Zhuoming heard Wangge Luobao efficiently sell out the Miah clan leader, then glanced at the Miah’s blood-stained faces and saw light flicker in their eyes like flints being struck. He thought, Tsk, southern barbarians. 

This Miah rabble was holed up on islands in the sea, complacent and conservative, spending all their days like animals, eating or sleeping, giving birth to a pile of little ones who would follow the same pattern as the last generation. They had never understood anything in their lives apart from shoveling manure and putting animals out to pasture. They had no possessions but the mere basics, so all they could do was adhere rigidly to their bloodlines and traditions. The harder the oppression from the outside, the closer they huddled together, huddling until they died. 

An animal would run wildly before the whip, and a fool would give up their life for the sake of a grand but meaningless slogan. 

But Zhuoming didn’t do anything to complicate the situation. He kept his mad spitting hoard of mouths under control and said with restraint into Wangge Luobao’s ear: “There’s not much time. Follow the plan.” 

Wangge Luobao’s eyes flashed. He jumped and headed south. 

On the wide open South Sea, enormous spiritual beasts fanned out like islands. The vast majority were animal spirit images, but any one of them might suddenly “come alive” and throw itself at Xuanwu. 

The towering giant kelp that had come in response to a summons withered in swaths. The roars and screams of the spiritual beasts rippled far outward. Xuanwu cast aside the others and went in pursuit of Wangge Luobao. 

The spiritual beast tide that had been controlled by the flute regained its freedom, but suddenly a Miah cultivator let out a heartbroken roar. 

No one organized them. The Miah called to each other in the jabbered Miah language, the tides of people and beasts both letting the hot blood go to their heads. Whoever first started it, they once again raised a spiritual beast tide on their own and swarmed in pursuit of Wangge Luobao—just as Zhuoming had anticipated, humans wouldn’t scatter in confusion like sheep. Established foundations crushed their mortal bodies and rebuilt themselves; this was a pass that there was no turning back from. Once you started out along a certain way, even with an imposed or a useless Way of the Heart, that was all you could do for the rest of your life. 

The sixty-four Miah cultivators, after receiving the clan leader’s order, had known that they were already “sacrifices,” but no one had dared to voice an objection, because the clan was above all. The utmost grievance and resentfulness of “a sacrifice for righteousness” had been ignited by Wangge Luobao’s words—since they were going to “die for the clan,” did that mean they weren’t Miah anymore? If they sacrificed one generation to take the hidden realm, then who would enjoy the benefit of it in the future? The clan leader and the elders had even left the Lingyun Mountains by stealth. Thinking closely about these underhanded tricks, were they really the traditions the Miah clan took pride in? 

Though the Miah were all new established foundations, the spiritual beast tide that blotted out the sky was nothing to be ignored. Among the ascended spirits, no one dared to get in the way of its keen edge. For a time, there was nothing else they could do; they let themselves be swept up by the tide of people and beasts, leaping madly. 

As for Wei Chengxiang, who had just arrived, there was no question. Before she could even puzzle out the situation on the scene, the willow leaf boat that could only hold one person was swallowed whole by an enormous gold-armored zheng—now she could even save the strength it took to navigate and control the immortal tool! 

Zhuoming, hidden in the earring, said softly into Wangge Luobao’s ear, “Nice trick, Lao Wang.” 

Wangge Luobao had no time to pay attention to him. Xuanwu was hot on his heels. Even though he was on favorable terrain, with innumerable spiritual beasts in the sea ready to heed his summons, he was still beset by perils as he ran. 

“Those idiots in your clan don’t know what they want themselves, but you know. You’ll give them what they want, so those people will follow you like tamed horses.” Perhaps Zhuoming couldn’t hold his tongue because he had too many mouths. In the end, he did start chattering on annoyingly. “Worthy of a member of the way of beast-taming… Heh, guess what? Your clan leader and the elders are getting frantic.” 

When the upheaval on the sea had started, the Miah clan leader and the elders had already known that Wangge Luobao had escaped their control. 

The Great Way has three thousand paths, all of them equal in standing—this held up in the other immortal mountains; only in the Lingyun Mountains had a bias arisen because of the people. Even the Miah themselves thought that the ways of medicine and toolmaking were inferior. 

“The way of beast-taming…” The amber-eyed medicine cultivator sighed. When everyone involved was an ascended spirit, a member of the way of beast-taming couldn’t willingly accept being manipulated by others. 

“And of mixed blood,” the clan leader said with a bitter laugh. “How could you expect him not to be a thankless wretch?” 

As he spoke, he opened his palm. A complicated inscription emerged in his hand—had Xi Yue seen it, he probably could have recognized that this inscription’s basic framework closely resembled the dragon-taming chain that had once hung around his neck for over half a year. 

The dragon-taming chain was a Southern Shu specialty to begin with. It could tame beasts, so naturally it could also tame people. 

After the founder’s Way of the Heart had chosen Wangge Luobao, the clan leader had personally stood guard and placed this on his consciousness the moment he established his foundation. 

What a pity. If only Wangge Luobao had been obedient and behaved…

Without warning, a ring of golden light like a necklet lit up around Wangge Luobao’s neck as he rushed madly over the South Sea. Countless densely-packed inscriptions crawled out of it and spread over his whole face. 

Wangge Luobao stopped still. 

With Xuanwu’s breadth of knowledge, he realized at a glance what this was. “Even the Miah slaves can have internal strife.” 

This opportunity couldn’t be lost. Xuanwu grabbed Wangge Luobao and raised him high. “Evil cultivator—”

Just then, Wangge Luobao suddenly raised his head. His odd-colored eyes fixed on Xuanwu’s white paper mask. 

A lotus flower suddenly shot out from the center of his brow. In just a flash, it had consumed nearly all the inscriptions of the dragon-taming chain. 

“I apologize,” said a voice infinitely familiar to Xuanwu, “his consciousness is already my domain.” 

Before the expression on Xuanwu’s mask had time to change, innumerable giant kelp once again shot out from the sea. The moment they broke the surface, they were assimilated by a large cluster of dark red lotus stalks that twined around Xuanwu’s limbs. 

“Zhuoming!” said Xuanwu furiously. 

The latter half of the name went off key, because a beam of warm “moonlight” had suddenly come towards him, flowing along the lotus stalks wrapped around Xuanwu and striking Xuanwu’s back. Xuanwu only managed not to let out a scream by clenching his teeth. His upper body, rigidly facing upward, seemed about to snap off. The purple veins in his neck nearly burst out from his skin. 

“This is a full moon scab that the Silver Moon left me. I’ve spent eight years refining it,” said the lotus stalks twined around him. “How does it feel, shizun? Oh…your disciple is unfilial. I’d forgotten that your essence was pierced by the Silver Moon…” 

At the same time, Wangge Luobao sliced open his hand without hesitation and fiercely pressed it downward. 

An enormous hand appeared on the sea, over ten li high. The palm pressed down onto the surface. Where drops of blood fell, a whirlpool arose, spinning at a speed hard to distinguish with the naked eye. In the blink of an eye, it had stirred up this whole area of the sea. 

The sky suddenly darkened. The sun was eclipsed in the sky. 

Northern Li’s Snow Wolf, who had come in pursuit, raised his head and looked from a distance. With an ascended spirit’s eyesight, he could see the coast to the north. 

Could this be the legendary South Sea Hidden Realm?! 

The whirlpool spun faster and faster. The five great ascended spirits and the Miah spiritual beast tide had been pursuing before, but now they felt that they were moving involuntarily. They had the impression that they were about to get sucked in by that whirlpool. 

Xuanwu, who was closest to the whirlpool, bore the brunt. Along with the myriad lotus stalks on him, he was dragged right into the water by the whirlpool. After that, it was Wangge Luobao himself. 

Inside the whirlpool, lotus seals constantly attempted to invade Xuanwu’s senses—Xuanwu’s face was covered with a white paper mask, leaving only his ears exposed. So the lotus stalks grew many mouths. Countless fragmentary remarks poured into Xuanwu’s ears. 

“Shizun, I could never understand it—when I followed you joyfully to the spiritual mountains, didn’t let you down and wasn’t unfilial, why would you hate me so much?” 

“Later, I understood that you look upon me as though looking at yourself, and you hate me just as you hate yourself.” 

“Even the name you bestowed on me is based on yourself¹.” 

“Shizun, you struggle desperately to uphold the orthodoxy of the immortal mountains because you aren’t orthodox.” 

“Unorthodox people spend their whole lives feeling guilty, spend their whole lives wanting to make so-called ‘orthodoxy’ accept them… Haha, you’ve fallen to the condition of a stray dog, yet you actually haven’t lost your mind yet.” 

Along with these words, dizzying lotus seals burrowed into Xuanwu’s ears like monsters. As soon as some phrase managed to move him, the heartless lotus’s lotus seal would immediately wrap around his consciousness like an ulcer on the bone. 

The lotus stalks holding Xuanwu were constantly disintegrating, but Wangge Luobao seemed to have summoned all the giant kelp in the South Sea. It grew ceaselessly, and was ceaselessly assimilated by the heartless lotus. 

Xuanwu, whose old wound had flared up in the afterglow of the Silver Moon, was trapped in the whirlpool, wrestling with the two great ascended spirits. 

“Giving succor to the enemy…” Xuanwu nearly bit through his own mouth to draw blood. “Zhuoming…you know what the outcome will be…once the hidden realm connected to the spiritual mountains falls into the hands of evil cultivators… You know that as soon as the evil cultivators obtain the means to rebel against the immortal…ugh…” 

“I don’t know.” Zhuoming’s head emerged from the lotus stalks and spoke a lotus flower². “What does it have to do with me?” 

The Miah cultivators going to their deaths saw Wangge Luobao also get sucked into the whirlpool before their eyes. They urged the spiritual beast tide to jump into the whirlpool in droves. The Emperor of the East was the first to come to his senses. He scooped up his vital weapon, which had flown away, and aimed it at Xuanwu’s back. “Everyone, this is an opportunity not to be missed! The South Sea Hidden Realm needs sufficient spiritual energy. If we take Xuanwu down here, won’t that be perfect?” 

Wangge Luobao, hearing this through the water, decisively dipped a finger in his blood, which hadn’t dried, and drew an inscription in midair, which he sent into the center of his brow—a true heart demon oath required an inscription. Low level cultivators couldn’t make inscriptions and needed to ask a master to “bear witness.” The inscriptions recorded the oath forever, and the fate of one who violated the oath truly would be miserable. It was nothing like how Xi Ping had tricked Xu Rucheng into helping him back in Tao County—casually swearing an oath and calling it a “heart demon oath,” then turning around and not even cutting down all the trees. 

“I, Wangge Luobao, am willing to swear a heart demon oath.” The spiritual beasts in the area spoke in human tongues along with him, simultaneously using the Chu, He, and Li languages to say, “If we succeed today, the Miah clan will be your allies forever and share the resources of the hidden realm.” 

Currently, even without swearing a heart demon oath, Wangge Luobao had no reason to trick these ascended spirits. 

It was clear now that the South Sea Hidden Realm was different from the man-made “hidden realms” of the big families. This was a true hidden set of spiritual mountains. 

Wangge Luobao had clearly just betrayed the Miah in the sect. It was a wild fantasy to suppose he would be able to defend the spiritual mountains with his own strength and the strength of the crowd of Miah cultivators who had been forced to establish worthless foundations—it was no good counting on the divine tool of the mountains, either. 

Forming an alliance with the “evil cultivators” who longed for resources and a place to shelter was now the Miah’s best choice. 

“The expert in pulling down the east wall to prop up the west wall,” Zhuoming said, laughing. “Lao Wang, you’re the first person I’ve ever known to get this far selling yourself. Genius!” 

The heart demon oath disseminated over a hundred li away, knocking on the heart of each ascended spirit. 

Yu Chang pursed his lips. If they had a range of spiritual mountains, he and these other stray dogs with no dependable resources would no longer need to flee here and there, no longer need to worry that they, like Qiu Sha, would easily be wiped away by the divine tool of some immortal mountains. 

The sea wind fanned out the Queen Mother of the West’s messy hair. Perhaps in the future they could stand level with the extant great immortal mountains, harry the four nations who had divided up the Lancang Mountains back to their homes, return Southern He to its former glory. Steam engines were no longer dependent on spiritual stones; no longer would a nation be extinguished due to Moon Plated Gold appearing in the mortal world. Southern He was the homeland of craftsmen skilled in exquisite work…

For a time, the expressions of all the ascended spirits were very complicated. Each one was considering something, each one was looking at the others. 

The Emperor of the East once again prepared to be the first to speak and decisively set the tone. Yu Chang already had a resolution in mind and had raised his back heel…and just then, Tai Sui’s response at last came through the reincarnation wood that seemed to have died. 

Tai Sui said, “Save Xuanwu!” 

Yu Chang: “…” 

He nearly snapped his own ankle. 

“…What?” 

Far away in the Slumbering Dragon Sea, Yu Chang had heard of events in Western Chu. If he recalled correctly, this Tai Sui seemed to have nearly died at Xuanwu’s hands several times over… He’d just said he wanted to save what? Were Yu Chang’s ears acting up because he had exhausted his essence, or was there something wrong with Tai Sui? 

At this moment, Xi Ping was in the Lingyun Mountains. His hands were shaking uncontrollably. 

Earlier, Xi Ping had been investigating the array left behind by the escaped Miah clan leader, attempting to work out some clues from it, then follow after as the real oriole stalking behind the mantis. Though things were developing somewhat differently than he had anticipated and his hopes of seizing that hidden realm under the noses of all the various forces weren’t large, it was still possible to look out for a chance to gain some advantage. 

Who would object to some extra money? 

But after Wangge Luobao had aroused the South Sea Hidden Realm and the solar eclipse had begun, the true Lingyun Mountains had suddenly let out a wail like a sigh. 

This sound was very hard to describe. It wasn’t the sound of ridges snapping and boulders sliding, like when Xiang Rong and Xuanwu had brought down mountains in their fight. 

Back then, however miserable a state the Sanyue Mountains had been in, the impression they had given was that this was temporary. No one had been worried that the Sanyue Mountains collapsing would impact anything. Everyone had known that when the battle was over, even if no shed skins or ascended spirits took action, the spiritual mountains would still gradually repair themselves. 

It had been nowhere near as terrifying as the sigh of the Lingyun Mountains. 

This wail stabbed directly into the bodies of all the people…of all the intelligent beings in the mountains. Flocks of birds landed, the free range spiritual beasts on the peaks all went to their knees, and Xi Ping’s heart gave a jump as he was nearly submerged in unreasoning panic. 

In eight years of being an ascended spirit, he had walked through the mortal world like a celestial being, nearly forgetting the feeling of panic. But now he once again became an ant swept away by a flood, as if flying through the sky and burrowing into the earth had been only a drunken dream. 

The spiritual beasts in the mountains all threw back their heads in the same posture. The roars of the quadrupeds and the shrieks of the avians gradually rose, echoing the voice of the mountains. 

Xi Ping’s heart was being pressured by something from the outside world. The heartbeat he normally took no notice of and didn’t feel struck beat by beat against his ribs. A thought touched his spiritual sense: the spiritual mountains were dying. 

But how could mountains “die”? 

What did it have to do with a passing visitor like him whether the Lingyun Mountains died? 

Even if the whole western continent sank into the sea, it still couldn’t drown an ascended spirit…

For a moment, Xi Ping’s intellect lagged behind his spiritual sense. Bewildered, he was towed along by fear. His first reaction was to send Zhou Ying’s consciousness away. 

Amid the spiritual mountains, more and more spiritual beasts joined that endless wail, which resounded powerfully through all the valleys. 

Xi Ping turned his head in astonishment, just in time to see the sun entirely disappear at the crests of the Lingyun Mountains. The richly colored auspicious clouds became as gloomy as black streamers. 

The spiritual energy was sinking towards the ground. It was visible to the naked eye as the natural white spirits exposed on the ridges lost their luster. Immortal palaces built atop piles of spiritual stones began to move without wind. Like Xi Ping, all the cultivators stood with their feet nailed to the ground. 

In that moment, Xi Ping’s mind buzzed. Countless blurred images flashed before his eyes—and it wasn’t just him. Every person in the Lingyun Mountains now who had found their way to the ascended spirit threshold or had a sufficiently strong spiritual sense saw it.  

The spiritual mountains collapsing, the monsters of iron and steel belching out steam that hid the clouds and blotted out the sun, foul water bursting onto wide swaths of farmland, rainforests burning to deadwood amid the rain and then collapsing and lying flat, the dust they raised concealing the rotting corpses of spiritual beasts. 

People—it was unclear whether they were cultivators or mortals—grappled at close quarters, as if they had been transformed into the demon host at the bottom of the Impassable Sea. Savage-faced Xiuyi shouldered the newest firearms from Western Chu; when they pulled the triggers, the Miah who faced them lay flat, like wheat seedlings lodging. There were people whose bodies were still standing while half their heads had been blown away; out of the shadows surged a Miah with hatred on his face, who pressed something. Behind him, seven or eight cars of a Cloud Soaring Flood Dragon exploded into fragments with a bang. The small, slender Miah was knocked to the ground by the flaming wreckage, yet he still laughed up at the sky…

“Shiyong!” 

Amid the wails, an ominous crack pricked Xi Ping’s ears at the same time as Zhi Xiu’s voice. He gave a start, as if that crack had been his own spine breaking. 

“Shifu…what is that voice?” 

“A vein of the earth breaking.” In his spirit, Zhi Xiu’s voice was also strained. “In all my life, I’ve also heard it only once.” 

“Just now, I saw…” Xi Ping had never reached the boundary of “so immersed that he lost the power of speech” while practicing the sword, but now he experienced it vividly. He bit the tip of his tongue and used the taste of blood to come back to himself. “The Lingyun Mountains’ spiritual energy is flowing outwards, isn’t it? Why would that happen? Even when Xuanwu and Xiang Rong smashed up the Sanyue Mountains, it didn’t…” 

Zhi Xiu didn’t speak. 

But Xi Ping stopped himself—an established foundation needed to be told the hidden rules of the universe, but an ascended spirit could perceive them for himself. 

His spiritual sense, connected to the Lingyun Mountains on the point of collapse, had already told him the answer: the strife between Xuanwu and Xiang Rong had been internal; up to the present, while Xuanwu had been nominally declared a wanted criminal by the cultivation world, he had never truly betrayed his sect’s orthodoxy. But now, with the Miah revolting over a trifle like a clash between clans, no matter what small patch of duckweed this wind had arisen from, it had in the end by a series of coincidences led to an outcome no one had expected: the “evil cultivators” were about to seize the spiritual mountains. 

The “order” of the western continent was about to collapse. 

Since he had always considered himself an “evil cultivator,” Xi Ping ought to have rejoiced that the spiritual mountains were about to collapse, ought to have stood back and watched with pleasure at their misfortune, but he couldn’t smile. 

Out of nowhere, he had an ominous feeling. 

“Save Xuanwu. You signed the blood oath. Within ten years, you have to do three things for me. Ten years haven’t passed yet.” Xi Ping didn’t have time to overthink it. He passed word to Yu Chang far away in the South Sea. “I’ll return your Discard the False and Keep the True book!”