Wen Fei had no backing. After entering Heaven’s Design Pavilion, he was first assigned to the remote Hongyin branch, and in the following decades spent time in places like Suling and Guzhou. He passed through all the most unrestful places, doing the most unrestful work, accumulating a thick stack of meritorious achievements. In addition, he was smooth and slick, unusually good at mingling. Reasonably speaking, he ought to have climbed the ranks long ago, but the trouble was that tumultuous romances were written into his destiny. He left behind a trail of messy love affairs wherever he went. Heaven’s Design Pavilion’s headquarters in Jinping repeatedly wanted to promote him, but over and over he would cause some different slight problem. 

He himself didn’t care. When he had money, he’d go tinker with bizarre bagatelles. The black market was full of his informers. The two centuries of an open-eyed immortal’s lifespan seemed to exist just to give him time to play around in the mortal world…until the third year of the Wen Emperor, when an unusually troublesome evil cultivator killed nine of Heaven’s Design Pavilion’s people in Hongyin and entered the annals due to his ruthlessness. 

The nine people who had died in the line of duty were all Wen Fei’s former comrades. He had already been transferred to Guzhou then. When the news reached the South Sea coast, Wen Fei, who got along with everyone, for the first time turned on his superiors. Disobeying orders, he went north.

Both Li and Wan sent inner sect established foundations who, working together, were unable to contain that evil cultivator. Wen Fei, using a poison he had turned up who knew where and an array of his own making, managed to detain the evil cultivator who was a major boundary above him for half a night, holding out until the arrival of an ascended spirit sword cultivator from Northern Li. 

The Xuanyin Mountains and Northern Li’s Kunlun had lost one inner sect established foundation each, and of the half-immortals who had come along, practically all of them had been annihilated, with the exception of Wen Fei. Wen Fei himself had been poisoned; no one in the outer sects could cure him. The general commander at the time sent a Heavenly Question to the immortal mountains, asking the inner sect to save him. 

Of Xuanyin and Kunlun, one concentrated on mental cultivation, while the other concentrated on physical training. In the early years, neither sect had had anyone cultivate the way of medicine making. Put together, the two sects couldn’t come up with a single medicine making master. So the inner sect could only send an established foundation of the way of medicine making to do whatever she could towards saving him. 

By coincidence, that medicine cultivating shijie was the immortal envoy who had drawn Wen Fei into the Latent Cultivation Temple. 

When the medicine cultivator reached the Latent Cultivation Temple and took a look, she was stunned. She had no idea what the hell he had managed to get up to. All she could do was keep him alive while thinking up a way to wake him up and ask him for the details. 

Wen Fei had been gathering bizarre objects purely for his own amusement; he also couldn’t clearly say what he had done. So the patient and the healer could only spend every day racking their brains as if investigating a case, guessing and fumbling. In several breathtaking instances, he nearly died, only to be pulled back from the brink. He spent three years bedridden in the Latent Cultivation Temple, bringing the early established foundation shijie to the middle established foundation period… It was lucky that a cultivator couldn’t go bald. 

The Latent Cultivation Temple was the boundary between inner and outer sect, a place of quiet cultivation. Under the noses of a crowd of stewards, naturally nothing untoward could happen. 

Everyone only knew that when he was cured of the poison and returned to the outer sect after three years, Wen Fei’s whole personality seemed to have changed. He no longer fooled around all over the place—it turned out that he also knew how to behave decently. 

Because of his great service in punishing evil, Wen Fei was transferred to Jinping after he left the mountains. Within a decade, he succeeded to the post of general commander. At the time, his spiritual bones were already complete, but he hadn’t deliberately gone in search of a Way of the Heart. He seemed to have no intention of entering the inner sect. 

He bought a bit of land in Zheluo Town near Jinping. Following the model of the place where the walkers in the mortal world lived, he used mustard seeds to transform that land into a small villa. He called it the Village of Apricot Blossoms. Not confining himself to apricot blossoms, he planted all kinds of flowers, and saved up his own spiritual stones to create a small patch of spiritual ground that he weeded in his free time. During festivals, he would receive his colleagues there for drinking and fishing. It was an excellent place to be happy and carefree, forget yourself in drunkenness. 

He didn’t buy things at random anymore. When he had money to spare, he spent it on his little hidden realm. After over a decade of meticulous care, the spiritual field grew a rare spiritual flower that was hard to come by even on Southern Shu’s Three Islands—the orchid of immortality. 

The orchid of immortality was already rare, but all those circulating on the market were lilac, while this one was snow-white. 

This was of paramount quality. When the flower bloomed to its ripest, you could distill three drops of flower dew from it—this was the main ingredient in the spirit-protecting pill. 

Tradition had it that the spirit-protecting pill could protect the spirit of a dying person, keep it from being extinguished for at least half a shichen, so you could keep the deceased emotionally stable enough to recite the whole Detailed Account of Meridians before closing their eyes… Of course, the average person wasn’t so wicked as to make such difficulties for a person on their deathbed. The greatest use of the spirit-protecting pill was that, during the great heavenly tribulation of a cultivator becoming an ascended spirit, it could cover the spirit with a fragile layer of protection, raising the chances of success by one tenth. 

That one tenth wasn’t to be underestimated. This was the single extant medicine in the world that would aid in passing the ascended spirit boundary. 

Only the purest and truest Way of the Heart of the way of medicine making, devoted heart and soul, could grow a pure white orchid. 

It was only then that everyone learned that General Commander Wen already had a Way of the Heart. 

Since the formation of the Xuanyin Mountains, this was the first Way of the Heart for medicine making that anyone in Southern Wan had found for themselves. 

The walkers in the mortal world furtively spoke through their own communication devices. One person said, “So after Wen-shishu entered the inner sect, he left the Village of Apricot Blossoms to Heaven’s Design Pavilion? What about the spiritual field?” 

Pang Jian said, “The terrain has changed over time. When he built the small hidden realm here, it wasn’t surrounded by water yet… The spiritual field sank into the lake long ago, and with no one to attend to it all these years, the spiritual energy has long since drained away as well. Give it up.” 

Another blue-clotheser said, “Actually, I’ve been wanting to ask, who changed the name to Jinghua Village? It doesn’t sound auspicious at all. What were they thinking?” 

The blue-clotheser who had spoken before put in a word: “I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but…I’m just curious, Wen-shishu…um…did he also talk like that back then? Even if he was born with that problem, wouldn’t it have healed by the time he became an ascended spirit?” 

“No, I believe it was an accident with elixirs,” Pang Jian said. “When he had been poisoned with some strange poison and was being treated in the Latent Cultivation Temple, that medicine making shijie tried many medicines on him, and one of them had negative side-effects. First he was completely mute for three months, and afterwards, he could speak, but not very smoothly.” 

The blue-clotheser who had asked the question said in astonishment, “What kind of elixir was so powerful that the master of Rosy Cloud Peak couldn’t cure it?” 

“He could,” Pang Jian said after a brief silence. “I heard from Chief Su that after returning to the inner sect, that shijie couldn’t get over it. She went into seclusion for over a year to produce a cure. Before her enthusiasm could wear off, she sent it over. But when he received it, he didn’t take it. He said he was used to it already, and he felt that it was better this way. It would cure him of his philandering. If he avoided love affairs, he could concentrate on cultivation.” 

For a half-immortal who had yet to establish a foundation to breed a snow-white orchid of immortality, he must in fact have been entirely free of distractions. 

“So what happened to that orchid of immortality?” 

Pang Jian said, “I don’t know about that…” 

“A medicinal herb wouldn’t be any use to anyone who wasn’t a medicine cultivator. You can’t stir-fry and eat it,” another blue-clotheser put in. “Did he give it as a gift to that inner sect shijie?” 

“Is that shijie also surnamed Li?” 

They had been calling her “shijie” all along because it was well known that Wen Fei was the only ascended spirit medicine cultivator among Xuanyin’s thirty-six peaks. Since the female immortal in the story was also a medicine cultivator, then she had to still be an established foundation. 

Pang Jian received his eyebrows. “How would I know? What’s your guys’ problem? Why would you need to know about a female cultivator from the inner sect? How is her surname any of your business?!” 

“She wasn’t surnamed Li.” 

Just then, an unfamiliar consciousness suddenly interjected, putting down a line of writing. 

All the blue-clothesers, Pang Jian included, felt their spines stiffen. As one, they put the communication devices they held behind their backs. 

They’d been careless. An ascended spirit peak master was capable of casually spying on their conversation at this distance. 

Pang Jian gave a dry cough. “Wen-shishu.” 

Wen Fei seemed indifferent. With his back to them, he gazed at the blue-clotheser whose wife and children had been in Jinghua Village, listening to his wails. 

Words popped up automatically on the immortal tool. They said: “There was no future for a medicine cultivator in the Xuanyin Mountains. A direct descendant of the Li clan wouldn’t have taken that way. She was only a girl from a slightly distant offshoot branch of the Li clan. At the time, two new ascended spirits had come out of the Zhao family within ten years, and they had taken the lead twice in a row in holding the Grand Selection. They were very much at the center of events. The other big families naturally couldn’t let them get complacent. While bending over backwards to get their own people onto the provisional name list, they tried to dig up dirt about the Zhao family members on the list. Her background was too ordinary. In all these years, the Xuanyin Mountains haven’t had a female cultivator of lower birth than her. The families were too busy scuffling to take notice, so she made it in among the mess. As the only daughter of a minor family, her ideas were too pure, and she wasn’t very sensible. When she got to the Latent Cultivation Temple, she didn’t know that she was supposed to make way for the princesses and children of nobles and ended up becoming the first person to open her spiritual eyes that year. Li Yuelan saw that she was talented and could be counted as part of her family, so she accepted her into her own Gold Osmanthus Peak.” 

Wen Fei had finished dismantling Jinghua Village. Finally, he glanced at the stone tablet. “Oh. I was the one who changed the name to Jinghua Village.” 

Then, under his gaze, the stone tablet silently turned into a heap of powder, many former affections coming to an end. 

“I ought to have dismantled this place when I left. I’ve known all along that there were people fooling around with mortal women, but I didn’t attend to it. It ought not to have happened. The many lives that ended here before their time today can all be put down to a disaster of my making. When Jinping has been cleaned up, if anyone who has had a family member die here cannot be at peace, just come to Rosy Cloud Peak to take it up with me.” 

All the blue-clothesers hurried to say, “We wouldn’t dare.” 

“This cannot happen again in the future.” With this, Wen Fei waved a hand and was about to fly away on his sword. 

Suddenly, a blue-clotheser quietly asked, “Since the orchid of immortality is so valuable, did Wen-shishu plant more afterwards?” 

Wen Fei’s expression was very bland. “I didn’t have the time. The orchid of immortality is only rare. It has no use. The spirit-protecting pill cannot save a person’s life. It can only prolong the pain of parting. If you take a spirit-protecting pill, even if you get past the ascended spirit boundary, you’ll still be weaker than other cultivators of your grade, and you’ll never be able to take another…” 

He paused, remembered that discussing “taking another step along the Great Way” was now meaningless, and therefore erased the following words. He added, “The orchid of immortality is also called ‘the flower in the mirror’ in Southern Shu. It isn’t a good thing. Let it go. If you run into it on the black market, remember to look after your purse. Don’t be a sucker.” 

Before the words had all appeared on the communication device, a light breeze swept by. Wen Fei rose with the wind and was gone in a flash. 

The Kaiming Cultivators along the line had already repaired the Cloud Soaring Flood Dragon tracks. An empty train just happened to be trying to go through. Wen Fei’s figure vanished amid its snow-white steam. 

“A white orchid of immortality?” Xi Ping rolled up his drooping sleeves. “In all these years hanging out on the black markets in the north and south, even I haven’t come across one. No wonder that stutt…” 

Zhi Xiu raised his wine cup and shot him a glance. 

“Stu…stupendous medicine making master is the number one medicine cultivator of the thirty-six peaks,” Xi Ping said, quickly changing what he had been about to say and turning the subject away. “Then why didn’t he plant any more afterwards? If it were me, I’d have planted a whole mountainful, sold ‘em to that crowd of good-for-nothings in Sanyue at a hundred thousand white spirits a flower.” 

This Tai Sui, whose name had shocked all four nations, currently had his pant legs and long sleeves rolled up and was digging in the rear courtyard of the Marquis Manor. Xi Yue was silently standing by holding a lantern for him. 

The Marquis of Yongning had never expected that after all these years, the only son he’d thought was gone would return, and that a “teacher” would come to the house to complain about him! For a moment, the Marquis had been unsure of the date. If not for this “teacher”’s unique identity, he practically would have felt that time had turned backwards…as if his nuisance of a son were still six years old and, after a month of being a study companion, had angered the imperial instructor into a migraine. 

Among all the Marquis of Yongning’s jumbled feelings, he had wanted to crawl into a hole from shame. He must have said “I have educated my child badly” and “I am ashamed” a hundred times in one day. He couldn’t beat him anymore. Therefore, he had given him the punishment of cleaning up the garden. 

Xi Yue and the Kaiming Cultivators could repair the courtyard walls and the rockery, but they couldn’t bring the plants that had burnt to ash back to life. Xi Ping didn’t need to sleep at night, so it would have been a waste of labor force not to use him. Zhi Xiu was supervising, not letting him use talismans. 

“The spirit-protecting pill is forbidden within the Xuanyin Mountains,” Zhi Xiu said. “It is said that when the former master of Resonant Stone Peak was murdered, in order to peel the Territory Map rubbing off his consciousness, the killer used a spirit-protecting pill to keep his spirit from collapsing for as long as half a shichen.” 

Xi Ping froze. He suddenly recalled Wen Fei saying inside the Territory Map that when Zhao Long had died, someone had been wrongly accused of being the murderer. 

“That medicine cultivator was surnamed Shen. She was a disciple of Golden Osmanthus Peak’s Peak Master Li,” Zhi Xiu said. “The Li and Zhao families never got on well. When Peak Master Zhao and Peak Master Li found each other congenial in their younger years, someone thought that this was a good opportunity for a reconciliation and facilitated their marriage. But then, as both of them went further and further in cultivation, following separate Ways of the Heart, it didn’t work out in the end. They became ascended spirits one after another and grew more and more distant. Husband and wife lived separately on their respective peaks year round. Apart from a marriage contract filed with the Principal Peak, their marriage was basically in name only.” 

Xi Ping had heard many stories of lovebirds broken up. There were ones of malicious in-laws playing dirty tricks, ones of relationships forbidden because the couple were of different clans, ones of nobles stealing common women away from their beloveds… This was his first time learning that a “Way of the Heart” could also act in this role. For a time, he was speechless. 

“But though they had each gone their separate ways, a couple is still treated as one entity. There were many occasions where they had to appear together. When it came to discussing private matters, Peak Master Li usually sent a disciple in her place. This errand was extremely awkward. Naturally the disciples didn’t want to go. This Medicine Cultivator Shen didn’t belong to the Li family’s main branch and unavoidably suffered some wrongs. She often made trips between Resonant Stone Peak and Golden Osmanthus Peak, and because of this, some rumors got started.” Zhi Xiu paused. Choosing his words carefully, he said, “The master of Resonant Stone Peak…uh, I never met him myself, but the word was that his character was somewhat ‘unruly,’ and in the early years quite a few fellow sect members denounced him.” 

Xi Ping took the hint at once. “Oh, I see, a lecherous old pervert.” 

Zhi Xiu gave him a “mind your tongue” look, but he didn’t correct him. “He was a direct descendant of the Dignitary of Rites Zhao Yin. With Zhao Yin there, as long as there wasn’t a major scandal, others couldn’t very well say anything…until there was an unusual shift in the Sea of Stars. It pointed to Resonant Stone Peak and said there was a ‘romantic crisis.’” 

“I’ve got goosebumps. Call that a romantic crisis?” Xi Ping muttered. “Hey, wait, shifu, wasn’t he getting his skull peeled open at the time?” 

“The spirit-protecting pill can keep a spirit from collapsing. As long as the spirit didn’t collapse, Xuanyin’s disciple name token wouldn’t be destroyed, so the Sea of Stars didn’t say that he had already died of poisoning.” Zhi Xiu sighed. He also felt that speaking of these things was a little vulgar. “The Dignitary of Fate Elder notified the Principal Peak, and that was when everyone learned that this Medicine Cultivator Shen had gone to Resonant Stone Peak and had yet to return. Golden Osmanthus Peak had already asked for her twice. Yuntian Palace’s Dignitary of Rule was furious and wanted to search Resonant Stone Peak at once, the Zhao family instinctively shielded their peak master… They bickered for half a shichen, until Zhao Long’s disciple name token was destroyed.” 

“In my opinion,” Xi Ping said earnestly, “he had it coming.” 

Zhi Xiu flicked a seed at him. 

Xi Ping casually caught the seed and looked for a good place to plant it. “So what happened to the lady medicine cultivator surnamed Shen?” 

Zhi Xiu softly said, “When the elders broke through the prohibition on Resonant Stone Peak and charged in, they saw her next to the body with her clothes all… Then she took one look at her shifu, Peak Master Li, and, without a word, killed herself. They found flower dew of the orchid of immortality among her last effects, a small bottle. Of the three drops, two were gone.” 

Xi Ping immediately froze. “Was it Wen-shishu who gave it to her?” 

Zhi Xiu gently took a sip of the Marquis Manor’s sweet wine and didn’t answer. He only said, “At the time, it was thought that perhaps her cultivation level had been insufficient while making the spirit-protecting pill and she had made a mistake. It was within reason to think she had wasted some of the materials… But later, there was something that always seemed strange to me.” 

Xi Ping came back to himself and caught up quickly. “You mean Liang Chen.” 

“After a Way of the Heart shatters, a person dies, body and soul extinguished. Not even a shed skin can escape… Even the Dignitary of Rule Elder could only just keep himself together for a brief moment to ask Duanrui-shijie to take him away. Why was Liang Chen able to hold out until he obtained the half-skeleton of hidden bones after his Way of the Heart shattered at the bottom of the Impassable Sea?” Zhi Xiu stroked the wine cup and glanced south. “Did the heart-protecting pill that killed Zhao Long really take two drops of flower dew?” 

Outside the courtyard walls, the road had been repaired. The sounds of cars passing through Dangui Lane came to the rear courtyard. A flying goose machine was set up on a stone table with people far abroad sending illegible scrawls at all times which, once deciphered, were summaries of toilet bulletins from all over. 

His old hometown of Jinping was already very strange to Zhi Xiu. The earth monkey digging in the ground in the courtyard was his only point of reference. 

Zhi Xiu skimmed the sensational toilet bulletin summaries. There were ones from Western Chu that went “Dongheng on lockdown, Northern Xia mutinies,” “His Majesty’s whereabouts unknown, it is feared he will be deposed,” and so on and so forth; ones from Southern Shu that went “Miah being hunted through the streets,” “Miah clan leader said to have committed treason,” with fragments mixed in like “troops gathering at Northern Li’s borders.” 

In the north, the defensive walls stood high. On the southern continent, all was chaos. Only the Land of Turmoil wasn’t subject to these varying opinions. 

Zhi Xiu sighed. “It’s been over two hundred years. I ought to go to the former location of Southern He.”