The rain of the Land of Turmoil had washed the sky white.

The nation of He had been at the southeastern extremity of the southern content, at its far end even further south than Shu’s Three Islands, to the north sharing a border with Great Wan. The eastern part of Wan had no mountains to block the wind, so every autumn and winter, the cold wind from the northern continent came south without impediment, meeting the damp and warm sea breezes head-on, bringing several months of wind and rain to the Southern He Peninsula, with hurricanes rolling one after another over the ocean.

Before, while there had been a great deal of rain, there would rarely be instances of people and animals fleeing before a hurricane, as happened on Shu’s Southern Islands. This was because the Lancang Mountain Range stood at the center of the peninsula like a stabilizing force. Whether the hurricane came from the East Sea or the South Sea, as soon as its edge touched the immortal mountains’ great mountain array, it would be bounced away automatically. This was where the name “Lancang,” green waves, came from.

While the great mountain array had now vanished, the gentle ridges still blocked the wind on either side. But the fertile earth at the feet of the mountains was covered in mutated weeds.

Grains could no longer be planted here. After the veins of the earth had been severed, the animals had degenerated and the plants had withered. Only a few lucky mutated species had survived and spread rapidly where they had no natural predators. Ninety percent of the mutated plants were poisonous. On their own turf, where their roots were intricately interwoven, not a single blade of foreign grass could live.

For the local Turmoilers, the only thing that amounted to a “crop” was a shrub called the “bramblefruit.” The fruit it produced was about the size of an apricot. It was bitter and bland, and it made your mouth swell when you ate too much of it. But it was easy to grow and filled your stomach. When people couldn’t find work, they had to rely on it to survive. Anywhere the Turmoilers congregated, they would plant large bramblefruit forests nearby.

Even reincarnation wood, a tree that could easily put down roots in a crack in a wall or next to water, became a “delicate flower” in this place. If you left off caring for it for a moment, it would be strangled by poisonous insects and parasitic vines. If it hadn’t been a master’s accompanying plant, it would have gone extinct long ago. It had only become plentiful in recent years. The Turmoilers liked reincarnation wood, viewing it as a sacred tree. When they saw one, they would protect it, pouring insecticide in a ring outside the tree to get rid of insects.

As the gradually congregating Turmoilers gained a means of survival, they stopped eating the bodies of their loved ones and began making “offerings” of these cherished bodies to the sacred tree—plants and animals were poisonous, so naturally people’s bodies were as well. The Turmoilers’ corpses buried beneath the trees would attract the persistent parasitic plants to “eat” the bodies first, which would kill off the rootless parasites.

All living things competed for survival in this abyss of suffering.

Here, every reincarnation wood tree growing in the wild was a grave marker…for more than one person.

Right now, a number of Turmoilers were holding a “funeral”: they buried the body beneath the tree, with two people to fill in the grave and the rest standing in a circle around the tree, holding hands and singing a funeral dirge, solemn and pious.

When the body’s head was still exposed, without warning, the weather throughout the Southern He Peninsula changed.

Innumerable bolts of lightning came down from the sky, scattering throughout the wilderness of the Land of Turmoil. One bolt struck that tree with relentless accuracy. The reincarnation wood tree was instantly burned away. The Turmoilers surrounding the tree were all sent flying by the lightning strike. They landed in a scattered mess on the ground and didn’t move again.

Before the lightning had dispersed, two figures wearing rain cloaks came down. Without a single look at the Turmoilers who had been struck by the lightning, they put down a talisman, destroying the remaining roots of the tree as well.

Then, from the withered roots, a red light spread down and around like ripples. Flame-colored vines appeared. When they touched earth, they began burrowing into it like leeches. These thin, flame-red vines were extremely swift. In the blink of an eye, they had covered everything in a hundred li radius. Where they passed, even the Land of Turmoil’s native mutated plants withered and died.

The remaining grass roots, seeds, and insect eggs underground were all lapped clean by these monstrous vines.

This vine was called “wildfire.” It was a forbidden technique of the way of medicine making, used specifically for clearing spiritual fields. Once the wildfire vine entered the earth, it would snatch away the vitality of all the living things in the soil. It could help “clear the field” before planting finicky medicinal herbs, completely destroying any seeds that had been blown in by the wind. Where it had passed, not a blade of grass would remain, like a wildfire on a prairie. This was how it got its name.

In the space of a few breaths, as far as the eye could reach, all the grass withered, and the leaves on the trees also began to change color. In less than a day, this would become a wasteland akin to a desert. Nothing could grow anymore.

When news of the unforeseen events in Southern Wan had gotten out, the southern mines had descended into chaos. But never mind the surging undercurrents between various powers; what practically everyone reached a consensus on right away was: as a matter of vital urgency, they had to wipe out reincarnation wood.

With the Lancang Mountains as the center, the Land of Turmoil had been split up into four pieces. Among the four nations, Chu, Shu, and Li had no common border with Southern He, and Great Wan, which did share a border, had the encampment at the very south of the Southern He Peninsula, cut off from their native soil by the three other nations’ encampments. In other words, absent special circumstances, another country’s sovereign territory would stand between the four nations’ masters and their own encampments in the southern mines. Once the other nations upgraded their defensive inscriptions and activated their great arrays to create interference, it would be hard for anyone to control the southern mines remotely from within their own borders.

The “special circumstances” were reincarnation wood.

Starting from the ascended spirit boundary, an accompanying plant could swap places with its master’s body at any time. No matter what obstruction there was in between, it couldn’t block his gaze.

Zhi Xiu was no problem. A tree from a snow-capped mountain wasn’t so easy to grow in a land of pestilence. And he had come in a hurry. He had just reached the Land of Turmoil when he had been called back by Dwarf Luo’s complaint. He hadn’t had time to get set up. The trouble was that tenacious crooked-necked tree, the reincarnation wood.

It shamelessly grew everywhere, not the least selective about water and soil. And as soon as Xi Ping noticed that people were getting rid of his accompanying plant here, it would be the matter of a moment for him to pass through a tree and arrive. So if they wanted to wipe out these trees, the four nations had to strike simultaneously while his attention was held by Great Wan’s domestic affairs, deal a single conclusive blow, quickly clear the fields and the land, not letting a single sapling escape.

The cultivators of the four nations’ encampments in the southern mines came out practically in full force. At the same time, they stood at battle-readiness, setting up all their immortal tools for monitoring fluctuations in spiritual energy. If they failed, as soon as the ascended spirit set foot in the Land of Turmoil, they would be able to sense his movements.

When the thunder passed, countless consciousnesses nervously observed the spiritual energy fluctuations in the surroundings. After the span of a whole incense stick, when the scorched scent of the lightning-struck earth had already been washed away by the rain and the wildfire vines had spread throughout the Land of Turmoil, the cultivators from each nation’s mine encampment finally relaxed.

“It’s done. Even if someone with unfathomable designs scatters seeds, no tree will grow in earth that’s been fully occupied by the wildfire vine.” When the cultivator who had placed the talisman spoke, a genuine Jinping accent came from his mouth. He glanced beneath the charred tree, then averted his gaze in disgust. “Trees that grow on corpses… This truly is an evil cultivator.”

His companion sighed and said, “It’s a lucky thing these monstrous Turmoilers have buried so many bodies under each tree. You just have to do a sweep with a filth-removing talisman, and it’s obvious at a glance where these evil trees are. How else were we supposed to ferret out the evil cultivator’s ‘eyes’ without missing a single one in a desolate wilderness like this? We wouldn’t have had time if we’d only used the wildfire.”

“The next step is to lock down the coasts, protect the southern mines. In our mines, those with the highest cultivation are still only early stage established foundations. I hear that back home, practically all the seniors of established foundation level or above have been imprisoned by that traitor to the spiritual mountains. You and I are only open-eyed cultivators, and we have the spiritual stone mines at our backs… With traitors on the inside and evil cultivators on the outside, what are we supposed to do?”

“The head supervisor has already gone to Northern Li’s encampment to request aid. A great personage has come there from the mountains to oversee the situation. With her there, unless Zhi Xiu wants to fall out with Northern Li, he certainly won’t dare to touch the southern mines lightly. Northern Li has three great shed skin sword cultivators, twelve ascended spirits, and it has the Wanshuang Sword’s Sword Slave bearing the ancestor of all swords. No one on earth would dare to be Kunlun’s enemy.”

“Aren’t we getting ourselves in over our heads with them?”

“This is a great tribulation for the Xuanyin Mountains. Sheltering with Northern Li is a necessary but temporary measure. Suffering some losses after the fact is unavoidable. The southern mines are the greatest source of spiritual stones apart from the spiritual mountains. Now that the Xuanyin Mountains have come to grief, we must safeguard the southern mines. Once we make it through this crucial moment and get rid of the traitor, with so many capable seniors in the inner sect, there will be new shed skins.”

“It must be so. Like it was in the beginning at Xuanyin—four great shed skin elders, thirty-six peak masters, unrivaled under the heavens, better than those snow-dwelling…”

“Shixiong, take care!”

“Ah! This awful weather. The rain is like a steamer. It’s nearly cooked me.”

Fretting over great national affairs, the two of them didn’t so much as glance at the bodies of the Turmoilers all over the ground. They left on their swords.

A moment later came the sound of jumbled footsteps. A number of Turmoilers who looked like they were still children ran over and immediately saw the charred reincarnation wood and the bodies. They spent a long moment staring blankly at the disorder, then began thumping their chests, stamping their feet, and wailing.

While they were crying their hearts out, the rain pouring down on their heads suddenly stopped for a time. The children raised their heads and saw a piece of thin gauze descend from the sky. It floated down slowly and covered the bodies when it landed. Then a sumptuous carriage drawn by flying horses passed through the air. It didn’t stop.

Jade horses, a gilded carriage—this was the legendary equipage of the Queen Mother of the West.

All the Turmoilers had heard that this lady was a descendant of Southern He’s ancient imperial family, attended on by the few remaining people of He—not the Turmoilers, who had turned into monsters, but true and mighty humans.

She was the only hope for restoring the nation of He. Perhaps only when she succeeded would Southern He return to what it had been two hundred years ago. They wouldn’t live to see it, but there was probably some hope for posterity.

But where was their hope?

In the carriage, a hand blocked the Queen Mother of the West’s gaze as she peered outward. She sighed and squeezed Lord Guang’an’s wrist. “I’m all right… The people of Northern Wan have gone too far.”

“With matters having reached this stage, there is no point in continuing to look. The Turmoilers cannot change back into humans,” Lord Guang’an said. “We have planted our seeds.  Our nation is separated from Northern Li by Wan. As long as those two countries are at each other’s throats, they will have no more time to attend to the Lancang Mountains. We have already signed an alliance contract with Yu Chang. Western Chu will stand with us, and we will be able to cut off travel routes through the South Sea, so Southern Shu will be unable to reach us. Only if we take back the spiritual mountains and find a way to restore the veins of the earth will we be able to cure the poison in this earth. There will be many generations afterwards.”

Those engaged in great affairs hurried by, going to arrange for their “many generations afterwards.” Only a few Turmoiler youths remained standing blankly in the wasteland, looking at the gauze sheet bestowed by the merciful lady, not even able to cry.

When the jade horses and gilded carriage disappeared beyond the horizon, there suddenly came a sound of bells ringing from behind them. The Turmoiler youths turned their heads and saw a mule with a patchy coat pulling a worn-out cart, coming slowly out of the curtain of rain. The driver was a tall and skinny “fellow,” weathered by wind and frost that even the driving rain couldn’t wash away. On the cart was a big box over half the height of a person. Even the edges of the words “Silver Tray Lottery” on the box were blurred—this was Wei Chengxiang.

The Silver Tray Lottery was the favorite dream of every child who had grown up in the Land of Turmoil. If you came upon it once, you could have a year of good luck. You only needed a small stone to play it once, and inside there was good food and fun toys, even life-saving medicines. All wishes could be granted.

Furtively saving up pretty stones to compete with each other was the only experience the children here had of childhood.

For the Turmoiler youths, seeing her was like seeing a family member. Crying out inarticulately, they surrounded her, howling like wounded wild beasts.

Sadly, the fantasy only went so far. It couldn’t bring the dead back to life.

Wei Chengxiang patted each of them on the head, took out tools, and led the youths in burying the dead, as usual taking one stone from each of them. The small case in the Silver Tray Lottery spouted thin steam and began to revolve as though it were in need of repair. This time, the machinery produced supplies—a reincarnation wood amulet…and a map.

“Can you read a map?” Wei Chengxiang said very slowly in the Southern He language. “Go here, your own people will be there to look after you, I’ve already told them. If you run into danger, use the amulet to call for help. Your people are nearby, they’ll come rescue you when they hear… Hurry up.”

The Turmoiler youths crowded around her for a long time, then put the things away and reluctantly left. After going a long way, they turned back and saw that a fog lamp had been hung from the Silver Tray Lottery cart. The cart and the person were no longer clearly visible; only the milky white light saw them off.

Wei Chengxiang withdrew under her bamboo hat, slowly drank half a pot of cold wine in the heavy rain, used spiritual energy to string the little stones she had just collected together and hung them from the charred reincarnation wood tree. She sent word to Xi Ping: “The four nations have joined forces in the Land of Turmoil to enforce martial law over the whole area while using over a thousand lightning-drawing talismans to clear away the reincarnation wood.”

There was no need for her to say this. When the reincarnation wood trees in the Land of Turmoil were blasted, Xi Ping had immediately sensed it.

He fed the cat he had just taken in and placed it in the courtyard, then looked at the Marquis Manor uneasily. He seemed a little care-laden. He passed through the reincarnation wood to Flying Jade Peak.

“Nothing strange about that. Now that they know the reincarnation wood is like me being there in person, it would be suspicious if they didn’t clear it away,” Xi Ping said. “That said, they ought to know that I can go over there by getting someone to toss out a seed. Striking the trees down is no use. What else did they do?”

Wei Chengxiang threw a reincarnation wood seed on the ground. This seed that ought to have started growing as soon as it got a chance seemed to dry up in the wind the moment it touched the earth. “They’ve planted wildfire vines in the Land of Turmoil.”

Xi Ping froze, then blurted out a question: “What scope? Will it affect the bramblefruit?”

Of course he knew what wildfire vines were. At his most incensed, he didn’t bother reading about any talismans or arrays that weren’t forbidden arts.

It was strictly forbidden to use wildfire vines in the countryside, because they would get out of control as soon as they spread. While it wasn’t hard to get rid of the vines, you had to use a special array to wipe out all of them. If only a single root remained, it would soon rise from the ashes to set the prairie ablaze once again. Where the wildfire had crept, the poison in the soil and waterways couldn't be fully removed for forty-nine days. During this period, even plants growing in a flowerpot, not “in touch with the earth,” would be entirely done for when they were touched by the local rain.

Wei Chengxiang didn’t respond for quite a while. After a long moment, she finally said, “No scope. It must have spread throughout the whole Southern He Peninsula by now.”

Xi Ping: “…”

What the hell! Just so they could burn him, they couldn’t even leave people some grass roots or tree bark to gnaw on? Without plants, wouldn’t the Land of Turmoil become a complete deathtrap?

“Gather everyone up as much as possible, don’t leave anyone alone,” Xi Ping said quickly. Scattered Turmoilers, finding nothing to eat, would return to eating people after three days of hunger. “I’ll think of something for rations. Use the amulets as a medium, move some through the Law Breaker. I know the coastline has been sealed, but they can’t have that many people, there’ll have to be gaps. If it really won’t work…if it really won’t work, then divide the ones you can count on and the weak and elderly into batches and send them to the South Sea Hidden Realm…”

Wei Chengxiang, leaning against the mule-drawn cart, suddenly interrupted him: “But why is this happening?

“I’m in Great Wan’s encampment now. I’ve followed the Queen Mother of the West and Lord Guang’an all this way. They’re rushing to the southern mines. They’ve changed their contact signals. I’m not sure who they’re taking precautions against—it might be me… After all, the legendary ‘Tai Sui’ has suddenly turned out to belong to the spiritual mountains’ orthodoxy.” Wei Chengxiang paused, then said, “The jade horses and gilded carriage didn’t land just now.”

The lady wanted to restore her country, but she didn’t want the Turmoilers. After all, in her mind, the citizens of Southern He shouldn’t be like the Turmoilers.

However good the South Sea Hidden Realm was, it was still a place of hiding, not seeing the light of day. The Southern He Peninsula was their native soil. Their country had been partitioned by foreigners and turned into a battlefield where immortals and demons grappled for resources. The former master was putting in painstaking efforts, but she already viewed them all as dead.

“I can try,” Wei Chengxiang said with a bitter laugh. “I might send a group of the weak and elderly, but the rest won’t necessarily be willing to go.”

The wintry wind of Flying Jade Peak dashed against Xi Ping, making his temples ache. “The South Sea Hidden Realm has a set of spiritual mountains at least, it’s not like being banished to some penal colony, right? One or two might not be willing to go…”

The Marquis had just categorically refused to move the Marquis Manor to the South Sea Hidden Realm. The old man was extremely obstinate, and he hadn’t given a reason, only brushed him off with “a falling leaf must return to its roots,” and then it was as if the crack between his lips had sealed up.

Xi Ping had reasoned with him in every possible way without success. He was used to being rude and had blurted out, “No matter where you’re buried, you still won’t cultivate into an earth immortal,” then been knocked aside with a teacup lid by the Marquis, whose mustache quivered; he was just preparing to commit the high treason of forcibly transplanting the “old tree” when he was reduced to submission by a few light words from Madam Cui.

Madam Cui’s current unhurried manner of speaking was very like his old grandmother’s. She said, “We can go into that place, but you can’t, and we would have to talk through a plant. When we missed you, we’d have to go to no end of trouble to get someone to take us out to have a look at you. As for you, you’d only be able to kowtow every year on Qingming out here, and we’d have no way of knowing whether you’d done it for real—how is that any different from being interred in the ancestral tombs? We two old things will be going to see our ancestors in a few years, anyway, so why take this unnecessary step? Xiaobao, once we’re gone, you’ll have no family left. Why are you in such a rush?”

Madam Cui was the master of the house. Under normal circumstances, she didn’t lightly display her prowess. With a few words, she cut her unfilial son down to size and sent him fleeing, grief-stricken, back to Flying Jade Peak.

Now that Zhou Huan had disappeared and the Li and Zhang families had defected en masse, Zhi Xiu, along with Lin Chi, Wen Fei, and other such people, were combing through the domestic situation in Great Wan, deliberating what to do in the future. Xi Ping listened outside the cottage for a while. It made his head ache, so he didn’t go inside. He sat on the courtyard wall which always seemed in danger of collapse, watching Xi Yue meditating in the snow to comprehend the sword heart.

Suddenly, a piece of information from the north came through the reincarnation wood.

Zhou Ying concisely and comprehensively said, “Wanshuang’s Sword Slave has gone south. Once again I warn General Zhi, Zhaoting must not face Wanshuang.”

“Then Northern Li had better not strike the first blow,” Xi Ping muttered. “The Queen Mother of the West and Guang’an are prudent people. To be making a beeline towards the southern mines now, they must have support. That bastard Yu Chang is colluding with them…”

The Land of Turmoil also contained the missing Emperor of the East. Given Xi Ping’s understanding of that conjunctivitis-sufferer, he wouldn’t only be carrying on with one side.

In Southern Shu, the Miah and Xiuyi clans had entirely fallen out. Wangge Luobao didn’t have the South Sea Hidden Realm and would have to find other resources. There was a one hundred percent chance he would set his sights on the southern mines. That barren place was something else… Would shifu really be able to restrain himself and watch while they all fought over the southern mines right in front of his eyes?

Xi Ping’s brow furrowed. He hesitated briefly, then sent another Heavenly Question to Yao Qi to tell the southern mines to look out for evil cultivators—Yao Qi seemed not to have listened to him last time; he hadn’t responded to the Heavenly Question. But he still had to warn him… It might do some good.

The Heavenly Question flew away with a snap of his fingers. Xi Ping stretched anxiously and leaned back. Before he had finished flexing his shoulders, the Heavenly Question he’d just sent flew back and vanished before his eyes—it couldn’t find its recipient.

Right now, the real Yao Qi and Chang Jun were locked up in a tiny underground prison. All their possessions had been removed—not even the few little jade stamps hidden in Chang Jun’s belt had been passed over.

They were both half-immortals, without essences. For drawing talismans and using powers, they relied entirely on spiritual stones. Had they been elsewhere, in a pressing situation, if they really had no spiritual stones, they could have made do with draining spiritual energy from the surroundings, but there was nothing to drain in the Land of Turmoil.

There were inscriptions and arrays all around. They couldn’t understand them, but their tense spiritual senses were clearly telling them that they were being watched.

The evil cultivators who had caught them were all established foundations. They really couldn’t have escaped even if they’d had wings.