"...Master!!"

Luo Fuchun's heart-rending cry was cut off by the icy water engulfing them overhead.

As the water submerged them, Feng Rugu felt the initial numbness from the impact rapidly turn into thousands of steel needles piercing his flesh.

Feng Rugu's body instantly lost all sensation, his mind going blank.

Fortunately, when he came back to his senses, his frozen hand was still tightly gripping Ruyi's hand.

- When he grabbed Ruyi's hand, Feng Rugu didn't remember how dangerous it was.

He only remembered one thing - his little Hongchen had grown up in the inland mountains since childhood and didn't know how to swim.

For all cultivators, falling into deep water caused their spiritual power to vanish, leaving them like ordinary people.

And drowning people, driven by survival instinct, would always choose to grab onto the only lifeline beside them before anything else.

Feng Rugu was resisting the piercing cold, trying his best to level his body to slow the sinking speed. He forced his eyes open to observe the surroundings, looking for hidden rocks to grab onto. Suddenly, he felt his body grow heavy, nearly losing balance.

Looking down, he saw that Ruyi had unconsciously latched onto his arm.

Feng Rugu thought anxiously yet with relief, "Good child, just like that, don't let go."

Deep water inherently lacked buoyancy. With Ruyi dragging him down like this, Feng Rugu couldn't even kick his legs to tread water. He could only drift down towards the bottom with Ruyi.

The light from the surface gradually faded. Feng Rugu was nearly out of breath, feeling his chest and lungs about to explode from the pressure. His vision started to blur.

Suddenly, a silver thread flashed before his eyes.

At first, he thought he was seeing things.

When Feng Rugu realized what it was, he couldn't help but rejoice.

- It was his guqin string.

Before leaving, this item that could only be used for elegant pastimes had been packed by Sang Luojiu, originally meant for restringing Feng Rugu's phoenix head guqin.

...Feng Rugu had never been more grateful for his own sentimentality and Sang Luojiu's thoughtfulness than in this moment.

Due to the lack of buoyancy in the water, the silk string sank slowly as well. As it drifted down with the current, Feng Rugu grabbed it and wound it twice around his wrist.

However, before he could even feel happy, Ruyi suddenly and unexpectedly let go of his arm!

When a person suddenly falls into icy water, their body goes into shock. Their limbs contract, their mind goes numb, and they instinctively grab onto anything they can, refusing to let go.

But now, Ruyi had regained some consciousness halfway and didn't want to drag Feng Rugu down. He simply let go, lest they both die!

Seeing him suddenly release his grip, it caught Feng Rugu off guard. His heart clenched abruptly and he anxiously wanted to grab him. However, his body was stiff and his movements hindered. Moreover, those above had discovered they had caught someone. Overjoyed, they immediately started pulling him up. Feng Rugu's fingertips only managed to hook onto a corner of Ruyi's floating robe before brushing past him. He could only watch helplessly as Ruyi's white and gold monk's robe fluttered like clouds, sliding all the way into the bottomless black abyss of the water.

Feng Rugu was hauled onto the shore in no time.

Seeing Feng Rugu emerge from the water, lying on the broken bridge gasping for air, his face deathly pale, Luo Fuchun's voice took on a tearful tone. He pounced on Feng Rugu in a hug, refusing to let go. "Master! You scared me to death!"

Hai Jing was so anxious that his eyes brimmed with tears, but he didn't dare question loudly. He weakly asked, "Lord Yunzhong, where is my junior martial uncle?"

A cold breeze blew past, causing pain to wrack Feng Rugu's entire body. His face turned even more ashen as he could only wrap his arms around his chest, curling up tightly. "...Didn't manage to save him."

Hai Jing instantly turned pale. He collapsed to the ground, nearly bursting into sobs.

Sang Luojiu went to remove Feng Rugu's wet clothes, signaling Luo Fuchun to quickly take off his own clothes to keep his master warm. "As long as Master is unharmed, that's good."

Although they had seen it before, when he revealed the blue lotus tattoos covering his body, everyone still couldn't help shuddering in shock upon seeing the scars hidden beneath the lotus patterns.

Feng Rugu was shivering badly from the cold, his subsequent movements also trembling.

He wrapped his soaked upper garments around his waist. Then, as if not feeling any pain, he pulled out the guqin string that had cut into his palm, quickly winding it between the clothes at his waist. "Just in time."

Sang Luojiu suddenly had a bad feeling. "...Master, what are you doing?"

Feng Rugu's face was pale as he gave Sang Luojiu a brilliant smile. "It's nothing, I just came up for a breath of air."

With that, before Sang Luojiu could stop him, Feng Rugu flipped over and plunged back into the water. His body spun and he disappeared into the water like a fish, leaving only wisps of blood from his injured palm spreading on the surface.

He dove down deliberately and swiftly. Before long, he spotted a corner of that white robe with a hint of gold.

The cold at the bottom of the deep water was incomparable to the upper levels. Feng Rugu felt like he had become a water ghost. The frigid water was like blades, slicing through his body piece by piece, scraping past his very bones.

He no longer knew how he stretched out his arms, trying to grab that corner of the robe.

It was only when he felt a tightness around his waist that his scattering consciousness gathered once more.

...The guqin string had reached its end.

And he still hadn't managed to save Ruyi.

On the broken bridge, Luo Fuchun was pulling on the other end of the guqin string, peering down anxiously as tears pattered down. Hai Jing knelt at the edge of the bridge, his shoulders trembling nonstop.

Sang Luojiu was the only one who maintained a semblance of calm. He wrapped Luo Fuchun's discarded clothes around his hands to prevent his palms from being cut even more severely when pulling someone up later.

Suddenly, Luo Fuchun, who had been tightly gripping the guqin string, lost his balance. He fell backwards, tumbling to the ground.

Even though Sang Luojiu promptly caught him around the waist, he was still pushed back several steps by the impact, falling to the ground with him.

He held Luo Fuchun and whispered in his ear, "...Where is Master?"

Before Luo Fuchun could answer, he scrambled to the water's edge and quickly pulled up the guqin string that had abruptly lightened.

...The guqin string had snapped.

It had been bitten through.

Seeing the broken guqin string, even Sang Luojiu was stunned, his shoulders starting to tremble slightly.

Before, he couldn't quite understand Feng Rugu and why some people would secretly criticize him as a "madman", saying he was as eccentric as his name, willful and unrestrained, a deviant among cultivators.

Now, witnessing it with his own eyes, he finally believed that his master's deviancy and madness lay in the fact that if he was willing, he could move mountains and overturn seas for someone, not hesitating to risk his own life.

Several zhang below in the water abyss, Feng Rugu had already pulled the semi-conscious person into his embrace.

Seeing his eyelids twitch slightly, still showing some signs of consciousness, Feng Rugu breathed a small sigh of relief. He pressed his lips against the other man's, transferring half a mouthful of his remaining breath, embracing him as they slowly sank together.

Feng Rugu looked up, only to see that the water's surface was already very far from them, with only the faintest glimmer of light that could disappear at any moment.

...There would be no second string lowered down.

Feng Rugu was running out of air in his lungs.

At this moment, only suffocation could make him feel a tiny bit alive.

But Feng Rugu still hadn't given up.

He concentrated his mind, chanting silently. When he opened his eyes again, the iris color of his previously injured and blurry right eye gradually changed from the edges to the center, turning into an eerie deep purple.

Feng Rugu was a madman.

In his view, there were no unbreakable shackles in this world.

Those who couldn't use spiritual power in the water simply didn't have enough of it.

What if Feng Rugu exhausted all of his?

His Guixu sword technique was his own creation. Named Guixu, meaning "the place where all waters converge", it also drew meaning from the saying "water benefits all things without contention".

Water gives birth to all things, water nourishes all things, water merges with all things, embracing all things.

The principle of the Guixu sword technique was to borrow and transfer qi, dissipating and gathering the power of others for one's own use. It was a supreme sword technique that grew stronger the stronger the opponent.

Feng Rugu pointed his fingers into a sword shape, activating the mental formula of the Guixu sword technique.

At first, the surrounding water flowed as usual, but before long, currents and eddies began to form in the water, with small ripples swirling around the two.

Fortunately, the icy cold of the deep water numbed Feng Rugu's senses, even as his internal organs felt like they were being carved by knives and fried in oil.

Feng Rugu had abilities approaching the Nascent Soul stage, already one of the best among cultivators in the world. The Guixu sword technique was also extraordinary. The ancient qi in the deep water was drawn to him, forming an upward buoyancy that supported their bodies, rising all the way up.

Feng Rugu had long forgotten how far he was from the water's surface, only recklessly pouring out all of his spiritual qi. Even if this qi was impure, carrying bursts of unnerving demonic aura, it merged into the water like water itself, spreading into the deep abyss without being noticed.

The light before his eyes grew brighter and brighter.

The splashing sound of breaking the water's surface shattered the last thread of clarity that Feng Rugu had been maintaining through sheer willpower.

He couldn't hear Sang Luojiu and Luo Fuchun calling him Master, only feeling someone trying to pry apart his and Ruyi's tightly clasped hands.

Feng Rugu instinctively exerted force to hold on, but his fingers were so numb that even he himself didn't know if he had actually grasped anything.

In fact, this extra effort was completely unnecessary.

His and Ruyi's hands had long been frozen stiff, impossible to loosen.

Seeing that both of them had been rescued, the group breathed a sigh of relief. Knowing it was too late to chase after the Tang saber swordsman, they could only quickly retreat back to Jianchuan.

Setting foot on Jianchuan's land again, spiritual power flowing back, Ruyi suddenly bent over and coughed up a few mouthfuls of water.

Ruyi had a yang-biased constitution. As spiritual qi rapidly circulated, his damaged body and meridians were easily repaired. Before long, his body temperature had returned to normal.

But Feng Rugu's hand, which gripped his, remained frighteningly cold.

Feng Rugu leaned against Sang Luojiu, his lips snow-white, eyes red-rimmed, seeming to have fallen unconscious.

But when Ruyi sat up with difficulty, wanting to ask about his condition, Feng Rugu opened his eyes with what little strength he had.

His iris color had returned to normal, but after seeing Ruyi's face clearly, Feng Rugu grabbed his shoulder with strength from who knows where.

"Why did you let go!?" Feng Rugu's teeth chattered, his voice trembling and out of tune. "I didn't let go, so why did you—"

He couldn't finish his words before turning to the side and vomiting a mouthful of water.

Half of it was mixed with fresh blood.

"Master!" Luo Fuchun let out a miserable cry. He shouted at the Qingshuang Sect disciples and the Sect Leader Yan Wufu who had rushed over at the sound, "Save my Master!"

Before those disciples could step forward, Ruyi gritted his teeth and stood up. Without even taking off his soaking wet monk robes, he picked up Feng Rugu in a princess carry, his voice unusually cold: "...Room, take me to one."

Feng Rugu lay slumped in his arms, the corners of his mouth and cheeks still scraped from when the string had snapped.

But even more eye-catching than the wounds were the blue lotuses blooming in full glory on his body.

—On his lower back and abdomen, two lotus flowers had blossomed together. The lotus on the left side of his waist was half-open, dazzling in its splendor, as if painted stroke by stroke with the fresh blood flowing from his body.

Author's Note:

The Tang saber swordsman's goal has been achieved qwq