After finishing Xie Long’s deal, Qing Yu ordered the Green Dragon Society to temporarily retreat back to Northern Zhou and hibernate for a while before coming out.
It could not be helped that, despite all the calculations, it was not expected that it would be the Great Qian Emperor who was behind the deal and wanted Xie Long dead.
Although he did not expect the young man surnamed Fu to be so brain-dead as to appear right after Qing Yu’s killing, allowing Qing Yu to directly throw the pot for killing Xie Lang onto his head and take the Green Dragon Society out of the picture.
But while the others didn’t know the details, the Emperor did. Who knows when the emperor will remember the Green Dragon Society and send someone to eradicate the aftermath.
It is better to be careful.
But from here, we can also see that the Shadow King is no ordinary imperial official. Daring to defeat the emperor, it was likely that the Shadow King was also really a prince.
Combined with what the Shadow King had done earlier, his mind was only on that supreme throne, I’m afraid. Such a storm was really not something that the current Qing Yu could be involved in.
Therefore, once the matter was over, Qing Yu simply left it behind, regardless of what followed, and headed to Hongzhou to look for the former Sword God Lake sword-casting master – Gongye Baiwu.
The name Gongye Baiwu was not known to many people in the jianghu nowadays. Qing Yu also never knew such a master swordsmith, but just the fact that he was once the sword maker of Sword God Lake was enough to show his level.
Legend has it that a thousand years ago, three of the world’s greatest swordsmiths discussed their swordsmanship on an island in the heart of the lake and fought for the pinnacle of swordsmanship.
The world does not know how they won or lost, but only that after the debate, the three sank their swords into the lake and started a sect on the island.
As the three sank their swords into the lake, the sect was called “Sword Lake”.
In the years that followed, there were many outstanding disciples from the Sword Lake, and 900 years ago, a genius of the sword dao came out of nowhere and fought the world with his sword.
“Since then, the Sword Lake has become the “Sword God Lake”, a sacred place for swordsmen in the world. Every ten years, the “Sword Lake Debate” was held and became a rare event in the world.
The victor of the Sword Lake Debate can follow the example of the three great swordsmen of that time and sink his sword into the lake to compete with other famous swords in the same lake. The master of the sword can unite his mind with his sword and feel the sword intent left behind by the owners of the other swords in the lake to refine his own body.
Because of this tradition of sinking swords, this ordinary lake has become a world-famous lake for sinking swords. The lifelong goal of countless swordsmen is to sink their own swords into the lake, to fight with the successive heads of the sword debate and to be admired by the world.
The sword makers in such a sacred place where swordsmen are the only ones in the world are naturally not bad, or rather, the sword makers in Sword God Lake are the rare sword makers in the world.
As to why Gongye Baijiao was once a sword-maker at the Sword God Lake, it is not because he was expelled from the Sword God Lake, but because the Sword God Lake no longer exists.
One hundred and fifty years ago, the last Lord of the Sword God Lake had two outstanding disciples. Then came the all-too-common drama of two disciples who were equally in touch, competing for the position of the next Lord of the Sword God Lake.
In order to choose who would be the next Lord of the Sword God Lake, the then Lord of the Sword God Lake came up with the idea that strength would prevail and the two would face off and the winner would be king.
This idea was accepted by both sides and a duel to determine who would be the next Lord of the Sword God Lake began in the presence of their master.
The two men fought for a day and a night, and eventually a winner was decided. The winner, however, was not to their master’s liking, for that winner’s swordsmanship was extremely domineering, using force to convince others with little skill.
The other disciple was different, grand and imposing, showing the majesty of the supreme sword dao handed down by Sword God Lake.
In the end, the winner, whom their master abandoned, chose the one who had lost as his successor. This loser, however, had another identity, as he was the biological son of the last man, the Lord of Sword God Lake. Therefore, this decision of the Lord of Sword God Lake was also very much criticised by the people of later generations.
The unexpected decision made the loser the winner, and the winner, resenting his master’s outburst, broke the door and has been unknown ever since.
If so, this unknown duel would have come to an end, and no one else would have known about it except the three parties involved.
But if Qing Yu knew about it, there was naturally a follow-up.
At the ten-yearly Sword Lake debate, the defeated man, who had already advanced to the Realm of the Gods, would formally succeed to the position of Lord of the Sword God Lake and become the head of the Sword Dao, which was respected by the whole world.
However, just as he was about to succeed him, the winner of that year, came to the throne.
By now, he had abandoned the sword for the sabre, and his domineering swordsmanship was complemented by the sabre, which was known as “the hegemon of the hundred weapons”.
In a few moves, the sword was broken and the man was killed by his sword.
The last Lord of the Sword God Lake wanted to avenge his beloved son and used his unique secret method to resonate with the swords under the Sinking Sword Lake to attack his former disciple.
The result, as you should know, was that if the last Lord of the Sword God Lake had won, he would not have been the last.
Dozens of swords of the once pinnacle swordsmen were shattered under the sword, and the Sword Lake debate was never the same again.
The Sword God Lake split into the three powers of the Imperial Sword Villa, the Buried Sword Peak and the Sword Dao Palace, which are now the three great sacred places of the Sword Dao in the Jianghu.
The swordsman who gave up his sword and became a swordsman was called “Nangong Jian”, now the second in the Heavenly Ranking – “God of Swords” Nangong Broken Sword.
The Sword God’s Lake split, and there were those who followed the three powers, and naturally there were also those who left alone.
According to the information given by Meng Yunfei, Gongye Baijiao only wanted to forge swords all his life, and did not want to be used by the three forces that were fighting to the death over the heritage of the Sword God Lake, so he left alone and lived in seclusion on the Heavenly Melting Mountain in Hongzhou.
However, without such a rare force in the world as the Sword God Lake to collect materials for him, Gongye Baijiao was unable to cook without rice, and had no suitable materials for his craft.
At that moment, a sponsor appeared, who provided him with the materials, and every three years, he had to forge a weapon for him. That patron was the Shadow King.
This time, Qing Yu was given the opportunity to do so once every three years.
The amount of materials used by a master swordsmith like Gongye Baiwu in three years is beyond the imagination of ordinary people. This is a huge investment for a chance to cast a sword, and the Shadow King has given it to Qing Yu.
It was for this reason that Qing Yu dared to wander out after killing Xie Lang, rather than worrying that the Shadow King would kill him like the young man surnamed Fu.
After several days of trekking, Qing Yu arrived at Gongye Bai Forge’s hermitage, at the foot of an active volcano in Hongzhou’s Tianmelt Mountain.
