“You can’t come here now.” Zhou Ying seemed to know what he was thinking. “Listen carefully, don’t get distracted.”

Xi Ping could swap places with reincarnation wood, but there was no living reincarnation wood in the north of Northern Li—unless it was enabled and protected with spiritual energy, like on Flying Jade Peak, naturally-growing reincarnation wood had nowhere near the requisite tolerance for cold.

And the sapling inside Zhou Ying had been “dissolved” by him; there really was no one who understood this power of his. No one knew what would happen if Xi Ping rashly swapped places with that sapling.

There was a droning as the main hall’s doors slowly closed, interrupting Zhou Ying and the High Priest’s insipid small talk.

Northern Li’s frightening High Priest, leaning on a cane, slowly got to his feet. His aged and hollow voice echoed in the main hall. “We people of the northern continent don’t like to shilly-shally when we talk. You aren’t the first possessor of a paramount spiritual sense to come seeking Kunlun’s Ceaseless Mirror, Your Highness Prince Zhuang of Great Wan.”

Xi Ping very rarely went to Northern Li, so he could only speak enough of the Li language to get by, a sloppy and incompetent affair. Amid the overlapping echoes, he was pricking up his ears, struggling to distinguish what was being said, and of all things, “Ceaseless Mirror” was a rare specialized term in the Li language. Xi Ping didn’t understand it.

Possessor of a paramount spiritual sense coming for what in the hell…? As expected, this had been premeditated!

As a fellow possessor of a spiritual sense, Western Chu’s Zhuoming over there spent all day killing people if he wasn’t getting revenge, and if he really had nothing else to do, he could play around pulling out his hair—a full and simple schedule. Why did the one who had fallen to them have to be more perilous than the Bell of Tribulation?

No, the ineffectual Bell of Tribulation might as well be Zhou Ying’s grandson! One slip, and he could provoke a major event; when he got up to killing and maiming, he made no distinction between himself and the enemy.

“It seems that the Wolf King has a traitor in his ranks,” said the Bell of Tribulation’s grandpa, putting on a fake smile copied from Yu Chang’s face. “I came as an envoy to Northern Li under orders from the immortal mountains. If possible, from a selfish desire, I would like to pay my respects to the legendary Ceaseless Mirror—if I have violated a taboo of the Kunlun Mountains, I ask the High Priest to take into consideration the brevity of my time spent cultivating. The ignorant cannot be held responsible.”

The High Priest’s brows crouched over his eye sockets. “You do not appear ignorant to me, Your Highness. Rather, you appear to feel secure in the strength of your position.”

Zhou Ying then said, “High Priest, the nations of Li and Wan, one north and one south, have been friendly neighbors for generations. For food and textiles, metals and building materials, we have always given Yanning the most favorable prices. If I were to come quaking and trembling to a friend’s house, wouldn’t it mean I doubted the master’s moral character? The Lingyun Mountains have taken a severe blow to their vitality through the schemes of evil cultivators. Because the positions of Sanyue’s shed skins have fallen vacant, tyrants throughout the country are drooling over its immortal mountains. The Land of Turmoil goes without saying—if everything were going smoothly there, I suppose you would not have found time in your busy schedule to see me, High Priest. In a tumultuous world filled with such dangers, what reason can there be for our two nations not to go forward hand in hand?”

“That is a question I must put to your nation,” the High Priest said gravely. “What means have you used to cause the southern continent to sink into such pandemonium that you could even poison Wanshuang’s Sword Slave? Your Highness Prince Zhuang, once and for all, who is behind you?”

Xi Ping wasn’t sure that he had understood this last part correctly: behind…what? Had this mystical-looking High Priest seen through the little tricks he had played in the Land of Turmoil and not been taken in or what? Damned Northern Li language!

Zhou Ying, seeming impervious, said, “I am afraid I do not understand you, High Priest.”

“The power behind you.” The High Priest beat his cane heavily against the ground again and again, the tempo becoming more and more urgent. “Don’t make up stories about that new shed skin sword cultivator and his disciple who isn’t even as big as a sesame seed. The five great spiritual mountains have punished evil and put down demons for over a thousand years. Through many generations and many disasters, they have kept hundreds of millions of common people safe and sound. And in a mere couple of centuries, they have one after another fallen beyond redemption! The person behind you—all of you—is truly skilled. What, will they still not come out to face me?”

His voice became louder as he spoke. He seemed to be shouting the last words at someone else through Zhou Ying. Had Xi Ping not been the “disciple who isn’t even as big as a sesame seed” that he had spoken off, he practically would have thought that the High Priest had seen him.

Xi Ping tied together his earlier speech with his later speech and finally worked out what the old man was saying. He discovered to his shock that before anyone else could come along and lie to him, this old fellow had imagined for himself some vast and powerful force that could equal the spiritual mountains; he thought that this was a big game board filled with conspiracies!

And this included his own contribution in the form of deliberately mystifying to scare the Sword Slave…

Wait!

Other people didn’t know the true nature of the spiritual mountains and Ways of the Heart, but san-ge knew. Given his degree of understanding of Xi Ping, it was likely that when he had used his shifu to threaten him, he had already guessed what he would do!

Zhou Ying smiled. Not only did he not dodge the question, he talked back directly: “High Priest, I am an envoy, not a criminal under interrogation.”

“Envoy of Wan, do you think that Kunlun would not dare to harm you?”

As expected, Northern Lil’s High Priest became enraged. His voice became even lower, a little hard to distinguish to Xi Ping’s hearing—Xi Ping suspected this was another thing that damned way of clarity cultivator had done on purpose!

When the Luwu were infiltrating neighboring countries, Zhou Ying took a very free hand in ordering him around, as though he was planning to extract from him all the spiritual stones he had once given him as pocket change. Chu went without saying; he would order him to lay a trade route whenever anything in Southern Shu wasn’t going smoothly, and urge him to go to the Land of Turmoil to make up for the Luwu’s shortcomings…but he had very rarely sent him on errand to Northern Li, so that it was a struggle for him to even understand the language, and there was no chance he would compete with him for the opportunity to go to Northern Li as an envoy!

“I think,” said Zhou Ying slowly, seeming to tacitly acknowledge that the High Priest’s delusions were true, “that while you do not know the details concerning my backing, rashly injuring me could easily alert your enemy in advance. It would be unwise.”

“What the hell are you trying to do? Zhou Ying, have you gone crazy?”

As Xi Ping cursed him, he turned around and contacted Bai Ling: “You have the Luwu’s official seal. Get in contact with the Luwu who went with san-ge to the feet of the Beijue Mountains. Starting now, they aren’t to listen to Prince Zhuang’s orders. They will obey centralized deployments from the Kaiming Department’s general headquarters.”

Bai Ling only hesitated for the time it took to blink, then decisively defected in Xi Ping’s favor. “I hear and obey.”

As long as Bai Ling gave him the authority, Xi Ping could contact the Luwu directly, so as soon as Bai Ling gave the nod, he immediately sent a message to the Luwu who had traveled with Zhou Ying: “Luwu brothers, I need to trouble you to run a slight risk and plant some reincarnation wood trees for me, the closer to the Kunlun Mountains, the better.”

There was no “wildfire” at the feet of the Kunlun Mountains; anyone could spur a tree to grow!

Meanwhile, in Kunlun’s main hall, as soon as Zhou Ying spoke those almost provocative words, the High Priest broke out in cold laughter.

There was a low shout in the main hall: “Do not be arrogant, little brat!”

Once again, Xi Ping sensed shed skin level sword aura at a distance. “San-ge!”

No sooner had he spoken than Zhou Ying was frozen in place by chilly sword aura.

But the way of clarity was without sorrow or joy, without worry, and naturally without fear, also. Beneath the frightening aura that could make an ascended spirit master go rigid, Zhou Ying immediately turned entirely to mist.

Xi Ping’s point of view was compelled to change as he did so. Far away in the Xuanyin Mountains, he no longer had any sense of where was reincarnation wood and where was Zhou Ying!

The next moment, an aggressive talisman came right towards them. Zhou Ying, like sediment separated out from the waste water of the factories, was forced to congeal anew into a human form and fell to the ground.

He rolled aside without so much as thinking about it. Xi Ping’s point of view quickly shrank once again. He found that during this dispersing and fusing, Zhou Ying had turned the reincarnation wood tree that he had quickened with his flesh and blood into a part of his body. Xi Ping found to his surprise and bewilderment that he could simultaneously see Kunlun’s main hall…and Zhou Ying’s spirit.

The clarity Way of the Heart that had come from Princess Duanrui was suspended on the spiritual foundation, like the sun. All the flashes of enlightenment that had gathered in that Way of the Heart over eight centuries tried to drill into Xi Ping’s ears all at once in sequence. Fortunately, while Xi Ping’s cultivation was a little shallow, the concentration of his consciousness belonged to a genuine article ascended spirit. He focused and warded off this external noise.

Before he could work out what was happening in front of him, he heard Zhou Ying say “angrily,” “My disciple name token is still in the Xuanyin Mountains. Kunlun has lured me to its Principal Peak under the guise of peace talks. If you brazenly harm an envoy of Great Wan, aren’t you afraid…”

He wasn’t permitted to finish his sentence. The next moment, ice-cold and irresistible sword energy came slicing right towards Zhou Ying’s spirit.

A soul-searching!

Princess Duanrui’s indestructible Way of the Heart of clarity met the sword energy of a shed skin’s soul-searching. Xi Ping’s eyes nearly burst from their sockets. “Luwu!”

Was it so hard to plant a tree?

But just then, he realized that the Luwu hadn’t responded to him!

Bai Ling was far away in Jinping now and didn’t know what had happened, but he dimly sensed something. “Viscount, could I ask you to use reincarnation wood to try getting in contact? Northern Li’s Luwu have suddenly fallen out of contact all at once!”

Xi Ping’s pupils contracted sharply.

Meanwhile, the Luwu who had been left behind around the Beijue Mountains and those who had gone with Zhou Ying to the feet of the Kunlun Mountains all stopped moving. It was as if they were meditating. Their expressions were calm, their eyes half closed. A light like a spiritual snake seemed to be flashing in their eyes.

The Beijue Mountains’ Blind Wolf King had his head propped on his hand. In his palm, he held sword energy like a tangled skein.

The Perplexing Sword, soft and treacherous, incompatible with Kunlun’s way of the sword.

Its sword energy could take form, and it could also be formless. Those infected with the Perplexing Sword would fall into perplexity; even masters like the Heartless Lotus Zhuoming would be infected. For low-level cultivators, it was even easier for this sword energy to invade their consciousnesses and spirits without them noticing, allowing them to be led by the wielder of the sword.

Before leaving, Zhou Ying had asked him for a beam of sword energy.

Xi Zhengde was a mortal. In order to activate the Perplexing Sword, he needed to prepare an array in advance. But Zhou Ying was a genuine article established foundation cultivator, and the Luwu with him obeyed him. They wouldn’t take any precautions!

Even Princess Duanrui hadn’t become a shed skin while living, never mind that her Way of the Heart was now with an established foundation whose cultivation may as well have been nonexistent.

At the tip of the soul-searching blade, that Way of the Heart trembled and began to disintegrate.

On the mauled spirit, something once again began to flow. Zhou Ying’s consciousness, close enough to touch, was like an open book.

Beneath the might of a shed skin, Xi Ping couldn’t move at all, but he could see innumerable images flashing by—the wet moss in Jinping’s lanes, the cold and cheerless Guangyun Palace, the snow wine’s mist like fragrant miasma, the Marquis Manor where flowers seemed to bloom in all seasons, the kitten, the rather distant Marquis of Yongning, the small child always wiping saliva all over his sleeve and the paperman following him like his shadow…

At the deepest, deepest place, there was a warm hand belonging to an old woman. Xi Ping could clearly sense a longing that did not belong to him. He wanted to hold that hand again.

But the person performing the soul-searching had no patience for watching these dull trifles and quickly passed by them.

Anyone who had spent time among evil cultivators understood soul-searchings. The consciousness of a half-immortal or mortal would simply dissipate under a soul-searching. Starting at the established foundation level, the Way of the Heart would shatter first, and the consciousness would die before it could dissipate due to the shattering of the Way of the Heart.

Xi Ping had vainly hoped in his blind optimism that one day he would be sure to find a way to remove the fetters of Ways of the Heart, be sure to thoroughly remove that hateful Way of the Heart of clarity…

His optimism had turned to sorrow. Now all he wanted was to beg Princess Duanrui, if she could hear him, to freeze san-ge back into a heartless demon.

With a crisp sound like glass, the world’s purest Way of the Heart of clarity shattered.

In that moment, Xi Ping fought free of the fetters of the shed skin master performing the soul-searching. Blood flowed from the eyes of his true body. His consciousness was on the verge of going mad, becoming a demon.

The next moment, a weak light flashed before his eyes. Xi Ping’s vision blurred. There seemed to be countless prisms before his eyes, reflecting his face. His consciousness landed inside something. In a tone he seemed not to have heard in half a lifetime, a familiar voice said, “I knew you would have to come here. You’re an ascended spirit and everything, why can’t your will be a little firmer?”

Xi Ping quickly turned his head in the direction of that voice, but before he could get a clear look at the speaker, he was flicked on the forehead.

“Inadequate instruction is the result of the teacher’s laxness. Your honored teacher…tsk, there’s no helping it. After all, he has so many cares to attend to.” The person who had flicked him on the forehead had followed it up by badmouthing Zhi Xiu, then making it worse by trying to soften the blow. “All right, I guess I haven’t loved you for nothing. Focus. This is a heart demon seed. Do you really want to lose your mind?”