Mei Qinghe was silent for a long time before saying, "The Five Mountains Sword Sect are connected by common bonds; they wouldn't be as dirty as you say, senior."
She was just being stubborn; she knew it, and Li Miao knew it very well.
Otherwise, how else could she have responded?
Should she have said, "Senior, you're right, our Mount Hua Sect is indeed on the verge of extinction"?
Mei Qinghe's family was destroyed when she was young, and she was taken in and raised by the Mount Hua Sect, so she had long regarded the sect's honor and disgrace as her own pursuit.
To avoid shaming the Mount Hua Sect, she could wait for Li Miao to make his move and kill her.
Of course, she couldn't nod in agreement with what Li Miao said.
However, the decline of the Mount Hua Sect could no longer be concealed, and she couldn't refute him with full confidence, so she could only weakly argue with a phrase like "It won't be like you said."
Li Miao smiled, "It seems you are also very clear about this matter."
"It's true that I intend to harm the Five Mountains Sword Sect."
"But harming the Five Mountains Sword Sect doesn't equate to harming the Mount Hua Sect. Don't you agree?"
Mei Qinghe did not answer.
She understood Li Miao's meaning, but she was, after all, a young woman in her twenties, who had practiced martial arts within the sect since childhood and rarely ventured out.
Unlike the old jianghu who had seen through the true nature of the so-called "jianghu," while she knew what profit and hierarchy meant, she didn't want to acknowledge them.
Just like some young people in Li Miao's previous life, they knew what was supposedly "correct," but they stubbornly refused to admit it.
Li Miao smiled.
He originally had no plans; he came out tonight simply to finish watching the play he hadn't finished yesterday evening.
It was when he saw Mei Qinghe about to make a move that he couldn't help but offer a reminder, which led to all these subsequent events.
Recognizing Mei Qinghe's martial arts as from the Mount Hua Sect, he thought it would serve both public and private interests to capture an internal mole as a pawn in advance.
But now his thoughts had changed.
The Jinyiwei (Imperial Guards) was a secret service agency, dealing with the dirtiest transactions, the most naked interests, and the most sinister human hearts in the jianghu.
After serving in the Jinyiwei (Imperial Guards) for twenty years, his expectations for the so-called jianghu plummeted with each passing day.
The true jianghu was not so romantic; acting righteously would lead to a gruesome death, and seeking swift revenge would result in family ruin.
A reputation for chivalry was often built not on martial arts, but on power. Drawing a blade to spill blood was often not for righteousness, but for money.
Duplicity and deception were the realities of the living world.
Therefore, when he saw Mei Qinghe holding a broken sword, waiting for death, Li Miao couldn't help but laugh out loud.
Because what this woman displayed somewhat aligned with his expectations of the jianghu.
This led him to make other arrangements for Mei Qinghe.
Li Miao saw that Mei Qinghe remained silent and was not annoyed.
Inducement often didn't work on young people, but coercion worked well on everyone.
He changed the subject and said, "How do you find my martial arts?"
Mei Qinghe felt relieved that Li Miao no longer discussed the Mount Hua Sect's predicament.
She shook her head, "I can't tell."
She truly couldn't tell.
She hadn't even noticed Li Miao making a move; it was only when she saw the shortened sword that she understood what had happened.
As for the action of him flicking his hand to break her long sword, she couldn't even find a suitable target for comparison.
If it was an assassination technique, it didn't seem like it.
Assassination emphasized feints and fatal blows; she had never heard of any assassination master aiming to shoot someone straight through with a dart.
But if it was simply thrown with pure force, it was even more inconceivable.
Li Miao reached out and pinched the blade of the sword in Mei Qinghe's hand, gently bending it.
Snap~
A section broke off.
Mei Qinghe was stunned; Li Miao broke it from her hand, but she didn't feel any strain on the sword hilt.
Looking at the section of the blade in Li Miao's hand again, there was clearly a finger mark on it!
Li Miao didn't "bend" the blade; instead, he "pinched" a section off the blade as if picking a flower!
"Hold out your hand," Li Miao said.
Mei Qinghe woodenly extended her hand.
Li Miao held the section of the blade in his hand and extended it above Mei Qinghe's palm.
Without any visible movement of his fingers, a stream of Iron Sand fell "rustling" from below his palm.
Only when the Iron Sand filled half of Mei Qinghe's palm did Li Miao withdraw his hand, brushing off the powder.
"Can you see clearly now?"
Mei Qinghe stared blankly at the Iron Sand in her palm.
To say whether she saw clearly or not, she still hadn't.
This Iron Sand technique almost overturned her understanding of martial arts.
There was a common external hard qigong in the jianghu called Iron Sand Palm. The training method involved continuously thrusting one's palms into hot Iron Sand to toughen the skin and flesh. When practiced to a high level, one could grasp weapons with bare hands without being cut.
There were also masters renowned for this in the jianghu, capable of disarming opponents bare-handed.
But that was using Iron Sand to toughen the palms; who had ever heard of using palms to produce Iron Sand?
No matter how well martial arts were practiced, the human body was still flesh and blood. If one could train their body to be harder than iron, why bother practicing swordsmanship?
But Mei Qinghe now understood Li Miao's martial arts.
Invincible.
At the very least, almost all sword techniques and saber techniques were useless against him.
Sword techniques and saber techniques were extensions of the hands and feet, but they were also inherently less flexible than hands and feet. Swordsmanship emerged because sharp swords were sharper and harder than human palms, and because flesh and blood couldn't withstand steel.
But in front of this person, blades and swords themselves were weaknesses.
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If you present your long sword to someone, and they crush it like tofu, then throw the fragments back at you to pierce you through, what's the point of talking about superb swordsmanship?
"Senior, who exactly are you?"
Mei Qinghe asked hoarsely.
"My name is Li Miao. I am no one; at least, no one in the jianghu knows me."
Li Miao said with a smile, "Now I'll make a deal with you."
"From today onwards, you follow me. You answer whatever I ask, and you do whatever I tell you to."
"When my business is done, there might be immense benefits for your Mount Hua Sect."
"If you don't agree, I'll go to the Mount Hua Sect for a visit, and then I'll poke each sword in Mount Hua with a finger."
"Did you hear clearly?"
Mei Qinghe nodded.
She could only agree. She had no right to refuse.
"Very good, wait here."
"To be my subordinate, there's one more matter that needs to be settled."
With that, Li Miao flashed and disappeared.
Mei Qinghe stood silently, not daring to move, her heart a mix of emotions.
She prided herself on her martial arts achievements and had inquired about her enemy's martial arts in advance, feeling confident she was fully prepared before secretly descending the mountain for revenge.
Who knew she would be inexplicably threatened by a strange master and become his subordinate?
Currently, her sect did not know her whereabouts, and they would surely send people to search for her later.
When they met, how would she explain it to her sect? Tell the truth?
If tonight's encounter hadn't happened to her, she would have dismissed it as a joke!
Not to mention that this person named Li Miao openly admitted he intended to harm the Five Mountains Sword Sect. They were currently in the Qi-Lu Region, clearly heading towards this year's Five Mountains Sword Sect Alliance in Mount Tai.
If this person attacked the sect then, with her by his side, could the Mount Hua Sect truly remain uninvolved?
If this person really destroyed the Five Mountains Sword Sect, could the declining Mount Hua Sect still barely survive without the name of the Five Mountains Sword Sect?
Her thoughts raced, and the more Mei Qinghe thought about it, the more despair she felt.
Just as her mind was in turmoil, a figure suddenly appeared before her.
She looked up and saw it was Li Miao.
Li Miao raised his hand and threw a person in front of her.
The person's acupoints had been sealed, and he landed on the ground with a thud, struggling to get up, speaking as he did.
"Your Excellency, I don't know how I offended you. If it's money you want, I have a box of dart silver in my room; I am willing to offer it with both hands."
"If there's any past misunderstanding, or if my subordinates offended you, Your Excellency can kill them as you please; I will never protect them."
"If I have offended Your Excellency in any way, please inform me. I will offer both my hands and legs to Your Excellency, only asking that you spare my life."
The person struggled for a long time, finally managing to sit up and look at Mei Qinghe.
Seeing her face, the person pondered for a moment, then suddenly remembered something and stammered, "It's you... you're still alive?"
Mei Qinghe looked at Zhao Dehua, who was slumped on the ground, and spoke.
"Yes, old man."
"I'm still alive."