Xi Ping was unsurprised. 

Zhi Xiu had never been able to let go of the Land of Turmoil. Sometimes Xi Ping even suspected that shifu spending all these years trudging through the ice and snow with his sword was largely for the sake of that place. 

In the twenty-eighth year of Taiming, when Liang Chen had coveted the Dragon Vein, the shadow he had produced seemed to have been a shrunken version of the Territory Map. This person had spent a lifetime diligently mining in the Land of Turmoil, wrongly devoting all of his ardor to the Zhou clan, such that his Way of the Heart had shattered as soon as he laid eyes on the truth in the Impassable Sea. With the levels he would have been able to reach, it wasn’t very likely he would have known about the Territory Map. 

That the true Territory Map was sealed in the veins of the earth was known only to the Dignitary of Fate and the Dignitary of Rule, who had been the Southern Sage’s disciples…as well as Zhi Xiu, who had touched heavenly might while becoming a shed skin. 

Even the Zhao family members who bore the Territory Map rubbing didn’t know, or else they wouldn’t have struck blindly during their revolt eight years ago. Great Wan’s imperial family was also evidently ignorant, or else there would have been no need to spend all these years offering their own family members as sacrifices to the sea. Wouldn’t it have been much more straightforward to simply blow up the veins of the earth and let everything go to hell? 

So…who had pointed Liang Chen in the direction of the Dragon Vein? Who had aided him in surviving the shattering of his Way of the Heart? 

Xi Ping said, “So can we trust Peak Master Wen? How did he solve the case?” 

“At the time, the Li and Zhao families had an open break over the quota for the Grand Selection. There were still three years to go before the Latent Cultivation Temple opened its mountain gate for the next class, and the two families had raised a furor in court with their fighting. The late emperor could not bear the disturbance and dispatched a letter to the Xuanyin Mountains. The Zhou clan suggested a contest among the established foundation disciples of the thirty-six peaks, with the winner to be the next immortal envoy,” Zhi Xiu said. “The arenas were on the unclaimed peaks, arranged by all the peak masters together. During the match on Resonant Stone Peak, a disciple made a sneak attack contrary to the rules, resulting in a person falling off the cliff at the rear of the mountain and breaking through some array. Those of us on the scene scrambled to the rescue and were incautious in our haste. The spiritual energy we stirred up disturbed Zhao Long’s spiritual bones, which had been laid to rest there—after two hundred years, those spiritual bones were completely black. The poison in the corpse had permeated the bones. Medicine Cultivator Shen, who had been taken for the killer at the time, had only been a near-ascended spirit. While as a medicine cultivator, it wouldn’t have been hard for her to cross over a boundary to fatally poison Zhao Long, for the poison to permeate the spiritual bones would have taken the cultivation of an ascended spirit or above. The Zhao clan was furious and requested a thorough autopsy. Therefore, Wen Fei was brought forward.” 

Shizun spoke like a court historian. 

“I get it,” Xi Ping said with a sigh. “The Li and Zhao families lost their heads fighting, the Zhou family got in between to stir shit up at both ends, and Peak Master Wen saw his chance to fish in muddy waters.” 

“Why does everything sound so bad coming out of your mouth?” Zhi Xiu shot him a glare. “Fenghan became absorbed in meticulous study of strange new elixirs after becoming an ascended spirit. He reported at least two or three types per year, with rarer and rarer ingredients. Many times, he nearly died out there, and in the end, none of the medicines he made had much practical use. Bit by bit, everyone came to know that he was weird, and no one cared about the ‘fruits’ of Rosy Cloud Peak. But that year, it just happened that one of the new medicines Rosy Cloud Peak submitted was called ‘heed the grave.’ When the medicinal powder soaked into a body, it could discover whose essence the spiritual energy surging around the deceased at the time of death belonged to—the remaining spiritual energy in Zhao Long’s body pointed directly to Li Yuelan, but there was also a very faint thread that pointed to the Dignitary of Code Li Fengshan.” 

Playing dumb, plotting and scheming, dealing a fatal stroke. 

Extremely craven, yet also extremely straightforward. 

No wonder that, upon learning the cultivation world was coming to an end, he had only laughed. 

“Since the war between Wan and He ended, the Dignitary of Code had always been in seclusion on and off. When this happened, he was forced to appear. Everyone was surprised when they saw him. He was skin and bones, half his hair white. It was clear his Way of the Heart had been damaged and he was showing signs of failing… It was my first time seeing that a shed skin could show signs of declining with age.” Zhi Xiu sighed. “A person can fool everyone in the world, but in the end, he cannot lie to the universe or himself.” 

“Forget about it, shifu,” his rebellious disciple said, putting forward his viewpoint. “When they’re doing rotten things, if it isn’t ‘to right wrongs on behalf of heaven,’ then it’s ‘for the greater good.’ They’re always confident in having justice on their side. I haven’t seen any of them suffer an attack of conscience. As I see it, it was that Li Fengshan had betrayed the Xuanyin Mountains and suffered some kind of mysterious backlash.” 

Though Zhi Xiu didn’t assent, he only acted as if he hadn’t heard it, silently drinking his wine. It was clear that in his heart he rather agreed with this. 

Xi Ping said, “So how did the Territory Map rubbing end up in Peak Master Wen’s hands?” 

Zhi Xiu shook his head. “If he hadn’t voluntarily produced it now, no one would have known that Zhao Long’s Territory Map rubbing was in his hands. He has his priorities straight. Since he was willing to expose himself now, it was because he was putting the country first and did not plan on concealment. If this had been a matter of consequence, he would have come out and said it. If he didn’t say anything, it was because it was a personal matter. It will do no good to try getting to the bottom of it.” 

As Xi Ping scattered seeds according to a sketch, he considered: that they still had time to maneuver and arrange was built upon the premise that Xuanyin’s situation was a secret. 

It wasn’t important whether the people who knew about this matter at present sincerely supported Zhi Xiu or not. When the order to keep silent had come from a shed skin sword cultivator, they couldn’t say anything even if they wanted to. A few walkers in the mortal world couldn’t make any big waves. 

But if there really was some mysterious individual involved, the situation became dangerous. 

Once word leaked out, they would be attacked on all sides. 

In Xuanyin’s inner sect alone, there were close to thirty ascended spirits if you counted the ones confined to seclusion, and there were tens of thousands of established foundations. When these people learned that their path to immortality would be severed, nothing they got up to would be surprising. 

Even if Zhaoting on its own could suppress the thirty-six peaks, what about the other three nations? What about Kunlun’s legendary Wanshuang Sword? 

And then there was that crowd of evil cultivators who had made names for themselves in various places…

“Alas, peril all around.” Xi Ping sat down crosslegged and tapped the ground with his fingers. Extremely fine spiritual energy poured into the new mud. The seeds of flowers and trees immediately broke ground and sprouted. 

In the blink of an eye, the bleak garden became covered in greenery. In another blink, a mass of flowers spread out like brocade. 

The big tree from the snow-capped mountain was so upright that it stood out in the little garden, but as its leaves and branches unfurled to shade the flowering shrubs, it no longer seemed lonely. Xi Yue, holding the lantern and not watching his step, was lifted into the air by a reincarnation wood tree that had been planted underfoot at some point. He was raised as high as the streetlight outside the courtyard wall. 

The lantern light shone on the snow-white tree trunk, making it look like moonlight, lighting up the person under the tree who was like an unconventional flower fairy. 

Then the “flower fairy” stretched and, looking pleased with himself, crooned, “The repulsive rat crossing the street, out parading is sure to be beat. Though the bonfires are lit, it cares not one whit, and runs the old cat off its feet, heh-heh…” 

Zhi Xiu nearly choked on his wine. “You’re the rat crossing the street, scoundrel!” 

Xi Yue: “…” 

Was there any of that bad medicine Peak Master Wen had taken left? These two needed a dose right now. 

When Xi Ping was halfway through stretching, Xu Rucheng’s voice suddenly sounded in the reincarnation wood. 

“I don’t know what’s going on,” Xu Rucheng said quietly, keeping his eye on an immortal tool for monitoring spiritual energy. “The spiritual energy on the West Peak suddenly became denser. I don’t know about the Central and East Peaks yet, I can’t easily go out…” 

Before he could finish, a bright light suddenly swept past the window. Xu Rucheng’s heart tightened. He instinctively held his breath and shut his mouth. Only after a long moment did he dare to look out the window. “The Silver Moon has moved away from the West Peak. It seems to be going east.” 

The Silver Moon seemed to have given up on something. When the grim moonlight was gone, the West Peak was deathly still. 

Some ascended spirits circling outside the West Peak exchanged glances. Xiang Wenqing, who was in the lead, got his nerve up and landed at the door of Elder Xiang Ning’s residence. He said loudly, “Disciple Xiang Wenqing requests to see his shizun.” 

There was no answer.

“Disciple Xiang…” 

A thin spiritual wind suddenly blew past, interrupting him. Xiang Wenqing’s gaze followed the wind. His pupils contracted slightly: the inscriptions outside of Elder Xiang Ning’s residence were manifesting one after another, the spiritual energy in them dissipating piecemeal. 

An ascended spirit not surnamed Xiang suddenly went around Xiang Wenqing and charged right in, coming face-to-face with Xiang Ning, who was facing south. The ascended spirit felt his heart stutter. He broke out in a cold sweat, regretting his rashness. “Forgive me, Xiang-shishu, I…” 

The ascended spirit was just searching his belly and guts for an excuse when he saw Xiang Ning, like a dandelion in a strong wind, disintegrate before his eyes. The ascended spirits following closely after him were dumbfounded—the passing of a shed skin ought to have been an earth-shattering event, but Xiang Ning went to pieces without a sound. There seemed to be a ray of moonlight inside him. It guided the shed skin’s essence as it blended into the mountain at his feet, not a drop of it leaking out… He had been swallowed whole by the Sanyue Mountains! 

The Silver Moon had already returned to the Central Peak. It wavered there briefly. Then it was as if the divine tool of the mountains was being pushed and pulled by two forces. The huge moon itself remained at the Central Peak, but the moonlight streamed towards the East Peak. 

On the face of Xuanwu, exiled in Southern Shu, the white paper mask was suddenly lit by moonlight. The drawn-on features, as if cracking open, took on a frightening smile. Xuanwu slowly turned his head to look east—though there was interference, the Sanyue Mountains were summoning him back. 

At the same time, like an explosion in Xi Ping’s ears, news came from Chu. 

“Sanyue’s inner sect has been sealed. No one goes in or out.” 

“Sanyue’s inner sect is reinforcing the great mountain array.” 

“The Silver Moon seems to have been blunted!!” 

In Tao County, the Luwu keeping an eye out in all directions were also on the alert. “Quite a few cultivation masters have entered the county, including some familiar ones. They seem to be the ‘offerings’ of distinguished families.” 

Zhao Qindan put down the pocket thousand-li eyeglass made of brass in her hand and said categorically, “Yu Family Bend’s former chief offering Yu Chang is included. His disguise isn’t very good. He’s recognizable at a glance.” 

This evil cultivator was very bold. 

Xi Ping narrowed his eyes, then heard a voice in the reincarnation wood overpower the babble of the others. 

Through the reincarnation wood, Yu Chang said, “I don’t know whether your news is faster or my news is faster. There’s been a letter from Dongheng, inferring that Xiang Ning may already be dead. The Silver Moon has at last abandoned the good-for-nothing who’s let the Xiang family lose its grip on the country. Can you guess who it’s going to call back?” 

Xi Ping didn’t respond. 

So Yu Chang continued his solo performance towards the reincarnation wood. “Xiang Ning didn’t have the strength to keep the Central Peak under control. Over the years, Sanyue has turned into a joke for the toilet bulletins. But once Xuanwu returns, there is sure to be a frantic expulsion of dissidents. Not one of the powers that have taken advantage of the favorable conditions in recent years to spring up all over the place will escape, including your Tao County. Tai Sui, do you want to consider working with me?” 

“It’s like this, shifu. Let’s prepare for several eventualities.” Xi Ping was finished stretching. “If Xuanyin’s situation does get out, we need to send our malicious neighbors back home to sweep the snow at their own gates and stay out of our business. If it’s a false alarm, then that’s just perfect.” 

“What’s just perfect?” said Zhi Xiu. 

Xi Ping raised his head. “I know you’ve always wanted to put an end to the southern mines, shifu.” 

When Southern He was vanquished, its veins of the earth had been broken, keeping its spiritual energy from transmitting throughout the whole country, fixing all of it within the Lancang Mountains. Lancang had turned into the mines that supported Moon Plated Gold; the smoke and dust amid the steam, the demon host in the Impassable Sea—all they burned, all they consumed, were the ashes of the Turmoilers. 

Zhi Xiu froze. Suddenly, he remembered when this spendthrift rebellious disciple had used two spiritual stones to send back a double handful of fireworks suspected of delivering dire insult to his shizun, putting on a big show for the thirty-six peaks to see; it seemed that that had been precisely when he had just reached the southern mines. 

The vast majority of the time, Xi Ping was an extraordinary scoundrel, yet when he occasionally revealed a trace of thoughtfulness, he always seemed to know what the people around him were thinking. 

“If it’s a false alarm, we’ll seize the opportunity to level that grave disease,” Xi Ping said. “When it comes to the Land of Turmoil, Northern Li is separated from it by the whole southern continent, and Southern Shu by the South Sea—it’s beyond their reach. I’ll take the Luwu to stir up trouble in Western Chu—chalk it up as returning our good neighbor’s hospitality.” 

Zhi Xiu was silent for a moment. “There is another matter I ought to instruct you about.” 

Xi Ping lowered his eyes slightly. “My san…His Highness Prince Zhuang?” 

Zhi Xiu had seen with his own eyes how, as a half-immortal, Zhou Ying had gone down into the Impassable Sea and yanked out the Zhao family’s colossal spine, and that had been him being lenient. In a few short years, he had used the Luwu to sow discord among all the great spiritual mountains, splitting them apart. Now, just by taking a step back, he had drawn out the Territory Map that Xuanyin had kept buried for a thousand years. When one thought about it, his traces were to be found in all the major changes of the last decade and a half.  

This prince’s cultivation clearly wasn’t high, but he seemed to be the incarnation of the demon host. 

Only the Kaiming and the Luwu, though they had been established with ulterior motives, were full of Xi Ping’s traces…but now Zhou Ying had entered the way of clarity, washing away all external objects. Naturally, Xi Ping was also an “external object.” It was hard to say where the Kaiming and the Luwu would stand in the future. 

If either the Dignitary of Rule or the Dignitary of Fate had ever paid attention to the “ant” Zhou Ying, they probably would have gotten rid of him ages ago. It was only Zhi Xiu, who would take the trouble to mention him behind his back in such a tactful manner, who wasn’t capable of “preventative measures” like that. 

“When a person enters a way and spends hundreds upon thousands of years believing in a Way of the Heart, it is easy to mistakenly think that their own way is ‘orthodoxy.’” Zhi Xiu sighed. “Since the way of clarity is the origin of the three thousand paths of the Great Way, all these years, Xuanyin’s elders have believed as a matter of course that it would bind a person to be a tool on their side. They didn’t necessarily have a true understanding of the way of clarity.” 

“They just wouldn’t acknowledge that they had selfish desires,” Xi Ping said with a false smile, “so they thought a way ‘without selfish desire’ would have to look just like themselves. Before all my teeth had grown in, I also used to think that everyone on earth who didn’t look like me was ugly.” 

Zhi Xiu said, “…Did I not tell you not to let me hear you talking like that?” 

Xi Ping stood up and patted the mud off himself. He said, “There’s no need to worry about His Highness Prince Zhuang. He…he sometimes goes a little too far, but essentially it isn’t for the sake of being a scourge upon anything. At most I suppose it’s to be a scourge upon Bai Ling.” 

“Then in your opinion,” Zhi Xiu said seriously, “what is he doing it for?” 

Xi Ping considered, then softly said, “Perhaps it’s because he’s looking for an answer.” 

Zhi Xiu raised his eyebrows. 

“We commonplace people, if we occasionally get stuck in some hopeless situation, there may be many things we can’t get over, but there will always be other things to block our sight. We’ll look at others, then look back at ourselves, run around for a while, and maybe by then we’ll have forgotten about it. But it doesn’t work like that for them… I’m also talking about the Heartless Lotus Zhuoming. They have to constantly consider, is it that others are blind, or that they’re insane? So they always want to get to the bottom of things. He doesn’t belong to the inner sect, anyway. It doesn’t take long to establish a foundation. In a few days, he ought to be leaving the mountains. Don’t worry, shifu, I’ll contact him.” 

Xi Ping was familiar with Zhou Ying’s conduct and methods. Naturally it was for the best to have him take care of it. But Zhi Xiu didn’t need to look to the stars to know why his disciple had “fled” to Flying Jade Peak that day. Therefore, he hesitated. “You…” 

“I’m better.” Xi Ping waved a hand, as if all he needed was a patch of shade so he could catch his breath and start frisking around happily again. “It’s just the way of clarity. That’s no big problem… Look at Duanrui-shishu—she never got angry. With that smile-hiding-a-knife rotten temper of his, if he really manages to cultivate Princess Duanrui’s self-restraint, I might miss out on a few beatings from the discipline rod in the future.” 

Having said this, he washed his hands, ran over to warm wine for his shifu, and changed the subject just as quickly as he had fled the Latent Cultivation Temple. “Shifu, have you tried out a steam carriage yet? I see there’s one parked in the Marquis Manor’s rear courtyard. Why don’t we drive it out and give it a spin now, while there’s no one on the roads? If we run into a wall, at worst we’ll have to pay compensation…” 

Zhi Xiu was like Pang Jian, politely declining to have anything to do with these racing “iron bulls,” so he drove his annoying disciple away. 

Xi Ping went inside, humming his off-tune “runs the old cat off its feet,” until he reached a deserted place. 

He was alone now. There was no more need to pretend. 

He stared emptily at Jinping’s night sky, for once perfectly clear. He had the disciple name token. A member of the inner sect could send a Heavenly Question. The Heavenly Question was a direct connection to the Xuanyin Immortal Mountains that avoided all prying. 

Spiritual energy collected at his fingertips, then dispersed again, several times over. The spiritual energy inside the room overflowed; plants and small living creatures all instinctively chased spiritual energy, so it wasn’t long before a multiflora rose seed that had ended up outside the window had sprouted and climbed over the whole wall in the blink of an eye. Outside the glass window, a crowd of little birds gathered to scrounge spiritual energy. 

They were all babbling at once. It was too noisy. Xi Ping had been on edge to begin with, so he pushed open the window, sending the birds flapping up to the top of the courtyard wall. 

“Freeloading food and water, and talking so much crap,” he complained irritably. But suddenly, under the rose bush, he saw a little black cat so skinny that it looked like a chicken. It opened its mouth and meowed at Xi Ping. Its voice was thin and sharp, almost inaudible to mortals. 

Xi Ping instantly remembered the cat he had picked up when he was eight years old. 

In that litter of cats, there had only been one pure black one. The adult cat didn’t seem fond of it, so it had bedded down alone, away from the group. Occasionally it would open its eyes to look at the other gamboling and frisking kittens, but soon it would avert its gaze disinterestedly and lick its own fur. Somehow, it had reminded him a little of san-ge. 

Later it hadn’t been like him anymore. That black cat had gotten so fat its head and neck became one. He had heard that in the end it had died of old age in the Latent Cultivation Temple, having lived to the age of twenty, a half-immortal among cats. 

Xi Yue sensed the spiritual energy leaking out of his room and felt a little uneasy. As soon as he walked into the courtyard, he saw a spiritual wind lifting a filthy feral cat. 

“You’re just in time, Yue-bao’er, look what I’ve picked up,” Xi Ping’s high-spirited voice said from inside. “Heh, it bites! Same bad habit as you when you were little.” 

It was night. A Heavenly Question came straight to Xuanyin’s Principal Peak, nimbly passing through a pile of mourning streamers. 

Objects resemble their owners. This Heavenly Question boldly barged into the mourning hall and nearly landed in the incense ash. 

Mist suddenly appeared above the incense burner. A hand reached out of nowhere from among the mist and grabbed the letter. 

Other people’s Heavenly Questions were a single page. Relying on the abundance of an ascended spirit’s essence, Xi Ping had written a whole volume. The proper business was crammed in among trivial matters; there were even doodles here and there. 

Zhou Ying didn’t waste time with rubbish like “I picked up another cat.” With a beam of spiritual energy, lines tumbled from the voluminous Heavenly Question like a flower’s petals falling, leaving only a few urgent sentences on the page. 

“Xiang Ning is dead, Xuanwu has returned, the Silver Moon has come to the end of the road and gone mad. Yu Chang wishes to start an armed rebellion and has asked me to think of a way to remove the spiritual image brands of offerings from various places in the country. Western Chu is in chaos. Lend me some of what’s buried under Tao County.” 

Zhou Ying casually responded with “okay,” then stood up to meet Wen Fei, who happened to have just returned to the mountains.