Qingcheng stood there silently, with the corner of her mouth slightly raised. She put her slim fingers on the strings of the instrument, and a series of clang sounds broke the silence. While her left hand she pulled her sword out from its sheath, before she waved it gracefully in the air. The song she played was a military one, one with a lively rhythm. The melody echoed throughout the camp.

In accordance to the rhythm, sometimes, Qingcheng would wave the sword effortlessly, and other times she would wave it with great exertion. The young lords sitting below were no layman. They all knew, that the skill displayed in Qingcheng’s sword dancing was absolutely not something an average swordsman could accomplish. Definitely, unlike a superficial beauty, who was good at nothing but showing off her appearance, Qingcheng was an intelligent beauty.

The sword was a stiff weapon, representing Yang; while Qingcheng was a girl as soft as water, representing Yin. Now, the perfect combination of Yang and Yin, accompanied by this perfect melody, created such an image in the young lords’ mind: they found themselves in a corpse-laden battlefield, in which a beautiful girl was waving her sword gracefully, while tears streamed out of her eyes, for she had just lost her beloved one..

After a long while, the sword dance was over, as well as the song.

However, the young lords were still immersed in that imagery picture, as if they were in a wild dream. Only after Qingcheng bowed to them, and seated herself, did they wake up from the intoxicated state. Immediately, Qingcheng received an explosive ovation.

“Miss Qingcheng, I came here from the faraway Immortal City, but I’ll never regret this journey, because of you..” Tu Qianjun spoke with flicking eyes, as he raised a mug of wine to propose a toast. Without waiting for Qingcheng’s response, he took a large gulp from the wine. His unrestrained and straightforward manner revealed itself in all of his gestures and expressions.

While Qingcheng replied to him with a faint smile, no word came from her mouth.

“Miss Qingcheng, I’m impressed with your sword dancing skill. I bet, that we wouldn’t be able to find a second girl in this continent, to perform as well as you did.” Being afraid to be outdone by Qianjun, Feng Zi hurriedly stood up, and quickly gulped down an entire kettle of wine, not taking a single breath in between.

Looking at Feng Zi, who remained sober after finishing that kettle of wine, Hua Cao and Shuili held their small cup in the middle, totally stunned.

“Feng Zi is crazy. Well, his capacity for wine is apparently better than ours. We have to finish two kettles in order to beat him...”

“Oh, no, forget about it.”

Eventually, they just toasted with a cup of tea instead, and expressed their admiration for Qingcheng.

Later, the other young lords all gave an extravagantly colorful description of Qingcheng, as if she was something peerless in this mortal world. Although, each of them used different expressions, the major theme was the same – “I appreciate you. Please marry me, I’ll treat you as a treasure. Consider me, please!”

Out of politeness, Qingcheng smiled at each of them respectively. Finally, her eyes fixed on Qinghan, who was right now, eating the suckling pig he had personally roasted on the campfire. After a minute of silence, she raised her chin, and said coldly, “Young lord Qinghan, why don’t you express your views on me? Is it because, in your opinion, my performance isn’t worth talking about?”

Admittedly, Qingcheng’s breath-taking beauty, as well as her stunning performance, had stirred Qinghan’s heart a little bit. However, he had already promised to step out of this competition, so he had to refrain his desires, in case Feng Zi, and the other young lords would take him as a liar. If they would see Qinghan go back on his words, they would definitely bring him trouble in the Elite Prefecture War, rather than helping him accumulate credits. Right now, Qinghan’s top priority was to save his sister, for other things, such as Qingcheng, he chose to ignore them. In order to find some distraction for his mind from Qingcheng, he had even turned away to roast a suckling pig.

“Errr, not bad!”

Under the cold gaze of Qingcheng, and the other young lords’ malicious looks, Qinghan slightly raised his head, and replied simply, before he concentrated himself again on the suckling pig, as if it was much tastier than Qingcheng.

“What? Not bad? Is he kidding?”

The crowd of young lords whispered to each other in confusion. While at the same time, Qingcheng was embarrassed, as well as irritated by Qinghan’s perfunctory manner. After all, she had never spoken to any of these young lords, except for Qinghan! If it had happened to any other young lord, they would’ve felt extremely flattered.

Given the beauty of Qingcheng, her skilled sword dancing, and her identity as a holy virgin of the Yue family, Qinghan was supposed to make a few casual remarks to show his respect for her. To everyone’s surprise, however, he had acted so boldly, like an untamed wild horse.

However, Qinghan’s disciples, Dongfang Dao, and other four young men, all stretched their hand with a thumb-up gesture! While Feng Zi and Hua Cao both raised their cup of wine towards Qinghan, smiling like a flower, for they knew why he behaved so indifferently towards Qingcheng. They even praised Qinghan for being a trustworthy younger brother.

Qianjun discussed something with Wuhen in a low voice, while he simultaneously glanced at Qinghan. He seemed to be rather interested in Qinghan’s personality.

Disregarding the stares from the other young lords, or Ye Qingniu’s warning glance, Qinghan turned to the nearby Feng Zi, and jokingly said, “Hey, buddy, hurry up, take the initiative. You should forestall your opponents by showing your strength.”

“Thanks a lot, buddy!” Feng Zi patted his own forehead, and stood up with a fit of pretended coughing, as he tried to grab the others’ attention.

As he straightened his spine, giving an emphasis to his muscular chest, he confidently declared, “Today is Miss Qingcheng’s coming-of-age ceremony, I’ll show some of my swordsmanship, in order to celebrate for Qingcheng!”

However, there was not even a single sword in Feng Zi’s hands, which puzzled the others. Suddenly, Feng Zi made a strange gesture – he stretched out his index finger and middle finger with great exertion. With a shrieking sound, the sword that laid in the sheath on his back, flew out in the air, leaving a glittering silver light behind.

As he had successfully intrigued the others’ curiosity, he then moved his fingers a little bit. Following that, amazingly, the sword automatically moved in circles, and abruptly, it turned around and dove towards the ground of the camp. Hardly had the sword reached the ground, or Feng Zi moved his finger once again, the sword leapt here and there, until it stabbed into a suckling lamb. Unbelievably, the sword carried the suckling lamb in the air and brought it to Qingcheng’s table, where the sword cut it into small pieces on the jade plate!

In the end, Feng Zi put his sword back into its sheath, and smiled with satisfaction. “My apologies for showing myself up. Miss Qingcheng, please enjoy the plate of suckling lamb.”

“Young lord Feng Zi, I really appreciate it.” Qingcheng nodded to him with a sweet smile.

However, the other young lords all gave Feng Zi the middle finger, as they were outraged by his skillful performance.

“Son of a bitch!”

“Why does he show off his peerless swordsmanship at such an early stage of the festival. Everything we do will be overshadowed!”

“Elder Feng, congratulations! I bet this young man has entered the sixth level of swordsmanship.” Ye Qingniu stroked his beard, as he flattered Elder Feng.

“I remember, Feng Zi is already in the third level of the Realm of the General, right? Now he has even mastered the skill of swordsmanship, which allows one to control his sword within a small range. Hmm, in general, his power should be the same as that of those at the first level of the Realm of the Marshal. In my opinion, he is the best among all your other descendants. The future ahead of him is boundless.” Yue Ji also praised Feng Zi.

“No, no, there is still a long way to go for him, before he can catch up with the young lords from the other families.” Elder Feng replied as humble as he could, although he was already chuckling unstoppably.

“Look! Our Hua Cao is taking action. Let’s look forward to his performance.” Elder Hua suddenly broke in, redirecting their attention to Hua Cao.

Although Hua Cao was still mad at Feng Zi, he nervously stood up, and turned to Qingcheng with slightly bended knees, “Let me join in the fun. I’ll present Miss Qingcheng a mysterious gift.”

As he finished his announcement, he moved smoothly towards the center of the camp, step by step, his figure became ambiguous, blurred.. until, it eventually disappeared!

“Invisible Technique?”

The crowd was all dumbfounded. Although they’d already learned from rumors, that the Invisible Technique was one of a kind, they had never expected Hua Cao to be able to disappear in such a short amount of time! If Hua Cao lurked among them, anyone would be at risk of being killed out of the blue. The only calm faces in the crowd were Shuiliu and Qianjun. As for Shuiliu, he had witnessed this technique many years ago, so it was no stranger to him; while for Qianjun, he just sniffed at Hua Cao’s small tricks.

The elders sitting in the front rows, also remained composed. As cultivators in the Realm of the Saint, they could roughly see through Hua Cao, despite his Invisible Technique.

Now everyone was looking around, trying to find any trace of Hua Cao. To their astonishment, Hua Cao suddenly appeared at the doorway of the yard, walking elegantly towards Qingcheng, with a bouquet of violet roses in his hands. However, the atmosphere was rather weird, or even scary, for if one looked closely, there were several ghost-like shadows following behind Hua Cao. Looking from afar, there were actually a line of Hua Cao’s figures holding the flowers, all smiling towards Qingcheng! As he moved closer, the lingering figures gradually faded away.

Eventually, Hua Cao stood in front of Qingcheng, bowed to her, “Miss Qingcheng, I wish your beauty will never wilt, very much like this bouquet of roses!”

“Thanks so much, young lord Hua Cao!” Qingcheng took the roses, as she was brightly grinning.

“He demonstrated his best skill – Replication of Figures, in order to get a hot girl. Fuck that ladyboy!”

The majority of the young lords, especially those from the less influential families, were disheartened. They didn’t intend to continue their performance, in case they would be making fun of themselves. In simpler terms, they gave up on the chance to win Qingcheng’s heart, who they believed would finally fall into the hands of the five prominent young lords or Tu Qianjun. But they did have an alternative, the twelve dancing girls.. They were determined to save their energy to compete for these girls instead.