Chapter 1

In the Tianxuan World, there is the Qingzhou Province.

Qingzhou is one of the seven provinces of the Tianxuan World, vast and boundless.

This province has always produced a plethora of talents, and the most famous among them are the sword cultivators.

In Qingzhou, the proportion of sword cultivators among practitioners is at least seventy percent. Even ordinary people in the secular world have a unique fondness for swords. Children's favorite toys are wooden swords, and when they grow up, wearing a long sword at their waist is the best decoration.

— This is a province that belongs to swords.

The most famous sect in Qingzhou is the Sword Sect, located in the center of Qingzhou.

The Sword Sect has a total of 300 affiliated sects scattered throughout Qingzhou, and the Mo Sect is one of them.

At this moment, on the Danqing Peak where the Mo Sect is situated, a young girl with a slender figure, dressed in a green robe, is carrying a round-faced little girl up the mountain.

The young girl looks to be about sixteen or seventeen years old, with a tall and slender figure and long legs. The waist of her green robe serves as a boundary, highlighting her perfect leg proportions.

The young girl's name is Lu Dongli. Her father's surname is Lu, and she was born on the winter solstice. Her mother loved pears, hence her name.

She also has an older brother named Lu Chaoge, whose name... has no particular meaning.

This name was chosen by her father, who casually opened a book, flipped two pages, and selected the first character from each page to form the name "Chaoge."

It's worth noting that the young girl has a long sword at her waist and a Mo Sect badge hanging from it, both of which clearly indicate her identity—she is a sword cultivator!

The little girl on Lu Dongli's back has large, bright eyes and a chubby face that makes people want to pinch it.

A cute round face, just begging to be teased.

The little girl, who looks very obedient, asks Lu Dongli in a soft, childlike voice, "Master, why don't you fly me up the mountain? Can't you fly?"

In the little girl's eyes, her master is the most beautiful and the most powerful person she has ever seen.

Lu Dongli smiled, her face still youthful, but her demeanor and actions are more mature than those of her peers. She is very satisfied with this new disciple she picked up... cough, cough, recruited from the foot of the mountain, and patiently answers:

"Xiaoqiu, this is your first time climbing the mountain. I want you to get familiar with the environment of Danqing Mountain. On the way up, I will also inform you of the sect rules, and there are some things I want to emphasize to you."

"Master, I will listen carefully," the little girl blinked, looking very obedient.

Lu Dongli nodded slightly, the sunlight shining on her delicate neck. With a calm but pleasant voice, she recounted the sect rules.

After finishing, she began to introduce the Mo Sect.

"Xiaoqiu, apart from you, we currently have seven outer sect disciples. They will be your senior brothers and sisters."

"Among them, six are my disciples, and one is the disciple of your Sect Master Uncle."

The little girl was slightly taken aback and said innocently, "Ah! Master has more disciples than Sect Master Uncle! Does this mean Master is more powerful than Sect Master Uncle?"

Lu Dongli raised her hand and lightly tapped Xiaoqiu's forehead, saying sternly, "Be careful what you say!"

Xiaoqiu realized she had said something wrong and immediately closed her mouth.

Lu Dongli continued up the mountain with her long legs, and continued, "Your Sect Master Uncle is my older brother, six years older than me. Therefore, you must respect him more than you respect me, but..."

When she said "but," her expression became extremely serious, as if what followed was particularly important, making Xiaoqiu also feel nervous.

"But, you must remember not to emulate his personality!"

"Ah?" Xiaoqiu was slightly taken aback, not expecting her master to say this.

At such a young age, she couldn't help but be curious about what kind of personality her Sect Master Uncle had.

Seemingly noticing her disciple's confusion, Lu Dongli narrowed her eyes and said with a helpless expression, "Your Sect Master Uncle's personality, to describe it with a word he invented, is..."

"Arrogant."

"Master, what does 'arrogant' mean?" Xiaoqiu didn't understand.

Lu Dongli shook her head and said, "You don't need to understand this word. You just need to know that your Sect Master Uncle embodies the meaning of 'arrogant.'"

"Okay," Xiaoqiu obediently responded.

Lu Dongli looked up at the peak of Danqing Mountain, seemingly recalling the past, and couldn't help but sigh.

Lu Dongli has been mature since childhood, with a steady and cautious personality. She always plans carefully before taking action, and in cultivation, she takes one step at a time, never attempting to break through without near-perfect confidence.

— Steady!

Her older brother, who is six years older than her, is a completely different person.

He is so ordinary yet so confident.

Apart from having a good-looking appearance, her brother's talent in cultivation and other areas is rather average.

Yet, from a young age, he has always believed himself to be a chosen one, a person of destiny, and a protagonist in a novel.

She thought his confidence was innate, until one day she asked Lu Chaoge. He lifted his head, looked down on her with his nose, his eyes deep, and gazed at the night sky at a forty-five-degree angle. Despite not being in his voice-changing period, he forced out a not-so-deep voice, saying with a serious yet arrogant tone:

"Xiaoli, it's because you don't know where I come from, and you don't know that I have already seen through the essence of this vast Tianxuan World."

Since then, Lu Dongli has been certain that her brother is not naturally confident; he is delusional.

— He is sick.

Of course, she knows where her brother comes from, just like her, from their mother's womb.

As for seeing through the essence of the Tianxuan World, even the sect master of the Sword Sect wouldn't dare to say such a thing.

But her brother's response was incomprehensible to her, something about "just a game" and "living in the game."

And his daily behavior is... indescribable.

Three years ago, when their parents passed away, her brother cried bitterly, even fainting.

Before fainting, he rambled about how he had already lived for forty years and how his parents gave him warmth he had never experienced before.

At that time, he was not even twenty years old, so where did the forty years come from? Maybe it was a slip of the tongue.

More absurdly, after their parents' death, although he was sad, he became... even more confident!

This made him even more arrogant.

A word he often uses, which Lu Dongli doesn't understand, is "protagonist template."

He often says he is a protagonist template but never tells Lu Dongli what it means.

And what does this have to do with our parents' death?

Since she learned to use the word "arrogant" that her brother invented, a thought often lingers in her mind.

"Why does my brother live so arrogantly?"

"Why does he live this way?"

"How dare he..."

Her brother's personality further solidified her determination to cultivate steadily.

If she doesn't cultivate well and stand behind her brother, one day, he might be killed...

After all, the outside world is also very dangerous.

Although Lu Dongli doesn't walk fast, she gradually reaches the top of the mountain and stops.

Xiaoqiu, on her master's back, opens her big, round eyes and looks forward, seeing a man in a thin green robe standing with his hands behind his back, facing the cold wind, and looking up at the sky.

Xiaoqiu can swear that if her master is the most beautiful woman she has ever seen, then the man in front of her is the most handsome man she has ever seen.

The next words from this man made her heart skip a beat, leaving an indelible mark on her young mind.

"Heaven would not have been as it is for ten thousand years without me, Lu Chaoge," the man in the green robe murmured to himself.

Lu Dongli's beautiful face showed a helpless expression. She put Xiaoqiu down, raised her hands, and covered Xiaoqiu's ears, whispering before blocking them:

"Don't listen."

...