“My lord.” Bai Ling knocked gently on the door of the south study. 

It could be said that Zhou Ying had lived at the Latent Cultivation Temple for several years without “catching” a trace of ethereality. Never mind flying a sword, he wasn’t even willing to take a few extra steps from one year to the next. When it came to things like drawing talismans and making arrays, if he could order someone else to do it, he wouldn’t do it himself. He had no truck with the "three improvements and three abstinences,” preserving intact the fussiness of a Jinping elite, not devoting any excess effort to cultivation. When it was time to sleep at night, he slept. He never relied on a half-immortal’s resilience to stay up all night meditating. 

But since returning from the Marquis Manor, he had spent a long time in the south study, without sleep or rest, not permitting even Bai Ling to enter at will. 

The shadow cast on the window swayed, as if he had been disturbed. 

Bai Ling said, “The Viscount asks why you have put the reincarnation wood amulet away again.” 

The rustling of paper and brush came from the study. Then Zhou Ying said, “Come in.” 

Inside the room, the smell of ink had yet to disperse and the little weasel hair writing brush on the brush rest had yet to dry, but on the table, only a few sheets of blank paper remained. It was impossible to know now what he had written. 

Zhou Ying lowered his sleeves and washed his hands. Without surprise, he said, “Has he accepted it so fast?” 

As expected, presenting the Marquis had been more efficacious than anyone talking themselves blue in the face could be. 

“Give it to me…hss.” 

No sooner had his hand touched the reincarnation wood amulet than Zhou Ying’s consciousness was tempestuously swept away by Xi Ping. 

“San-ge, come with me.” 

“Impudent,” Zhou Ying perfunctorily chided him, tolerantly allowing himself to be dragged through the South Sea, arriving in Xi Ping’s hand. 

For some reason, Xi Ping had gone to the bottom of the sea, and he hadn’t put on a spiritual image mask, only used the spiritual energy surrounding him to crudely put together an obfuscation, making the mist inside the bubble hide his face and the bloodstains on his clothes. 

Before Zhou Ying could recover from the dizziness of having his consciousness moved, he heard Xi Ping call to someone, “Take this. There’s a precious person inside. Be careful.” 

Zhou Ying said, “What the hell…” 

…are you up to? 

Before he could finish, his vision darkened. Zhou Ying felt as if he had been shoved into a crack. He was squeezed so firmly he couldn’t move. He nearly missed a breath. The next moment, the piece of reincarnation wood he was occupying was taken by a false hand produced by Lin Chi. With a splash, it left the water. 

In an instant, he went from the bottom of the sea to the top of a mountain, burrowing into the reflection of the whole world. A view filled with verdure struck his paramount spiritual sense eyes all at once. 

Zhou Ying’s unfinished rebuke caught in his throat. 

Wei Chengxiang didn’t know who he was and treated him as she would Lin Chi. She politely said, “Senior, in accordance with Tai Sui’s wishes, I am going to take you around. Let me know if you have any requests.” 

At the same time, Xi Ping’s voice had become very distant, as if he were talking through something. He quickly explained the whole sequence of events. 

“…There are at least two requirements for opening the hidden realm: first, you need Wangge Luobao, who inherited Tianbo-zhenren’s Way of the Heart. He’s the only one who can bring out the concealed hidden realm. Then you also need the essence of at least one shed skin to open the hidden realm’s seal. The immortal mountains don’t have the Way of the Heart Tianbo left behind, and the evil cultivators don’t have a shed skin—Xuanwu doesn’t count. These two sides just fought a battle to the death. They probably won’t be in a hurry to hold their noses and get into cahoots.” 

As he spoke, a crowd of excited Turmoilers hopped and skipped over. In their hands were all kinds of simple weapons. They called in high and low whistles that only they themselves could understand. Each one of them was smiling as if their face had been punched in, a frightening sight if they had jumped out in the middle of the night. 

The Turmoilers, behaving like wild monkeys, saw Wei Chengxiang from a distance and finally remembered their manners. Pushing and shoving each other into upright postures, they tidied their clothes and hair and saluted her. 

Their bodies were deformed. Even the solemn gesture of cupping their fists and bowing looked like performing monkeys trying to win a reward. But no one ridiculed them here, so they also temporarily forgot that they were ridiculous. They were scrupulously courteous. 

In the ancient Southern He language, Wei Chengxiang said, “There are many unknown spiritual beasts here. Everyone be careful and stay with Sir Zhao. Do your best not to get separated, and don’t go far from the sable sheep area.” 

A Turmoiler spoke laboriously, stammering a response: “Thank you…Wei-laoban. This…is much better than the spir-spiritual beast farm.” 

“They really like it here, I’ve never seen them so happy,” Wei Chengxiang said. “After Southern He was vanquished, the spiritual energy stayed in the southern mines like a corpse, the veins of the earth ran dry, and the people of He became generation after generation of ‘Turmoilers.’ I don’t know whether these spiritual mountains at the bottom of the sea can ‘heal’ them…but I think they probably can. Even if it doesn’t work for this generation, perhaps their descendants can revert in the future.” 

Zhou Ying seemed not to have recovered yet. He was silent for a long time. Then he suddenly said to Wei Chengxiang, “Miss, could I trouble you to take me to a place with a clear view of the sea?” 

So Wei Chengxiang took out a battered sword and rose into the air from the mountaintop, flying to a height where the sea at the end of the mountain range could be seen.

“This place is the same as the Lingyun Mountain Range that runs through the western continent. From north to south, it’s longer than Suling Province. My cultivation is low and my manpower limited. I really haven’t had time yet to explore so far, or else I would be able to take you out over the sea to have a look.” 

“This will do fine, my eyesight is decent.” Zhou Ying stared at the distant horizon of the sea. “Do you see the horizon?” 

Wei Chengxiang looked in the same direction as him and saw only vast water holding up the bright moon. Where sky and sea met was gorgeous moonlight, a sight to ease the mind. 

So she responded loftily, “I see it. I don’t know where the end of the sea in this hidden realm is. One day, we’ll build a ship and set sail for a distant shore.” 

“As I thought,” Zhou Ying said to himself, “she can’t see it.” 

In his eyes, the horizon in this hidden realm wasn’t much like the true horizon. There was a blur where sea and sky met, which extended outward, connecting to a place his vision could not reach—it was identical to the border of the Law Breaker’s space in Tao County. 

“So there exists…such a place.” 

“The spiritual mountains certainly don’t want the hidden realm to appear. Wangge Luobao can hardly fend for himself right now. He may wish for the South Sea Hidden Realm, but it is out of his reach, and he probably won’t appear rashly in the South Sea. The willow leaf boat holding the entrance open contains a drop of my blood. I can make the boat invisible, so apart from me, no outsiders will be able to find that entrance again. Supplies can be brought in and out via the Law Breaker—I’ll have Zhao Qindan return to Tao County to communicate with outsiders. A-Xiang’s true body will stay here for now, and her consciousness can enter the Law Breaker to receive supplies at any time,” Xi Ping said. “They can build their own houses, explore, settle down… If they have the luck, perhaps they can open their spiritual eyes, but at most they can be half-immortals. It takes a master of at least the established foundation level to make an established foundation pill, and neither the person nor the pill could enter.” 

Since time immemorial, spiritual mountains had been forbidden ground for mortals. The immortals had used the spiritual mountains to hold the veins of the earth in the palms of their hands, to rule the land and the people. 

So…what would spiritual mountains that belonged to mortals turn into? 

“San-ge, you said, ‘With the weight of the old pressing down on them, new things can never rise.’ One must either submit or become a demon.” Xi Ping said with emphasis, “I still don’t believe that.” 

A half-immortal was after all a half-immortal. Staring at that mysterious horizon too long was dizzying. Zhou Ying closed his eyes to rest. Somehow, amid the darkness that had cut off his line of sight, he remembered some very trivial events of the past. 

Imperial Consort Xi had once again been unable to hold on to her flesh and blood, and he, along with the people around him, had been stained with the snow wine-scented pall of death. He had found an excuse to leave the palace and stay briefly at the Marquis Manor. He had come in search of clarity, but unfortunately, a child had been born at the Marquis Manor. Other children grew up drinking milk, but this one might have been sneaking sips of machine oil while still in his swaddling clothes. It was as if he had a spring in his spine. He never stopped. 

The young Zhou Ying could hardly contain his jealousy of that weedlike vitality, and he was vexed. He said mildly and steadily to the nursemaid, who was at her wit’s end, “It’s no matter, leave him here with me,” and then, once the servant had left, he unhurriedly dragged the gap-toothed child waiting to hear a story into the nightmare of the Impassable Sea along with him. 

As expected, the naked malice of the demon host scared the child ashen. Halfway through listening, he burrowed right into his quilt. Zhou Ying’s nose was too sensitive. The stink of milk on the child made him want to throw up. He simply left the quilt to him and recoiled to the bedside himself. He thought, Let’s see you dare to come again. 

But this gap-toothed lump hadn’t yet developed the ability to understand people’s expressions. He had no idea that he was being shunned. He only stopped for a moment, then once again wriggled over like a worm and grabbed Zhou Ying’s sleeve. 

“Weely? I don’t b’lieve it much.” This lisping “hero” curled up in his arms, muttering, “Don’t be scared, gege… We’ll hit them! Hit them!” 

In the blink of an eye, all his teeth had grown in, and he was so grown-up. 

“I used to think that talk of fate was utter nonsense.” Xi Ping’s voice came through the reincarnation wood from the outside world. “Now I believe in it a bit… Not that I want to go to the Dignitary of Fate for a divination. It’s just that I think some things might arise at opportune moments. Otherwise, after the Great War of Gods and Demons, why would a crack like this that only mortals can pass through have been left behind?” 

“You can’t enter it,” Zhou Ying said slowly. 

“Hui Xiangjun couldn’t enter the Law Breaker, either, or hold the Riverward,” Xi Ping said indifferently. “San-ge, do you know what something Miss Zhao said made me think of?” 

“Yes?” 

“She said that all the people in the cultivation world now don’t pursue Ways of the Heart but use Ways of the Heart as a means to get ahead. They’ve put the cart before the horse.” Xi Ping gave a grim laugh. “Perhaps the young mistress grew up reading too many holy books. Whether she’s betraying them or holding fast to them, she’s still too high-minded. As I see it, it isn’t the cultivators using Ways of the Heart as stepping stones. It’s obviously those so-called ‘Ways of the Heart’ driving the cultivators upward, turning them into furnace slag…and the piles of furnace slag compete to see which can burn the most vigorously.” 

Zhou Ying’s voice became even gentler. They couldn’t see each other, but for some reason, Xi Ping thought that he seemed to be smiling. “What makes you think that?” 

“The shed skins all seem inhuman, the full moon sages get swallowed whole by the spiritual mountains, and then there’s my shifu.” Xi Ping paused, lowering his voice inadvertently. “My shifu lived alone on Flying Jade Peak, practicing the sword for four shichen without fail during the day, questioning heaven and earth and refining his Way of the Heart at night, not slacking off a single day in over two hundred years—a person like him, when he’s clearly at a critical moment in his seclusion, about to cross a boundary, still keeps splitting off his attention to come hang out with me… I don’t suppose it can be for the sake of carving designs into this piece of rotten wood.” 

Zhou Ying sighed softly and made no judgment. 

“We can’t yet contend in strength against heaven and earth. The South Sea Hidden Realm is like a gold mine in the hands of a baby. But I’m going to raise that baby—using this as a foundation, they can win themselves a means of survival that no one will be able to repress.”

The demonic god, toying with fate, had forced these evil undying bones onto him. The spiritual mountains had labeled him an evil cultivator without cause. 

They had shattered the body he had been born with and banished his consciousness to the slime, where he had been awakened by the mournful cries of the voiceless, then called to turn back and see the shore¹. 

The gods were liberal with their magnanimity. The demons would drag him into their own decay. How careless were heaven and earth in their treatment of people. 

Outside the world, Xi Ping grit his teeth, biting off the indignation he had nearly blurted out in front of Zhou Ying. Forcing a smile, he said, “What do you think, san-ge, this is a good place, right? I know Xuanyin Mountain wants to foist a Way of the Heart onto you, compel you to establish a foundation. I know you must have a means of escape. Come on, let them go fuck themselves.” 

Zhou Ying didn’t answer. 

“You don’t need to have qualms about me, and you don’t need to have qualms about the Marquis Manor. Since the Dignitary of Fate has returned the disciple name token to me, naturally I have to ‘accord with the venerable fellow’s wishes’ and return to contend with all the gods and demons in heaven. I’ll plug the holes the gods and demons leave in their endless squabble, and you come help me look after this place, all right?” 

This time, I’ll stay on the outside and look after all your troubles back home, shield you all from the piercing wind and biting frost. 

For the rest of it…when you have the time, just take some pictures and send them out through the crack to cheer me up. 

“San-ge.” Not hearing Zhou Ying’s response for a long time, Xi Ping became a little apprehensive. “Trust me this once…” 

Zhou Ying interrupted him: “While this is a good place, you cannot be overhasty.” 

Xi Ping held his breath in spite of himself. 

“In the early stage, the fewer people know, the better. It’s best to use Turmoilers to open up land—the Turmoilers have nowhere else to go and won’t want to betray you. When the local force is sufficient to neutralize newcomers, you can slowly move forward. You have the immortal mountains and the evil cultivators to deal with at once. It’s like tightrope-walking over a cliff. Equilibrium must be maintained, internally and externally.” 

“San-ge! You’ve agreed!” 

“Don’t interrupt,” Zhou Ying said, slightly impatiently. “Remember that no place that has people in it can be paradise. No matter how hot your blood is, first establish rules, then divide up authority. With this hidden realm’s resources, it won’t be a problem to start supporting these people, but there is always a limit to resources. If you support people, you’ll also be supporting greed, gluttony, and stupidity. It isn’t enough for you to treat them as human, the people here must think of themselves as human. Education is just as important as being well fed. The simplest thing is to use something to give them ‘status.’

“When others come in the future, you can let them keep their original customs and writing systems, but this place needs to have its own systematic ‘official language.’ Each community needs to have its own channel for integration. There can be intermarriage and alliances, and you can also have each group exchange stewards amongst themselves. 

“Though the relationship is distant, the Kaiming and Luwu both have communication channels to the spiritual mountains, so none of them are trustworthy. You can continue to have dealings with the Luwu, but you cannot reveal the hidden realm to them. You can think of a way to train your own people to infiltrate the Luwu, but it can’t go the other way…” 

Bai Ling was waiting apprehensively at Prince Zhuang Manor in Jinping. Xi Ping had contacted him very hastily, only saying, “I have a way to break san-ge free of Xuanyin Mountain.” 

Zhou Ying’s true body was meditating in the south study, and his consciousness had been called away by the Viscount, not returning all night. In the blink of an eye, it was midmorning the next day. 

Over and over, Bai Ling had picked up a piece of reincarnation wood, wanting to ask what the situation was, then forcing himself to hold back—concerning the Heavenly Question that had come from the Principal Peak, his lord had strictly prohibited him from exposing it by any means to any person. This cousin young master was truly too astute. He might even work out from a superfluous question that something was wrong… While Bai Ling wished he could tell him everything at once, he was also petrified lest he make a fool of himself by taking matters into his own hands. 

The half-demon could only comfort himself: the Viscount said he had a way, so he must have a way. From the time he had been possessed by an evil cultivator while alone and cut off from help in the Latent Cultivation Temple, to the time he had robbed the Impassable Sea’s altar as a mere half-immortal…time after time, when had the situation not been “impossible”? And hadn’t it ultimately all passed with alarm but no harm done? 

This time, he was also sure to…

The desk clock in the study spat out a thread of steam. It was precisely noon. 

Zhou Ying’s eyelashes suddenly trembled. His consciousness had returned. 

Bai Ling’s spine stiffened. He heard Xi Ping say from the reincarnation wood, “It’s settled, no problem.” 

Zhou Ying opened his eyes and calmly said, “Write back to Princess Duanrui for me…” 

On Bai Ling’s solemn face which rarely wore a smile, seldom-seen happiness appeared—

“…tell her to give me a month to deal with some trifling affairs in the mortal world.” 

Bai Ling agreed and waited for his instructions for the following arrangements, for how to escape, but he waited for a long moment without hearing Zhou Ying continue. 

“My lord?” 

Zhou Ying waved a hand. “Once you’ve responded, go about your own business. Don’t keep hovering around me. There’s something off about the items confiscated from the Zhaos in Southern Shu. There ought to be far more than that. Tell them to check again.” 

Bai Ling, watching him, suddenly realized something. The happiness gradually curdled on his face. “My lord, the Viscount said…” 

“He has his own direction to go in, though it isn’t quite what I expected.” Zhou Ying paused. From that selection card up to the present, the road Xi Ping had walked had always run counter to his own wishful thinking. 

“He understands everything he needs to understand, and he’s old enough now…” 

Saying so, Zhou Ying took a small box from under the desk and stored it in his mustard seed. “This time I won’t go to the Harmonious Sound Building to see him off.” 

San-ge was all-powerful. So Xi Ping trustingly sealed away the disciple name token, hiding all alone and “downhearted,” while in reality he was running back and forth between the South Sea and Tao County, hopelessly busy. 

He had to get a set of open-eyed grade and downgraded immortal tools as well as firearms to give to the mortals in the hidden realm for self-defense; had to think of a way to make the willow leaf boat holding the crack open invisible and rack his brains to set layer after layer of protection around it; and he had to plan a passageway leading from Tao County to the South Sea Hidden Realm… So many trifles, and not one he could delegate to someone else. He himself often slipped up, but fortunately Tao County was Zhou Ying’s domain, and he could always point out the shortcomings. 

The people in the hidden realm were also extremely busy. In one short month, they had met with two dangerous spiritual beast attacks, and there were only two half-immortals to protect them. They had to build their own village and sentry posts in the spiritual mountains, and while protecting their own home turf, they also had to work up their courage and constantly scout the surroundings. 

During the day, the people inside and outside the hidden realm were all busy with their own affairs, unable to help each other; at night, apart from those standing the night watch at the sentry posts, everyone would crowd around the shores of that tiny lake on the mountaintop to talk. 

Xi Ping stood watch outside the hidden realm alone, wrapped in a bubble full of spiritual energy. He rarely interjected. The sound of the Tai Sui Qin couldn’t enter, so he found an ordinary flute somewhere. 

At first, apart from Li Manlong and Wei Chengxiang, everyone—including Zhao Qindan—was reserved, but later they little by little became accustomed to the melodious and distant sound of the flute and began to speak their own wishes under Chief Li’s guidance… Each person had to speak. Each person had a wish. 

They also discussed rules. Every time they reached a consensus, Chief Li would relate it and turn it into law, having the two half-immortal young women carve it into a huge stone beside the small mountaintop lake. 

After a whole month and more, the first small mortal village at last took rudimentary shape inside the South Sea Hidden Realm. 

Xi Ping had left several hidden reincarnation wood trees in the array formation at the hidden realm’s entrance and arranged that everyone would assemble beside the lake on the fifteenth of every month at zi hour. “Everyone, I have another request. Can you help me build a little compound by the lake?” 

All the Turmoilers were descendants of Southern He with its long history of skilled craftsmanship. So Li Manlong said, “What are you saying, Tai Sui? What kind of compound do you want?” 

Descriptions were too lifeless, and Xi Ping couldn’t draw, but fortunately there were cameras. So he sent photographs of the little compound where old Madam Xi had lived in the Marquis Manor through the crack into the hidden realm. 

“Build it according to this,” Xi Ping said. “If you’re short on anything, just tell me. He’s very delicate. Thank you, thank you.” 

Bai Ling was an established foundation half-demon; he certainly wouldn’t be able to enter. It was also unrealistic to think of moving Prince Zhuang Manor over in the early stages. Xi Ping had considered it and could only devote some care to it himself. 

He sent Zhou Ying a letter and saw Zhao Qindan back to Tao County, the whole time recalling what had been in the room in Grandmother’s compound that san-ge had stayed in when he was little. 

As he thought and remembered, he boarded Tao County’s Great Wan-bound Cloud Soaring Flood Dragon. 

Once across the national boundary, Xi Ping took off his spiritual image mask. All the inscriptions on the border were disturbed by the presence of an ascended spirit. Faint light invisible to the naked eye spread outward, traveling along the veins of the earth to Jinping, and to Xuanyin Mountain. 

Since leaving his country, in a flash, fourteen years had passed. 

Snow-white steam surged up to the sky. Xi Ping blended into the crowd and walked into Great Wan’s border post to the accompaniment of rumbling. At once, he saw a stream of Heaven’s Design Pavilion’s blue-clothesers nervously charge into the little border inspection booth. 

Xi Ping didn’t stop, only waved the inner sect disciple name token in front of the blue-clothesers and raised a finger to his lips to stop their terror-stricken cries of “shishu.” Then his figure flashed, and he floated away. 

“I’ll have to buy the flower seeds in Jinping,” he was thinking. “Will Southern Shu’s climate suit them?” 

Zhou Ying was already in the Latent Cultivation Temple. He crumpled the Heavenly Question in his hand that read “The Viscount has returned to the country.” He turned and bowed to the white figure that had at some point appeared behind him. “Your Highness Duanrui, I have kept you waiting.”