Volume One: The Youngest Among Three Hundred Chapter 140: Eating Melons Carries Risks

The majestic voice echoed across the entire training grounds of the Black Feather Guard. Everyone present, including Nagato Takuya, instinctively looked around in shock and urgency, trying to figure out who Wang You was referring to. Across the entire Great Min Empire, besides Wang You himself and Zhou Yao, the current leader of the martial arts alliance, who else possessed the strength to spar with someone at the Eighth-Rank Post-Xuan realm?

"Brother Li... could it be that you are speaking of..." Nagato Takuya said thoughtfully, guessing in a tentative tone.

"Precisely!"

Wang You deliberately channeled his voice, projecting it toward a specific direction: "Brother Li, you and I share a certain friendship. Now that I am in seclusion due to matters at my doorstep and unable to attend to this personally, you simply must help me clean up this mess."

"Sigh!"

Not long after those words fell, amidst the searching gazes of the crowd, a figure stood up from atop a high-rise building in the corner of the training grounds. He was holding a large jar of Nu'er Hong wine and gulping it down fiercely. Then, letting out a loud burp, Li Bai grumbled and cursed, "Wang You, you really have no conscience! It’s so hard for me to finally return to Chang'an City and just drop by to visit an old friend on the way, yet you treat me like a target for arrows."

Wang You, residing on the ninth floor of the Armory Tower, smiled cheerfully and replied, "This isn't treating you as a target, I am merely afraid that if Brother Li refuses to make a move, our guests might get the impression that there are no capable men left in Great Min!"

"Come on! Come on! Come on! Stop trying to trick me into your traps. Leaving aside the whole of Chang'an City, your Black Feather Guard training grounds alone must have thousands of men. If our visitor isn't blind, he could never possibly think that Great Min lacks capable men!" Li Bai waved his hands continuously and protested loudly.

Meanwhile, the dense crowd of onlookers was filled with utter astonishment. Li Bai, the First Swordsman of Chang'an, had returned! The very same Li Bai who once penned the verses, *With every ten steps taken, a life is claimed, a thousand miles traversed without leaving a trace*, and *Heaven has endowed me with talents, they are bound to be put to use; even if a thousand gold coins are spent, they will all return*. Indeed, if anyone in the entire Great Min Empire—aside from Wang You, the Commander of the Black Feather Guard, and Zhou Yao, the Martial Arts Alliance Leader—could stand against Nagato Takuya of the Eighth-Rank Post-Xuan realm, it could only be him.

In truth, ever since Nagato Takuya entered the Nine Provinces three years ago to challenge various martial artists and achieved an unbroken streak of victories, whenever people discussed who could restore the pride of Great Min's martial arts world, Li Bai's name was always the most widely called. Unfortunately, he was naturally unrestrained, free-spirited by nature, and at that time, he was traveling far away in the East China Sea rather than the inland.

Above the clouds, Chen Chang'an heard this and uttered an "Oh?" in surprise, saying, "What is going on? Didn't they say that the only people in the Nine Provinces of Great Min who have stepped into the Eighth-Rank Post-Xuan are Wang You and Zhou Yao? How can he contend with Nagato Takuya then? What realm is he in?"

Su Dingfeng withdrew his pained gaze from the corner of his robe that Chen Chang'an had soiled, and explained with a hint of intrigued amusement: "The notion that the Nine Provinces of Great Min currently only have two Eighth-Rank Post-Xuan experts—Wang You and Zhou Yao—applies only to the orthodox martial artist category. But this fellow Li Bai is quite unique."

"Some people lump him into the martial artist system, others classify him within the cultivator system, and still others say he has blazed a trail of his own and formed a school of thought independent of others. Therefore, his level has never been restricted or evaluated by any conventional realm framework. However, in terms of comprehensive combat strength, Li Bai is definitely at that Post-Xuan level."

"Th-this... why is that?" Chen Chang'an asked.

A flicker of yearning flashed through Su Dingfeng's eyes as he continued: "Li Bai started out as a humble little book boy at a certain Confucian academy, the kind of untalented deadwood that could not be carved. When he was seven years old, he fell gravely ill, but after recovering, his entire temperament and scholarly talent underwent a dramatic transformation overnight!"

"In the academy, he used the philosophical paradox of 'which came first, the chicken or the egg' to render Master Liu Yu and several other instructors completely speechless and unable to refute a single word. Then he wrote the verse, *Laughing proudly towards the sky, I go out the door; how could a man like me be a mere reed in the marshes?*, and completely severed ties with Confucianism!"

"Later, seeking immortality, he entered the Daoist tradition. Because he frequently disagreed with the Daoist elders and often ended up fighting and brawling with them, his Daoist talismans were revoked and he was driven down the mountain. After that, he entered the gates of cultivators—specifically, the Bashan Sword Sect where I belong..."

"All in all, you can see many facets in this person. He possesses the unbridled genius and haughty arrogance of a Confucian scholar, the transcendental comprehension of a Daoist, the formidable close-combat capabilities and mystical arts of a martial artist, and can fly on swords just like a cultivator. Damn it... he is truly a badass!"

As he listened, Chen Chang'an noticed the intense, glowing yearning welling up in his brother-in-law's eyes. It was clear that he genuinely admired Li Bai; otherwise, given his usual cold and aloof demeanor, he would never have said so much.

"Li Bai, this old boy is quite impressive. Starting out with mediocre talent and being looked down upon by others, he falls gravely ill at age seven, miraculously awakens a golden finger cheat, and thereafter surges all the way forward like an overpowered protagonist slapping faces and defying the heavens and earth. This is a classic reborn-trash-turned-protagonist script, a textbook main character setup."

"Except... writing *Laughing proudly towards the sky, I go out the door; how could a man like me be a mere reed in the marshes* is one thing, but being able to articulate the philosophical dialectic proposition of which came first, the chicken or the egg—are you absolutely sure he isn't a transmigrator?" Chen Chang'an muttered to himself, unable to stop himself from raising doubts once again.

"Ahem!"

At the same time, Li Bai himself descended from the top of the high-rise building, walking with a tipsy, staggering gait right up to Nagato Takuya. With a chuckle, he said, "Bench-o, or whatever your name is, while I know you aren't blind and can see that Great Min isn't short of people, just watching is so uninteresting. Sometimes actually throwing hands is vastly more entertaining. It's just that Wang You is currently in seclusion inside the tower, and Zhou Yao isn't in Chang'an. What shall we do about this?"

Nagato Takuya, who had been deliberately misnamed, frowned slightly and said, "You can choose to fight!"

"No! No! No!"

Li Bai waved his hand dismissively. "I have no time to brawl in Chang'an City. How about this: you, Bench-o, seal away all your Eighth-Rank Post-Xuan powerhouse momentum and techniques, and I'll pick someone at random from the crowd to engage in a purely technical duel of sword skills and physical strength with you. How does that sound?"

The reason Nagato Takuya had been able to easily seize the upper hand during his previous fight with Cao Wu and Cheng Mulong was precisely because his Eighth-Rank Post-Xuan realm allowed him to utilize spatial flashes, instantaneous movements, and realm suppression far exceeding the Seventh Rank. Li Bai's meaning was crystal clear: none of those supernatural advantages were to be used.

Nagato Takuya quickly swept his gaze across the surrounding crowd, curled his lips with absolute confidence, and said, "Even without displaying inner qi or various martial techniques, and by suppressing my realm to rely solely on sword skills and physical strength, not a single one of them among you can defeat me."

*Crack!*

Li Bai smashed the jar of Nu'er Hong wine he was holding fiercely onto the ground, shattering it into pieces, and shouted loudly, "Do you dare or not?"

Nagato Takuya indifferently rested his right hand on the hilt of his saber and replied, "Why wouldn't I dare? Pick whoever you like!"

Li Bai shouted up toward the Armory Tower: "Wang You, I'm handling it this way, you have no objections, right?"

After a long while, two words drifted out from within: "None!"

"Good!"

The next second, Li Bai extended his right index finger to point at Cao Wu. After sizing him up for a moment, he clicked his tongue, cleared his throat with a few dry coughs, and shook his head, rejecting him: "A spear user—no. Spears have an inherent disadvantage against sabers."

Immediately afterward, his slightly intoxicated gaze shifted toward Cheng Mulong, and he clicked his tongue, saying: "His limbs are more developed than his brain, lacking coordination. Strong in raw momentum, weak in technique."

Then, he swept his gaze in other directions. Before long, everyone present was vetoed by him one by one. Some people even lost their nerve and shrank back before Li Bai could even voice his verdict. Are you kidding? Being picked out to fight a duel against an Eighth-Rank Post-Xuan expert like Nagato Takuya—you'd have to be insane not to die, even if the opponent agreed to suppress his realm for a pure sword-fighting contest.

"Sigh!"

Shaking his head with a trace of disappointment, Li Bai pointed his finger straight up at the sky, his voice shaking the firmament as he roared at the top of his lungs: "Chen Chang'an! Hurry up and get down here to fight this Wa state warrior Nagato Takuya while suppressing your realm!"

Inside the clouds, Chen Chang'an—who was currently gripping the corner of his brother-in-law's robe and looking down—froze: "..."

What the hell!

Are you out of your mind pointing randomly like that?!