Xi Ping planted his feet firmly in the ground to keep himself from stepping right back into the reincarnation wood.

The two of them looked at each other blankly. Xi Yue’s somewhat confused gaze suddenly focused, and with a flash, he flitted over beside Xi Ping.

Having just established a foundation, his half-puppet body hadn’t yet had time to adjust, and what was more, Xi Ping, knowing his own skills to be poor, had only made a core array for him, leaving the rest undone. Xi Yue couldn’t quite control his spiritual energy and nearly crashed into the reincarnation wood tree.

Xi Ping shook out his sleeves and brought them together. Rime-frosted branches extended from the reincarnation wood tree, sending ice flying as they caught Xi Yue.

“Da-ge,” Xi Yue asked urgently, struggling free of the branches somewhat clumsily and sticking out half his body, “how are things at home? Heaven’s Design Pavilion suddenly…”

But the man under the tree froze. With a complicated and unreadable expression, he tilted his head back to look at Xi Yue in the tree.

Only when the ice Xi Yue had dislodged in his struggle fell on his face did the corners of Xi Ping’s eyes move slightly, as if he had just come back to his senses. The tree branches relaxed and put Xi Yue down. As though nothing were the matter, Xi Ping said, smiling, “Still asleep? Don’t you see that I'm here? What can be wrong?”

Apart from the memories at the moment the eliminate the past had been performed being blurry, there would be nothing wrong with what was in Xi Yue’s head. For him, the Marquis Manor was still the home that had taken in an unrelated half-puppet like him as an adopted son, his parents were still his fondest memories of the human world, and his alarm over what had happened in Dangui Lane had yet to disperse.

It was only that while other people all had loves and hates attached to them, had flesh and blood in his mind, Xi Ping alone had turned into a faded portrait. Xi Yue recognized him when he saw him and could recall past events when they were mentioned. It was just that he would no longer automatically appear in Xi Yue’s heart, wouldn’t move his emotions.

“Shifu came back.” Xi Ping tapped the frost off him at a distance and briefly explained what had happened. Then he added, “Your injuries were too grave. The core array was broken. We caught a worm master to question, and he said that you had to establish a foundation, so shifu gave you his Way of the Heart. Don’t forget to thank him when you see him.”

Xi Yue at last came back to his senses and remembered that the person in front of him was the Marquis Manor’s legitimate Viscount. Just now, he had been anxious, and this detail actually hadn’t come to mind. He was a little embarrassed. Moving his arms and legs unfamiliarly, he respectfully stood with his hands together and said, “I will.”

When your older brother admonished you, you had to listen deferentially to his instructions.

Suddenly, a hand fell on his head. Xi Yue dodged automatically, leaving that hand hanging in midair.

This was a beautiful hand. The evil cultivator who had wanted to snatch his body had admired it tremendously. Now, on the snow-capped mountain, the ice and snow had frozen it to a chilly ashen pallor, like a dull marble carving. For some reason, when Xi Yue saw that hand hanging emptily in the air, there was a blunt ache in his heart for no reason—as if the sense of pain had been damaged at the skin there; there was pain deep down, which he could feel, but he couldn’t tell concretely where it was coming from.

While he was at a loss, he was grabbed by the back of the head and dragged over.

“Huh, you dare to dodge?” Xi Ping wasn’t at all disappointed. He pushed his head down hard. “Is your head a tiger’s ass? It can’t be touched?”

Xi Yue: “…”

“You stay on Flying Jade Peak for now, finish altering your arrays and practice the sword. Shifu isn’t very good at teaching. When he’s explaining proper things, it’s always a little bit here, a little bit there, without tying it all together. You can ignore him. Flying Jade Peak is covered with his leftover sword cuts. At the established foundation level, if you can comprehend one of them, you’ll be able to climb up a minor boundary. I won’t have time to look after you for now, so work hard, you hear?”

At this point, Xi Ping seemed unable to restrain himself from glancing downward, seeming to be mocking himself—how strange that he would be instructing someone else to work hard.

With Xi Ping’s arm around his neck, Xi Yue moved stiffly as he was dragged. Because he was a half-puppet, he very rarely got close to people; this was extremely awkward. But when your older brother was admonishing you, you just had to put up with it.

“The life of a sword cultivator is a hard one, but once you’ve learned it, you’ll be good in a fight. Look at how impressive shifu is. Presiding at Flying Jade Peak, he can imprison anyone he wants to. All the birds on the mountain don’t dare to land…” Before he could finish, Xi Ping nimbly cast Xi Yue aside and dodged a jet of spiritual wind Zhi Xiu had sent towards him. He burrowed into another reincarnation wood tree, leaving behind these words: “Come to me if you have any problems, you know how to contact me, don’t worry, I’ll look after Mom and Dad!”

Zhi Xiu had seen him bump into Xi Yue head-on and hadn’t meant to show himself…until his rebellious disciple had started spreading rumors about him in broad daylight.

Xi Yue stumbled after that last push and instinctively reached out to stop Xi Ping. But both a shed skin’s blast and an ascended spirit’s movements were too quick for him. The half-puppet who wasn’t yet accustomed to his established foundation body only came up with a handful of wind. He looked down at his hand in confusion, as if he couldn’t understand where that gesture had come from.

After using a few words to “fish up” his shifu, who had been playing dead, to come and take responsibility for Xi Yue, Xi Ping finally relaxed and sent a sliver of consciousness to the Land of Turmoil—he had succeeded in sticking a disguised tree under the Emperor of the East’s window, and never mind freeloading off his spiritual energy every day, he also eavesdropped.

He hadn’t expected the Emperor of the East to suddenly turn on his allies at the bottom of the South Sea and be sent running by A-Xiang’s gunshot. His vital weapon, the Emperor of the East Halberd, had cracked a little while going up against Xuanwu, and after that blow, it was said that he had suffered serious damage to his cultivation. The structure of the “Three Heroes of Turmoil” was immediately broken. Right now, the Emperor of the East had gone to hide out and had only moved over his spiritual stones, immortal tools, and other such crucial objects, and all the major and minor evil cultivators under his command had also made themselves scarce. The reincarnation wood tree had been left in the abandoned little courtyard.

The domain of the Queen Mother of the West and Lord Guang’an wasn’t so easy to infiltrate, and the reincarnation wood trees around the southern mines had all been wiped out long ago. His field of vision was too limited… Annoying.

Xi Ping casually sent Wei Chengxiang a letter, then took a deep breath and went in his true body to the rear garden of the Marquis Manor.

On returning home from Southern Shu, before he could finish absorbing the changes to Jinping, he had learned that san-ge had entered the way of clarity and had charged into the spiritual mountains in the heat of the moment. The next time he returned, the whole of Jinping City had been pried up and put back anew.

Before, rather than saying he had brought his shifu home, it would be more accurate to say he had snuck into the Marquis Manor under the guise of “entertaining shifu.” Everyone in the manor had  been going in nervous circles around the shed skin sword cultivator, so no one had noticed that he was at a loss.

Over a decade had passed. He had no idea what face to put on in front of his parents. He was worried that his mom and dad would notice how he had changed, and he was also afraid that the rapid passage of time had left him unchanged.

Xi Ping came to the reincarnation wood tree but didn’t dare to leave it at first. He only furtively looked out.

The Marquis Manor didn’t know that Xi Yue had been injured. They only thought Heaven’s Design Pavilion had official business. Seeing General Zhi leave, they had once again gone from chaotic tension to sluggishness, returning to normal.

In the garden Xi Ping had spent half the night laying out, the Marquis was performing the Five Animal Exercises¹, and Madam Cui had taken up a corner of the garden and was drawing something by the light of the setting sun. She was getting on in years. Her hand shook, and her eyesight wasn’t so good anymore, either. She was wearing reading glasses, and her technique was no longer so meticulous.

In the drawing, large swathes of colorful freehand brushwork sketched out the plants in the garden. The Marquis wasn’t in it—the Marquis’s beauty had faded with age, and passion had cooled, as well. He had been removed by Madam Cui from the category of “beautiful scenery.” She was even annoyed that the rotten old man was so tactless as to block her line of sight entirely. Before the Marquis had finished a full set of Five Animal Exercises, he had been ousted and made to change places several times by his wife.

“So who’s handsome, that eldest son of yours?” In front of juniors, the Marquis was solemn and reticent, but in front of his wife, he didn’t dare to revolt. He shuffled aside slowly, quietly muttering in dissatisfaction, “He’s plainly ordinary, he only looks something like me. That brat comes and goes without a word. He’s getting more and more disgraceful… Oh, right, send someone to deliver a box of spiritual stones to Heaven’s Design Pavilion. I hope Xiao Yue won’t be away for several days again. General Commander Pang really knows how to take advantage of well-behaved people.”

Madam Cui agreed, gave the order to a servant, then said, “Advancement is a good thing. Do you think everyone’s like you, doing nothing but lazing around all day? I really got taken in when I married you. Move over, you’re blocking my osmanthus flowers again.”

“Back when you married me, I didn’t say I was planning on any civil or military accomplishments…”

Xi Ping felt the freezing of the hidden bones. They seemed to be telling him, There is no more place for you here, why disturb this calm?

Just then, he saw Madam Cui draw a few strokes on her paper. A person appeared amid the gorgeous gathering of flowers. This was a child running around holding a ball, with a flower on his head, blissfully frolicking through the garden.

Only one child had frolicked in this garden…

Xi Ping stared at that drawing for a long moment, suddenly thinking that he was being ridiculous—perhaps he had spent too long wearing masks and was unused to being bare-faced; he had actually been caught up wondering which face to use to come home.

No matter what face he put on, he was still that wretched child dripping pee and mud.

Xi Ping didn’t hesitate again. He strode into the courtyard, not concealing his movements at all, scaring off the bees, butterflies, and birds filling the garden.

He saw the Marquis stop dragging his feet, his bearing abruptly turning solemn, and couldn’t help laughing. He quietly reached out to put his hands in front of Madam Cui’s reading glasses. “Immortal lady, guess who?”

Madam Cui was startled and even dropped her brush. She blurted out, “Hey, Xiaobao, you rotten…”

Halfway through, she thought she’d slipped up and called the wrong name again and cut herself off out of habit. After a moment’s pause, she finally turned her head, a little slow to catch up.

“Wrong.” Xi Ping snapped his fingers. The child in the drawing began to move at the sound. With a flash of spiritual light, he flew out of the picture and landed on the ground, turning into a living, breathing little boy.

The little boy turned his head and pulled a face at the deadly serious Marquis. He rushed away howling like a steam donkey, then bumped right into Xi Ping and turned into fragmentary light, which ran along his arm to congeal at his fingertips and turn into a folding fan. Xi Ping covered his face with the “Peerless Beauty” written on the fan in large writing and said, laughing, “I’m a painted immortal.”

In Jinping City, not waiting to be announced, Pang Jian charged into the Kaiming Department’s headquarters. “Where’s Bai Ling? Where have you gone to pass yourself off as funeral money? Get out here, quick, quick! What’s going on? Zhou Huan has been missing for a whole day, what are we going to do about Guangyun Palace? What am I supposed to say to the courtiers? Should the Zhang family arrange a funeral? Who’s going to stand in as emperor? …Good heavens, don’t tell me it’s that aggravating demon boss of yours, or else I’m asking General Zhi to let me resign my post!”

Bai Ling commanded the whole nation’s Kaiming Cultivators. With Zhou Ying gone, he had to make up his mind about everything himself. He was also hard-pressed. Hearing Pang Jian, he had just come out to meet him when he heard someone answer, “No need, General Commander Pang, I will not undertake government affairs in Jinping.”

Bai Ling went rigid. He twisted his head and saw that a patch of mist had at some point floated over to the gate of the Kaiming Department. Like a photograph developing, it slowly congealed into a person… Though they had been separated for only a few days, he felt that he hadn’t seen him in half a lifetime.

Pang Jian had never seen a power like this. He instinctively put a hand on his talisman gun, until he got a clear look at the newcomer. “Zhou Ying? What’s this power of yours…? Where did you come from?”

Bai Ling shook, then quickly lowered his head to hide his expression. “My lord.”

“Heaven’s Design Pavilion and the Kaiming Department together can handle government affairs. Follow the old system in everything. If there is something you do not know how to handle, you can send word directly to the Xuanyin Mountains. I need to take a trip to Northern Li.”

This tone was still his familiar tone, but the half-demon was extremely sensitive to the fluctuations in human emotions. As soon as he saw him, Bai Ling perceived at once that he was different from before.

But there was an outsider present, so Bai Ling forced down the silt clogging his chest. “Yes, my lord, I’ll go prepare…”

“No need,” Zhou Ying said, taking a mustard seed from his sleeve, which he gave to Bai Ling. “The Kaiming and Luwu’s spiritual seals are all inside. This time, I’ll go by myself.”

As if he had been struck by lightning, Bai Ling actually no longer cared that Pang Jian was there. All the blood abruptly left his face.

After just the brief span of time this conversation had taken, the Kaiming Department’s affairs, numerous and jumbled as snowflakes, would no longer wait for him.

“Mr. Bai, Guzhou’s spiritual stone supplies are in a critical state!”

“The border inscriptions in Yuzhou have been damaged, many Western Chu evil cultivators are trying to cross the border, Heaven’s Design Pavilion doesn’t have any established foundations who can repair the inscriptions…”

“The Train Department has sent a representative to ask whether they can run the trains domestically. Passenger transport is one thing, but the seasonal freight can’t wait.”

“Notice of a flood!”

“The Ministry of Works…”

“Mr. Bai…”

Bai Ling’s ears roared. Twenty-some years ago, he had been only a half-demon orphan who had escaped to the human world. He’d had nowhere to go but to Zhou Ying. Since when had he become so deeply wrapped up by the mundane dust?

“The Kaiming Department cannot spare you,” he heard Zhou Ying say amid the clamor.

Bai Ling turned his head abruptly and found that during the time his attention had been called away by his subordinates, Zhou Ying had already turned back into mist. 

Where others couldn’t see, a small box shot out a slip of paper. Zhou Ying scanned it, then fulfilled the past Zhou Ying’s wishes: “You’ve always managed the Kaiming and the Luwu very well. It is your achievement, so you can settle down here. They’re all relying on you…Xiao Bai.”

The speaker had dispersed before his words did. Pang Jian looked up. With his established foundation barrier dispelling eyes, he still could hardly see where Zhou Ying had gone.

A Luwu far off in the area of the Beijue Mountains received word and flew away on a sword to report to the person in charge of this branch.

Shortly thereafter, an exquisite visiting card brimming with Southern Wan style flew on a frosty wind into a cave dwelling in the Beijue Mountains and landed in front of a curly-haired man who was meditating.

Three days later, all of Western Chu’s counties dispatched troops, and, in the name of “destroying evil,” attacked the Sanyue Mountains. For the first time, the “spiritual image brand offerings” hidden in the depths of the great and wealthy families appeared in public.

In Southern Shu, Lingyun’s inner sect dispatched an ascended spirit to put down the Miah rebels in the Three Islands. The legendary next life spiritual fish of the founder Tianbo appeared out of nowhere, bringing Wangge Luobao. All the panicked spiritual beasts on the Three Islands bent their heads to the sound of a flute.

Wei Chengxiang silently returned to the Land of Turmoil.