“A Luwu… Hm?” Xi Ping gave his shifu a casual explanation, then went over through the reincarnation wood with a thought, planning to ask Xu Rucheng what was going on—he hadn't been expecting to meet with a slight obstruction. 

Xu Rucheng was currently trapped in the little courtyard, all his meridians sealed, unable to command a sliver of spiritual energy. He was surrounded by Zhao Qindan’s father and some cultivators who had originally been part of Heaven’s Design Pavilion. 

Just now, these people had suddenly charged in. Xu Rucheng, seeing that something was wrong, had immediately sent a cry for help to Tai Sui, but before he could even determine whether he had been heard, even his consciousness had been confined by the Zhao family established foundation. This established foundation cultivator had used some secret technique; as soon as it fell on him, Xu Rucheng’s spiritual sense seemed to vanish from his five senses. Never mind his colleagues, he couldn’t even sense the reincarnation wood he carried! 

“What are you doing?” 

The eyes of the Zhao established foundation cultivator flitted over his face, as if he wanted to peel off the skin to look at something. He slowly said, “I’ve heard a rumor that says the Kaiming Department’s Zhou Ying has at his disposal a group of spies called the Luwu, who began to infiltrate other countries long ago. These people wear a type of mask that can conceal a person’s spiritual image, even fool the eyes and ears of an ascended spirit… I don’t know whether it’s true or false.” 

With professional dedication, Xu Rucheng contorted the young mistress’s willow leaf eyes, as if he hadn’t understood anything, but actually he was in such a panic that his heart was about to forget how to beat. 

“Shixiong, what are you talking about?” 

“If you haven’t heard of them, then forget about it,” the established foundation said softly but coldly. “The hidden realm is currently the only thing we have to fall back on. We certainly cannot allow this kind of worm to creep in. In the interest of caution, each person must be investigated. Forgive me, shimei.” 

Hardly had he spoken than Xu Rucheng felt his whole body grow chill. A talisman penetrated the center of his brow and a cold consciousness probed his spirit. 

Xi Ping, currently in the sky above Tao County, muttered in bewilderment, “The noisy clod, how’d he end up with a lock on his skull?” 

Zhi Xiu didn’t understand this coarse Chu slang, but he sensed that it was nothing good. “What?” 

Xi Ping quickly cut his speech into a perfect Jinping accent and, in a display of propriety, said, “I said that this Luwu brother’s consciousness has had a prohibition placed on it… All right, I’ll go see what I can do.” 

Xu Rucheng had been completely unprepared. He had no idea where he had slipped up. He was nailed in place, and the established foundation’s consciousness was following the talisman to invade his spirit, slowly over it like water, not missing a single crack. 

The Luwu were all half-immortals, and the Luwu’s masks were naturally only open-eyed grade immortal tools. When it came down to it, they were only a superior diversionary tactic. Higher level cultivators would be fooled as long as they didn’t become suspicious. But if they became suspicious and insisted on investigating, how could an open-eyed grade tool prevent an established foundation from tearing it away? 

What should he do? Self-destruct his spirit? 

But self-destructing his spirit would amount to confessing without being tortured. He wasn’t the only Luwu in the Zhao family hidden realm. It was too late for him to contact his colleagues now…

There was no more time for him to think carefully. As a few thoughts passed through Xu Rucheng’s head, the established foundation cultivator’s consciousness reached the place where the spiritual image mask joined! 

Xu Rucheng’s mind went blank for a moment. Just then, a qin seemed to play a note in his spirit. The cold consciousness made a jump as the qin sounded, skipping over the mask’s join, passing over without noticing. 

Xu Rucheng: “…” 

What was that sound? 

Then, a familiar and revolting voice sounded in his ear: “Wow, messed up, did you?” 

Xu Rucheng’s legs nearly went weak. He had never before found this great evil cultivator so amiable. “Senior! Senior, they’ve locked my consciousness, how can you contact me?” 

“You’re the one who’s locked, not me.” Xi Ping charitably put on the airs he had been unable to display to A-Xiang in front of him. “A paltry little established foundation’s prohibition…hss.” 

Xu Rucheng was too shaken, so much so that he didn’t hear that the “great evil cultivator”’s bragging seemed to be followed by an intake of breath as if he had been slapped. 

He could say “a paltry little established foundation” just like that—then what was this “Tai Sui”? 

For the last thousand years, Qiu Sha had been the only evil cultivator to become an ascended spirit, and that had been such a big event that it had startled the four great spiritual mountain ranges into a concerted effort to suppress her. In other words, if this “Tai Sui” was an ascended spirit, he couldn’t be an evil cultivator… Could he be some peak master from Xuanyin’s inner sect who had secretly infiltrated Chu?! 

No wonder his lord had implicit faith in him. No wonder he couldn’t reveal his true form and his consciousness always seemed to be restricted. 

Xi Ping didn’t know that this big brother had overthought so much in an instant. He said, “I took my eyes off you for one night, and you slipped up. What kind of disgraceful behavior have you been getting up to under the young mistress’s identity, splitting the seams of your dress with a fart?” 

“I didn’t!” Xu Rucheng said quickly. “After they put the learning regret spell on me…bah, on Zhao Qindan, they had her mother come over to reason and plead with her. How would it be if I didn’t submit even after being tortured? And I was afraid that they would come up with another move to torment me, so I said all right…then they suspected that I was a fake! What is all these Zhaos’s problem, anyway? I can’t agree and I can’t refuse.” 

Hearing this, Xi Ping said in bewilderment, “Did you agree too readily?” 

“That can’t be. I made her mother waste spit for half the night and then agreed as though I was enduring great humiliation for the cause,” Xu Rucheng said. “When her mother heard, at first she acted as if a burden had been lifted from her, and then she said that my mental state had experienced major ups and downs lately, which would harm my cultivation, so she had a female medical cultivator they’ve brought with them come check my pulse and take care of me. As soon as she checked, something went wrong.” 

Xi Ping immediately asked, “What is there Zhao Qindan has that you don’t have?” 

Xu Rucheng said, “Quite a lot… But that medical cultivator was only a half-immortal, how could she have seen through the Luwu spiritual image mask?” 

As Xu Rucheng wildly poured out his grievances to Xi Ping, in an accusatory tone, he said to the Zhao established foundation, “Are you done inspecting? Please tell me, shixiong, is there anything wrong with me?” 

The Zhao established foundation frowned slightly, then said as if nothing were the matter, smiling, “Of course nothing could be wrong with Dandan. This is only for the sake of caution.” 

Xu Rucheng leveled his eyebrows. “Let me go!” 

But Clan Leader Zhao—Zhao Qindan’s father—waved a hand and said warmly, “Dandan, do you remember what instruction I gave you before you went to the Latent Cultivation Temple?” 

Xu Rucheng: “…” 

While he was speechless, he suddenly heard a female voice in his ear, whispering as if talking in her sleep: “Father said, ‘That you were able to reach this step is not because you are better than others, but because you have the support of thousands of years of the Zhao family. Our family’s members would rather be crushed to dust than disgrace the family.’” 

Xu Rucheng thought, “What is this shit?” 

He had just been in a panic and hadn’t memorized what came before, so he only recited the last part: “…Not to disgrace the family.” 

While teasing Xu Rucheng, Xi Ping had also found Zhao Qindan, who was in Tao County—the young mistress had inadvertently smeared her blood on reincarnation wood. Before, when Xi Ping had yet to return to his body, he had influenced her. Now, enveloped by the Law Breaker, he could do whatever he wished in Tao County. He simply “caught” Zhao Qindan’s consciousness. 

Zhao Qindan only heard a qin playing in her ear and instantly became dazed, as if she had been dosed with narcotics. In her confusion, she heard her father ask her a question and instinctively answered. 

Then her father asked, “Then do you remember what the clan’s family precepts are?” 

Zhao Qindan responded indistinctly: “The highest good is like water¹…flowing from its distant source to the deeps, it collects and becomes the ocean, and when the north wind rises, it can challenge the vast sky, swallow the kun and the peng². In danger it is flexible, becoming a trickle to sink through the desperate strait. When it becomes a river, the hidden worm can at last become a true dragon.” 

“Good heavens,” Xi Ping thought, “she can blurt it out even in her dreams. She must have spent twenty years eating mantou with those words carved onto them.” 

He suddenly thought that, if the Law Breaker Bracelet’s hidden realm could even draw in the consciousness of his shifu, who was close to a shed skin, then couldn’t it also work for other people? 

What would happen if he pulled them in? 

There was someone he could “try it out” on right before his eyes. With a thought, Xi Ping silently said to the Law Breaker Bracelet: I want Zhao Qindan to come in. 

In response, a Zhao Qindan appeared inside the Law Breaker Bracelet, staring straight ahead of her. 

The strange thing was that, when she entered, a short segment of qin music sounded inside the hidden realm. The style was a typical example of Wan music. 

Xi Ping had an excellent ear for music. He thought at once that there were a few discordant notes in the music that didn’t harmonize very well. Then he saw a sliver of light suddenly flash through Zhao Qindan’s consciousness. 

Xi Ping gave a cry and beckoned, capturing the thing on her in his hand. It was a tiny inscription! 

There was an inscription on this young lady’s consciousness? 

Xi Ping didn’t recognize it, so he quietly asked Zhi Xiu, “Shifu, what is this?” 

“I heard long ago that in order to protect their direct descendants, big clans would place a special ‘protective inscription’ on their spirits, to keep their consciousnesses from being polluted by evil, and making them keep it a secret,” Zhi Xiu said with a sigh. “I’ve never seen one before. I didn’t think it would turn out to be true.” 

Xi Ping saw the light. “No wonder they saw through Xu Rucheng. They must have noticed that there was an inscription character missing from his spirit…though why would they have been inspecting his spirit?” 

When the inscription on her consciousness was touched, the Zhao Qindan in the Law Breaker Bracelet gave a start and woke up. 

Now that Xi Ping had connected to Xu Rucheng’s consciousness, all the puddles and ponds inside the Law Breaker Bracelet were reflecting Xu Rucheng’s circumstances. Zhao Qindan saw at once that there were several people standing in the pond in front of her. She first unconsciously took a few steps back, then opened her eyes wide in disbelief. “…Father?” 

On the surface of the water, Clan Leader Zhao and some of her shixiongs were there, surrounding a person…it was Zhao Qindan herself. 

In recent years, Great Wan had invented a kind of glass mirror that reflected people perfectly, though it was usually used in places like factories. Ordinary people wouldn’t buy them for their own homes to look at themselves. Zhao Qindan had seen one once and thought it was very frightening, so she hadn’t used one again. 

Looking at the surface of the water now, she seemed to be reflected in a mirror of that type. Even stranger, while the “Zhao Qindan” in the water looked at first glance exactly like her, her each and every gesture, her small expressions, were subtly different. 

Through the surface of the water, the gaze of the “Zhao Qindan” in the water met the real Zhao Qindan’s. The eyes of the person in the water flashed almost imperceptibly, making Zhao Qindan break out in gooseflesh—this imposter could see her! 

Then the “Zhao Qindan” in the water, mouth unmoving, spoke from somewhere, the voice sounding all around her like a thunderclap: “Young mistress, you mustn’t come back, your family’s awful!” 

Zhao Qindan: “…” 

And he was a man with a voice like the ringing of a big bell, loud enough to give you a headache! 

Xi Ping thought, Let’s not have Loudmouth Xu scare the perfectly nice young woman out of her wits again. So he waved his sleeve, sending Zhao Qindan’s consciousness away, then sent that inscription to Xu Rucheng. 

Xu Rucheng was a Luwu after all. After he understood what had happened, he quickly calmed down and said to Clan Leader Zhao in an expressive voice, “I haven’t forgotten the family precepts, and I haven’t dared to forget Father’s instructions. You were the ones who abandoned me. What kind of important ‘main branch offspring’ am I? I’m only a product with a listed price!” 

Clan Leader Zhao exchanged looks with the cultivators. 

The established foundation cultivator said, “Do you know… Did you get rid of the protective inscription on your consciousness yourself?” 

Xu Rucheng gave a “mournful” laugh. “Shixiong, I hope you understand that it isn’t that I cannot go far away, it is only that I cannot cast aside my gratitude to my aging parents for raising me.” 

Xi Ping hissed as though his teeth hurt, feeling that he had gone a little overboard. 

Indeed, the Zhao established foundation didn’t put aside his doubts. He asked, “You’re only a half-immortal. How could you remove the inscription?” 

Xu Rucheng: “…” 

Good question. 

Xi Ping: “…”

He only knew how to blow up inscriptions.  

Zhi Xiu sighed wearily, feeling that having picked up an unreliable encumbrance of a disciple like this, never mind going into seclusion, he wouldn’t even be able to close his eyes in death. “Tell him to say he used the counterspiritual breath technique.”

Xi Ping and Xu Rucheng, both ignorant, didn’t understand this at all. One after the other, they repeated the words mechanically. 

When the established foundation heard, his expression at last changed slightly. After a long time, as if regretting something, he said, “I remember that when shimei first joined Heaven’s Design Pavilion, her mind was very calm. At such a young age, she had the patience to read through Heaven’s Design Pavilion’s indecipherable ancient texts. That you can casually recite the name of such an obscure technique truly makes me blush with shame. Had our family’s fortunes not fallen, your prospects would have been boundless.” 

Next to him, another Zhao cultivator said, “Shixiong, you have misspoken. Marrying into Western Chu’s imperial family is an unspeakably high position. As soon as she is married, she will as good as enter Sanyue’s inner sect. Do you not call that even greater prospects than she had back in Great Wan?” 

The established foundation waved a hand and left without saying a word. 

Xi Ping and Xu Rucheng breathed sighs of relief simultaneously—with the established foundation gone, even the air around them seemed to begin circulating. The other cultivators were all half-immortals. They couldn’t casually touch his consciousness. 

Things there had been more or less smoothed over, so as Xi Ping listened to Xu Rucheng dealing with the Zhaos, he respectfully saw off his weary shifu. 

He was extremely curious about the meaning of the melody that had played when Zhao Qindan had entered the Law Breaker Bracelet—there hadn’t been one when shifu had entered. So he tried using the Tai Sui Qin to repeat that melody. 

When he had just finished playing, a human figure flashed before his eyes. A “Zhao Qindan” landed in front of him, just like the living person. 

Xi Ping was startled and quickly extended his consciousness to look at Zhao Qindan herself. He saw her holding her forehead in confusion. She was doing just fine in Tao County. There was nothing unusual about her. 

The melody…had made a copy of Zhao Qindan’s consciousness inside the Law Breaker? 

Xi Ping considered, then used the Tai Sui Qin to play the notes he had thought were discordant. In response, an inscription landed beside his hand. It was the one on Zhao Qindan’s consciousness. 

Xi Ping carefully picked up the inscription—he hadn’t studied how to carve inscriptions, yet he had made one that was identical to the original. 

Perhaps because the Law Breaker Bracelet had taken up residence inside a qin, it seemed to be representing all people and things that came from outside with melodies. So…if he replayed those melodies inside this hidden realm, wouldn’t he be able to copy anything on earth? 

The Law Breaker hadn’t made a sound when shifu had entered. Could that be because shifu’s cultivation was too high, so with the Tai Sui Qin’s current level, it couldn’t understand him? 

Xi Ping was just considering catching a few people to perform some tests when he heard a Zhao cultivator say to Xu Rucheng: “Child, it’s a good thing that you have moved past this. That being the case, we will no longer conceal matters from you. Your future husband’s position is valuable. Though he has great prospects, as far as cultivation goes…he is a step behind you—you know that. According to Western Chu’s conventions, women who marry into the imperial family must have a Dragon and Phoenix Symbolizing Good Fortune stamped upon their spiritual images. This is their custom. We have already arranged the engagement, and in a minor matter like this, of course we have to follow the local custom. Don’t you think so?” 

Stamp what on the spiritual image? 

Xu Rucheng didn’t understand. 

But Xi Ping, who had been hanging around Wild Fox Country year in and year out, took on a slightly altered expression. 

This so-called “Dragon and Phoenix Symbolizing Good Fortune” had two seals, a “dragon” and a “phoenix.” Nominally a husband and wife each had one end stamped on them to symbolize being “eternally of one heart.” In reality, there were no restrictions upon the one who carried the dragon stamp; he could have three wives and four concubines, just as he liked. But the one who carried the phoenix stamp could only be matched with one dragon stamp and would meet with backlash if she betrayed that person. Moreover, just like the “spiritual image brands” the Zhou family had stamped on Liang Chen and the others, it was a permanent stamp.