All the spiritual energy in the Sanyue Mountains began to run wild. The hidden realms on the West Peak that relied on spiritual energy collapsed into chaos. Halfway up the mountain, cultivators flew up one after another on their swords. Looking up, the sky was full of people, like a plague of locusts.

The third-rate imperial grandson was raised on a stretcher and carried outside on servants’ shoulders—in Xu Rucheng’s view, given the imperial grandson’s physique, this was completely unnecessary; it would have been enough to roll him up and stick him under your arm—with two delicate maidservants next to him, their lips blue and their faces deathly white, one fanning and the other stuffing elixirs into the mouth of the fainting imperial grandson.

Though right now, Xu Rucheng had no time to rejoice at becoming a “woman widowed by her betrothed.”

Spiritual energy was like water. A timely rain could nourish all living things, but it wasn’t a good time when the floodwaters burst a dyke and rose over your head. The overflowing spiritual energy of the Sanyue Mountains had simply become a disaster, congesting the insufficiently wide meridians of the half-immortals. Xu Rucheng felt that he had become a sponge cake soaked in water, stifled by the spiritual energy blocking the seven apertures of his head until he could hardly breathe.

Just then, a small ceramic bottle flew towards him. That “taciturn” Young Master Cousin senior landed beside him.

“What is…”

“An eye-sealing pill, to seal your spiritual eyes for a time,” the Young Master Cousin said. “Don’t be in a hurry to take it, wait until you really can’t stand it. Having your spiritual bones rinsed once here amounts to twenty years in the mortal world. You won’t find another opportunity like this.”

“Thank you, senior.” Xu Rucheng gasped for breath and indeed couldn’t bear to take the elixir. “Is Xuanyin Mountain also like this? Right now, I…I think that it’s a joke that the market price of spiritual stones is a hundred liang of gold.”

“Xuanyin? It doesn’t match up to this.” Wearing the spiritual image skin of a beautiful girl, Xi Ping clasped his hands behind his back. The flood-like, brutal spiritual energy ruffled the hem of his skirt. “There is only one Sanyue on earth. So do you know why Sanyue’s sect leader is the person in this world closest to a full moon position?”

Xu Rucheng said, “Senior, what should we do now? The person from the inner sect hasn’t come yet. What are my lord’s and Mr. Bai’s orders?”

“Why wait for orders? This is a one-time chance that can’t be passed up.” Xi Ping quickly instructed, “There are arrays and hidden realms all over Sanyue. A bird that flew in and flapped its wings wrong would be remembered for ten thousand years. Right now, the great mountain array is unstable, and everyone is running around. Why not seize the opportunity to sneak in? Where else will you find such a good opportunity to fish in troubled waters? Prepare to meet the other Luwu, use the chaos to record all the checkpoints… I’ll leave this beauty’s identity to you, as well.”

“Huh?” said Xu Rucheng. “Record…”

Xi Ping said, “To resell at a higher price to the other three sects in the future, stupid baby!”

Xu Rucheng: “…”

Wait, why was this odious tone so familiar? Had that staid and silent senior from before secretly been swapped out for another person?!

Xi Ping gave a laugh. With a flicker, he vanished into the surging tide of spiritual energy.

Apart from Tao County, the activity at Sanyue had disturbed all of Western Chu. All the borders were in turmoil. The waters of the Xia River rose all at once, crashing against the border inscriptions of Great Wan’s Yuzhou. The local Heaven’s Design Pavilion and Kaiming Department immediately became tense.

Zhou Ying reached into his mustard seed and took out his reincarnation wood. “I told you to withdraw from Sanyue. Have you withdrawn?”

“Yes,” Xi Ping responded lightly and cheerfully and repeated the assignment he had just arranged for Xu Rucheng. “And I left my identity to the Luwu. That’s all right, isn’t it, san-ge?”

Scoundrel! Lying through his teeth! If he really had withdrawn, he never would have let the Luwu go in!

Zhou Ying’s veins all stood out. “Where are you?”

Xi Ping raised a hand, and the spiritual energy wrapped him up, sticking to him like a film. He leapt up and jumped into the lotus pond in the rear courtyard.

From the silt in the lotus pond, a long, slender, dark red lotus stalk reached out and wrapped around his wrist, abruptly pulling him down. A large mass of dark red lotus stalks sprouted from the bottom of the pond like an explosion, coiling seamlessly around Xi Ping. It was as if he had been swallowed by the dense lotus stalks!

Meanwhile, Elder Xuanwu hadn’t gone to attend to the splitting great mountain array. He had come directly to Sanyue’s Central Peak.

The frantic spiritual energy shattered Xuanwu’s hair crown. He passed through a bolt of lightning, all his snow-white long hair seeming to become one with it, but the white paper mask on his face didn’t move a hair, as if it was embedded into his face.

The enormous Silver Moon had swallowed his shadow, slowly following him to the Central Peak.

With a huge sound, half of the summit of the Central Peak suddenly collapsed. The carvings made of white spirits over a zhang tall fell rumbling onto the towers below, their gilded pinnacles tumbling down along with the dust. The Silver Moon’s chilly white light shone on the Principal Peak’s statue of the Black Emperor. On the lean and solemn face of Sanyue’s founder, the light and shadow suddenly deepened, inexplicably producing a mocking smile.

“Disciple Xuanwu, come to inquire after the wellbeing of my shixiong the sect leader.”

As soon as Xuanwu spoke, he broke by force through the constant thundering. His calm voice echoed throughout the Sanyue Mountains. When the clamor subsided, the restless spiritual energy had actually been suppressed by him.

He inquired three times in a row, and the turbulent spiritual mountains calmed. Following his voice, the congested spiritual energy flowed towards all the damaged arrays. The arrays began to repair themselves.

Xi Ping, having silently slipped into the lotus pond on the Principal Peak, went cold—Xuanwu’s cultivation was no less than Xuanyin’s Dignitary of Fate or Dignitary of Rule and so forth…but hadn’t Zhuoming said that he had used half of his essence to tie his disciple to the Silver Moon?

Before, the impression Xuanwu had always given off was of excessive ambition and crude methods, without the immortal air of a master with a complete Way of the Heart who had seen through all worldly things—within half a year, he had taken two trips to the human world; it simply made him sound cheap. It was hardly possible to imagine such a thing happening to the Dignitary of Fate or Dignitary of Rule, such that Xi Ping had always thought he wasn’t even Zhao Yin’s equal.

But these three successive inquiries into the sect leader’s wellbeing had poured a bucket of cold water over him.

How could this white-haired opera singer be so powerful?

“Because a Way of the Heart is far more complex than you imagine. What do you think a Way of the Heart is? Benevolence, righteousness, courtesy, wisdom, and faith? The virtuous cause of the nation?” Zhou Ying’s voice sounded in his ear. “Starting from the day the Sanyue Spiritual Mountains formed, they have been different from Xuanyin. The spiritual mountains determine the lay of the land, then determine the nation and its structure. They influence the inclinations of the whole sect’s Ways of the Heart. You’ve never studied properly, not since you were little. All you can do is get up to your little tricks. Get the hell out of there already!”

That was true, Xi Ping suddenly realized. Wan strove for “reticence” and “equilibrium,” with “discipline and self-restraint” as its ideal. Therefore, the Dignitary of Rule was cautious in speech, the Dignitary of Rites was careful in action, and the Dignitary of Fate could certainly never pry lightly. There were limits imposed on the imperial family, the thirty-six peak masters held each other back, and the sect’s regulations and taboos filled up a whole wall of writing, so hard to memorize that it made disciples want to hang themselves.

Typical Chu cultivators, meanwhile, were like Yu Chang, striving against heaven for their destinies, unreconciled unto death. The Sanyue Mountains stood alone and scornful—winner take all. Under the towering trees, the insects and grasses were permitted to mingle. It was survival of the fittest, using force to bring peace and stability.  

Xi Ping had been born in Jinping. Despite being spoiled into a disgraceful rich brat by his family, he was still Wan down to his bones. Naturally he had a great deal of dislike for Chu’s manners—but when you came to think of it, why couldn’t a shed skin be ambitious? Did initiative violate heaven’s commandments?

Why couldn’t a shed skin go to the human world? Was engaging in worldly affairs really so much more contemptible than rejecting the mortal world?

Xuanwu’s methods were crude; he calculated only the overall losses and gains—that was only because the stabilizing force of the Xiang clan could suppress all turmoil.

“San-ge, do you know what the most useful lesson the people of Chu have taught me is?” Xi Ping waved a hand to wipe away the beauty’s face. In an instant, he turned into an unremarkable low-level disciple of the Central Peak. Before Sanyue’s array formation had been fully repaired, he slipped in like smoke. “Cultivation isn’t sailing against the current, it’s climbing up a cliff against a waterfall, staking your all on a single throw. If there’s a shred of a chance, go after it with all your might, never mind how unattractive your posture.”

Zhou Ying: “…”

A feral dog picking up bad behavior from feral pigs.

“Xi Shiyong,” Zhou Ying said gravely, “aren’t you afraid that I’ll write a letter to the Marquis Manor, let your mother and father know what kind of crazy antics you’ve been getting up to out there?”

Xi Ping, surrounded by dangers that might erupt at any moment, felt a little like laughing. What kind of hot air was he blowing? He hadn’t even dared to visit the Marquis Manor for several years. Xi Ping had no weak spots in front of san-ge; all the weak spots were in His Highness’s chest.

But to avoid infuriating Zhou Ying, he still put on a completely insincere act of dread: “Oh, don’t, san-ge! I’ll do what you say, I’ll do anything you say, just let me…”

Before he could finish babbling, there was a huge sound. Xuanwu was about to force his way through the inscriptions of the immortal palace on the summit. At the same time, a beam of spiritual energy, oppressively savage, burst from the immortal palace. The two sides collided. Sanyue’s Central Principal Peak actually shook!

Next, an enormous human figure seemed to emerge from underground and extended for dozens of li, enshrouding the better part of the Sanyue Mountain Range. With an indescribable oppressive force coming right at him, for a moment, Xi Ping choked. Despite being half a step from an ascended spirit, he seemed to turn into a tiny ant.

From the depths of that enormous figure, a person walked out.

With a cultivator’s eyesight, it was possible to see clearly from the foot of a mountain to its summit. But when this person walked out, everyone, including Xi Ping, automatically averted their gazes.

As if looking at him would make their eyeballs explode.

But Xi Ping only averted his gaze for an instant. The next moment, he kicked aside his instinct and stubbornly looked.

Sanyue’s sect leader, Xiang Rong, was said to be the Black Emperor’s direct disciple, and the man presently closest to a full moon position. He was of similar stature to Xuanwu, with grizzled temples, though his face looked no older than that of a person in his twenties or thirties. It was a narrow face, bony, an appearance typical of the people of Chu. His irises seemed nearly to have merged with the whites of his eyes.

Xuanwu had fallen entirely under the might of that enormous figure. The features on his white paper mask no longer moved. He turned his false face towards the newcomer and calmly inquired for a fourth time: “Disciple Xuanwu, come to inquire after the wellbeing of my shixiong the sect leader.”

Xi Ping suddenly had a bad feeling and immediately passed word to the Luwu: “Get on your swords, don’t stay on the ground.”

“I am well.” The next moment, Xiang Rong spoke, but his voice didn’t come from his throat; it was the whole of the Sanyue Mountain Range speaking. “Thank you for your concern. I have failed to satisfy your expectations. I did not perish during my seclusion.”

With each word he spoke, the trembling of the cliffs and the ground increased, until it was resonating through the meridians and internal organs of the people on the ground.

When Xiang Rong finished speaking, quite a few of the Central Peak disciples with slightly lower cultivation had already fainted from injuries sustained in the shaking—and the minimum threshold for entering the Central Peak was an established foundation!

Xuanwu seemed to lower his head to glance down. The Silver Moon slowly approached, the moonlight shining on the enormous figure. There seemed to be a piece missing from the huge person’s chest.

“What can the sect leader mean by this?” Xuanwu spoke, suppressing the trembling of the mountain, saying in a voice loud enough for all of Dongheng to hear, “Two hundred years ago, my shixiong the sect leader went into seclusion. I have looked after Sanyue in accordance with the sect leader’s orders, working hard night and day, with no thought for my own cultivation, hoping for the sect leader’s success in his aspirations to a full moon position, that he might soon…”

“Utter hypocrisy!”

Without warning, Xiang Rong suddenly attacked. A huge inscription appeared in the sky.

At the same time, an identical inscription appeared on Xuanwu. Like a sack of flour being drained, he rapidly shriveled and bent out of shape, even his flesh and bones changing into the form of the inscription, held in the palm of Xiang Rong’s hand.

The next moment, Xiang Rong let go, but there was nothing but smoke in his hand.

Xuanwu appeared out of nowhere a zhang away from the immortal palace. “Sect leader shixiong, have you lost your mind?”

Hearing this, everyone in Sanyue burst into commotion.

Just then, the West Peak’s Elder Xiang Ning was cleaning up the West Peak in a hurry. His voice came from afar: “The sect leader must have reached a critical stage of his seclusion. Being impacted by the blood moon and the alterations in the Silver Moon, his energy temporarily went astray! Xuanwu-shixiong, the sect leader has the greatest trust in you. On entering seclusion, he even entrusted the Silver Moon and Sanyue to you. What are you doing?”

The mouth drawn on Xuanwu’s paper mask turned down. He swore inwardly: That good-for-nothing from the West Peak became a shed skin thanks to his family background—he’s no good for handling business or cultivation, but he’s an expert when it comes to bad-mouthing.

Now that these words had been spoken, he would bear the blame for the lunatic sect leader.

If the sect leader killed him, it would be “He was bewildered by the blood moon, his energy temporarily went astray”; by the time Xuanwu came back on the seventh day after his death, the sect leader could just express “regret for his past deeds.” But if he tried to do anything to the sect leader, it would substantiate Xiang Ning’s nonsense: the sect leader hadn’t lost his mind at all; it had been Xuanwu who had injured him. If he didn’t die today, then his reputation would be utterly destroyed.

No wonder Xiang Rong had chosen this critical moment to lose his mind…if he had chosen it?

Somewhat hard pressed, Xuanwu dodged Xiang Rong’s attack, then abruptly turned his head to look at the Silver Moon.

A blurry, smiling face flashed over the Silver Moon.

Wait. It had been Zhuoming who had told him that the sect leader was declining by the day, that he was about to lose his mind; it was also Zhuoming’s interpretation that the blood moon was pointing to an earthquake to the northwest in the Slumbering Dragon Sea, and that Yu Chang had reached an ascended spirit—but in fact, as a “moon on earth,” the Silver Moon could influence the moon in the sky up to a point.

That traitorous beast—he really thought he was ready to spread his wings!

“Sect leader shixiong, you and I have been brothers since the spiritual mountains formed. We have never been at odds. How is it that after only two hundred years apart, you have developed a misunderstanding about me?” Xuanwu’s figure “dissolved,” transforming into dozens, hundreds of avatars. The avatars kept duplicating constantly, filling the sky with snow-white figures flying here and there, as if a fog had risen over Sanyue’s Central Peak. “I cannot escape blame for this. After I have aided you in expelling your heart demon, I request to seal the East Peak and go into seclusion for five centuries.”

Xiang Rong ignored him. He gave a low shout, and all the arrays in the mountains moved according to his will. An astral wind rose, tattering the “Xuanwu fog,” heading straight for Xuanwu’s true body!

The next moment, Xuanwu’s true body and all the avatars vanished into thin air, and Xiang Rong came face to face with the Silver Moon—in the blink of an eye, that excellent Elder Xuanwu had just woven an illusion that could take in a peak shed skin.

Sanyue’s sect leader’s fierce attack hit the divine tool of the mountains.

In an instant, all of Sanyue was lit as bright as day. Some towers located nearby around the middle of the mountain turned into melting candles, softly deforming, “trickling” down the slopes.

And the moon in the sky had disappeared behind thick clouds.

The array formation Xuanwu had just repaired slightly collapsed altogether. The Central Peak disciples fled for their lives. Even the West Peak’s elder was holed up amid the array protecting the West Peak, not daring to move a muscle.

There was only a shadow like a dandelion passing lightly through the darkness where the Silver Moon’s light couldn’t reach.

Some days ago, Zhuoming had said to Xi Ping, “Even if the sect leader is about to die, Xuanwu is still no match for him. When the time comes, that shizun of mine’s first reaction will be to lead over the Silver Moon and use it to deal with the sect leader—my life is tied to the Silver Moon’s, and I have half of Xuanwu’s essence protecting me. Not even the sect leader will be able to differentiate. He’ll take that half of his essence for Xuanwu, and I’ll become shizun’s stand-in. And the Silver Moon is a divine tool of the mountains. Even if it kills the sect leader on the spot, it can be put down to the will of the spiritual mountains, nothing to do with Xuanwu. The sect leader facing the divine tool of the mountains will certainly be earth-shaking. All the talismans, arrays, and inscriptions of the Central Peak will collapse. Will you dare to sneak into the sect leader’s immortal palace of seclusion in the midst of a battle of shed skins?”

If mortals dared to set fire to monstrous vines in the midst of a battle of ascended spirits, if a half-immortal dared to cut off her own hand to interfere with a divine tool, what was there that he, a peak established foundation and a practiced hand at being crushed to dust, wouldn’t dare to do?

Xi Ping said, “Enough nonsense. Show me the map.”

Zhuoming immediately drew all the hidden realms and passageways throughout the Central Peak in a three-dimensional map that he pressed into Xi Ping’s consciousness. “Remember, when Xuanwu is hiding in the shadows, in order to avoid being discovered by him, you must not use spiritual energy. You can’t fly a sword. Half a step from an ascended spirit, with your physique, it will only take you a moment to climb to the summit. Half of my shizun’s essence will hold out that long. The oppressiveness of a shed skin battle is nothing you can imagine. Lower level cultivators can be driven mad. There will be many bewildering inscriptions and arrays along the way. When the time comes, seal your senses and keep your consciousness withdrawn. Don’t listen to anything, don’t look at anything—let your consciousness take you along the map.”

Xi Ping didn’t fly a sword, but he also didn’t seal his senses as Zhuoming had said.

Not only did he not seal them, he was even looking all around and listening to everything, on one hand transmitting all the exquisite arrays he could lay eyes on to Xi Yue, on the other hand facing the huge force of the clash between the shed skin and divine tool of the mountains, almost greedily noting every detail of the battle that he could see, deciphering as much of it as he could.

Even Xu Rucheng couldn’t stand to take the eye-sealing pill—how could he stand to close his eyes?

At the same time, Xi Ping had something else on his mind. As he dashed towards the summit, he was constantly pressing small pellets of green ore and low-grade jade stamp fragments into cracks in the mountain.

He was so busy that his spirit ached fiercely, tears of blood leaking uncontrollably from the corners of his eyes. Zhaoting, standing guard over his spirit, was droning constantly.

But Xi Ping was like a wicked cat that would get onto the roof if you took your eyes off it for a moment, spoiled and conceited, remembering only the good and not the bad, without the least sense of shame or fear.

Following in Zhou Ying’s footsteps, Zhi Xiu quickly found that cautioning him, scolding him, and threatening him were all completely useless.

The light of the shard of Zhaoting blazed, enclosing Xi Ping’s whole body, but Xi Ping pushed it back—this was Xi Ping’s first time resisting with his consciousness. Far away in Xuanyin, Zhi Xiu was astonished. His young disciple was always laughing and joking carelessly, yet his consciousness, after being shattered and rebuilt, was unexpectedly so strong.