“A diehard supporter of the Li family, with an opportunity to come into contact with palace secrets, who may have unearthed the connection between Liang Chen and the Zhou family. Considering all that, she must be part of the family,” Xi Ping said.

There had in fact been a good number of palace women who had been dragged down by their connection of the Li family, but they were all dead without issue—some hadn’t had any children to begin with, and some had had children who’d been scared into early deaths by their mothers’ fates.

Only Empress Dowager Zhang, despite having spent the better part of her life in the cold palace, had strangely maintained her position. As soon as her son inherited the throne, she had once again risen to prominence.

Amid the wintry winds and fresh snow of Flying Jade Peak, Zhi Xiu had once again erected the little house that could easily be crushed by the weight of snow. He set it beside the place where Xi Yue was recuperating.

The outer shell had been casually thrown together, and the inside was a mustard seed. Inside the mustard seed, there was neither time nor season. After all these years, there had been absolutely no change to the complete set of furnishings. The teapot even seemed to still be warm.

Xi Ping familiarly poked the dying fire a couple times, rooted around in the wooden cabinet next to the fire, and, as he’d expected, turned up a handful of elderly chestnuts from fourteen years ago. They were pretty fresh, so he buried the chestnuts in the sparking embers, then sat down on the ground to recite the lines of a brigand and traitor in a play.

“We’ve got the Xuanyin Mountains in our clutches, anyway, and there’s the Territory Map. If Lao Pang really can’t keep his subordinates in Heaven’s Design Pavilion under control, we can always prohibit spiritual energy throughout the realm. So, if it were me, and I wanted to get the news out as quickly and directly as possible, I’d definitely contact the southern mines in the Land of Turmoil—who’ve they got in the southern mines from that bunch?”

Zhou Ying didn’t take issue with his manners. He stepped over his outstretched legs and answered, “Yao Ziming.”

Hearing this, Xi Ping frowned. “The empress’s little brother? Where’s their father, Lord Yao? Why isn’t he looking after them?”

“Lord Yao died three or four years ago.”

No wonder.

When he was young, Xi Ping had heard all kinds of fantastic anecdotes about Grand Scribe Yao. He’d thought that there was something a little wrong with that long-faced old gentleman’s head. He always thought people were out to get him. Now, at his current age, he was finally learning that Lord Yao hadn’t been paranoid; there was method in what his elders did—had the Zhangs not lost power, with Empress Yao’s background, she couldn’t even have dreamed of marrying Zhou Huan. But her climbing to that “high branch” had in fact not been a stroke of good fortune for the Yao family. It would have been one thing if His Third Highness had inherited the throne, leaving the Crown Prince deposed and powerless; but short of that, these nominal in-laws really were a disgrace to the Zhangs. Of course Lord Yao had quaked in terror.

The old nobility wouldn’t take them seriously, and beyond that they probably harbored malice in their hearts.

And the Yao siblings were actually still mixed up with them. With their father gone, there truly was no one sensible left to mind them.

Xi Ping considered, then extended his hand to put together a Heavenly Question. A beam of spiritual energy formed into the two wild cursive words “run now” and sent them south… Whether he listened to it or not would depend on Yao Qi’s fortune.

Zhi Xiu’s consciousness swept through the Xuanyin Mountain Range. He confirmed that the Latent Cultivation Temple’s Su Zhun, Luo Qingshi, and other stewards had not been fatally injured; forced the established foundations affected by the “heavenly edict” into meditation, making them calm down; made arrangements for the disciples who hadn’t established foundations yet; repaired the main hall on the Principal Peak; then inquired about the status of the damage to Moon Plated Peak.

Only when he was finished with these trifles did he go inside. Right away, he saw his rebellious disciple’s undignified sprawl on the ground, and the corner of his eye twitched faintly—Zhi Xiu was normally quite casual himself, but however you looked at it, there was still an outsider and guest present. Passing by Xi Ping, he calmly gave him a kick. “Serve tea.”

Xi Ping didn’t budge. “Shifu, our tea leaves are from the previous reign. They’ve nearly developed intelligence. It would be cruel to brew them.”

Zhi Xiu: “…”

You sure can talk.

“There’s plenty of Flying Jade Peak’s ‘magic frozen dew’ to go around. Anyone who’s thirsty can just go out and scoop up a ladleful. Why should I serve tea? It’s a needless formality invented by fools to keep from being embarrassed when they have nothing to say to each other after the pleasantries have been exchanged, a way to give both the host and the guest a chance to work out what to talk about next. Who actually cares about drinking tea?” Idly, Xi Ping said, “Your Highness Prince Zhuang, can a cultivator of the way of clarity feel embarrassed?”

Call him “san-ge,” Zhou Ying would nod calmly; call him “Your Highness Prince Zhuang,” there also seemed to be no particular reaction from him.

Zhou Ying glanced at Xi Ping, ignored the faint provocation in his words, and, turning to Zhi Xiu, said, “What are your instructions, General Zhi?”

“I wouldn’t presume to instruct you,” Zhi Xiu said politely. “It is only that I cultivate the way of the sword and am unlearned in many areas. I inspected Jinping earlier and saw that the Empress Dowager has committed suicide. Guangyun Palace is in disarray, and someone has used some secret means that have made me unable to determine His Majesty’s location.”

“Let the palace be in disarray. There is no need for you to be concerned about the people’s welfare, General Zhi.” Zhou Ying knew what he was worried about. “The influence of the noble families has crumbled in recent years. The six ministries have been restructured, the Ministry of Works divided up into ever smaller components. Public roadways, mining affairs, the Cloud Soaring Flood Dragons, the canals, industry and commerce all have their own agencies. They have no need to request instructions from Jinping on every point. As long as there is a sufficient supply of spiritual stones, the various Kaiming Departments will look after internal affairs. They are equal to dealing with matters for some time. If there are individual large matters that are hard to resolve, the Xuanyin Mountains can simply go around Guangyun Palace and transmit orders to the Kaiming Department and Heaven’s Design Pavilion. Rest assured, there won’t be many such issues.”

Xi Ping interjected: “While it makes no difference whether he’s there or not… are we really going to let him run off like this?”

Zhou Ying nodded. “He is only a mortal, and no matter what, his surname is still Zhou. With the Empress Dowager dead, at most the Li family remnants will let him live. They won’t make much of him. Even heaven will leave a gleam of hope for survival. Indiscriminate killing is inauspicious.”

“Your Highness,” said Xi Ping, “would you care to have a go at translating that into human speech?”

Zhi Xiu felt that his manner was becoming more and more disgraceful. “Shiyong.”

Xi Ping made a thoroughly insincere gesture of sewing his mouth shut.

Zhou Ying extended a hand, which turned into a mist that dispersed invisibly and intangibly in the air. Before anyone could take a close look, with a wave of his long sleeve, the hand was once again restored whole and unharmed to its original position. “This is the power that comes with my spiritual bones. Any part of my body can turn into mist and disappear. I hardly used it before, so few people will be on guard against it. I had an audience with the Emperor before going to the spiritual mountains and left one of my hairs on His Majesty’s person. Given Zhou Huan’s character, the mastermind behind all of this must be Empress Dowager Zhang. If we capture him, it would hardly be suitable to punish him. It would be better to be lenient, use him to scope out the movements of the Li family remnants.”

Zhou Ying was perhaps the only weirdo cultivator in the world who would take a car to go the two steps between Prince Zhuang Manor and the Yongning Marquis Manor. Even Xi Ping often forgot that he could fly a sword and had his own power. Curiously, he said, “A hair? Where did you put it? Won’t it fall off? Won’t they take it off him?”

“I don’t suppose so,” Zhou Ying said rather cautiously after considering it. “It would be normal for them to change his clothes while on the run, but it isn’t very likely that they would shave his head—I planted that hair in His Majesty’s own scalp.”

Xi Ping: “…”

Zhi Xiu: “…”

Neither the shed skin who understood only the sword nor his disciple who understood everything but the sword had ever heard the likes of this. They were both rendered speechless.

Xi Ping said, “No wonder Zhuoming was always longing for you, san-ge. If you hadn’t entered the way of clarity, perhaps you could have founded your own ‘way of saving the bald.’”

“Xi Shiyong!” said Zhi Xiu.

Xi Ping put on a proper smile. “It’s not like cultivators of the way of clarity get angry. San-ge isn’t about to sink to my level, right?”

He wanted to see where the limits of “feeling neither joy nor anger” lay.

Zhi Xiu sighed and pretended not to notice the delicate hostility between the two brothers. He only asked, “Have you known all along, Your Highness?”

“I guessed some of it,” Zhou Ying said. “The Li clan has been Great Wan’s foremost family since ancient times, a many-legged insect whose legs would outlive the death of the body. What’s more, the Xuanyin Mountains being a place that insists on keeping face, they kept the majority of their peak masters. They didn’t kill them all off. I knew that the family had always been waiting for an opportunity to stage their comeback, but I didn’t know that they had been acting under the direction of the ‘heavenly edicts’ of the Ways of the Heart of common origin since Li Fengshan’s death—had the Unbound Furnace not burned the star stones at the bottom of the Sea of Stars, I’m afraid I wouldn’t even be able to speak the words ‘Ways of the Heart of common origin’ now.”

With Zhi Xiu’s cultivation level, he could see the demon eyes hidden in his eyes. “But there are still many things you cannot say.”

“Yes, those that have yet to be tracked back to the source,” Zhou Ying said with a nod, not seeming at all in a rush. “Until the law has been broken, the seal cannot be removed.”

Zhi Xiu scrutinized him briefly, then suddenly said, “Your Highness, a cultivator’s vital power will ordinarily mature as their spiritual bones mature, be inseparable from the cultivator’s background and experiences. But once they accept another’s Way of the Heart upon establishing a foundation—especially a Way of the Heart that differs rather significantly from their own personality—the vital power they had during the open-eyed stage will fade as their cultivation progresses, and their vital weapon will also change to match their predecessor’s.”

Xi Ping, who was taking chestnuts out of the fire, froze. A chestnut covered in sparks burned a hole in the cuff of his sleeve.

Zhi Xiu said, “But from what you say, your vital power has not only not faded, it has instead become stronger than before you established a foundation.”

Zhou Ying nodded. “That is correct.”

Zhi Xiu said gravely, “Your Highness’s method of cultivating the way of clarity is very special.”

“I am acting according to my inclinations, letting nature take its course,” said Zhou Ying.

Zhi Xiu was silent for a moment, then said with a bitter smile, “In the present chaos, only a cultivator of the way of clarity can follow his inclinations. Since the information has already leaked, sooner or later it will spread throughout the four nations. What will come will come. Disorder is everywhere on the southern continent. Everyone has their own difficulties. We can let that go. What I am most concerned about now is Northern Li. Luckily, Northern Li has been unwilling to mix with the southern continent for many years. Even if the news reaches them, they will most likely only look on at first. They won’t necessarily react quickly.”

Splitting the continent in two along the Slumbering Dragon Sea and the Hong River, the area of the northern and southern halves of the continent was in fact about equal, but the southern continent was shared by four nations, while the northern continent had only the nation of Northern Li.

The southern half of Northern Li was mainly composed of plains and grasslands. There were mountains to the northwest, separating it from the boundless unpeopled snowfields. The Tianze River came from the snow-capped mountains; its lower reaches split into two big tributaries—the Hong and Xia Rivers. Northern Li was spacious and sparsely populated. The hard and barren earth was farmed with horses’ hooves. The herdsmen at the feet of the Beijue Mountains still lived without a fixed residence according to ancient traditions.

The northerners only maintained a basic trade with the south, exchanging furs and crude farming products for cheap provisions and worthless manufactured goods. Kunlun’s ninefold sword was unmatched under heaven. The inner sect and the outer sect, the latter called the Night Revenants, were made up of ninety percent sword cultivators. Even the evil cultivators were all specialty domestic products—common cultivators from outside didn’t dare to enter at will without first getting in contact with someone to receive them. Moreover, sword cultivators’ reliance on medicines and tools was low to begin with. The resources the spiritual mountains themselves produced were sufficient. They wouldn’t go all the way to Southern Shu to buy them. Spiritual stones from the north rarely flowed outward.

In the centuries since Moon Plated Gold had come down to the mortal world, every nation had been turned on its head amidst the foul smoke: Southern Wan’s workers had openly rebelled, the Kaiming Department had squeezed its way into the immortal sect, and now they had even misplaced their emperor; in Western Chu, stifled by the might of the Xiang family, all kinds of local despots had their own “offerings,” and, as soon as the Xiang family weakened, they had immediately shown their teeth and talons and prepared to pounce; even Southern Shu had accepted transnational Cloud Soaring Flood Dragons and toilet bulletins, thinking that everything of Wan manufacture was high quality, gradually growing more open-minded…even if the direction their minds opened in was a little oblique.

Only Northern Li had been unmoved from beginning to end. The common people lived lives of unchanging poverty at the feet of the Kunlun Mountains, not daring to think of what they had and did not have.

“Shifu, you’re thinking of allying with Northern Li, keeping them from meddling in the southern continent’s affairs.” Xi Ping left off his temper and frowned. “They’re very xenophobic there. I went there with some people a few times and couldn’t find a place to put down roots.”

Generally speaking, in a spacious and sparsely populated place, people occasionally coming across living creatures from other places would be very interested, so the people of Northern Li were famed for their forthright hospitality towards guests.

But “guests” were still “guests.” The Li people generally had broad foreheads and faces, and large builds; they could be told apart from southerners at a glance. Their language was also different. The Chu, Shu, and Wan languages all borrowed vocabulary from each other. Between Chu and Wan, there was even no need for translation; you could communicate by guesswork. But the Li language was a completely different matter. Without devoting several years of study to it, you wouldn’t be able to understand that cackling.

Zhou Ying, however, interjected, “I actually have a connection. I’ve always been in contact, not with Kunlun, but with the Beijue Mountains’ Blind Wolf King.”

“The Perplexing Sword?” said Zhi Xiu.

Zhou Ying said, “The Blind Wolf King only left the Kunlun Mountains because his sword aura was incompatible. Though he is counted as an evil cultivator, his relationship to Kunlun’s orthodoxy is nowhere near the mutual intolerance of orthodox and evil in other nations. His position has practically always been semi-public. If you trust me, General Zhi, I can take a trip, stay in contact through the reincarnation wood.”

Xi Ping froze. “Huh? Me?”

Zhou Ying said, “There is a past friendship between the Blind Wolf King and the Marquis of Yongning. A branch of the Luwu use the Marquis as an intermediary. You wouldn’t have understood it when you were younger, and the Marquis wouldn’t have had time to bring it up with you. Since you can go back now, why do you not dare to stay a while at the Marquis Manor?”

Xi Ping’s expression changed several times. Finally, with a smile that was asking for a beating, he said, “Well, isn’t it the same as you not daring to go through the Marquis Manor’s gates for five years back then?”

As before, Zhou Ying wasn’t angered. He only nodded to him, seeming to imply “since you understand, I won’t say any more.” He looked away and said to Zhi Xiu, “The Kunlun Mountains are known as the most ancient spiritual mountains on earth, and Kunlun’s sword cultivators have always considered themselves to be the descendants of the founder of the cultivation world. In fact, I would like to see what there is in the most ancient place. General Zhi, it will not be hard for me to persuade Northern Li to look on with folded arms; sword cultivators rarely regard other ways as worthwhile, and for the most part scorn to take part in this sort of fight—but there is one thing. During this period, you must not touch the southern mines in the Land of Turmoil.”

Zhi Xiu frowned.

“Spiritual stones are the lifeblood of spiritual mountains. The southern mines are shared among the four nations. Northern Li has no border with the Land of Turmoil. They have always been sensitive about the southern mines,” Zhou Ying said. “I know you are preoccupied with the Land of Turmoil, but over two centuries have already passed. A little while longer won’t matter. Once you touch the southern mines, Kunlun’s Wanshuang will come south. You are not the world’s only shed skin sword cultivator.”

Zhi Xiu seemed to be squeezing something in his sleeve. After a long time, he sighed softly and said, “Thank you for the warning. I understand the priorities.”

The two of them had a brief deliberation. Without Xi Ping’s troublesome interruptions, it was very efficient—after all, the two of them weren’t well acquainted, and they didn’t especially like each other. There was nothing for them to chat about.

Zhou Ying then stood and bid farewell. At the door, as though he had sensed something, his consciousness probed the mustard seed he carried and saw that after a long silence, the box of notes that he had destroyed over half of had suddenly “come back to life” and spat out a new note for him. On it was written: If Xi Shiyong is impertinent, beat him.

Zhou Ying paused and assessed the situation briefly in light of this note: calling his older brother’s full name at the bottom of the Sea of Stars, mocking him for being unable to feel embarrassed and not speaking in words humans could understand, as well as planning out a “way of saving the bald” for him…

So he came to a conclusion: Xi Shiyong had been extremely rude.

Xi Ping, who was seeing him out, saw him suddenly come to a halt and thought he had recalled something, so he leaned sloppily against the doorframe. “What other instructions does Your Highness have? I can convey them.”

Zhou Ying glanced at him: his posture was very vulgar.

Therefore, he pointed at him.

Xi Ping said, “Me? What about…”

Before he could finish, a talisman hit him straight in the chest. Though Xi Ping was a major boundary above him, he had simply never expected this to happen. He took half a step back under the force of that blow, tripped over the threshold, and sat down on the ground.

Zhou Ying very objectively asserted the reasoning behind his attack: “You have been impertinent.”

Having said this, he nodded courteously, turned into mist, and disappeared.