now that he was fully awake, he was acutely aware of how close they were, shoulder to shoulder, and his mind began to wander.

’We’ve been on the run for so long, how does she still smell so good?’

Xie Yuan thought silently. They had talked about bathing last night, but the mountain lodging had no facilities. The room was also too small; it would have been too inconvenient for one to bathe with the other present, so they’d given up on the idea.

Just as his imagination was running wild, Mu Chaoyun’s eyelashes trembled slightly. She slowly opened her eyes, which were as clear and reflective as the surface of a lake.

Xie Yuan was quiet for a moment, then asked,

"You’re awake? How are your injuries?"

Mu Chaoyun nodded slightly, then shook her head.

"A little better, but it will take time to recover fully."

She had already been severely injured when she fled to the Escort Agency. After that, she had been constantly on the move, fought a major battle, and consumed numerous pills to squeeze out her potential. The internal injuries she now carried were extremely serious and couldn’t be healed in just a day or two.

Xie Yuan nodded silently, then looked around the room again and said,

"This isn’t a place for long-term recuperation. The conditions are too limited, after all."

Mu Chaoyun agreed. The inability to even bathe conveniently made her, a person who valued cleanliness, extremely uncomfortable.

The small courtyard wasn’t large, but besides the two of them and the landlord’s family, there were two other young people from out of town trying their luck. Out of a hundred young people who hoped to join the Sect, ninety-nine wouldn’t meet the standards. Nevertheless, people still flocked here in droves, and many were even here for their second or third attempt.

The Cloud Mountain Sword Sect’s reputation was too great and its power too immense. For an ordinary person, or even an ordinary Martial Artist, joining such a Sect was like ascending to the heavens in a single step. They were willing to come back year after year for a re-test, chasing that slim, almost illusory, chance.

"If we were to find another place..."

Mu Chaoyun murmured to herself. She then took out her Eight Trigrams Plate and performed a silent calculation for a moment, her brow slightly furrowed.

Xie Yuan nodded and said,

"We can look around town, see if we can just rent an entire courtyard..."

"I’m afraid the town is still not suitable."

Mu Chaoyun cut him off, shaking her head.

Xie Yuan was taken aback for a second.

"It’s not safe even at the foot of Cloud Mountain?"

"After all, the Cloud Mountain Sword Sect’s Grandmasters won’t be stationed in town. If Lu the Third takes advantage of our unrecovered state to strike, the consequences will be hard to predict."

Mu Chaoyun showed the Eight Trigrams Plate to Xie Yuan.

"We are still in danger. It’s very likely Lu the Third is still tailing us. He knows what we have, and he probably won’t give up easily."

Xie Yuan nodded silently and then asked,

"Then what are you suggesting...?"

He had been entrusting the task of navigation to Mu Chaoyun all along, and she had always been very reliable.

Mu Chaoyun said coolly,

"The Cloud Mountain Sword Sect is recruiting disciples, isn’t it?"

Her gaze drifted out the window toward the peak that soared into the clouds as she said softly,

"Since we’re already here, let’s go and see the majesty of Sword Peak for ourselves today."

...

Outside Cloud Mountain Town, near the path leading up the mountain, there was a large courtyard.

Compared to the town itself, the area outside this courtyard was even more packed, so crowded that not even a drop of water could trickle through. It was as if the entire population of Cloud Mountain County had gathered here.

However, the closer one got to the courtyard gate, the more orderly it became. No matter how imposing a seasoned practitioner or how arrogant a young prodigy, everyone obediently lined up to enter at this gate.

This was for no other reason than the two Sword Sect disciples guarding the gate, dressed in robes as white as snow and embroidered with a cloud pattern.

Although both were just young disciples from the Outer Sect, in the eyes of these outsiders who had yet to join—and most likely never would—they were celestial prodigies from Cloud Mountain. Their presence here represented the Cloud Mountain Sword Sect, and no one dared to cause trouble.

Applicants filed in through the main gate and out through the back. The courtyard was surrounded by several layers of people, all friends and family of the applicants, anxiously waiting for their own to emerge. The scene was no different from the imperial examinations.

Unfortunately, in the time that passed, for every person who went in, one came out. Every one of them looked as if they had lost their parents, some even with tears and snot streaming down their faces.

"Son, if you can’t get into the Sword Sect, you can’t get into the Sword Sect. Why are you crying like this?"

"No, Dad, it’s ’cause it hurts..."

Of course, some people were genuinely crying because their dreams had been shattered at Cloud Mountain. The Sword Sect may have opened its gates wide, but it had not lowered its standards.

While they would accept anyone who met the criteria, the Sword Sect’s standards were as high as Cloud Mountain itself.

Two more people stepped through the main gate.

The examiner inside the courtyard glanced over and noted that the man and woman were both tall, with straight arms and long legs. They had a good bone structure. He nodded slightly.

Although their temperaments and talents seemed unremarkable, a quick glance suggested they were capable of practicing swordsmanship.

He asked in a warm, friendly voice,

"Both of you, please step forward. If you wish to join the Sword Sect, we must first assess your aptitude."

"Yes, Mr. Cui,"

the man replied.

Cui Zhi paused, surprised.

"How did you know my surname is Cui?"

"...I asked at the gate just now."

The young man made something up on the spot.

His eyes scanned the courtyard, and he thought to himself,

’There are quite a few familiar faces here...’

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