Just a little more, and Xi Ping would have turned the miniature tree into his true body and gone chasing after. 

However…

The little brocade bag holding the wellness talisman disappeared in the flowerpot, and the Marquis’s gaunt figure, hands behind his back, disappeared at the end of the guest room’s corridor. The warm light gave his white hair and mourning clothes a soft edge. 

When he encountered the pages and guards of Prince Zhuang Manor paying their respects to him, he nodded politely to them. His step wasn’t especially robust, but at any rate it was light. 

He didn’t look back a single time. Perhaps he was afraid that his gaze would be like a hook and might catch on someone’s boots. 

However, the fact that Xuanyin Mountain was willing to turn a blind eye, not announce his existence to the public, not send anyone to hunt him down, didn’t mean that he could openly appear in Great Wan. They wouldn’t touch his mortal relatives; they only hoped that Xi Ping could have some tact, keep his mouth shut and not go looking for trouble. 

Xi Ping abruptly withdrew his consciousness, leaving Prince Zhuang Manor, instantly crossing a vast distance, leaving behind the nine provinces of Great Wan, brimming with all that was familiar to him. 

He arrived directly on the opposite bank of the Xia River. 

The water level of the Xia River had risen slightly. Both banks had already entered the off-season for fishing. There was still an endless stream of pleasure boats on the river, sending muddy waves flying; it stank a little. 

Tao County had undergone a dramatic change. 

A hundred thousand white spirits had restored the fertile soil along the riverbank to what it ought to have been. Farming and fishing had recovered overnight and quickly developed. No longer would evil cultivators come to pilfer heaven’s order. 

Behind the Xia River Waterborne Troops garrisoned in Tao County were the Luwu. What had once been a crowd of disgraceful army ruffians had in Zhou Ying’s hands changed beyond recognition: military discipline was in good order, each and every soldier properly turned out. No one dared to publicly feign compliance while disobeying in private—the Chu army didn’t know of the “Luwu”; they only knew that the eyes of their superiors were everywhere, like mosquitoes. If anyone loafed on the job or violated discipline while on duty, when they opened their eyes the next morning, they were sure to find a slip of paper with a military penalty on their pillow. They would have to take that slip of paper to the barracks to announce their own guilt and take their punishment. No one wanted to find out what the outcome of destroying the slip of paper or putting off receiving punishment would be. Many people had married in Tao County and already had families, and the army encouraged bringing over wives and children. Over the years, through imperceptible influence, what had once been the North Xia Waterborne Troops had become Tao County’s garrisoned troops; three years ago, they had formally changed their name. 

Spiritual energy being prohibited meant that no one had to be on guard against another’s hidden powers any longer. Public safety in Tao County had improved. The whole county had become a large-scale “Wild Fox Country,” attracting large numbers of cultivators who couldn’t face the light of day. Outside, these immortals all ate large quantities of spiritual stones. Upon entering, they couldn’t even walk, sit, or lie down with ease; naturally they needed people to wait on them. These people didn’t care at all about the money that went towards clothing and food expenses. They spent money like water. The traders had all come to life; a large number of traveling traders had even been drawn in from outside. 

The dramatic changes were naturally not unconnected to the outside world—

In order to balance the books for his spirit-conducting gold, Lin Chi would, at Xi Ping’s periodic reminders, hand over some items in order to fool people. This included the improved Gold Imitation Technique he had developed in recent years. 

The spiritual stone wastage of gold-smelting furnaces had instantly decreased by forty percent. The output of Moon Plated Gold had soared, while its quality had only improved. 

The Golden Hand had “come back to life” after his lengthy self-imposed isolation and kindled the furnace fires on Moon Plated Peak; it seemed he had also kindled the nation’s “ingenuity.” The enthusiasm of the skilled craftsmen of the mortal world reached an all-time high. They soon used the new edition of Moon Plated Gold to improve mining equipment. Previously unknown iron and coal…and all kinds of natural resources came into the world all together, which in turn propelled the mortal world’s iron smelting technology. 

Lin Chi had carelessly tossed the thing out and forgotten about it, but this single stone unexpectedly raised thousands of waves. The year after the new edition of Moon Plated Gold came out, mundane iron appeared in the mortal world that could perfectly substitute Moon Plated Gold in making machinery. 

This meant that the mortal world’s industry no longer needed to rely on spiritual stones. It now had its own development cycle. 

As long as it would save spiritual stones, the immortal mountains and the courts of each nation would gladly support any effort. The forest of factories in Jinping’s southern outskirts “infected” even the most conservative Northern Li’s Yanning. 

As for whether the rivers stank or not, whether fog would clog people’s nostrils…well, that was someone else’s problem. A dust dispelling talisman was only a basic open-eyed talisman. 

Unnoticed by either mortals or immortals, the great age of steam had quietly commenced. Large-scale construction was in progress everywhere. 

A big iron bridge spanned the Xia River, towering as the city walls of an imperial capital, with government troops standing guard at both ends to inspect passports. 

The Cloud Soaring Flood Dragon tracks on the bridge, constructed entirely of mundane iron, reflected dazzling light. Every day there were two direct trips to Tao County. 

Tao-er-nainai’s wish had come true. 

Zhou Ying had originally refused to allow the Cloud Soaring Flood Dragon to come to Tao County, because Tao County was Xi Ping’s protection. It was a place where spiritual energy was prohibited. There were eight million pairs of eyes fixed on it. The situation was already chaotic enough; if transportation developed further, wouldn’t the people there become even more jumbled up? He advocated in favor of governing Tao County like a sealed drum, storing up over a hundred years of resources, creating a self-sufficient manufacturing system, then excavating the underground and filling it with munitions, turning anyone who came their way into a firecracker. 

Xi Ping spent half a year wearing him down, pestering him endlessly. Every time, no matter what they were discussing, he would in the end come around to the Cloud Soaring Flood Dragon. 

Zhou Ying was annoyed to death. For a time, he didn’t want to speak to him. Xi Ping then deliberately came in the middle of the night to play ditties for his san-ge and read out freshly-printed editions of the Embellished Toilet Papers. So Zhou Ying turned up an ancient illusion array and placed it in all kinds of places where it couldn’t be guarded against, trapping Xi Ping’s consciousness in a little black room, then sending a pile of Kaiming Cultivators who were just cramming grammar to read at him. 

This battle of wits and valor between the two brothers went on for several rounds, neither getting the upper hand over the other. When they were both physically and emotionally exhausted, Xi Ping at last brought about a ceasefire by saying, “San-ge, when the tidal waves rise to the sky, the roc doesn’t dare to move, and even vast mansions are in danger of toppling. Only those who are the waves themselves do not fear the waves. You are the waves yourself. Do you really want me to be a sandcastle?” Both sides yielded somewhat: the Kaiming and the Luwu secretly promoted the Wan-Chu railroad, while at the same time, Zhou Ying did indeed excavate the earth beneath the garrison and fill it with munitions. 

In this way, Tao County became one of the most important hubs of the central plains area. 

What had once been a backwater so destitute that it had needed alms from Sanyue and nearly lost a whole generation became a major center on the central plains all at once. The population rose sharply, and land prices soared. Tao-er-nainai was even able to entrust her little inn to her adopted son and live comfortably in her old age relying on her rents. 

Xi Ping passed through the rows of reincarnation wood trees on both sides of Tao County’s main street, brushing past jingling trams. 

The trotting steps of newsboys in the street mixed with the sounds of voices and vehicles. The clamor was nearly at a boil, yet it all seemed to have nothing to do with him. 

He squeezed into an alley and walked out of a reincarnation wood sapling planted in the yard of “Cui Yugan”—some years ago, the old bachelor Cui Yugan had finally happened upon some dumb luck and put together a small fortune, managing to settle down in advance of Tao County’s soaring housing costs. The neighbors all knew that he wasn’t a bad person, just weird. He was always rambling around elsewhere. He would come crawling back to stay for a while when he encountered some difficulty. 

The Tai Sui Qin would startle the whole county if it played, so Xi Ping didn’t touch it. He only took the dust-covered huqin down from the wall and produced a long sigh from it. 

The huqin had gone out of tune from damp. He didn’t tune it. Hoarse creaks came from it like an emotional knot that wouldn’t unravel. The racket was inexpressibly lonely. 

In a flash, over a decade had passed. The Marquis had grown old, his grandmother was dead, and the aunt he had last seen as a child was also dead. Underneath her gorgeous burial garb, she had been as faded and white-haired as an ordinary old woman. He couldn’t remember how she had looked before. All that remained was the dry description “like a goddess,” formless and empty. 

Had he not become a cultivator, presumably he would also have married and had children, been changed entirely by the wear and tear of time. 

Being broken and crushed all the way, he had struggled up to the high clouds and seemed to have left the common lot of humanity—birth, old age, sickness, and death—far behind him. But while the dark clouds of oblivion and death had scattered, they were still omnipresent. 

For long-lived cultivators, wasn’t change the same as omnipresent “death”? 

Xi Ping’s hand trembled, and one of the strings snapped. Without spiritual energy to protect him, it left a red mark on his hand. Then from the door came Tao-er-nainai’s still resonant voice: “Hey, Lao Cui, have you come back after yet another heartbreak?” 

Xi Ping forced himself to calm down. He let out a sigh. Truly one couldn’t trust in folk legends. All this business of “a snapped string means a soulmate to listen”…it was nonsense. 

He had yet to put on Cui Yugan’s makeup, so, putting on a frosty look, Xi Ping called outside, “You’d better not stick your head in! I’m not dressed, I won’t be responsible if you get your eyes stung!” 

Tao-er-nainai spat. “Shameless thing.” 

Xi Ping laughed in spite of himself, the gloom in his mind lessening slightly. He was just about to go get his disguise kit when he heard Tao-er-nainai say from the door, “Your huqin playing doesn’t sound like you got dumped by a woman today. What have you been up to?” 

Xi Ping paused, then answered, “Went home for a funeral.” 

“Whose?” 

“My aunt’s.” 

Tao-er-nainai gave a cry. She first delivered some condolences accompanied by despairing sighs, then asked, “How old was your late aunt when she passed?” 

When she heard the answer, she said, “That’s about the same age as me. You can’t say she died young. At our age, it’s all the same if we die tomorrow.” 

The old lady had a loose tongue. Her words once again made Xi Ping feel heavy-hearted. “That’s nonsense, do you have to mention…” 

“If I don’t mention it, does it mean I won’t die, blockhead?” Tao-er-nainai clicked her tongue. “If you don’t die in the future, can you say you’re living today? You’d become a dumb rock like that crowd of undying immortals.” 

Xi Ping froze abruptly, remembering that he had received similar enlightenment in the Unbound Furnace, but he had hurried past it before having the time to comprehend it. But now that it had been casually spoken by an old mortal lady who could only read account books, it suddenly pricked his heart. 

Another neighbor to the east heard and couldn’t resist saying, “Er-nainai, that mouth of yours is amazing… How can you be passing judgment on the immortals again?” 

“Ha,” Tao-er-nainai laughed heartily, “I’m already buried up to the neck in the earth. What have I got to be afraid of? There aren’t any immortals in Tao County anyway!” 

The neighbor said, “Just get a load of that heresy. You’ve been going out to listen to that crowd of idle blockheads in the teashops ‘debating’ again, eh? Let me tell you, they're all shiftless students who couldn’t manage to get any scholarly honors or rank in the examinations, and they won’t go out and get a job to make some money. They’ve filled up all the children’s heads with nonsense.” 

Xi Ping came back to himself and couldn’t help laughing. He wiped the dust off the huqin, then, calmly fiddling with his face, he listened to Tao-er-nainai talking to the neighbor to the east. 

There had been all kinds of work in Tao County in recent years—roads being repaired, houses being reroofed, ditches being dug and canals being laid…everywhere was in need of accounting and overall planning. There was too much work for the garrison’s people to do, so a crowd of cultured gentlemen had been hired to come do odd jobs, attracting a number of down and out impoverished scholars who had been unsuccessful in their careers. 

When there was work, the scholars acted as foremen. When there wasn’t work, they sat around idly in the tea shops and wine shops disdained by cultivators. At first, they would only get together to chat about music, chess, calligraphy, and painting, but once someone had gotten drunk and, slamming the table, had come out with “We’re all born human, aren’t we? I’d bet all those immortals pissed their pants when they were little.” Instantly, the crummy wine shop had fallen silent…but after a long moment, nothing had happened. 

The soldiers patrolling in the streets walked by, turning a deaf ear to it. The shopkeeper balancing the books didn’t even look up. No bolt of lightning fell, and no Qilin Guardsman reached out across empty space to slap the speaker in the face. 

The scholars were uneasy for several days, then found that not only did the immortals of Tao County have no powers, they also seemed to be a little deaf. So their nerve grew little by little until they dared to say anything, such that later people would deliberately come to Tao County for its debate culture, turning it into an institution. If a “well-known commentator” were coming, the shopkeeper would even announce the time and place in advance, sticking it up beside the menu for public notice. When the event occurred, toilet bulletin printers from all over would sneak in, waiting for shocking statements to relate. 

Tao-er-nainai, who was richly experienced, commented: “It’s just talk. Some people talk quite well, and some people’s words are nothing but impudence. If you listen enough, you’ll know who to cheer for. As I see it, none of them are as good as Sir Xu.” 

Xi Ping plastered down his eyelids; his eyes became triangles half their original size. Hearing these words, he paused: Zhao Qindan? 

Tao-er-nainai’s praise of Zhao Qindan went on at length. She said that she knew astronomy and geography, that she was practically a goddess of literature incarnate. “…she can quote chapter and verse from the classics, and she’ll tell you clearly which edition and which page she’s referring to, so the ignorant will know where to look. She never speaks without consideration, and when she speaks, she shuts all those pedants right up. Just look now, do those dolts who call her a clucking hen dare to heckle her?” 

The neighbor to the east said helplessly, “No one’s calling her a clucking hen, they’re saying she’s a ‘hen crowing at daybreak¹’…” 

Xi Ping stuck on his messy fake beard, snapped his fingers and disappeared, then floated out through the reincarnation wood. 

The soft sound of a qin came to the ears of the meditating Zhao Qindan, so she opened her eyes and said, “Have you returned to Tao County, senior? I was just going to speak to you.” 

She was one of the few who maintained the “three improvements and three abstinences” of Xuanyin Mountain’s life of quiet cultivation. During these eight years, the former young mistress had left her country and her instructors and broken with her clan, and was living no differently from mortals, but she hadn’t abandoned asceticism, study, meditation, or daily lessons. It wasn’t that she still wanted to cultivate; it was just that these were the only roots that remained to her after she had bid farewell to the past, and she feared that if she lost them, she would be entirely incapable of finding herself. 

But little by little, Zhao Qindan had found Tao County overturning her previous understanding: that open-eyed cultivators couldn’t hold spiritual energy within themselves but had to “refine their spiritual bones,” which couldn’t be done by lying down and idling—they had to constantly fly, draw talismans, make arrays, and follow other such patterns, leading spiritual energy to scour their limbs and bones. Even if they were in good physical condition, they still had to be diligent…and most importantly, only with enough spiritual stones to spend on drawing talismans and making arrays could a half-immortal rinse their spiritual bones before their lifespan ran out. 

But Tao County was different. There was no way to draw talismans here. She spent all day mingling with mortals, doing the work of teaching, and the spiritual energy would pass as naturally as breathing through the spiritual eyes she had originally thought useless. At dawn, she would meditate and examine herself. Every time she made progress, her body would naturally become a little more graceful—Tao County was actually automatically refining her bones, even faster than if she had been burning spiritual stones outside. 

Sadly, there were few cultivators willing to settle down in Tao County and live like “crippled” mortals. Those who came from outside only wished to escape from this place where they could only use their two legs to walk as soon as their deal was done, and the Luwu weren’t about to go around blabbing about it all over the place. In eight years, apart from their own people coming to cultivate for fixed periods, very few people had discovered this. 

Receiving her response, Xi Ping sent his consciousness into the reincarnation wood tree in her yard. Seeing her, he gave a cry. “Your spiritual bones are complete. So fast?” 

Zhao Qindan saluted towards the tree. “I think I have a Way of the Heart.” 

“Did you get it from arguing in tea shops?” 

“Pretty much,” Zhao Qindan said, smiling, then said, “Senior, I want to find a place where I won’t impact heaven’s order to establish a foundation. Can you instruct me? Approximately how many spiritual stones does it take to establish a foundation?” 

Xi Ping thought, After all, she’s the daughter of a noble family. If she wants something, she always thinks of saving up the money for it herself. She won’t consider crooked thoughts at all. 

“No need,” said Tao County’s most mysterious protector. “I’m just on my way somewhere. You can come with me.”