The people of Xuanyin’s inner sect, apart from the elders, couldn’t enter and leave the immortal mountains at will; they had to go to the Principal Peak to request and then return a token. Though Wen Fei had run off without authorization, on the way back, owing to his unstable emotions and unsteady state of mind, he unconsciously came to the Principal Peak. When he saw the sky filled with white streamers, he stared blankly for a long moment, then at last remembered that two of Xuanyin’s three elders were gone; everything had changed. 

Wen Fei glanced in the direction of Resonant Stone Peak. The whole mountain was gone, as if there was a tooth missing among the uninterrupted stretch of the Xuanyin Immortal Mountains. Even the wind had become much stronger than before. 

Who could have thought that the untouchably lofty immortal mountains could collapse? 

A disciple was passing by and quickly came forward to offer a greeting on seeing him. Wen Fei nodded and averted his gaze. He strode towards the main hall and waved his fan towards the disciple at the door: I’ve come to pay my respects to the two elders and, while I’m here, receive my punishment for leaving the mountains without authorization. 

A crowd of established foundations looked at each other in dismay—the elders had nearly all died off; which junior would dare to take it upon themselves to punish him? 

“Uh…you must be joking, Wen-shishu, we…” 

“Peak Master Wen.” Zhou Ying appeared at the door, gave the salute appropriate for a junior, and rescued the disciples on duty on the Principal Peak from their embarrassment. “Please come this way.” 

The incense altar of the Xuanyin Mountains’ main hall was located beneath the divine image of the Southern Sage. It was normally invisible. Only when a master of ascended spirit level or above passed away would the incense altar automatically appear with the name token of the deceased resting on it. 

The altar hung in midair, like a projection from the underworld. The name tokens of the two high elders were arranged at the very front; their spiritual light had dimmed. Behind these two name tokens that provided a focus for those commemorating the dead, there was a vague mist. With an ascended spirit’s vision, it was possible to see that the mist was “planted” full of dim name tokens, like a crowd of ghosts silently peering into the human world; it was unspeakably gloomy. 

In a momentary daze, Wen Fei had the impression that the dead were behind that mist, still with the immortal mountains.

He shuddered involuntarily—this truly was being eternally unable to reincarnate. 

Zhou Ying led Wen Fei up to the incense altar, offered incense, and stepped aside. “The sect rules are on the stone tablet in front of the main hall’s door, to the right. Once you have finished offering incense, Peak Master Wen, you need only consult the sect rules yourself and act as you see fit.” 

Wen Fei examined him briefly: the Kaiming Department’s Prince Zhuang? 

The Kaiming Department’s swift reaction, the spiritual stones prepared ahead of time, the mysterious Luwu communication network that could pass through the Xuanyin Mountains, the Territory Map, and the mortal world… Though Wen Fei turned deaf ears onto everything “outside the mountains,” though there were many people he didn’t know and many things he only half understood, he could still sense that this “little established foundation” was dangerous. 

Wen Fei screened the lower half of his face with his fan, using the fan to represent his mouth: In your opinion, what ought to be my punishment? 

Zhou Ying answered candidly: “I don’t know. I haven’t finished reading the sect rules.” 

Wen Fei: “…” 

He suddenly thought that, considering appearances alone, this individual was a little like Zhi Jingzhai’s evil disciple! 

Wen Fei tried sounding him out: Nicely done, Your Highness Prince Zhuang. Everything calculated to the smallest detail. How did you know that the Territory Map rubbing from Zhao Long’s head was in my hands? 

“I guessed.” Zhou Ying had no intention of evading. “There was nothing from the Li clan for two hundred years. It was evident that the Territory Map rubbing stripped from Zhao Long back then hadn’t fallen into their hands. Senior Shen was an innocent scapegoat. In those circumstances, there was no latitude for her to pull any tricks. It wasn’t very likely that the Territory Map rubbing had fallen into her hands, either. Furthermore, this case was odd: medicine cultivators have resilient consciousnesses; their wills are steady and tough. With her near-ascended spirit cultivation level, some humiliation wouldn’t have led to her killing herself. Zhao Long’s wrongdoing had come first, and the Dignitary of Rule Elder didn’t belong to the Zhao family. He would have handled the case justly. Why would she have been in a hurry to die?” 

Wen Fei’s hand tightened. A crack appeared on the fan. His eyes flashed, and the fan was repaired by spiritual energy. 

“All I could think of was that she had done it in order to conceal something only a medicine cultivator would know—in other words, the issue was likely with that pill. At the same, Senior Shen was Xuanyin’s leading medicine cultivator, just preparing to become an ascended spirit. She had in fact made a spirit-protecting pill…but a single orchid of immortality produces three drops of dew, and two of the three were missing. The vanished drop of orchid of immortality dew may have been lost in a failed refining, and it may have been turned into another spirit-protecting pill. Supposing there really were two pills, both made by her, then there would seem to have been nothing to hide. After all, everyone knew about her. So was it possible that one of the pills—for example, the one that had been used on Zhao Long—just happened not to have been made by her? And just happened to have something to do with the mysterious whereabouts of the Territory Map rubbing?” 

On Wen Fei’s fan, a number of words appeared, as regular as though inscribed on a memorial tablet: If she did not make it, who did? 

“Indeed. The spirit-protecting pill not only uses materials that are hard to come by, it is even harder to refine. At the time, Peak Master Wen, you had just recently entered the sect. You were a nobody, so no one thought of you. Looking back on it after two hundred years, I’d have to be blind not to understand.” Zhou Ying waved a hand. “These are my wild guesses. Forgive any inaccuracies, Peak Master Wen.” 

Wen Fei stared at him, his expression changing several times, but he saw no probing on Zhou Ying’s face, and no curiosity. It was as if he were only asking him about the different weather on the thirty-five peaks. 

Watched by this gaze that contained practically no humanity, unexpectedly, Wen Fei’s tense shoulders gradually relaxed. After a moment, he gave a laugh and thought, The Xuanyin Mountains’s death really will deserve their deaths at the hands of you fiends. 

He turned and offered incense to the two elders almost solemnly. Suddenly, with nearly every word dragged out very long, he clumsily said, “I heard rumors before that said when Green Pool Peak’s disciples found themselves bewildered or doubting, they would all go tell their peak master about it. When outsiders heard that, they didn’t believe it. Who would dare to babble in front of a person like Duanrui-shijie? Now it seems that it may have been true. Anyway, no matter what you way of clarity cultivators hear, you can treat it all as ephemeral¹.”

As he spoke one word at a time, Zhou Ying waited expressionlessly beside him, neither fretting on his account nor finding him ridiculous. 

Wen Fei didn’t look at him. When he was finished offering incense, he concentrated all his spiritual sense in his eyes and strove to look into the mist behind the incense altar, trying to find the name he had pronounced many times in his heart, but in the end, he couldn’t see anything clearly. Instead, he felt colder. 

He had chosen the way of medicine making and come to the inner sect. He had seen the dozens of heavenly rules at the gate of the Principal Peak, unexpectedly even stricter than those for the outer sects. Learning that she was soon to become an ascended spirit, he had been even more reluctant to rashly disturb her. He had only used a Heavenly Question to furtively send her the orchid of immorality flower dew—two drops of it; the third drop he had used to make a pill himself. He didn’t dare to call it a “gift,” afraid of showing off before an expert and afraid of giving offense, so he had only said, “This is my first time making it. Please instruct me, senior.” 

Only the medicine and toolmaking ways would use the spirit-protecting pill. The people in these ways often neglected physical training and found it hard to pass through heavenly tribulations…and their success didn’t depend on their combat skills; they didn’t care very much about whether they would be strong or weak after becoming ascended spirits. 

But Wen Fei had still wanted to give her the best, so he had thought long and hard and come up with a lousy idea: in the ancient texts of the medicine making way, it said that the ascended spirit tribulation was a test. Only if it pierced the spirit and touched the consciousness could it grant the cultivator the comprehension of the ascended spirit boundary. With the spirit-protecting pill putting in its oar, the heavenly tribulation would feel that it hadn’t struck to its satisfaction, so what it gave would be lesser. 

So he’d had a fantastic idea. Taking inspiration from the idea of the spiritual image doll, he had used the secret art of an evil way obtained from the black market to include a sliver of his own consciousness in that spirit-protecting pill. This way, when the heavenly tribulation fell, it would first strike the spirit-protecting pill—in other words, him—and only reach the real spirit after shattering the pill. The lightning she would endure would be decreased, and the heavenly tribulation would have attacked to its heart’s content—wasn’t that the best of both worlds? 

Of course, it was possible that the recipient didn’t think much of him and wouldn’t use his pill. That was all right. At any rate, he had sent both the flower dew and his intentions. If she disdained him, she could just as well make one for herself. He would know how she felt and wouldn’t bother her in the future. 

But mortals possessed of emotions and desires very often only say that they are taking the philosophical approach. When the consciousness in the spirit-protecting pill was touched, Wen Fei was in Jinping, running around everywhere under pressure. As soon as he felt the touch, he knew that the pill had been taken by a stranger. 

Though he bragged about being ready to take whatever came, he still couldn’t restrain a bitter laugh. 

Looking at the desolation of Jinping City, the former general commander of Heaven’s Design Pavilion who had abandoned walking in the mortal world had felt all his guts ache. What had he been doing, going all the way to the inner sect for the sake of a relationship? In the end, his affections had turned out to be unrequited. It was utterly lamentable and utterly despicable. 

But once he had made his intentions known, there had always been the possibility that he would be shot through the heart. Wen Fei grit his teeth and readied himself for a heavenly tribulation to strike his outreaching consciousness. He waited for a long time, but there was no heavenly tribulation. 

He felt that something was wrong and couldn’t resist probing the spirit of the person who had swallowed the pill. That was when he found to his astonishment that this person’s consciousness was already dead, and it was only the spirit-protecting pill keeping the spirit together. The person’s cultivation was quite high, too! 

Someone was speaking nearby. 

First a woman said with a soft sigh, “Bailu is one of my most talented disciples, on her way to leaving my tutelage and taking her place as a peak master…” 

Another voice, imposing, interrupted her: “The Xuanyin Mountains have only thirty-sixty peaks, and at present thirty-three of them have masters. Haven’t you noticed that there have been fewer and fewer ascended spirits over the years?” 

“Yes, the disciples are all worthless…” 

“It isn’t that the disciples are worthless,” that imposing voice said. “Xuanyin’s thirty-six peaks were left behind by the sage. The Xuanyin Mountains can hold thirty-six ascended spirits at most. Once there are too many ascended spirits, no matter how talented the established foundation disciples may be, their boundaries will be kept down if they cultivate in the inner sect. Shen Bailu isn’t a direct descendant of the Li family, her talents aren’t precisely outstanding, and she’d have had to rely on the aid of a pill to become an ascended spirit. There’s nothing to regret.” 

“Shen Bailu” was her name. Wen Fei, scared witless, thought, What does that mean? They aren’t going to let her become an ascended spirit because she was using the spirit-protecting pill? 

He had already realized that the woman speaking was Li Yuelan, master of Golden Osmanthus Peak. Li Yuelan’s position in the Li family’s generational ranking was very high. Who dared to speak so commandingly to her? Could it actually be…

Wen Fei’s heart came up to his throat. He listened with all his might. But his consciousness was trapped in the spirit-protecting pill and couldn’t move at will. 

Then he heard the imposing voice say, “Do not waste any more time.” 

Wen Fei’s first reaction was that he should send a Heavenly Question to the Dignitary of Fate Elder. Before he could stand up, he felt a sharp pain in the part of his consciousness attached to the spirit-protecting pill. 

The spirit of the dead person who had taken the pill was quaking. Something was being peeled off by force. With Wen Fei’s cultivation level at the time, he couldn’t see what it was clearly. The others spent a long time peeling, and he seemed to be cleaved in two for a long time. By an odd coincidence, just at the moment that the thing was removed, the spirit-protecting pill wore off. The dead person’s spirit collapsed, and Wen Fei’s external consciousness recovered its freedom of movement…and ran head-on into that dead person’s thing. A map was imprinted whole and entire onto Wen Fei’s consciousness. 

Faintly, he heard one of the killers cry out in alarm, “Why has the Territory Map rubbing disappeared?” 

He had no time to see what place this was a map of. The moment his consciousness was free, he finally caught sight of the indistinct scene around him. He was overwhelmed with grief—

“Li Yuelan and Li Fengshan knocked Senior Shen unconscious and used her spirit-protecting pill to kill Zhao Long so they could strip off the Territory Map. As a master medicine maker, Senior Shen must have already seen what special processing you had applied to the pill you had given her. When she woke up, she realized that the Territory Map rubbing must have ended up with you through a series of coincidences. But the elders had already barged in then, along with others. She knew that she would be unable to explain herself, and in order to protect you, the only thing she could do before the colossus of the Li clan was to die.” Zhou Ying nodded. “That makes sense. Thank you for resolving my doubts, Peak Master Wen.” 

Wen Fei ignored his heartless answer. He was silent a while, then said, “Way of clarity cultivator, instruct me—why are so many name tokens preserved behind that mist? Is it…that their spirits continue after death?” 

Zhou Ying answered, “After becoming an ascended spirit, if one’s consciousness is resilient enough, one may be able to seize another body after one’s physical body dies. But a person’s death is like a flame being extinguished. Ghosts are only the vain fantasies of the living who are greedy for life and fear death.” 

“Then…then what are they?” 

Zhou Ying looked in the direction of his gaze. “They are ways.” 

“What?” Wen Fei gave him a look of incomprehension. This youngster’s age wasn’t great—why was his tone like that of the old cultivators in the Latent Cultivation Temple who taught the basics of cultivation, saying things no one could understand and then demonstrating them with useless scripture? 

The candle flames in the mourning hall dimmed for a moment for some reason. Wen Fei just happened to see a strange light shining from Zhou Ying’s eyes. Instead of being spherical, his eyeballs had become multifaceted. It was only a flash. Before he could get a clear look, that light had vanished. 

Zhou Ying opened his mouth, but for some reason, he didn’t say whatever words had come to his lips, swallowing them back. 

Wen Fei frowned. This was even stranger—cultivators of the way of clarity either said whatever they had to say or else said nothing. How could he “wish to speak but hold back”? 

“Peak Master Wen, a person may be guided by others to open their spiritual eyes, can deliberately exercise themselves, or they may find themselves in a place where spiritual energy is thick, and it will happen naturally through happy accident.” Zhou Ying’s voice suddenly became much softer. As if afraid of losing his voice, he was keeping it low in his throat. Fortunately, sound carried well in the mourning hall. “But there is only one way to establish a foundation, and that is to take an established foundation pill.” 

Wen Fei waved his fan and wrote in dense small regular script: Establishing a foundation is the formal entrance into cultivation. Having an essence in one’s body is by nature colossally different from being an open-eyed cultivator. If one wants to preserve an “essence” within one’s body, then one must refine a material for elixirs like the silk dragon heart, which is capable of storing spiritual energy. In fact, reasonably speaking, even if there were no silk dragon hearts, there would be something similar. It is only that we of the medicine making way have yet to find any more ideal material. We shall see whether the geniuses of the toolmaking way can create a “spirit-storing gold” in the future. 

“You must be joking, Peak Master Wen,” Zhou Ying said with no show of surprise. “If one used metal as part of one’s body, wouldn’t one become an earworm half-puppet?” 

Wen Fei became even more curious: this cultivator of the way of clarity not only had the ability to “wish to speak but hold back,” he could also say “words that mean more than what they say”; how could he have so many tricks? 

So he asked, “What does that mean?” 

“Nothing, only idle chat.” After this, Zhou Ying did not speak to him again. 

Wen Fei left the main hall with his mind full of misgivings. When he passed by the stone tablet carved full of sect rules, his steps paused slightly. The Xuanyin Mountains’ regulations and taboos numbered in the several dozens to over a hundred, and all they regulated were the cowering little disciples. 

Wen Fei thought, Well, you can go fuck yourself. 

Thereupon he stepped onto his fan and flew towards Rosy Cloud Peak like a meteor. But the ghastly disciple name tokens behind the incense altar and Zhou Ying’s “Wouldn’t one become an earworm half-puppet?” remained stuck like a fish bone in his throat. Wen Fei returned to his own mountain, avoided the salutes of the disciples coming to welcome him, and wrote: The silk dragon heart stores have bottomed out. I’m afraid we will not be able to restock in the near future. Find me all the ancient texts concerning the established foundation pill. I’m going into seclusion to research whether there is any possible substitute. 

In the mourning hall on the Principal Peak, Zhou Ying coughed up a mouthful of blood.

Before he could finish speaking the word “ways” earlier, a force like a heavenly tribulation had flown from the incense altar and penetrated his body, piercing his lungs. Zhou Ying, slowly repairing the wound with spiritual energy, cocked an ear towards the incense altar. 

He heard countless clamoring voices behind the mist of the incense altar. They were all human voices, but none spoke in human tongues. 

Fortunately, the way of clarity could feel no terror, or else the sounds in the mourning hall could have scared a person sick. 

In other words, there had in fact been two spirit-protecting pills back then. 

Wen Fei’s cultivation had after all still been shallow. Shen Bailu had seen what he had done and been unable to bring herself to let him undertake the tribulation in her stead, so she had made another spirit-protecting pill, only carrying his gift with her, not expecting that it would become another person’s tool to commit murder and shift the blame. 

Wen Fei’s pill had been taken by Zhao Long. So what had happened to the one Shen Bailu, who hadn’t had time to become an ascended spirit, had made herself?

It was said that the Sea of Stars had pointed to a “romantic crisis” at the time. If it had only been Li Yuelan, “romantic crisis” might have been justifiable, but Wen Fei had heard with his own ears that the Dignitary of Code had been present and might have been called the mastermind. 

Elder Li had at any rate been over a thousand years old; “romantic” would have been rather a stretch. 

The star stones in the Sea of Stars looked very similar to the heart demon seed…

The Xuanyin Mountains were the corpse of the full moon god. All cultivators from antiquity to the present were the puppets of their Ways of the Heart. After death, their essences returned to the spiritual mountains and the universe, and their Ways of the Heart, like these name tokens, also merged with the immortal mountains. 

Compared to a full moon sage, even shed skins were ants. An ant naturally could not shake the immortal mountains. So what about countless ants over hundreds upon thousands of years? 

Xi Shiyong said that the Silver Moon had “gone mad.” The body of the tool was on the Central Peak, while the “moonlight” had run off to the East Peak. That was nothing to wonder at—after all, the Sanyue Mountains were the only immortal mountains with two “full moons.” 

Flowers born from the same stem, twins, the Heartless Lotus… This truly was the fate of the Sanyue Mountains. 

When the flimsy Heavenly Question reached the Yongning Marquis Manor, Xi Ping only glanced at it and put it away without opening it. He only said to Xi Yue, “Meat’s no good, it’s too little, it can’t eat it. Go get some sheep’s milk and dilute it a little… Xi Yue, you’re really in a hurry to waste a fortune!” 

Xi Yue had taken out a small jade stamp stone and pulverized it, then used plain water to feed it to the kitten that couldn’t chew and tear solid food yet. He looked at Xi Ping. “The Heavenly Question…” 

“Oh, it’s nothing. No need to read it. I asked His Highness Princes Zhuang for something, is he going to be stingy and not let me have it? I was the one who made the money to buy it, anyway.” 

Just then, both their spiritual senses were touched. Xi Ping glanced towards the garden. 

Xi Yue said, “The Peak Master has left.” 

“Yeah.” Xi Ping paused, then said, “He has things to do.” 

Even if he hadn’t had anything to do, he wouldn’t have stayed long. Never mind the Yongning Marquis Manor, Dangui Lane…even Jinping City itself had no room for a shed skin sword cultivator. Zhi Xiu was uncomfortable, and others were even more uncomfortable—Xi Ping had never known the servants at the Yongning Marquis Manor to be so well-behaved. 

It was now the still of night, and also the stillness of the whole house not daring to breathe too loud. Tonight, probably no one had dared to sleep. The indolent Marquis Manor, which not even the arrival of the selection card back then had been able to wake, would be rising early tomorrow morning. 

Xi Yue suddenly grabbed him. “I want to establish a foundation.” 

“What’s a little brat like you need to establish a foundation for?” Xi Ping gently tapped on his head, then pulled his sleeves back down. “So you can also make the whole family get up early to attend on you? The path to the immortal mountains is a path of no return…” 

Xi Yue stubbornly interrupted him: “I want to come with you. I want to establish a foundation.” 

“Fine, I’ll go talk to Lao Pang about it first thing tomorrow,” Xi Ping said. “There are open-eyed disciples in the inner sect, too, you don’t need to establish a foundation to come with me.” 

“It’s not the same!” 

“How is it not the same?” Xi Ping said. “What, all your colleagues have established foundations, and you’re jealous? Why the rush? All those geezers in Heaven’s Design Pavilion are older than Dad…” 

Xi Yue was inarticulate, he couldn’t explain it clearly. For his every sentence, Xi Ping could use ten sentences to shut him up. After a long moment of frustration, the half-puppet could still only squeeze out, “It’s not the same.” 

It wasn’t because he wanted to raise his cultivation level or be more powerful. It was because he dimly sensed that as long as he hadn’t established a foundation, there would be an ice-cold barrier separating him from Xi Ping. 

That person was on the other side of that barrier, digging up the earth and planting flowers, now ordering him to do this or do that, now wanting to go out driving a steam car and fool around running into walls, filling the Marquis Manor with his bustle…but still extremely lonely. 

“I…” 

Xi Yue was just about to say something when another Heavenly Question flew in. 

Xi Ping froze. He hadn’t expected san-ge to send another letter. 

When he tore open the second Heavenly Question, he caught a faint scent of blood. The letter said: “Beware the spiritual sense.” 

Beware…what? 

The middle of the night was the time many cultivators were hard at work, especially after such an eventual day when they were all uneasy and urgently needed to calm down. In Xuanyin’s inner and outer sects, the cultivators who had no official duties to attend to all began to meditate without prior consultation, but the sounds in their ears didn’t grow quiet at once as usual. 

The Ways of the Heart inherited from their forebears were in constant agitation. As if they had something to say, they gently touched the cultivators’ spiritual senses.