Tai Sui sneered quietly: “A mere established foundation.” 

Xi Ping’s heart sank at once. 

Luo Qingshi felt his pulse for ages, raised his eyes, then spoke slowly: “Xi Shiyong. Interesting.” 

Xi Ping nearly strained his eyes staring at him, waiting for his next enlightening remark. 

But after saying this, Hard-working Luo withdrew his hand, straightened up haughtily, nodded enigmatically…

And left. 

Xi Ping: “…” 

Wait, no… “Interesting,” and then what? What the hell was interesting?! 

Xi Ping had originally thought that with Luo Qingshi’s physique already being so determinedly unusual, he had to have hidden depths. But it turned out that his “hidden depths” were just a pretense of mysticism. 

And the only line he had to pretend with was the word “interesting.” It wasn’t even an ancient saying! 

Totally oblivious to the gaffe he had committed in front of a disciple, Luo Qingshi mounted the platform and extended a hand. A clear and glistening blue jade rolled onto Xi Ping’s table. 

The venerable old fellow proudly raised his sharp little chin. “That’s yours. May you open your spiritual eyes soon.” 

With this extra blue jade, if he was careful using it, the white jade proximal could hold out until the end of the month when the spiritual stones were issued. If he had gotten it the day before, Xi Ping could have shown all his gums in a smile. But now, he was in absolutely no mood to think about a trifle like whether he had enough spiritual stones. 

Face grim, Xi Ping woodenly thanked Immortal Luo as if he had just wished him an early death.

“If you’re finished drawing, you can leave.” Luo Qingshi sat on the jade stamp chair and accepted tea from a straw child. “What are you still doing here showing off?” 

“Shixiong.” Zhou Xi couldn’t hold back. He asked, “I finished practically at the same time as Xi-xiong. Could you point out in what way my drawing is inferior to his?” 

Luo Qingshi glanced at Zhou Xi out of the corner of his eye. “On your papers, the drawings were made with high, medium, and low grade spiritual stone powder, and there was some inferior material mixed in. I didn’t count on you, who haven’t opened your spiritual eyes, to use your mortal eyes to see all four layers and draw them. But with the Hundred-year Rhino Horn Ring guiding you, Your Fourth Highness, shouldn’t you be able to see more clearly than another?” 

Zhou Xi’s expression changed slightly. He involuntarily pressed the ring on his thumb into the palm of his hand. 

“Testing your spiritual sense is to determine what you came out of your mother’s womb with, so that you understand your own abilities. It isn’t so you can rush to demonstrate to me in the short term that my ‘average talent’ assessment was wrong,” Luo Qingshi said, not sparing his feelings. “Your Highness, even if I admit I was wrong ten times, will you be able to open your spiritual eyes on that account? If you could, I’d abandon my dignity and get on my knees to kowtow to you.” 

His Fourth Highness was noble and refined, with a habit of putting on the “unposturing” posture of a high-ranked man’s respect for worthy men beneath him, and of course others all played along and acted as the “worthy men beneath him.” How could he ever have received this kind of treatment? For a time, his face went ghastly white. 

Luo Qingshi wasn’t finished yet. “I advise some of you to concentrate more on your own cultivation. You can start forming cliques when you return from the Latent Cultivation Temple to the mortal world and join one of the outer sects. What’s the point of currying favor everywhere now? Perhaps someone else will rise straight to the inner sect. As mortal and immortal are separate, he’ll have no connection with you.” 

Xi Ping: “…” 

Because His Fourth Highness had stepped in on Xi Ping’s behalf on the first day, Luo Qingshi seemed to have his eyes fixed on them. He was always publicly inciting antagonism. If the Queen Mother of the Western Heavens had had his mouth, she would long ago have talked the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl into breaking up; would there be any need to have Qi Xi every year?

Zhou Xi was clever enough. Of course he knew that Luo Qingshi was doing it on purpose, but knowing was one thing. Could he fail to be incited? The road to entering the inner sect was a single-plank bridge. What His Fourth Highness saw as a done deal for himself, how could he allow others to cast covetous glances upon? 

Never mind this Viscount of Yongning, who was nearly a “family scandal.” 

As soon as Xi Ping met Zhou Xi’s eyes, he knew that the friendship between them had died young before it could have a chance to “grow to adulthood,” and the death had been tragic. For a time he simply felt mentally and physically exhausted—if only Mighty Luo could transfer some of his skill in sowing discord to his cultivation, he wouldn’t be so sloppy and incompetent as to only be able to say “interesting.” 

It was Xi Ping’s first time becoming the object of envy and hatred. If he hadn’t had an “unspeakable problem,” he would have fanned his tail feathers in satisfaction…but as soon as he thought that the reason he could be envied and hated by His Fourth Highness just happened to be because this “unspeakable problem” had helped him cheat, he couldn’t manage a smile. 

He ignored the verbal dispute between Luo Qingshi and Zhou Xi. He slowly put away his things and stood up. The pain of the fierce fire burning him still seemed to be in his veins. When Xi Ping remembered that torture, he felt lingering fear. 

Then, just as he had come to the gate of the Qiankun Tower, stifled sobs suddenly sounded in his ear. 

Xi Ping turned his head and looked, thinking, Is it that bad? Even I’m not crying. 

He looked around without finding where the sobbing was coming from, but he heard intermittent prayers mixed in with the sobs, something like “beg your blessing”…

It seemed to be a girl’s voice. 

The voice wasn’t coming from around him…it seemed to be coming from the space between his brows! 

Xi Ping pressed a hand to the center of his brow, closed his eyes, and concentrated his scattered mind there. Some blurry images suddenly appeared before his eyes… Blackened walls, alleys pressed between crude shacks, ground littered with garbage and metal scraps, moss thriving and spreading in greasy dirt…

However you looked at it, it looked like Jinping’s southern outskirts. 

Xi Ping stopped in his tracks and concentrated all his focus on seeing that blurry image. As his mind focused, the image became considerably clearer. 

He saw a teenage girl, taking turn after turn through the narrow alleys at lightning speed. 

It was hard to say how old she was. She didn’t seem short, but she was so skinny that she was a bundle of sticks holding up a head, with wispy childish hair on that head that made her look like a little girl. Though her appearance was shabby, there wasn’t a stitch out of place on her female garb; apart from being a little ill-fitting, her clothes could be called respectable. 

There was a wooden amulet hanging around the girl’s neck. No matter how she ran, the amulet remained fixed in the center of the image. So with reference to the amulet, the people and the background shook fiercely. 

The shaking made Xi Ping dizzy. When he opened his eyes, the filthy southern outskirts vanished, and he was still among the ethereal mountains. 

“Senior.” Xi Ping hesitated a moment, then tried asking in a stiff but polite voice, “Excuse me, did you ‘see’ that?” 

Tai Sui gave a “yes.” 

Xi Ping asked, “Who is she? A real person?” 

“A pitiful person who’s come to the end of the line,” Tai Sui said lightly. “The reincarnation wood is my associated material. She spilled blood upon the reincarnation wood consecrated to my name, swore to offer up body and soul. That is why I awakened.” 

Xi Ping: “…” 

Damn it, so it was because of her! 

To start with, hearing someone cry—especially hearing a young girl cry—he’d figured he had to ask. But hearing the demon say this, Xi Ping no longer had any thought of asking. 

“Whatever, let her die if she likes,” Xi Ping thought, calmly kicking away a stone. “So young, and her mind has gone so far to the bad. There’s no remedy. She’d better hurry up and reincarnate again.” 

But while he could open or close his eyes, could choose to look at the immortal mountain and ignore the mundane world, he couldn’t close his ears. The girl’s broken babbling lingered in them constantly. 

Xi Ping returned from the Qiankun Tower to the Qiu courtyard. The whole way, he heard her rattling on, unbearably annoying. So he said irritably, “Senior, excuse me, aren’t you planning on tossing out some magic power to help her?” 

Tai Sui asked in turn: “You have a state ceremony on the first day of every year, where the emperor goes in person to pray at Southern Sage Temple; has the Southern Sage ever tossed out some magic power?” 

“If you don’t want to help, then why keep listening to her?” 

“I wish to help, but I am unable to. You’ll have to put up with it,” Tai Sui said. “It was her blood that woke me. If she calls for help in her heart, I must listen whether I want to or not.” 

Xi Ping spent a full ke internally raining curses upon this evil cultivator who had proclaimed himself “Grand Duke Tai Sui” and the silly girl who would believe anything. He cursed until he couldn’t remember any more words, and the noise in his ears still hadn’t stopped. 

Xi Ping completely ran out of temper. What was this girl trying to do, release his soul from suffering by reciting scripture? 

The noise disturbed him so much he couldn’t get anything done. There was nothing he could do about it. He had to close his eyes, focus on the center of his brow, and see what the hell her problem was. 

A-Xiang had braided her hair and changed to female clothes—this was her only decent dress, sewn by her mother stitch by stitch on her deathbed. She had said she wanted to leave it behind for her to wear when she was married. 

But A-Xiang had grown for a long time without reaching the age where she could get married. The dress she couldn’t fill out hung emptily on her. She looked like a child who had sneakily put on a grown-up’s clothing. 

Her mind was full of fear. As if to build up her courage, she had hung the Tai Sui amulet on her chest and taken it with her. A-Xiang gripped the wooden amulet and hesitated in front of Rat Alley, trembling, inwardly praying for the god to bless and protect her over and over. 

But bless and protect her in what way? 

A-Xiang couldn’t say it. 

Rat Alley was a dim alley squeezed out by some irregular shacks, gloomy and damp. The light of day was kept out of the dim alley by the eaves of ramshackle buildings and the bed sheets drying on bamboo poles, making it look like a rathole from far away and giving it its name. Every evening, aged and sallow women in disheveled clothing dragged their seemingly cumbersome bodies in twos and threes out of the “hole” to solicit customers. The customers, meanwhile, were mostly workers who did heavy labor at the docks and in the factories. They looked no more respectable than the women. 

Her grandfather had already been under arrest for one day. Uncle Salted Fish had said, if they wanted to get in with the city guard, it would take at least twenty liang of silver…and he couldn’t guarantee they could get him out. 

Twenty liang! 

If she and her grandfather worked night and day, didn’t eat or drink for three years, they still couldn’t save that much. Where was she supposed to get it? 

Carpenters took old furniture, pawn shops took valuables, and Rat Alley took women. 

A-Xiang owned nothing but the bare necessities. She had come to the end of the road. All she could think of was Rat Alley. 

A hand reached over and suddenly grabbed her by the shoulder. A-Xiang was startled and struggled like a frightened bird hearing a bowstring twang. She saw that the newcomer was a middle-aged man with protruding knuckles, slightly deformed, blind in one eye, but dressed in a rather respectable-looking robe—in the factories of the southern outskirts, only the foremen who didn’t have to do hard labor themselves wore robes like this. 

“I haven’t seen you before, little sister.” As if appraising some object, he looked A-Xiang up and down. His gaze was like a clinging insect. “How much?” 

Before, Xi Ping had felt that there was something strange here. Now he finally understood what kind of place this girl had gone to. Hearing her shakily name a price, he frowned. “She was begging the Grand Duke to bless and protect her in smoothly selling herself for twenty liang? Why twenty? That’s too cheap.” 

“Twenty? You?” Hearing her, the man at the mouth of Rat Alley was surprised. “Damn, are you a princess from Guangyun Palace, or the empress herself?” 

A-Xiang couldn’t speak. Her hands and feet were frozen, but her face seemed about to burst into flame. She wanted to throw up a little. Under the hem of her skirt, her knees trembled involuntarily. 

“If you’re fresh, I’ll inspect the goods and give you a thousand copper coins. If not, then you’ll have to give me a discount.” The man touched her face. “How about it? If that works, come with me.” 

A-Xiang instinctively pushed his hand away. 

“There’s not a single woman in the southern outskirts worth one liang of silver. I’m willing to give you such a price because I’m taking pity on your youth. That’s as much as you’re getting, don’t try your luck… Twenty liang? The famous flowers by the Lingyang River can’t bring in that much. Are you worth it?” The man grumbled and swore and made a grab for A-Xiang as he spoke. “That’s settled, come on.” 

Just then, a sharp voice suddenly came from the alley. “Hey, here’s something new. Where did this little wild chick come from? Your feathers haven’t even all grown in, and you already dare to come here and snatch my mealticket out from under my eyes.” 

The middle-aged man quickly drew back his hand and put a smile on his face. “Chunying-jiejie.” 

A lanky figure slowly strolled out of Rat Alley. This was a woman of advanced years. But the dark night and thick makeup covered the wrinkles and signs of dropsy in her face, leaving only a hazy image. She seemed like she could just about amount to having some good looks. 

The woman spat out two melon seed skins and rolled her eyes. “Beat it, whoreson. Who’s your jiejie?” 

The man insolently drew near, calling “jiejie,” and was slapped away by the woman. Next, a hand with nail polish on the nails softly grabbed the man by the collar and delicately let out a string of filthy language. Cursing and hitting, it pulled him into the alley. 

Only then did the woman called “Chunying” give a cold laugh. Her clinging, clouded gaze fell on A-Xiang. 

As if a snake had slithered into her clothes, A-Xiang involuntarily clutched the Tai Sui amulet even more tightly and took half a step back, but her buttocks were pinched by a skinny hand. 

“The chicken’s behind isn’t even enough for a meal.” Pinching her was another woman, with wrinkles reaching down from her nose to the corners of her mouth. Her nose was slightly crooked. She looked like a ghost going out haunting. 

The “ghost” saw her cry out in pain and laughed so hard her nose became level with her cheeks. She drew near to A-Xiang. “Go home and drink some milk. Come back when you’ve put on some fat.” 

A-Xiang pushed her away. “Go away! Ah!” 

Several women appeared beside Chunying and grabbed A-Xiang. The skinny girl couldn’t match an adult’s strength. A-Xiang was soon pulled by the hair into Rat Alley by several women. She yelled from the pain. A damp and stinking smell hit her in the face. In the suggestive alley, reddish lantern light like blood flitted over the amulet hanging in front of her chest. 

She gripped the amulet and despairingly called in her mind: Grand Duke Tai Sui! Grand Duke Tai Sui! 

Xi Ping held his forehead, feeling that this sight was unbearable and wishing to stop her mouth. 

A-Xiang was suddenly pushed into a little dark room. Before she could get adjusted to it, a lantern suddenly lit up. Someone slapped her. “Little slut.” 

The woman’s long nails left small wounds. Her ears buzzed, and her cheeks swelled up. A-Xiang turned her head and returned fire: “Old sl…ah!” 

Before she could finish cursing, her face was slapped several times. Someone pinched her. Obscenities rained down on her, filthier than the canal water in the southern outskirts.

Chunying came through the crowd and pushed her against the door, then spat. “Shameless, cheap little egg. If I were your grandpa, I would be shamed to death.” 

A-Xiang’s head was about to explode. She didn’t think too closely about how this woman would know she had a grandfather. She blurted out: “He’s about to die, anyway!” 

When Chunying heard this, she froze. She raised a hand to stop the giggling woman about to pour cold water over A-Xiang. She asked, “What happened?” 

A-Xiang’s chest undulated fiercely. For a time, she couldn’t speak. 

Chunying’s brows, trimmed into thin lines, rose very high. She said impatiently, “Stop wailing. Did your grandpa die doing the deed?” 

A-Xiang found the strength somewhere to spring up wildly and throw off the women holding her. Her face so red it was purple, she headbutted Chunying and sent her reeling. “Bullshit! My grandpa was arrested by corrupt city guards! He was wrongly accused! What do you know?! Don’t talk about my grandpa that way!” 

Chunying’s back banged into a table. Teacups and melon seeds fell in a heap. The other women quickly stepped up to support her, but Chunying seemed not to care. She asked, “Taken by the city guards? What crime did he commit?” 

The crooked-nosed woman seemed better informed. She explained the grievance of the farmers who had lost their land. “The city guard has arrested many people in the last few days. They’re saying they were hired to assemble and make trouble.” 

Chunying asked A-Xiang, “Did your grandpa go hang himself because he thinks he’s lived too long?” 

Hearing this, the fire about to blow the top of A-Xiang’s head off suddenly cooled. 

Yes, she thought as though losing her soul, it’s because of me. 

Seeing that this little girl was stupid and couldn’t be relied on, Chunying turned to the crooked-nosed woman. “How many people were arrested?” 

“I don’t know, must be nearly a hundred.” 

“That big a fuss?” Chunying muttered. “The city guard… Those city guard sons of bitches are so black-hearted, they’d scrape what they could off a coffin.” 

Then she asked A-Xiang, “Who asked you for twenty liang of silver?” 

At this point, A-Xiang at last caught up. “You…you know my grandpa?” 

Chungying’s slightly protruding eyes flashed, her appearance once again becoming crueler. “Any more fucking nonsense and I’ll break your mouth.” 

A-Xiang said, “…it was Uncle Salted Fish.” 

“Ha!” Chunying laughed sharply. “When the old bum loses a bet, he’ll even dig his own mom and dad out of their graves and let them get fucked. You believed his crap? Did your brain get baked by fever?” 

As she spoke, she draped an outer robe over herself, rummaged through a little box, gathered up shards of silver ingots and odds and ends of jewelry, shoved them into her clothes, and arrogantly said to A-Xiang, “Let’s go!” 

A-Xiang realized something. Her eyes opened wide. 

Seeing her stupid expression, Chunying’s eye twitched. “Right, how old are you? Sixteen? Seventeen?” 

“Fifteen…” 

A-Xiang had hardly said this when her face received another firm slap. She tasted blood in her mouth. 

“Fifteen, and you dared to dress up in this slutty way and come here.” Chunying pointed at her and spoke one word and a time. “You’re done for! When you see your grandpa, he’ll break you to pieces!” 

A-Xiang stared blankly for a long moment, then suddenly burst into wails. As she cried, she slavishly followed after Chunying. 

She was willing to die, willing to be slapped. She would even be broken in two, as long as her grandpa could be saved. 

The Grand Duke had heard her prayers. The Grand Duke had sent someone to help her. 

Xi Ping came back from the breathless story of prostitution and opened his eyes. For a time he was too bewildered to know what time and day it was. All he heard was the girl’s heartrending crying… She thought that the god had already blessed and protected her, so she stopped praying. The crying gradually faded. 

Night in the Latent Cultivation Temple was extraordinarily quiet. The sound of a straw child sounding the night watch came through the window. The courtyard gate had already been locked. 

“Now what, senior? Can you still see them?” For a time, Xi Ping forgot that it was a great demon possessing him. He urgently asked, “With something so big happening in the capital’s outskirts, there must be some major case behind it. A few shards of silver… What city guard would dare release him for so little? They won’t be able to get him out! Senior, hurry up and tell them…” 

Tai Sui coolly interrupted him: “My very existence was nearly wiped out by Zhaoting that day. Unless I have a piece of reincarnation wood, I can only watch.” 

Without another word, Xi Ping went to rummage through his luggage. 

But reincarnation wood was hard to come by. Its texture wasn’t as good for carving as cedar, its smell wasn’t as good as the smell of camphor, it wasn’t as sturdy as mahogany, and it grew scraggly and slow. It was third-rate timber. Even in the mortal world, it was mostly used for burial objects and memorial tablets and other such not very auspicious things. Where would he find some? 

Under the half-puppet’s astonished gaze, Xi Ping turned his belongings upside down and came up empty…but he did turn up Jiangli’s birthday stone. 

“Senior, was Jiangli also like that?” Xi Ping squeezed the cracked piece of jade and asked, “Can you…tell me about Jiangli?”