After Zhuoming pulled him down to hide at the bottom of the lotus pond, Xi Ping didn’t know what was going on outside, but he felt that the East Peak was also on the verge of collapse.

He felt that this whole business was very chancy. First of all, Xuanwu must have had no idea that the sect leader might reach a full moon position, or else White Hair wouldn’t have offered himself up as fuel; second, no one had ever fought with a living full moon sage before, and if Xuanwu himself, wielding the Silver Moon, could still be flattened by Xiang Rong, then could a “backup plan” left behind by a shed skin who might already be dead be any use?

If it could be, then why hadn’t Xuanwu used it already?

Just then, the lotus pond suddenly tilted. At the same time, the two of them heard an ominous snap from the depths of the mountain ridge. Next, the whole mountain began to topple to one side.

Xi Ping had the same feeling as when he had knocked down the precipice while learning to fly a sword on Flying Jade Peak’s north slope. But this time, shifu wasn’t here to catch him.

Xi Ping had used his consciousness to cover up the shard of Zhaoting in his spirit back when he had been broken into several chunks—the high general had spent his life bound by responsibility, with a heart as heavy as the spiritual mountains; if he had been permitted to see the chaotic scene within the Unbound Furnace then, he might have lost his mind on the spot. Unfortunately, Xi Ping’s consciousness had nearly shattered in the meantime. He had fainted briefly. So he really had no other choice now; he was deliberately putting on a show of arrogance for Zhaoting, pretending that he had everything under control. If not for that, when Xiang Rong’s consciousness had swept towards him, he would have run off in terror rather than provoke a full moon god as if he had nothing better to do.

He wanted to fly up, but he soon found that it was a waste of his strength—it was clear that all the spiritual energy in the Sanyue Spiritual Mountains now belonged to the Xiang family; he couldn’t control it.

This was the force of a full moon divinity against mere ascended spirits; he simply had the two of them stifled, turning them into mortals!

The water in the pond was in total chaos. Xi Ping threw off the reeking lotus roots wrapped around him. “Does Sanyue have another exit?”

“Yes,” said Zhuoming, “but where are you going to go?”

Xi Ping: “…”

Good question.

“Apart from Xuanwu’s prohibition on the East Peak, which can hold out for a little while longer, never mind the Sanyue Mountains, there’s no corner of Western Chu you could get to ahead of Xiang Rong,” Zhuoming responded calmly. “Comparatively speaking, this is the safest place you can be. Can’t you stop flopping around and quietly stay in the water for a while?”

Hardly had he finished speaking than “the safest place” also experienced a landslide. The boulders beside the pond, bound by ancient trees, dropped off the high cliff. Falling rocks made plops throughout the pond.

A monstrous plant like the heartless lotus couldn’t survive in the mortal world to begin with. The aquatic plants Zhuoming could assimilate were limited to a space the size of the Sanyue Mountains. Xi Ping’s reincarnation wood, on the other hand, was all over the world. In his current ascended spirit condition, he could even instantly retreat to Tao County. But he didn’t dare. Any place an ascended spirit’s consciousness could reach, a full moon sage’s would only be faster than him, with greater range. He didn’t dare to test whether the Law Breaker would be able to withstand a full moon sage. And even if the Law Breaker really could do it, as soon as Xiang Rong caught him trying to escape to Tao County, a hundred thousand soldiers of Western Chu’s army would turn around and stamp it out.

Shifu, san-ge, the Luwu, the young mistress, er-nainai, the cook, and the minor merchants who made idle chat with him every day… Countless people swarmed into his mind.

Was there anything that could still impede Xiang Rong?

Boom—another loud rumble; the lotus pond began to fall in the other direction.

As they rocked left and right, Xi Ping could already clearly feel the mountain ridge snapping. If there was another shake, they would be splashed down the cliff!

“A little devil less than a hundred years old.” A little exasperated, Zhuoming batted aside the fragmentary bubbles Xi Ping had stirred up with his flopping. He sighed. His features were normal now, his expression very calm, as if he wasn’t in a tight spot, about to be crushed by the spiritual mountains, but only waking up after an afternoon of meditation, filled with enlightenment.

His eyes emptily reflected Xi Ping. He suddenly tilted his head and asked, “How many people are there in your head?”

Xi Ping automatically leaned back, getting a little further away from him.

“Oh, don’t be nervous, I’m not that ‘shadow’ who ran off from Yu Family Bend. I can’t make people say what they’re thinking aloud.” Zhuoming gesticulated at his temples, as if he didn’t know how to express himself. “I can just vaguely see…”

Xi Ping knew that his san-ge could even use some method to determine others’ Ways of the Heart. He waved a hand to interrupt Zhuoming. “That’s not important! We’re going to die, let’s think about how to…”

“Stop thinking. Do all you can, then resign yourself to fate—you’ve already done all that any two people could do. Why not wait and see?” Not letting him off, Zhuoming changed the subject back: “How many people do you know?”

“Wait for who? That shizun of yours is fit to be carried out in a coffin. You want to wait for Xuanyin’s people?“ As if they were arm wrestling, Xi Ping once again wrenched the subject back. “Xuanyin only has two shed skins left now. Those two old men are getting on in age. They might not be able to defeat Xiang Rong. Anyway, with my country’s wretched attitude, if the two of them come, there’s no saying whether they’ll deal with Xiang Rong first or get rid of the two of us first…”

“Wow, you’re so annoying.” Zhuoming interrupted him once more and asked yet again, “Do you know many people?”

Xi Ping was just about to say something when he suddenly met Zhuoming’s earnest eyes. Instantly, he realized that this lotus spirit had spent three hundred years in Sanyue, and it seemed that the only person around him had been Xuanwu.

“Since you can travel through Sanyue at will, why don’t you go find someone to talk to when you’re bored?”

Zhuoming’s mouth opened to an arc that human mouths couldn’t easily attain. He softly said, “I’d scare them to death.”

The mountain ridge shook fiercely once again. Xi Ping was flung out and tossed towards the stones beside the lotus pond.

The lotus leaves immediately gathered together to cushion him softly.

Xi Ping said, “Can’t you just not scare them?”

At the same time, he added the baldy in front of him to the pile of people troubling his mind. He thought, After all his dealings with Xuanwu, his background can’t be called either orthodox or evil. What will happen to him?

As soon as this thought appeared in his mind, Zhuoming immediately “saw” something. His willow leaf eyes opened to a horrifying size, and his neck twisted.

But before he could say anything, the East Peak couldn’t hold out any longer. The thunderclouds pierced the prohibition and burned the mountaintop black. Then a bolt of lightning took aim at the lotus pond!

The heartless lotuses wildly grew over a zhang in length at once, holding the two of them underwater. The flowers and leaves didn’t unfold entirely. The lotus roots that had gathered into a cluster were cut apart by the astral wind.

Xi Ping was thrown several chi away and couldn’t catch his breath at first. He futilely attempted to put a substitute paperman over himself.

But faced with ultimate power, all flourishes were jokes. Seven or eight layers of paperman broke at once. Several huge lotus leaves flew over to shield him, and they were no sturdier than the papermen. The lotus leaves taller than a person fell one after another, only sealing Xi Ping inside them, blocking his line of sight.

As he was busying himself, the summit of the East Peak, on the point of collapse, suddenly quieted. The chilling wind around him abruptly stopped.

Xi Ping said, “What…”

The next moment, sudden harsh light pierced the layers of lotus leaves covering him and stabbed into his eyes. For a moment, Xi Ping lost the use of all his senses. His mind was a blank, with only one thought remaining: the Silver Moon!

After managing to make it through to an ascended spirit, was he really going to be wiped out and turned to dust by that malicious moonlight like Qiu Sha?

Why?

Why did a weapon that could be tamed by a human represent the will of heaven? Why did it determine who was a sage and who was a demon? Why had it destroyed a year’s provisions that a whole county had worked hard to produce? Why had it burned full moon scabs onto innocent little children whose lives had had to be bought back for a hundred thousand white spirits?

Was it just because it could bully those who were weaker but feared those who were stronger?

Xi Ping unconsciously curled up, futilely using his hands to shield the center of his brow—the shard of Zhaoting was still in his spirit…

Wait—hands? How come he still had hands?

With difficulty, Xi Ping opened his eyes and found to his astonishment that his limbs were all intact and hadn’t been dissolved by the Silver Moon.

Now that the incomprehensible harsh light had passed, everything around him was pitch-black. With a thought, the spiritual energy in the area immediately came to crowd fawningly around him, removing the lotus leaves pressing on him. That feeling of being bound, as if he were suffocating, had also vanished. The sky was as clear as if it had been rinsed clean. After burning all night, the moon seemed to have exhausted itself. It was hidden behind the clouds. And dawn had yet to break. The Sanyue Mountains were as peaceful as if nothing had happened.

Xi Ping briefly exchanged a blank look with Zhuoming, who had fallen dozens of zhang away.

Like a snake, Zhuoming’s neck stretched out to the height of a room, sending out his head with its paramount spiritual sense to scan the surroundings for a long moment. “Xiang Rong’s aura seems to have disappeared.”

“Huh?” said Xi Ping.

“Look for yourself.”

Xi Ping tentatively extended his consciousness and glanced around. He saw that the empty Sanyue Spiritual Mountains were full of ruins. All the good-for-nothing Xiang family “masters” were hiding outside of the spiritual mountains. Tonight, if the common people in Dongheng City looked up, they might be able to see more immortals than streetlamps.

And Xiang Rong…that huge gas lamp of full moon divinity, was gone without a trace.

Just then, he heard yet another crack from the mountain ridge. Xi Ping immediately floated into the air on a fallen lotus leaf.

Then he found to his astonishment that the stones that had snapped off earlier were rapidly returning to position, the cracks closing up—in hardly any time, the summit had once again firmly come together.

Next it was the West Peak, the most heavily damaged Central Peak… The tumbled boulders were being drawn by some invisible force to resume to their original positions; the collapsed palaces and towers were methodically restored; among the spiritual mountains, the great mountain array that had burst altogether automatically “sewed itself up,” and the ruined inscriptions and arrays all returned… Finally, the Silver Moon slowly ascended above the Central Peak.

The great divine tool of the mountains was whole and unharmed, as if it had never been wedged into the middle of the mountain. Now that it had stripped off the heartless lotus, it even seemed “cleaner” than before.

The wounded spiritual mountains seemed to have obtained plentiful nourishment. They were healing themselves in an orderly fashion.

What was nourishing the spiritual mountains?

Xi Ping remembered what he had seen inside the Unbound Furnace, and a possibility suddenly occurred to him. He turned to look at Zhuoming. The senior inside the furnace had shaken her head at him then, so he’d thought he had guessed wrong—

Zhuoming sighed softly. “As expected. Once the full moon sage has vanquished the spiritual mountains, the next step is to be absorbed by the spiritual mountains.”

“Wait,” said Xi Ping, “I remember that the full moon sages before didn’t disappear as soon as they crossed the boundary. Especially your sect’s founder, the Black Emperor. After the spiritual mountains formed, didn’t he go have a bout of wrestling with the Heartless Lotus?”

The corners of Zhuoming’s mouth once again extended a little further towards the roots of his ears. A voice came from behind Xi Ping. “My guess is that’s because the sages didn’t barbecue their Ways of the Heart.”

Xi Ping turned and dodged a lotus flower that had suddenly grown a mouth and started talking. The lotus brushed against him as it returned to the pond. Its petals were ice cold and slippery, as if there was some sticky liquid on them.

“The full moon sage came first, then came the spiritual mountains,” a lotus leaf said softly. “The spiritual mountains were born because of the full moon sage. So after the sage has ascended, if along comes another new full moon sage with a Way of the Heart perfectly copied from the first one’s, will the spiritual mountains take him for their new master? Or will they take him for a part of themselves?

“Heeheeheehee,” a lotus flower laughed so hard that water sprayed all around it. “I made a bet with the lotus leaves, and I won.”

“You already knew…” said Xi Ping.

“I didn’t know. The flowers and the leaves made a bet. I was just waiting to see. You, me, the Late-Autumn Red…people like us always have to bet if we want to win, don’t we?” Zhuoming took a deep breath. “Ah, how grateful I am to the sect leader for giving himself up to the spiritual mountains. Sanyue’s spiritual energy is even denser than before.”

“I’m so happy!” said the mouth on the leaf.

“So happy…” Countless quiet voices sounded in the lotus pond, the clamor making layer upon layer of echoes. The echoing made Xi Ping break out in gooseflesh.

He watched as the Sanyue Spiritual Mountains were repaired as good as new in hardly any time. The towering shadows of the mountains still fell, impenetrably black, on Dongheng City. This was still the most well-favored place on earth.

Even though Sanyue was chaotic and preposterous, geniuses still came from all over to gather here. In a hundred years, in a thousand, perhaps another person would overcome their rivals and become the person in the immortal palace on the Central Peak who was closest to a full moon position… The cycle would have come full circle.

“You have what you wanted, and I also have what I wanted.” Zhuoming had his back to Xi Ping. He waved a hand at him. “We can call this collaboration a success. Oh, right, I still have a question.”

Xi Ping hadn’t caught up yet. “Sure, what is it?”

Zhuoming said, “I sensed that you were thinking about me just now. What were you thinking?”

Xi Ping froze. “Oh, with your shifu being carried out horizontally and Sanyue in the state it’s in, I was wondering what you were going to do in the future.”

Zhuoming, with his back to him, didn’t move a muscle.

“But with your cultivation level, without Xuanwu controlling you, you can hold yourself upright no matter where you go.” Xi Ping also landed back in the lotus pond and pulled the Unbound Furnace out from the water to put it into his mustard seed. As if he meant nothing by it, he asked in passing, “You mentioned Qiu Sha just now. What, did you know her?”

On Zhuoming’s face, turned away from him, the features gradually disappeared, until only one mouth remained. His eyes had quietly moved onto a lotus leaf and were scouting outward from layer upon layer of leaves, peering at Xi Ping’s back. His ears had moved separately onto lotus stalks underwater. With the densely packed flowers and leaves to screen them, they slowly drew near to Xi Ping’s ankle, listening to the beating pulse in his leg.

Vivid and warm…

“I did,” his mouth said. “As soon as the Late-Autumn Red entered the country, the Silver Moon sensed her. She was a parasitic vine, living by absorbing the essence of others. She was very weak right after becoming an ascended spirit and urgently needed to ‘eat her fill,’ get some useful powers.”

Xi Ping paused, slowly straightening up in the water.

“I also ‘fed’ Xiang Zhao to her.” Zhuoming, with his neck stretched out to practically half the height of an Azure Dragon Tower, slowly turned around, “looking” down from on high at Xi Ping—though there was only a mouth left on his face. “She gave me something just as good in return. Do you want to see it?”

A chill suddenly crept up Xi Ping’s back, but after going through the ascended spirit tribulation and being pursued by a full moon sage, his spiritual sense was unavoidably a little blunted. Its warning came too late now. There was a sharp pain in his chest. His newborn ascended spirit body split open from the inside as bloody lotus stalks bored through it.

The lotus stalks spread over his whole body, firmly trapping him within themselves like a spiderweb, then mercilessly pierced the center of his brow.

Xi Ping’s consciousness immediately tried to flee, but the next moment, it was as if he had hit an invisible net. His consciousness ached like it had when Xiang Rong had smashed his body outside of the Unbound Furnace; it felt as though he had been struck by lightning.

A flower said, “I know where your hidden bones are attached.”

A lotus leaf, giggling, said, “Caught you.”

All at once, the lotus stalks wrapped around Xi Ping dragged him down underwater. Hands as icy cold as a dead person’s reached out to cup his face. “When the Luwu came to this country, Sanyue sent people to investigate the Luwu’s background. I saw the portrait of Zhou Ying that they obtained. Why do the lower halves of your faces look so much alike?”

Xi Ping couldn’t speak, but he involuntarily recalled scenes of himself going to Prince Zhuang Manor as a child to tease the cats and dogs and make himself obnoxious.

“Oh, I see, it comes naturally,” a lotus flower grimly said in a low voice. “He has so many things by nature, has you by nature. How hateful.”

Soul…searching…

“It’s not soul-searching, and it isn’t those low-grade grit projections,” a mouth on a lotus root said.

Xi Ping had already been pulled down to the bottom of the lotus pond. From the corner of his eye, he saw a cluster of cold flames.

A flame burning in the water?

“Yes, that’s it.” Zhuoming gave a profound sigh. “This is what I got from the Late-Autumn Red. The heart of the Unbound Furnace.”