A consciousness caught by the Heartless Lotus was like a handful of water, and the lotus stalks carrying consciousness were like vessels for “drawing water.” Though the vessel wouldn’t usually affect the taste of the water, the direction the water flowed in and its shape would be almost entirely determined by the vessel. 

To begin with, the “bowl of water” that was Xi Ping had been sealed up nicely in a “bottle,” and right in front of Zhuoming’s face, he had turned into vapor in the blink of an eye. The constantly babbling heartless lotuses all froze. For a moment, the heart beating in the depths of the lotus root stopped. Zhuoming thought that he was dead. 

No, that was wrong. 

Zhuoming quickly caught on. It was exceedingly painful to destroy your own consciousness. It couldn’t be that straightforward—this seemed more like the Misty Willow pulling back a portion of his consciousness that he had sent out. 

In the depths of the East Peak, the Heartless Lotus was like a giant enraged beast. His tendrils reared up and began to roar.  

Impossible! 

They both had accompanying plants. Of course Zhuoming knew that he would have left a portion of his consciousness behind in an accompanying plant somewhere else before coming to Dongheng. But that was before he had become an ascended spirit—the Misty Willow’s hidden bones were attached to his consciousness; with bolts of heavenly lightning coming right at him and him bearing up under the double pressures of the ascended spirit tribulation and the reconstruction of the hidden bones, he wouldn’t have had attention to spare for such a distant place. 

No matter where he had left his consciousness, when his hidden bones had been reconstructed, he must have called it back to the vicinity of the Unbound Furnace. After that, he had been hiding desperately under the eyes of the full moon sage. Where would he have found an opportunity to flee? 

Moreover, the Heartless Lotus was one hundred percent certain that he had picked that person’s consciousness out of his body in its entirety! This was impossible! 

Zhuoming twisted. Dozens of lotus stalks, like vipers coming out of their caves, dove all at once into the bottom of the pond. 

Then there was a flash of snow-bright sword light as those ferocious lotus stalks were chopped off by a slash. Xi Ping “broke through the soil.” 

When he had seen the so-called “Hui Xiangjun” in the Unbound Furnace, Xi Ping had felt that something was very wrong. 

First of all, Hui Xiangjun was the Eternal Spring Brocade. Her Way of the Heart had been inherited from an ancient demonic god. Even though an individual’s understanding would cause the Way of the Heart to deviate somewhat from its initial condition…and the deviation seemed quite large in the case of Hui Xiangjun, it had still been her starting point, after all. She had entered the Way because of this. The Way of the Heart branded onto her vital weapon would have to have signs of this origin. But the so-called “Way of the Heart” in the Unbound Furnace had been like a “Law Breaker Manual,” without any traces of the eternal spring brocade. That was too unusual. 

The second thing that had aroused Xi Ping’s suspicion had been the manner of recounting all things being “made of inscriptions.” For him, this segment had been only too familiar. If it hadn’t been a pretty young woman standing in the golden light in front of him at the time, he practically would have thought it was san-ge speaking to him. 

But if you thought about this carefully, you would know it was wrong. It wasn’t that there was no possibility that Hui Xiangjun had had a paramount spiritual sense, but the possibility was miniscule. 

When an exception had been made for her to enter Sanyue’s inner sect, she had been only an established foundation, only qualified to be a disciple on the Central Peak. A disciple’s natural endowments would be carefully investigated when they entered the sect. Sanyue would have a record of any particular talents. Paramount spiritual senses were extremely uncommon, and it was even more rare for a person who had one to be able to maintain their basic common intellect and enter the Way. They were practically incompatible with the medicine and toolmaking ways, which had such high requirements for “steadiness.” If Hui Xiangjun, possessing a paramount spiritual sense, had succeeded in entering the way of toolmaking, that would have been a miracle. Sanyue couldn’t have attached so little value to her. 

Everything he had experienced in the Unbound Furnace had given him a strange feeling, and with Xi Ping’s negligible cultivation at the time, caught half a step from an ascended spirit, it wasn’t very likely that either Xiang Rong or Xuanwu would have let him feel a sense of strangeness—if he really had faced the two of them, there probably wouldn’t even have been time for a thought to flash through his mind before he was utterly destroyed. 

So…it could only have been Zhuoming who had tampered with the Unbound Furnace. 

Zhuoming, who at the time had seemed prepared to resign himself to his fate. 

In the Unbound Furnace, Xi Ping had briefly explained his ideas to his san-ge, from the ancient demonic god of the heartless lotus, to Zhuoming being able to change other plants within the Sanyue Mountains into heartless lotuses, and further to Xi Ping having seen Qiu Sha’s face in a bubble in the water… Putting all of it together, the two of them had arrived separately at the same guess, that the Heartless Lotus’s power was likely reverse body snatching: kill the body, imprison the consciousness. 

That was a big problem. They both had accompanying plants, and to Zhuoming’s eyes, everything Xi Ping did with reincarnation wood was crystal clear. That baldy had a paramount spiritual sense, and his cultivation was higher than Xi Ping’s. If he said anything to san-ge, the Heartless Lotus’s omnipresent eyes would catch it. No one knew how the “reverse body snatching” worked or how to protect against it. 

But one thing Xi Ping was certain of. If Zhuoming had malicious intent, with his amateur level, making a fake consciousness or something like that certainly wouldn’t take him in. 

“If I were the Heartless Lotus, the whole of the Sanyue Mountain Range, even Dongheng City, might not have any blind spots for me. No matter where you hid your seed, I would be able to tell at a glance—apart from inside yourself,” Zhou Ying had said to him then. “The shard of Zhaoting dares to light up to oppose shed skins. No one would want to alert your shifu. But I know that, in order to protect him, you would confine his line of sight to within your spirit. I would also use that to avoid him. In your spirit, beside the shard of Zhaoting, is the only place I wouldn’t touch.” 

Therefore, Xi Ping had wrapped up his last reincarnation wood seed in a mind clearing pill and swallowed it. 

This lowest grade of elixirs had gone straight to his spirit and calmed his perturbed emotions amid the flashing lightning and booming thunder. At the same time, it had also hidden a silent seed beneath Zhaoting’s light. 

During the time Xi Ping had spent talking to Qiu Sha, the seed had naturally sprouted. To the accompaniment of Zhaoting’s urgent and angry trembling, the sliver of his consciousness hidden in the seed had reappeared within his spirit as the seed had sprouted. “Shifu, this time I might be able to trick my way into another new power…ow!” 

Zhaoting had hit him. 

Next, the seed was completely annihilated by Zhaoting’s light, and Xi Ping’s consciousness struggled entirely free from inside the seed and was completely restored within his body. In the blink of an eye, he had removed the remaining heartless lotus traces from his senses. 

Xi Ping violently pushed Zhuoming away with sword energy, swept out with his hand, then put the Unbound Furnace away in his mustard seed and made a grab for the furnace flame in the water. 

He had been worried before that Zhuoming had completely controlled the Unbound Furnace. Now it seemed that he still had a chance! 

But he couldn’t grab the furnace flame. It stayed where it was, not moving a hair. Instead, it burned his hand. 

Xi Ping didn’t turn a hair—never mind a scalding, even getting cooked crispy on the outside and tender on the inside would be like a gentle breeze compared to Zhuoming tearing out his consciousness. Next, he saw a human figure flash inside the flame; without any hesitation, he sent his consciousness into it. 

Zhuoming was going crazy. As the successor of a demonic god himself, he knew that without a full moon sage to intimidate him, the moment Xi Ping’s consciousness had been restored, he would certainly have poured it into countless reincarnation wood trees, like a drop of water falling in the ocean. He wouldn’t be able to catch him again. 

“Die!” 

His rage was like the volcanoes on the various islands of Southern Shu. As soon as it erupted, his already inadequate reason simply couldn’t put a stop to it. 

When Zhuoming had been young, an unknown little bird had flown into his home by mistake. Its plumage had been as splendid as though it had dressed itself in a whole spring and summer. He had been wild with joy, had meticulously mended a little cage. He had loved the little bird so much he hadn’t known what to do with himself. 

Unfortunately, his heart had always been worthless. That little bird had first beaten itself bloody against the cage, then refused to eat. Very soon it had died. 

Ever since, Zhuoming had hated all winged things. 

Everything he trusted, liked, admired, wished to keep…all of it would desert him, without exception. No matter what innovative freakishness he came up with, no one would give him a second look. 

It seemed that he was destined to have nothing, his only companions those rancid, stinking lotus roots. 

The consciousness Zhuoming had left inside the furnace fire attacked like an avalanche. Though the lotus roots couldn’t withstand a single blow from the sword energy, he was also a force to be reckoned with when it came to consciousnesses. The beams of consciousness Xi Ping had sent into the water were throttled as soon as they met him. The blazing flame in the water pulled in his whole arm. The constant injury to his consciousness was making his temples ache fiercely. 

But there was no time to waste on the lunatic. If they kept flailing like this, they might summon back Xiang Ning. 

Xi Ping quickly abandoned his contest of consciousnesses against Zhuoming. He pulled out the Tai Sui Qin one-handed and played a few incisive notes that went in pursuit of Zhuoming’s main body. 

A paralyzed ascended spirit like Zhuoming, who spent every day ripping himself apart, wouldn’t have very strong fighting skills. Before, he had only kept Xi Ping down by relying on his higher cultivation level. Now they were both ascended spirits; Xi Ping could have given him a big bump on the head just by taking a swing at him with the Tai Sui Qin. The notes coming in at different angles sliced off half the heartless lotuses, sending Zhuoming dodging desperately all over the place, forcing his true body all the way to the vicinity of the furnace flame. Xi Ping unexpectedly pulled the Unbound Furnace out of his mustard seed and tossed the two of them along with the flame into the Unbound Furnace’s big cauldron. 

As soon as the furnace flame entered the furnace, the originally bean-sized flame flared up with a roar, the fire expanding the cramped space inside the furnace until it was boundless, with space to hold mountains and swallow seas. Then it flung Zhuoming’s consciousness away as well, and it vanished in the universe within the furnace. 

Xi Ping shook his arm, tossing away the scorched, truncated limb. Bone quickly grew from his torn sleeve, then agile meridians along with flesh and blood wrapped up the bones at dazzling speed. In the blink of an eye, it was as good as new. 

The heartless lotuses below Zhuoming’s waist had turned into ordinary human legs. The two of them glanced at each other across a distance of dozens of zhang. Zhuoming abruptly flew off in a certain direction. 

Xi Ping turned his head and saw that in the distance was a mountain covered in late-autumn red, toweringly high, with a cluster of a particular kind of ancient tree growing at its summit. 

Unlike the reincarnation wood, which usually lay chaotically all over the place, these trees were as tall and straight as if they had been drawn with a ruler. They were over ten zhang tall. It was clear at a glance that this was hardwood. Layer upon layer of broad leaves blotted out the sky. Exquisite white flowers that had yet to entirely fall mixed with the clouds. It was unclear at first look what was flower and what was cloud. 

Growing on the summit, it was as if the mountain had grown another mountain. 

Clear music sounded in the distance. A blue luan flitted through the trees, its long tail, like the hems of a dress, leaving a rainbow in midair. 

Living alongside late-autumn red, growing high among the clouds, auspicious animals appearing around it…could this be the legendary eternal spring brocade? 

Xi Ping hadn’t realized it at first, because he really hadn’t expected eternal spring brocade to look like this. Lin Chi and Qiu Sha had both said eternal spring brocade was “fragile.” Both had lowered their voices when speaking of it, as if eternal spring brocade were a dandelion that they might blow away if they used too much breath speaking. After that, who could have expected that this big tree would be about as “fragile” as the Azure Dragon Towers? 

Was there something wrong with those two? 

Zhuoming had already flown towards that summit a step ahead of him. 

It was already too late to chase after him. The little lotus seal once again flashed before Xi Ping’s eyes; he was again trapped by the heartless lotuses. 

Damn it! Just looking at that monstrous baldy could get you on the hook! 

Zhuoming knew that his consciousness was already dispersed and he wouldn’t be able to catch him. He only trapped him in place for a moment. When Xi Ping had cleared away the heartless lotus’s seal and escaped, the heartless lotus’s roots had already stabbed into the trunks of the eternal spring brocade like leeches. 

Zhuoming had acquired the furnace flame from Qiu Sha for the purpose of plotting against Xiang Rong; he wasn’t very interested in Hui Xiangjun, who had been dead for eight centuries—those with a paramount spiritual sense often had a kind of arrogance and world-weariness, as if they had seen through everything, and didn’t bother to listen to others’ teachings—so while he had acquired the Unbound Furnace, he had only casually put it away at the bottom of the lotus pond and hadn’t been in a hurry to look at it. 

But if the Misty Willow wanted to steal it, that was a different matter. 

In an instant, the vast information passed on from the ancient demonic god nearly drowned him. Eternal spring brocade was the way of toolmaking. Unlike the way of the sword, which staked everything on one throw, the way of toolmaking was extremely complex, able to attempt fathoming all of nature, one twig and one leaf at a time. 

Like the surface of the ocean absorbing water, Zhuoming greedily gobbled up this Way of the Heart in big gulps. There was more than his sense organs could bear; they had torn from the strain. His face was covered in blood, his mouth split open to the roots of his ears—if he couldn’t capture the Misty Willow, then he would completely digest the Unbound Furnace, the thing he wanted most, make him sit there watching how the thing he had faced the might of a full moon sage desperately trying to get disappeared! 

Just then, Xi Ping finally caught up. Before he got there, the qin music swept over. 

Zhuoming dodged. Laughing, he said, “Why do you only know this one move?” 

“Does it matter?” Xi Ping let off three strokes in a row without pause, sealing off his line of retreat. “It just needs to be able to cut you down!” 

Zhuoming simply didn’t dodge. Like a ghost, he seeped straight into the trunk of the eternal spring brocade. The Tai Sui Qin’s sword energy rushed straight towards the tree! 

Xi Ping jumped. With a flicker, he arrived in front of the eternal spring brocade’s trunk, hastily blocking the sword energy flying towards it. He was tossed dozens of zhang away by the sword energy he himself had played. His back collided with another eternal spring brocade tree. 

A large quantity of lotus stalks suddenly exploded from the eternal spring brocade, twining around his limbs like thick cords, breaking the fingers he used to play the qin. The next moment, an established foundation fire talisman knocked the lotus stalks away. 

But the talisman couldn’t injure the lotus stalks. 

Though Xi Ping was at an ascended spirit cultivation level, his talismans were still of a lower level—these were the results of his cramming from before. Otherwise, basically all the talismans he could readily use were of half-immortal grade, which might have made Zhuoming’s lotus roots die of laughter. 

Xi Ping quickly turned his head and saw more and more eternal spring brocade polluted by lotus stalks. This represented Zhuoming quickly encroaching on the Way of the Heart within the eternal spring brocade. 

Once the Heartless Lotus had complete control over the Unbound Furnace, the Unbound Furnace would be useless. Even if Lin Chi swallowed up Rosy Cloud Peak and became a shed skin or a full moon sage overnight, he still wouldn’t be able to control the Unbound Furnace…so wouldn’t everything that had come before have been for nothing? 

Xi Ping was afraid of harming the eternal spring brocade and held himself back, not daring to use shifu’s attacks in the forest. In desperation, he was simply ready to try anything; without hesitation, he used all the methods he had crammed recently. 

But all the powers he had crammed then were established foundation grade, and he hadn’t even had any time to gain a thorough understanding of them. His arrangements were a complete mess. 

Zhuoming dodged and blocked skillfully. The more panicked Xi Ping became, the more excited that damn baldy was, stopping and starting inside the eternal spring brocade forest as if playing to an audience. 

“Where did you learn that move? Doesn’t Xuanyin Mountain teach basic talisman skills?” 

“Nicely done, but it’s useless, hee-hee!” 

“Why don’t you appeal to higher authority at the last moment, learn another couple of sword moves from your shifu? General Zhi, who snatched the name of Sword of the South away from Xiang Zhao as soon as he became an ascended spirit, only taught his disciple a single move, tsk-tsk, and he’s nearly all used up. Zhaoting’s technique will become a lost art… Ah, you’re worked up.” 

Xi Ping had nearly drained his own essence dry in one breath. His vision darkened briefly. But he still couldn’t clear the heartless lotus from the eternal spring brocade. 

The next moment, there was a buzzing in his ears—the heartless lotus’s lotus seal had at some point once again seeped into his ears. Xi Ping was once again trapped in place. 

His figure stiffened. A lotus stalk pierced through his chest. 

Boom—

Yet another eternal spring brocade tree was wrapped up entirely in lotus stalks. Leaves fell in droves, leaving only solid and hard-pressed bare branches. 

Zhuoming curled up inside the eternal spring brocade forest, exposing only his head. With malicious enjoyment, he watched Xi Ping’s staring face. 

“You’ll never get the Unbound Furnace now.” 

As if he thought this wasn’t enough, the heartless lotus stalk piercing Xi Ping’s chest turned into an ashen pale hand that rummaged around breaking ribs for a moment, then seized Xi Ping’s heart. 

“I can’t catch you,” said a mouth that had opened on the back of that hand, softly and with emphasis, “can’t kill you, can’t have you.

“But I can make you wish you were dead! Hahaha…” 

The laughter produced countless echoes. Zhuoming’s sinister expression once again twisted his features, sending them running all over his face. He crushed Xi Ping’s heart—

“Huh?” 

Wait, this didn’t feel right. 

Zhuoming froze. The echoes of his laughter were still resonating through the valley. Underneath them was an indistinct sound of tearing paper. 

The features of the “Xi Ping” whom he had turned into a human skewer faded. His body drooped limply, fluttering in the wind like a kite… It was a paperman that had been tangling with Zhuoming all this time. 

The real one had vanished long ago. 

A ke earlier, Xi Ping had sent out a paperman and simultaneously contacted Lin Chi to learn an ascended spirit talisman at the last moment. Using that talisman as soon as he learned it, he had burrowed into the mountain. 

The inside of the mountain was even more magnificent than the outside. The tangled and complex parasitic roots of the late-autumn red were like a maze. Xi Ping carefully avoided touching the savage vines. He explored inward, following the parasitic roots…and then he saw the most stunning trees he had ever beheld. 

The exposed trunks of the eternal brocade were ten zhang tall, but the root system underground was as long as the mountain was tall, reaching from the clouds all the way to the earth. 

Xi Ping tentatively reached out to touch it. He felt that this tree root was more solid than all the valuable timber he had ever seen. The feel of it even put him in mind of Moon Plated Gold, which had the greatest hardness. 

He raised his head, attached his spiritual sense to his ears, and looked into the heart of the mountain—there was a flame the height of a person there. 

Xi Ping walked over. The surrounding earth and stone automatically moved aside, making a small space for him and the fire. “I knew I would be able to meet you here.” 

Hardly had he spoken than a human figure suddenly appeared in the flame. 

This was a young woman, attired in the garishly bright and colorful ancient Chu fashion, but her eyes contained a kind of serene benevolence. She observed Xi Ping, the uninvited guest, with a smile, so vivid that she seemed to still be alive… Compared to her, the “Hui Xiangjun” Zhuoming had copied inside the Unbound Furnace was a crude and simple charcoal sketch. 

The Hui Xiangjun in the flames also couldn’t answer—she wasn’t a living person, either. The flames turned to nothingness when Xi Ping tried to approach. She was like an eternally untouchable flower in a mirror, the moon reflected in water. 

Xi Ping considered. He sat down at approximately the distance of a tea table away from the flame and placed the Tai Sui Qin across his knees. “My guess is that the Way of the Heart in the eternal spring brocade at the summit is the eternal spring brocade’s Way of the Heart. It isn’t you.” 

The woman in the flames tilted her head slightly as if responding to him: But I am the eternal spring brocade. 

“What’s wrapped up inside the fire in the furnace actually isn’t the Way of the Heart you inherited from the ancient demonic god, right?” Xi Ping said softly. “Master Lin said there was no flame in the Unbound Furnace. The Unbound Furnace in fact didn’t have a flame. If my guess is correct, this ‘fire’ is the last work you created before your death.

“Its raw material was you yourself.”