“As I listen to you, it sounds like you’re quite grateful that I almost killed you back then?” Li Miao said.
“Yes, I am deeply grateful,” Yun Zelin said sincerely.
“Your sword strike awakened me.”
Yun Zelin suddenly stood up, excitedly waving his hands, his face flushed, looking as if he were deranged.
“All day long I only knew how to follow rules, even though I had already strayed from orthodoxy, I still had to associate with a bunch of mediocrities every day!”
“Experts in the martial world all made their names in their twenties! I was already twenty-eight at the time, yet I was still smugly pleased with myself for getting the title of ‘second-rate’!”
“Second-rate, second-rate! I painstakingly sought for over ten years, murdered my father, betrayed my sect, all just for a phrase ‘second-rate’!?”
“I prided myself on my extraordinary comprehension, yet I still wasted my time every day, mingling with a bunch of mediocrities, isn’t that ridiculous!?”
Yun Zelin suddenly bowed deeply to Li Miao.
“It was precisely because of your sword strike that I finally awakened between life and death.”
“It was only after seeing you that I realized there was someone in this world truly worth chasing after,” Yun Zelin said, raising his head.
“Those mediocrities in the Ming Cult don’t understand you. In this world, only I understand.”
“In the past ten-odd years, I inquired about your whereabouts every day. When I heard you left Shuntian Prefecture, I began the plan I had been preparing for over ten years.”
“Having to kill you today is truly unavoidable.”
“Once you die, there will probably be no one else in this world who can discuss the Dao with me,” As he spoke, Yun Zelin actually shed two lines of tears.
As he was speaking, Yun Zelin’s appearance continuously changed, and by now, he had completely reverted to the state of a young man in his early twenties.
His limbs were slender, and his face was effeminate, like a demure woman.
Li Miao sneered, “I listened to a bunch of your nonsense, but in the end, it still comes down to drawing swords and shedding blood.”
“If I weren’t also itching for a fight and wanted to see how far you could go, I wouldn’t even bother listening.”
“However, you missed one thing.”
Li Miao raised his hand and pointed at Yun Zelin, “Your so-called ‘innately flawed bone structure’ is not just about having fewer meridians than others.”
“You are also an intersex person, so you can neither cultivate male martial arts nor follow female techniques.”
“Your father’s sect probably kept you hidden for this reason, because they couldn’t accept an unmanly, unwomanly person being groomed as their next sect leader, fearing that it would spread and ruin their reputation.”
Yun Zelin could discern Li Miao’s cultivation, and Li Miao naturally could also discern Yun Zelin’s anomaly.
Li Miao spoke lightly, but his words directly pointed out the very thing Yun Zelin least wanted to mention.
The normally polite Yun Zelin finally couldn’t help but show a hint of anger on his face.
Yes, this was what Yun Zelin deliberately avoided discussing, skipping over the reason for what he experienced between his father discovering his flawed bone structure and his patricide and defection.
His effeminate appearance was because he was born an intersex person, unmanly and unwomanly.
Most martial arts could be practiced by both men and women; they were only categorized as suitable or unsuitable due to differences in innate conditions.
But there was no martial art specifically suitable for intersex people to practice.
And in this era, it was imaginable what attitude Yun Zelin’s father’s sect would adopt towards Yun Zelin after discovering this fact.
Yun Zelin didn’t care about human lives, rules, or morality… but this one thing, he cared about deeply.
Yun Zelin gritted his teeth and said, “Lord Li… I sincerely wish to discuss the Dao with you, why do you humiliate me?”
Li Miao stood up and said to Yun Zelin, “Humiliate you? Am I not speaking the truth?”
“You don’t treat other people’s lives as anything important, and you’re even smug about it. Now that I don’t treat you as anything important, you’re exasperated?”
“A man in his forties, speaking the self-indulgent words of a teenager, putting on an act here, don’t you find it laughable?”
Li Miao raised his hand and beckoned to Yun Zelin, “I’ve endured this disgust and waited for you for half a day; are you ready now?”
“Don’t you want to kill me? Come on.”
Yun Zelin looked at Li Miao, staring intently into his eyes, his eye twitching.
Clearly, what Li Miao said and did was vastly different from what he had imagined.
What kind of scenario did Yun Zelin envision?
At the peak of Mount Tai, the foremost of the Five Great Peaks. Two peerless talents, who had gone the furthest in the centuries after Sanfeng Zhenren’s passing, finally met.
A decisive battle, determining both superiority and life or death.
Then he, the victor, with the admiration and recognition of his opponent, would ascend to the pinnacle of the martial world, becoming a legend passed down through the generations.
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The reason he had always maintained a polite attitude towards Li Miao was because, according to his vision, this scene should involve “mutual appreciation,” followed by “different paths, no shared goals,” inevitably leading to a life-or-death struggle.
He betrayed the Ming Cult, pushed himself to a dead end, and finally integrated three paths into one, waiting for Li Miao, his fated opponent whom he had anticipated for fifteen years.
What he received in return was Li Miao’s disdain and mockery.
How could he not be disappointed, how could he not be angry?
Yun Zelin’s character, from the perspective of the martial world, was unorthodox, an extraordinary anomaly.
And he was indeed extraordinary; he not only personally plotted against half of the Ming Cult but also used it to reach a realm that even Ji Tianrui had not achieved back then.
But in Li Miao’s eyes, he was just a lunatic who became prejudiced due to a physical defect. Aside from having high martial arts, there was nothing remarkable about him.
In this world, it’s not about who is unlucky or who is in the right. No matter what caused Yun Zelin to reach his current state, it doesn’t change the fact that he is now a beast who regards human lives as worthless.
The reason Li Miao waited for him until now was that he didn’t want him to die too quickly. So he waited for his plan to come to fruition, then would crush it bit by bit; this was the best punishment for Yun Zelin.
Of course, another reason was that Li Miao was also a bit itching for a fight.
The most useless thing in this world is dragon-slaying techniques.
Li Miao had been diligently practicing martial arts in Shuntian Prefecture, but when he finished, he looked up and found no place to use his skills.
Even the five hundred Gu Soldiers of Mao Yingxia tonight posed no great threat to Li Miao.
Now, an opponent like Yun Zelin, who cultivated all three paths, would likely be difficult to encounter again in the future.
Anyway, as Li Miao observed, most of the people infected with the Gu poison on Mount Tai Sect had already died. With no worries about the future, he had the time to wait for Yun Zelin to prepare.
Yun Zelin looked at Li Miao for a long time, still unable to find the recognition and respect he desired.
He gritted his teeth: “Good.”
“Lord Li, don’t assume you are certain to win.”
“Although I don’t have long to live, your cultivation is not as complete as mine.”
“Today’s outcome of life and death is yet unknown.”
Before his words fell, Yun Zelin instantly closed in on Li Miao.
His palm-blade slashed, and it was actually the ‘One Slash’ that Li Miao had used many times tonight!
What kind of realm was the integration of three paths?
Yun Zelin’s ‘One Slash’ cut diagonally, and the residual force actually shattered the wall of the main hall of the Mount Tai Sect dozens of feet away!