“Lao Pang!” A segment of reincarnation wood reached out of nowhere and caught Pang Jian roughly. “Wait, I’ll have the Luwu think of a way to send steam cars in…” 

“Who can drive one of your metal shells that goes slower than a horse? If you tried going cross-province in that thing, you’d be seeing in the New Year on the road!” Pang Jian scolded, “Xi Shiyong, you’re shredding my pants!” 

“Well, who told you to…” While Xi Ping narrowly held him back, he had already transported over via the nearest reincarnation wood. Then he barreled out of the tree and turned into a gust of wind, taking the shortest possible route to a hole without reincarnation wood nearby. “…pull my hair! Why are you talking like a pedantic old geezer who’s swallowed ancient wisdom without digesting it?” 

At the urging of his spiritual energy, the reincarnation wood seeds, like their master, grew too fast for their own good. 

Xi Ping was up to his ears in work, hastily running between the various cracks. Before his ears, struck painfully by the enraged Territory Map, could recover their hearing, the consciousness he had left on the surface glimpsed the Dignitary of Fate Elder arriving in Jinping City. 

The Territory Map was struggling even more fiercely. Evidently the Dignitary of Fate’s arrival hadn’t brought about a turn for the better. The three elders were still going in circles around Jinping, desperately holding down the Dragon Vein while they tried to go through the Territory Map rubbing that Wen Fei had stamped on the ground to wrestle the black dragon shadow back underground. 

It seemed that apart from Wen Fei’s Territory Map rubbing of the area around Jinping, Xuanyin Mountain really had nothing else! 

Even worse, the spiritual energy dispersed in the fighting was constantly being absorbed by that black dragon shadow. The more powerful the suppression, the more spiritual energy dispersed. The essence of a shed skin elder was comparable to one of Xuanyin’s peaks. The Territory Map grew “fat” feeding on them. In this brief span of time, the black dragon shadow’s girth had doubled. In one ferocious attempt to escape, it actually split apart the Grand Canal! 

The banks of the canal had thrived since ancient times. It connected north to south. The speed of the canal rupturing was too fast for Xi Ping to repair by planting trees on his own! 

Watching the breaks spread, Pang Jian shook off and snapped the tree branches that had turned his robes to rags. “If I hadn’t started cultivating young, I’d have grandchildren older than you by now. If I’m not an old geezer, then what am I?! You’re going to get yourself killed showing off. Can you look after so many mortals…” 

Before he could finish, he was suddenly interrupted by a long whistle. The familiar whistle spread through the spacious and silent Territory Map; unexpectedly, there was something sorrowful about it. 

Pang Jian froze. This was Heaven’s Design Pavilion’s whistle to summon the sacred beast. 

Before the whistle was finished, a beast’s roar answered. A palm-sized karma beast appeared out of nowhere and rushed towards the whistling Wen Fei. 

Inside the Territory Map, the karma beast, which could only travel over things like walls and paper, had turned into a “living creature” that could be seen and touched, like the time Pang Jian had taken Xi Ping through the walls. 

The little karma beast landed on the ground and gave a roar, then grew countless times, becoming a huge beast as tall as an elephant. Its roar was earthshaking. It lowered its head to gaze at the dumbfounded walkers in the mortal world. Its eyes were so big they were a little frightening, but in them was warmth and friendliness. 

The big karma beast bent its big head and rubbed it against Wen Fei’s hand. The next moment, it split into many avatars. One of them dashed away, just in time to catch Pang Jian, who had fallen from the reincarnation wood tree. 

Wen Fei said, “Whose—whose elder are you playing at, d-disobedient little b-brat…”

The karma beasts moved much faster inside the Territory Map than on the outside. In a flash, they had leapt over a hundred li, far surpassing even the speed of masters riding swords on the surface. Only Xi Ping, who could swap places with distant trees any time, could keep up. 

The karma beast avatars, carrying a group of walkers in the mortal world, planted reincarnation wood along the banks of the canal in the blink of an eye. 

At the same time, the locally garrisoned Kaiming Cultivators also arrived one after another under orders. Along the banks of the canal, the reincarnation wood trees inside and out twisted into a patch like a scar, twining tightly around the veins of the earth. Countless silk dragon hearts broke in the process. 

Xi Ping caught his breath and immediately pulled a portion of everyone’s consciousnesses into the reincarnation wood so that the walkers in the mortal world dashing in all directions astride karma beasts could communicate easily. “Talk here!” 

“Wait!” Pang Jian, who had been carried over a hundred li in an instant by a karma beast, was scattering seeds with perfect accuracy, but he was still bewildered. “What the hell is going on?” 

The karma beast, looking at the reincarnation wood trees that spread as far as the eye could see, seemed somewhat displeased. It thought that these “evil cultivator’s trees” stank unbearably. It puffed out a breath, but, bowing to the dictates of the situation, didn’t use its claws and talons. 

On seeing the exhausted Xi Ping stagger out of a tree, the karma beast only bared its tusks, charged over with earthshaking force, stamped him into the fragrant mud beneath the tree, and rolled him around—new grievances and old resentments were avenged. 

Xi Ping: “…” 

In the pitch dark, Pang Jian didn’t see this clearly. He only felt acute jolting beneath him. He blurted out his pet name for the karma beasts: “Careful, what did you step on to get tripped on like this? Peak Master Wen, why would Karmie be here? How did you know?” 

Xi Ping dug himself out of the earth with difficulty, inwardly cursing in the languages of five nations at once. “Karmie… Hss, Lao Pang, have you gone around the bend from being an old bachelor? How sappy!” 

Pang Jian was very perplexed by his attack. “What business is it of yours? I wasn’t talking about you.” 

The karma beast, immensely proud of itself, rushed into the distance, letting out a sound halfway between a cat’s meow and a tiger’s roar. 

Only now did Wen Fei, half a beat slow, say, “I didn’t know…I was just…just trying.” 

His expression looked unusually bad. He didn’t stutter when he spoke with his consciousness, but now he was for once a little incoherent. “Isn’t the Territory Map also a dragon’s shadow? So I had a sudden thought…” 

Pang Jian and Xi Ping were both extremely clever. In the confusion just now, they hadn’t thought about it, but now, seeing his expression, they also suddenly realized something was wrong. 

The karma beast was a special kind of beast spirit. Tradition had it that it had once been the Southern Sage’s treasured pet. After it had changed into a beast spirit, the Southern Sage had left it to the walkers in the mortal world, and it had become Heaven’s Design Pavilion’s exclusive sacred beast. It hated evil like a mortal foe. For thousands of years, it had accompanied batch after batch of blue-clothesers through life and death, walking between light and shadow, coming when called. 

It could travel over all flat surfaces with human markings, but it didn’t like to run over the ground—unless there were arrays or inscriptions on it. 

But wasn’t the Territory Map the ground’s shadow? 

So it wasn’t that the karma beasts didn’t like running over the ground. It was that when they passed through the earth, they were inside the Territory Map. Before, with the seal in the way, people had been unable to see it. 

The sacred beast was like a magical ancient totem. The blue-clothesers had grown accustomed to having the company of the karma beasts. No one had considered where they went when they weren’t working. 

Supposing…

Supposing the karma beasts had always been inside the Territory Map, then didn’t that show that this hateful Territory Map, which was wholeheartedly determined to break free of its seal and strike back against the spiritual mountains…had some inexplicable relationship to the Southern Sage? 

Why had the Southern Sage kept the Territory Map such a closely guarded secret? 

Xi Ping had witnessed Xiang Rong becoming a full moon sage, and he had heard the crying of the Lingyun Mountains. From the bottom of his heart, he held absolutely no veneration towards the spiritual mountains. He was the first to recover. He thought, So just as expected, if you dig down into the spiritual mountains’ old roots, there’ll be smelly fertilizer. 

But right now, in order to avoid lowering morale, as though nothing were the matter, he still talked Wen Fei skillfully out of his predicament: “It was the Southern Sage who sealed the Territory Map, what’s so strange about him leaving a fat watchdog to guard a locked gate? I’ve always wondered why back when Liang Chen used inscriptions to seize the Dragon Vein, that gap-toothed big-eyed lamp managed to bite through his burial robes…” 

As if it could hear their conversation inside the reincarnation wood, the karma beast gave an angry roar. 

But then a round-faced walker in the mortal world bluntly put in, “In that case, when the sage sealed the Territory Map, why didn’t he just leave behind a rubbing instead of being all hush-hush and saying the Territory Map had been destroyed, putting us and the elders in this wretched situation?” 

Xi Ping, who had just managed to turn the subject away: “…” 

“He did leave one. The former Dignitary of Rites Elder Zhao Yin was a living Territory Map rubbing. If he were still alive, as a shed skin, he ought to have been able to control the Territory Map.” Suddenly, Wen Fei was no longer flippant. “Unfortunately, the Territory Map is too great. Each of the disciples who inherited Zhao Yin’s Way of the Heart only had a small portion of the rubbing branded onto them, and each successive generation was worse than the one before. The one I placed on Jinping came from the former master of Resonant Stone Peak, Zhao Long. He was Zhao Yin’s direct disciple. Because the portion of the rubbing he inherited was of the capital, he was highly valued.” 

The former…master of Resonant Stone Peak? 

But all the walkers in the mortal world—as well as Bai Ling—sighed when they heard this name. Xi Ping froze, finding that it seemed that apart from him, everyone present knew who was being spoken of. 

Wen Fei, presuming that Zhi Xiu wouldn’t have told his disciple about this rotten business, explained briefly: “In Xuanyin’s dispute between the Li and Zhao families, the Dignitary of Code Elder Li Fengshan went into strict seclusion for a thousand years, and the great ascended spirit Li Yuelan had her spiritual bones removed. The charge was murdering a fellow sect member—oh, you could also say killing her own husband. That ‘husband’ was Zhao Long.” 

Xi Ping was shocked. “The internal strife was that bad? An ascended spirit even passed away?” 

“No, the master of Resonant Stone Peak’s passing must have been two hundred years ago, not long after Southern He’s invasion of the north. It was only that the true culprit was unknown at the time.” Pang Jian finally remembered that Xuanyin’s internal strife had taken place nearly forty years ago. Xi Ping hadn’t been born yet. So he put in a word. “This came out during the internal strife… Oh, Zhao Long was poisoned.” 

Xi Ping was fairly well-acquainted with this trope, but it was his first time hearing of a version of it playing out in the Xuanyin Mountains. “Wait, without anyone knowing? The Sea of Stars didn’t know either?” 

“Haven’t you been down in the Sea of Stars? It only gives a general direction for everything. It can’t spit out a note with the killer’s name written on it. Back then…for certain reasons, they wrongly accused another person and only reversed that verdict thirty-some years ago.” Wen Fei didn’t seem to want to say any more. “All right, none of that’s important. The Heartless Lotus must have put together his Territory Map rubbing after swallowing the Ways of the Heart of a crowd of Zhao family juniors. Others don’t have his skills or appetite. If you wanted to get a complete Territory Map rubbing, you’d need to use a forbidden art to strip it right off Zhao Yin or his chief direct disciples—more or less like peeling off a person’s skin and ripping out their tendons. Never mind that you couldn’t manage it—Xuanyin is an orthodox sect. It wouldn’t do that kind of thing. The Jinping piece really is the only part of the Territory Map rubbing on hand. It’s no wonder the elders are at wit’s end.” 

Xi Ping heard his implication. “So the Territory Map rubbing you pressed onto Jinping was peeled off an ascended spirit?” 

“Yes. The killer wanted it but didn’t get it,” Wen Fei was vague. “Later, by a series of coincidences, it fell into my hands.” 

Xi Ping felt that his brief words hid countless secrets—“the killer wanted it”; after Jinping’s Dragon Vein had been damaged, Li Yuelan had deliberately gone after the Jinping Territory Map rubbing, not stinting to murder her own husband. What had she wanted? And taking a step back, fights among cultivators had in fact been common in ancient times. It was only in recent years that the spiritual mountains had stabilized the social order and everyone had begun to abide honorably by the laws for the sake of the big picture. Reasonably speaking, Li Yuelan’s crime of murder wouldn’t have merited having her spiritual bones removed—the last person who’d had the “fortune” to suffer this punishment had been Hui Xiangjun, who had nearly shaken the foundations of the immortal mountains. 

And was leaving aside that this case had also drawn in one of Xuanyin’s four elders. You could count the extant shed skins on your fingers. As long as they didn’t publicly defect like Xuanwu, anything an elder did was “in compliance with the Will of Heaven.” 

Also, among Xuanyin’s thirty-six peaks, Wen Fei was the only proper medicine cultivator at the ascended spirit level. So in a case involving “poisoning,” who would have been tasked as the lead investigator? And thirty-some years ago, who was it who had reversed the verdict and brought an end to the struggle between the Li and Zhao families? 

Through the reincarnation wood, Xi Ping took a glance at Wen Fei. He saw this medicine cultivator who never looked decent with his eyes slightly cast down. In the dark, he wasn’t smiling, exposing the icy-cold underpinnings of his flesh and bones. 

Yes—on learning last night that something had happened in Jinghua Village, seeing Zhuoming destroying Xuanyin’s veins of the earth, Peak Master Wen’s first reaction had been to take the Territory Map rubbing and leave the mountains without authorization… It seemed that Wen Fei hadn’t been “seized with anxiety” and forgotten to notify the elders. The history of his Territory Map rubbing must be something he couldn’t account for. 

“In the end, this is my fault,” Wen Fei said, understanding the meaning of Xi Ping’s silence. “I had thought that Zhao Long’s complete rubbing would be enough to handle an evil cultivator like the Heartless Lotus. I came rashly without reporting to the elders. I hadn’t expected that the Sanyue Mountains would really dare to openly invade the imperial capital. If there is no way to repair the situation brought about by the Territory Map’s seal breaking today, I ought to be the one to pay for it with my life. I shouldn’t have gotten all of you involved…as well as Jingzhai…” 

Zhi Xiu, who had been silent until now, suddenly spoke. “Had the Silver Moon not smashed apart the Territory Map’s seal, even if you had voluntarily turned in the rubbing, the elders still wouldn’t necessarily have done anything with it. Rather…” 

Zhi Xiu always made allowances in his speech. For him, saying this much could already be described as harsh—rather, they would have locked up Wen Fei along with that rubbing of unknown origin. 

A few cracks in the veins of the earth were nothing to worry about. As long as the Territory Map didn’t break, matters wouldn’t reach the point of no return. Great Wan had been peaceful too long, such that the country had forgotten that there were eyes watching them covetously over the borders; “disloyalty” could even grow within their own spiritual mountains. A small upheaval would have been just right to force Flying Jade Peak, where “grass” was growing, to get back on track and return to the orthodox Way, stop being “willful.” 

Zhi Xiu raised his head to watch the rapidly changing sky over the spiritual mountains: it took a hundred million ants to shake the spiritual mountains; in tiny Jinping…there weren’t a hundred million people, after all. 

Just then, there was a sudden boom among the thirty-six peaks that even passed through the mountain seal to disturb Flying Jade Peak. 

Zhi Xiu froze. At the same time, everyone inside the Territory Map felt their consciousnesses nearly squeezed to nothing. The overlapping conversations inside the reincarnation wood were cut off. 

Another sliver of Xi Ping’s consciousness shattered. He gritted his teeth, maintaining a thread of clarity to keep from losing his connection with the Law Breaker and being unable to get silk dragon hearts in time. Then he heard Lin Chi say, “Resonant Stone…Resonant Stone Peak has collapsed!” 

After a peak master died, their disciples would be dispersed among the remaining peaks to wait for the next ascended spirit to take over. Resonant Stone Peak had been the Zhao family’s asset. After the Zhao clan’s revolt eight years ago, Xuanyin had emptied out nine major peaks at once. There weren’t so many ascended spirits in the inner sect. The peaks couldn’t be managed, so they had all been sealed. 

Now, the corner of the spiritual mountains that had been under the control of the Territory Map rubbing’s master seemed to have melted. As the vein of the earth collapsed, the thirty-six peaks became thirty-five peaks! 

Reincarnation wood couldn’t be permitted to grow in the vicinity of the Xuanyin Mountains. This place was one of Xi Ping’s blindspots. 

The Territory Map, which had just been caught in coordinated attacks from inside and outside and had seemed nearly spent, had simply broken the mountain seal while no one was paying attention. This thing had to be a scourge left behind by the Southern Sage. How could it even extend inside the spiritual mountains?! 

The Territory Map, taking the “pillars” that Xi Ping and the others had woven with reincarnation wood for foreign objects, was trying to squeeze them out. All their consciousnesses added together could hardly withstand it. The Kaiming Cultivators on the surface, seeing the situation, sank their consciousnesses into the reincarnation wood without hesitation, protecting the pegs they had just managed to drive into the Territory Map. 

But these were only a few half-immortals who had opened their spiritual eyes less than twenty years ago. The bulk of the forces were still overseeing the evacuation of the nearby common people and couldn’t make it in time. 

“Lin…get the inner sect…” 

There was no need for Xi Ping to speak; Lin Chi and Zhi Xiu simultaneously sent Heavenly Questions that flew throughout the country—all the ascended spirits and the experts among the established foundations of Xuanyin’s inner sect had already spread throughout the provinces. The Heavenly Questions clearly pointed out the locations of the arrays created from reincarnation wood. The inner sect’s masters each arrived in the blink of an eye. 

On seeing the scalp-numbing clusters of reincarnation wood, Xuanyin’s inner sect masters froze. Hearing the Kaiming Cultivators say that they needed to spill their blood and send their consciousnesses into the wood, they immediately became hesitant. 

Blood, consciousness, spiritual image… There were all taboo objects in the immortal sects. The inner sect wasn’t the inexperienced Kaiming Department; who among them hadn’t heard of the ancient demonic gods and accompanying plants? 

An ascended spirit said, “The implications of this action are profound. We must ask the elders for instructions…” 

How could the elders be in the mood to pay attention to them right now? 

All of Resonant Stone Peak’s spiritual energy surged into the Territory Map. Even the flow of air and water in Southern Wan’s part of the continent went wild, rivers turning back on themselves—

In Jinping City, the Dignitary of Fate said “oh no” to himself and tore off his blindfold. “Careful!” 

He and Princess Duanrui were holding down the black dragon shadow together, while Lin Zongyi had sunk practically all of his consciousness into Jinping’s shattered Dragon Vein. One series of inscriptions after another passed over his face. He was temporarily filling in for the Dragon Vein himself. 

The black dragon shadow suddenly began to swell. It gave a sudden shake, and Zhang Jue and Duanrui were simultaneously thrown off. 

At this, the factories in the southern outskirts caught fire. Guangyun Palace had already turned to ruins. Lin Zongyi’s efforts fell short at the last moment; the inscriptions covering him abruptly disappeared. A mouthful of blood stained his mouth seal. 

The black dragon shadow took aim at the foremost of the Xuanyin shed skins, abruptly raised its head, and was just about to fight free of the hateful reincarnation wood nails holding it and swallow Lin Zongyi. 

Teeth-aching cracks came from the reincarnation wood array formation that seemed impregnable as a fortress. Inside the Territory Map, no one could contact each other anymore. 

Just then, Xi Ping sensed something. 

Those densely-packed, interwoven reincarnation wood trees inside and out seemed to have become a passageway. In an instant, millions of consciousnesses poured in like the tide, narrowly bearing up under the pressure. 

These consciousnesses were extremely weak, nearly all without spiritual light, a large portion of them even formless—formless consciousnesses usually belonged to people who were feebleminded…or even completely witless. 

Wen Fei and the others had never seen this many consciousnesses belonging to mortals. Surrounded by them, they hardly dared to breathe too deeply: the tiniest injury to a mortal's consciousness would kill them. 

But these countless consciousnesses, slender and frail as ox hair, arranged into a closely-packed formation, actually managed to sustain the pressure that even an ascended spirit peak master couldn’t endure. 

In the Land of Turmoil, in the South Sea Hidden Realm, the Turmoilers who considered themselves Indignant Cicadas had their hands on all forms and kinds of reincarnation wood, concentrating breathlessly. Many of them had been born mentally handicapped and didn’t even understand what they were doing; they were only willing to brave any danger for Tai Sui. 

The Territory Map was yanked back, and Duanrui narrowly managed to pull Lin Zongyi away with her whip. The black dragon shadow clung to the earth of Jinping with all four feet.