Zhou Ying’s Heavenly Question was very routine. It was a report on his rate of progress. It said that the peace talks had been successful and, with the Beijue Mountains’ recommendation, he had now already arrived at the feet of the Kunlun Mountains and was waiting.

“I know the peace talks were successful. How could they have been anything else, when he was even willing to risk me…” Xi Ping muttered, reading that Heavenly Question over and over several times.

Currently, they were only hoping that Northern Li wouldn’t take advantage of the situation to profit from their misfortune. After all, they knew very well where they stood. Apart from one Zhaoting and one semi-stutterer, Southern Wan really had no presentable fighting force right now. Even if the great weapon of the spirit-conducting gold was to spread among the Kaiming Cultivators, it still needed time.

If they could only fool the Sword Slave and make Kunlun willing to see Zhou Ying, Xi Ping thought that the trip to Northern Li would be no problem. After all, they didn’t have any extravagant demands. Never mind that their envoy was Zhou Ying; even if it had been Lin Chi in his place, he still probably wouldn’t have been able to mess it up.

The reasons Zhou Ying hadn’t used the Heavenly Question were, first, that he wasn’t very well-acquainted with Zhi Xiu and there was some mutual repugnance between them, so communication would have involved wasted words; and second, he had probably calculated, rightly, that if Xi Ping threw a temper tantrum and quit in disgust, he would be able to go around Zhi Xiu and use him as a threat…

So san-ge had even correctly predicted that after Xi Ping’s success, he would make a careless slip and be found out by his shifu? What was he doing considering such meaningless trifles? Did he have nothing better to do? He’d entered the way of clarity and everything—did he still have a vulgar interest in seeing others come to grief?

Xi Ping had practically been raised by Zhou Ying. The tacit understanding between them had long ago become a part of their lives. But now, with the way of clarity between them, Xi Ping felt that the one manipulating him from the other end knew better than ever how to do it, but he could never quite get hold of san-ge’s thoughts.

For sending a superfluous Heavenly Question like this, the only explanation seemed to be that he was “sending it for someone else’s benefit”—but…whose?

Though the Heavenly Question was an external object and slightly inferior to reincarnation wood as far as secrecy went, it was still part of Xuanyin’s image and its insider information; it wasn’t like Yao Qi’s sister’s downgraded immortal tool, which announced everything far and wide. Moreover, the recipient was a shed skin sword cultivator. Even if someone was powerful enough to pry, it was impossible that Zhi Xiu wouldn’t notice at his end.

Xi Ping’s heart, which had settled down because he had stirred up the situation in the southern mines, once again came up to his throat. He tried using reincarnation wood to contact Zhou Ying.

There was no answer. Zhou Ying wasn’t carrying his reincarnation wood amulet. Xi Ping turned around and asked Bai Ling to contact Northern Li’s Luwu; the Luwu responded that everything was proceeding smoothly, the general idea of their reports no different from the summary in the Heavenly Question.

What the hell was san-ge doing…?

The northern continent and the southern continent were like two different worlds. Past Yanning, all the plants became withered. In the off-white wasteland, craggy and zigzagging paths were laid with greenish stones. Now and then, beasts of burden as skinny as rakes passed over them, pulling huddled people. The crack of the whip and the sound of the wind were equally distant.

The residences were for the most part short and thickly encased in mud. From a distance, they looked roly-poly. There were axes mottled with rust atop towering stacks of firewood and straw; only in the vicinity of the capital could rising steam be seen, scattered and rare—the previous generation of Northern Li’s people still remembered those who had died unjustly in the battle over Moon Plated Gold. Though later Northern Li hadn’t prohibited buying and selling Moon Plated Gold goods from abroad, and more recently had permitted factories of the new Moon Plated Gold that didn’t burn up spiritual stones, the fear still remained in the bones of several generations.

But the loftiness of the palaces far exceeded the imaginations of southerners; it was as if they wished to challenge the mountains and the wasteland. At a glance, you couldn’t see to the top of the main hall of Kunlun’s Principal Peak. On its enormous stone pillars were carved the heads of twelve beasts, their beards and hair flaring in anger, roaring as they met the wintry northwest wind. Even the rabbit head had tusks taller than a man.

The snowstorm around the Principal Peak was blowing so hard you couldn’t open your eyes. The sounds of swords clashing fell incessantly on the ear. With Zhou Ying’s cultivation level, he couldn’t quite keep steady flying his sword. While the sword cultivator guiding him didn’t show it, he was inwardly somewhat disdainful of pretty boy cultivators from the southern continent who never trained their bodies. So, half-pityingly, he took a small pill bottle from his mustard seed and passed it to him. “The weather of the northern continent is different from the south. This is a ‘warming pill’ that the Kunlun Mountains specially prepare for guests from abroad. Will you take it, envoy of Wan?”

“Thank you.” Perhaps Zhou Ying was too trusting of Kunlun; he accepted the bottle and didn’t so much as inspect it. He tipped out a pill and swallowed it right away. “If you had taken any longer to give it to me, fellow cultivator, I might have had to make a brazen request.”

The sword cultivator quickly said, “The warming pill cannot be dissolved all at once. Take care not to scald your internal organs.”

There was no need for him to give this instruction. Zhou Ying was digesting the warming pill with great restraint. His stagnating spiritual energy began to flow at an even rate. He smiled at the sword cultivator guiding him. Once the great mountain array had inspected his token, the two of them landed on Kunlun’s Principal Peak one after the other.

The Kunlun Mountains’ Principal Peak had a commanding view. With a cultivator’s eyesight, you could pierce the clouds, the snow and wind, and see north of the Kunlun Mountain Range. Like the Beijue Mountains, beyond the Kunlun Mountains, there was also a no-man’s-land.

“Beyond the Kunlun Mountains is utter north. I suppose there’s no such desolate place on the southern continent. There’s nothing there save ice and snow.” The sword cultivator guiding him continued, “I’ve heard that you came from the Beijue Mountains? We’re a little better off here than the Blind Wolf King. We have some hill to the north to block the wind. It isn’t as cold as the Beijue Mountains.”

Zhou Ying averted his gaze, dropping his eyes and shielding his pupils, which gradually shrank back to a normal size—he hadn’t seen the “ice and snow” and “hills” that the sword cultivator had spoken of. It was plainly broad daylight, but to his eyes, in the lands of the utter north beyond the Kunlun Mountains, there was solid blackness. Only in the immediate area of the Kunlun Mountains was it slightly lit up by the daylight from where they stood. 

The impression was as if…as if it were the dead of night, the time when nothing was stirring, and the world of the Kunlun Mountains was a house with its lights on.

Zhou Ying’s gaze continued to scan the whole of the Kunlun Mountains. As the Blind Wolf King had said, he didn’t see the Ceaseless Mirror.

Divine tools of the mountains like the Bell of Tribulation and the Cauldron of Nine Dragons were normally invisible, too, but they were always present. The divine tool of the mountains and the great mountain array coordinated with each other at a distance; shed skins and paramount spiritual senses could both see them. But of Kunlun’s legendary divine tool, the Ceaseless Mirror, there wasn’t a trace. The Kunlun Mountains’ great mountain array was more savage than even the frosty wind. There was an unspeakable deathliness about the silent spiritual mountains.

“We’re here. Please enter.” The sword cultivator guide led Zhou Ying to the main hall. The lofty palace doors opened to either side. A warm breeze blew against their faces. A layer of rime instantly formed on Zhou Ying’s eyelashes.

His guide would go no further. Head lowered and eyes averted, he stepped aside. Zhou Ying walked in.

Just then, a faint pain came from his chest. The warming pill Zhou Ying had taken earlier had been fully consumed. When swallowing the pill, unnoticed, he had put a reincarnation wood seed into it.

Now, the seed that had been lying dormant in the harsh cold was aroused by the spiritual energy of the warming pill. Under Zhou Ying’s deliberate guidance, it took root in his flesh and blood.

Xi Ping, who was constantly probing north, sensed it immediately. “San-ge, where are you…where the hell is this? It’s so dark. Where have you tossed this reincarnation wood tree? Why can I hear water, and that pounding?”

Zhou Ying said, “That is my blood flowing and my heart beating.”

“What?” said Xi Ping. “What the hell have you…”

“Shh,” Zhou Ying interrupted him. “Don’t distract me. Watch closely.”

Having said this, concealed beneath his skin, he turned a part of his organs and the reincarnation wood sprout that had taken root in his chest into mist. Xi Ping’s field of vision instantly filled with bloody mist. His scalp went numb, and his chest began to hurt in sympathy—in the future, apart from planting hairs on people, it would be for the best if san-ge didn’t use his incomprehensible power much; it was too horrifying to watch.

Though the reincarnation wood sapling that had taken root in Zhou Ying’s chest had also dissolved into mist, because it had fused with his flesh and blood, fantastically, it was still alive.

So that when Zhou Ying walked into the lofty main hall, Xi Ping obtained a new point of view and met a pair of clouded old eyes.

The height of this point of view was approximately san-ge’s height.

Xi Ping immediately deduced that he was currently sharing Zhou Ying’s senses.

Sadly, this kind of “sharing” was only the reincarnation wood that had been turned to mist being attached to Zhou Ying’s senses and being able to look where he looked. The two of them each still had his own perceptions. He couldn’t use this as an opportunity to take a peek into the world as seen by the eyes of a paramount spiritual sense.

In fact, the effect of this was no different than Zhou Ying carrying a piece of reincarnation wood with him. It was only that attached to a person, his field of vision was a little wider and more flexible.

Xi Ping became even more puzzled: what kind of superfluous strangeness was this? Was san-ge actually afraid that the Li would search him and seize the reincarnation wood amulet by force?

Just then, he saw Zhou Ying salute the old man who looked ready to be buried. In the Li language, he called out, “High Priest.”

Xi Ping was startled. “What?”

Of course he had seen that this old man was only a half-immortal with one foot already in the grave. “What kind of peculiar hobby does Kunlun’s High Priest have? Why would he use such a shabby puppet to…”

Aloud, Zhou Ying was readily exchanging pleasantries with the High Priest. Meanwhile, splitting his attention, he used his consciousness to answer, “No, this is the man himself.”

“Isn’t this an open-eyed…”

“Kunlun’s High Priest is always an open-eyed cultivator,” Zhou Ying said. “You can understand this as a particular lineage of the Kunlun Mountains, and you can also believe that Kunlun’s High Priest has only been one person since antiquity. When each successive High Priest nears the end of his lifespan, a batch of infants will be prepared in advance, I’m not sure according to what criteria, and taken to be raised in the Kunlun Mountains. These infants’ consciousnesses are blocked using a secret art, and they are placed into an array to receive nourishment, until their bodies finish growing and their spiritual eyes open. Then Kunlun’s divine weapon, the Ceaseless Mirror, will appear, and choose the most suitable among them to be the next priest—when the old priest passes away, the new priest inherits all the memories of the previous one and continues to wield the foremost power under heaven.”

Hearing this, Xi Ping broke out in gooseflesh. He blurted out, “Isn’t that body-snatching? No…wait, body-snatching also takes a certain cultivation level. A half-immortal can’t snatch someone’s body.”

Zhou Ying didn’t respond.

Just then, Bai Ling sent him a message asking whether he had gotten in contact with Zhou Ying.

“I have,” Xi Ping answered hastily, “the situation is a little strange, I’ll tell you in a little while…”

“Viscount,” Bai Ling suddenly said in a grave voice, “I think I never told you that my lord came to see me before he left.”

Xi Ping was left behind. He blankly asked, “Huh? What?”

“He came to tell me that he was going to Northern Li as an envoy and to entrust the Kaiming and the Luwu to me.”

Running the Kaiming Department was no easy task. Zhou Ying held the official seals of both the Kaiming and the Luwu; naturally he had to hand over the power and responsibility before undertaking a long journey…though it was a little excessively grand for him to go to Jinping in person.

Then Bai Ling continued, “…He called me by my nickname.”

Xi Ping—in his true body in the Xuanyin Mountains—abruptly stood up.

A chill went up his spine.

Yes, and san-ge had hit him with a talisman on Flying Jade Peak.

Xi Ping wouldn’t be so optimistic as to think that this meant that Zhou Ying’s own heart was resisting his Way of the Heart. That Way of the Heart of clarity belonged to Princess Duanrui. The distance between their two levels was like the distance from Jinping to Yanning. Never mind resisting, Zhou Ying probably hadn’t even fully accepted it yet.

Stepping back further, even if he really was resisting, he would use any gains he made with knife-edge precision. He wouldn’t waste them on these trifles.

So…there was only one possible reason for him to do these things clearly out of keeping with the way of clarity: before entering that way, he had left instructions for himself.

Chiding him and bidding farewell to Bai Ling had both been arranged ahead of time… Before entering the way of clarity, under what circumstances would san-ge have gone out of his way to bid Bai Ling farewell?

“Shiyong?” Zhi Xiu put a hand on his shoulder. “Focus. What’s wrong?”

The sword cultivators of Northern Li’s Kunlun were unmatched in fighting prowess; they weren’t experts in plots and connivances. Xi Ping hadn’t been concerned about Zhou Ying to begin with. After all, all the people the two of them working together had tricked to their deaths before Zhou Ying had entered the way of clarity could have lined up from Jinping to Ning’an. And after entering the way of clarity, he had been even more unfeeling, capable of using anyone…

Capable of using anyone!

A thought suddenly streaked through Xi Ping’s mind: Including himself!

“Shifu, I have to go to Northern Li, I…”