Yu Chang had borrowed the mouths of the two guards to sow doubts under the Queen Mother of the West’s window; the half-comprehending tone had been played quite accurately—Xi Ping figured that the conjunctivitis sufferer had been playing to his strengths; he himself only half understood. The chief offering couldn’t have been doing this out of having nothing to do, just to relieve the Queen Mother of the West’s boredom.

The Queen Mother of the West had suddenly turned cold towards Lord Guang’an. This symptom sounded like the Dignitary of Fate Elder with only the Sea of Stars in his heart.

Yao Qi had said that her meditation periods were becoming shorter and shorter. Tying in Yu Chang’s “debate” with himself, it was likely that the Queen Mother of the West had encountered the same predicament shifu had while becoming a shed skin.

But a “near-shed skin” and an “early stage ascended spirit” couldn’t be discussed in the same breath.

The former, if he obeyed heaven, would naturally become part of the “Way of Heaven”; even if he was determined to resist heaven, he would still have a fighting chance. The magnificent spectacle of Zhi Xiu grappling with the “the spiritual mountains’ Way of Heaven” was still fresh in Xi Ping’s memory.

The latter… The Queen Mother of the West’s circumstances were easy to imagine. Her cultivation level was about the same as Xi Ping’s. Perhaps she was even worse off; after all, Xi Ping had no Way of the Heart and had used the flame of the sole “sage” that he acknowledged to see these so-called “Ways of the Heart,” while the Queen Mother of the West was full of longing to return to Lancang’s “orthodoxy.”

Xi Ping had had a wild thought and pushed the Queen Mother of the West to the forefront as a scapegoat in order to divert the Sword Slave’s notice. Who would have thought that the Queen Mother of the West, a hero who “would start to pant if you told her she was fat,” rather than just finding a place to hide temporarily, had really decided to become the “goat”!

“What kind of dumb luck have I…no, have we wandered into? Ziming-xiong, another time, let’s find a temple and pray together, all right?”

Yao Qi, numb, politely declined. “If the Southern Sage really could work miracles, he’d use divine lightning from the nine heavens to hammer out a ‘Song of the Phoenix’ on the tops of our skulls.”

Chang Jun had yet to notice that events had taken a grave turn. Hearing this news, he was so excited that he seemed ready to contribute to a toilet bulletin. “So she’s going to become the first person in the world to ‘accord with the Way’ as an ascended spirit? Can the legendary vanished divine tool of the mountains really return to the human world through her…? Goodness gracious, what talents emerge in every generation! Shiyong, if the Lovebird Sword Array and the Sword Slave face each other head on, who would you bet on?”

“It would be for the best if the two of them got together and died in a pit. Don’t talk about things like you understand them!” Xi Ping said irritably. “Do you still remember the rule that the Bell of Tribulation can’t pass beyond the Latent Cultivation Temple?”

Yao Qi and Chang Jun froze.

In all these years, the Bell of Tribulation had only left the mountains once, and the place it had gone to was the Resurrection Vortex in the East Sea, a place mortals would never approach.

It was unknown whether the legend that “Each toll of the Bell of Tribulation will be followed by three years of drought” was true or false, but Tao County had only barely been restored with a hundred thousand white spirits after the Silver Moon had shone on it—and at the time the Silver Moon had been under the control of Xuanwu in his prime, its impact dampened practically to the minimum.

The Queen Mother of the West might not be able to reach Xuanwu’s cultivation level in another thousand years of cultivating. Moreover, Qiu Sha had been only an ascended spirit; a single sweep of the Silver Moon had destroyed her. A powerful shed skin master could contend against a divine tool of the mountains.

If the Lancang Mountains’ divine tool reappeared in the mortal world, it was up for debate whether it would be able to overcome the Sword Slave, who bore Wanshuang, but at any rate the Queen Mother of the West certainly wouldn’t be able to control it.

“When that whatever-it-is sword array disappeared, it wasn’t necessarily scared to death by the alliance of the four nations. It may very well have been that their crazy Sect Leader was afraid that the divine tool would go out of control, so he ‘took it away’ with him.” Xi Ping waved a hand, wiping away the “why” written all over Chang Jun’s face. “Anyway, what kind of wastrel is Yang Wan, anyway? If she really does get her hands on Lancang’s divine tool of the mountains and lets it flash and bang over the Southern He Peninsula for one ke, never mind the animals and plants, there won’t even be a single wildfire root left underground. She…”

At this point, Xi Ping’s words came to an abrupt halt, because he had suddenly remembered that Lancang’s veins of the earth had already been severed.

On the whole Southern He Peninsula, there were “no more people” to begin with. The survivors of the former nation of He were all on the South Sea. How could the Turmoilers count as people? All that remained were the shameless unwanted guests from the various nations. If they died, it would be just what they deserved.

Whether the Lovebird Sword Array did or didn’t go out of control was no problem at all for the Queen Mother of the West.

Xi Ping looked fretfully at the calendar block. Since he had overheard Northern Li’s reception of Zhou Huan, over a day had passed… Less than six days remained until the “memorial day of national humiliation” that the evil cultivators had spoken off.

Chang Jun waited a long time without hearing Xi Ping continue. “Shiyong, why did you say…that it might have been their late Sect Leader who got rid of the divine tool of the mountains?”

“When Lancang’s Sect Leader sent troops north, he was under the influence of a heart demon seed.” Xi Ping paused, then briefly told the story hidden beneath the historical record. “Until his death, he maintained a thread of lucidity. He wanted to place a special kind of spirit-conducting gold into the veins of the earth to make the spiritual mountains return spiritual energy to the human world… He didn’t succeed. There were too many people who wanted spiritual stones. So all the people of Southern He turned into Turmoilers. Who would have thought that two centuries later, even being Turmoilers would become a tricky proposition.”

“Then what do we do?” Yao Qi was the first to come to his senses. His first thought was of the mortal miners and minor tradespeople in the southern mines. “Since we’ve already formed an alliance with Northern Li, why don’t we tell ‘Wanshuang’ about this? Perhaps she will be willing to avoid the fight temporarily.”

“That won’t necessarily work. Leaving aside that an unsociable and self-important person like the Sword Slave won’t necessarily be willing to avoid battle, even if she were willing, it might not be possible—she’s Kunlun’s envoy. If she hands the southern mines over to the evil cultivators, won’t she be disgraced on her return? How will she account for herself to her sect?” Chang Jun rejected Yao Qi’s proposal and came up with a lousy idea himself. “But couldn’t we exchange this information for some people? Have her help find a suitable place for the innocent miners and Turmoilers…”

“The miners are all right, but the Turmoilers… I might as well stick a note on my forehead telling her that when the Turmoilers paid obeisance to the Queen Mother of the West, it was my doing,” Xi Ping said with a sigh. “Stop talking nonsense. You two focus on eavesdropping! I’ll say it again, listening for signs of disturbance is enough for us, don’t get near the evil cultivators again—Yao Ziming, what’s your problem? You’re so dedicated to your job of guard in an evil cultivator’s den that you even showed up early for your shift! It’s not like the Queen Mother of the West is Rooster Luo.”

Yao Qi, an iron-willed, heroic man who had maintained the Luwu mask in the face of a great evil cultivator’s grit projection, on hearing the words “Rooster Luo,” was so scared that his little face turned ghastly pale. “How…how can you dare…”

“I even dared to tell him to call me shishu to his face. You still can’t get over this shadow from your childhood, huh?” Through the reincarnation wood, Xi Ping swiftly sent messages to Wei Chengxiang and the Blind Wolf King. “I’ll have the Blind Wolf King send a personal letter and go myself to see Wanshuang and have a try… I figure there’s not much chance. A-Xiang will plan for the worst outcome, immediately think of a way to get people out. Six days. There’s still time…”

At this point, he paused, then said seriously, “I was joking just now. We were fortunate to have you here, Ziming-xiong. If not for you, I don’t know how far behind our information would have lagged. We really wouldn’t have had a chance then. Ziming, when you two come back safe, I’ll come pay a visit to express my gratitude.”

Yao Qi’s ghastly pale face turned bright red in the blink of an eye, like one of the stop-and-go lights for cars in Jinping’s streets.

Fortunately Xi Ping wasn’t in the mood to tease him now.

Pang Jian, patrolling Great Wan’s borders, was the first to receive the warning Xi Ping sent via Heavenly Question, telling him that the danger on the Wan-He border had escalated. Therefore, Pang Jian transferred all the forces Heaven’s Design Pavilion still had available to Great Wan’s southern border.

The Grand Canal passed through the border inscriptions, surging like an artery. Since Northern Li had dispatched troops, the bustle of steamships at the canal’s southernmost port, “Port Lookback,” had vanished. The water dragons disappeared, the fragrant jade scent had vanished. Countless snow wine merchants crowded anxiously into the little post station on the port’s wharf, coming to inquire about the situation every day.

Holding a stealth talisman between his fingers, Pang Jian landed at the southern border’s Heaven’s Design Pavilion branch. When he walked in, spiritual energy smacked him right in the face.

The space expanded by mustard seeds was packed full of spiritual stones and “upgraded immortal tools,” among them a shocking row of ascended spirit grade ones; if they were fired with enough spiritual stones to burn, they were sufficient to briefly hold up even an ordinary shed skin. These dangerous objects that had at one time nearly blown the Xuanyin Mountains sky high were snugly sealed under five locks. They required Xuanyin’s inner sect, Heaven’s Design Pavilion’s headquarters, the Kaiming Department’s head office, the local Kaiming Department, and the local government yamen to open the locking inscriptions simultaneously. Their operating manual was even thicker than the Four Books and Five Classics all stacked together. It was said that Moon Plated Peak was still working around the clock to come out with a revised second edition.

Pang Jian glanced in the direction of the southern mines. The Barrier Dispelling Bow in his femur was shaking slightly. The little girl who had buried her bone in his body a hundred years ago seemed to be crying for those spiritual stone miners who had left their homes for the sake of making a little more money.

“Don’t be scared, don’t be scared…” Through his outer robe, Pang Jian gently tapped his own leg, silently comforting the girl who would never grow up. He turned his head and saluted to the big, snow-white tree in the courtyard, then provided another talisman to lower temperature and reduce dampness for the tree that ought to have been growing in the cold heights. “Look, what’s this? General Zhi is here, too. Didn’t you love to hear stories about him when you were little? When you see this tree, it’s like you’re seeing General Zhi. The Kaiming Department’s geges and jiejies have named it ‘moonlight frost’…”

Bai Ling, who had been overseeing Guangyun Palace, had already received word through the reincarnation wood. He turned around and ordered the Luwu in the Land of Turmoil to make ready to withdraw at any time.

“Viscount,” the taciturn half-demon exhorted, “with His Highness away, please be sure to think things through carefully.”

“You’ve said it,” Xi Ping said with a bitter laugh. “He says ‘we’ll meet beyond the bounds,’ then goes off without even taking any luggage, leaving me to provide for the family and drag them all over the four seas and five continents. I suppose the way of clarity’s ultimate attack is dodging responsibility?”

“His Highness never carries his own luggage,” said Bai Ling.

“Right, and he never walks by himself, never combs his own hair or dresses himself—I’ve always wondered, with you out on Kaiming Department business, how did he manage not to get into better habits during those five years at the Latent Cultivation Temple?”

“There were paperman puppets to wait on him,” said Bai Ling. “Otherwise, he and the cat would have starved to death together in the immortal mountains.”

Xi Ping: “…”

The two of them shared a brief mutual silence, then simultaneously laughed aloud.

“You’ve spoiled him!” said Xi Ping.

“Yes,” said Bai Ling, "I admit that I am to blame… Also, Viscount.”

“Yeah.”

“I have a rather bad feeling. You must be careful.”

Whether the half-demon’s feeling was accurate, Xi Ping couldn’t say, but hearing this warning of Bai Ling’s, something flitted through his mind that he couldn’t catch.

Dimly, Xi Ping sensed that he had overlooked something important. But after thinking it over backwards and forwards several times, he still couldn’t find and fill the vacancy. All he could do was temporarily set it aside and go bid farewell to shifu.

Xi Yue was practicing swordsmanship.

A half-puppet’s method of practicing swordsmanship was different from a human’s. When a human studied swordsmanship, they needed to imitate, then comprehend, then at last make it their own before they could have a full grasp of the technique. Even if they inherited their shifu’s sword heart, when the way of the sword was passed down from person to person, it couldn’t remain completely identical.

But for a half-puppet, it was much more mechanical. Except on Flying Jade Peak, there was likely no half-puppet in the world with the right to address a sword cultivator as “shifu.” “Sword-bearing puppets” were always attendants and slaves. For a half-puppet, practicing swordsmanship meant working hard to understand the sword aura, then altering their own arrays apart from the core array, making every effort to come as close as possible to the “master’s” sword technique. If they only worked hard enough, a half-puppet’s rate of progress would be faster than a human’s…except that they could never surpass their “master.”

When Xi Ping landed on the rear of the mountain, Xi Yue’s beam of sword energy, like a rainbow, raised the accumulated snow and whizzed as it flitted through the valley. This was precisely the first sword move that Xi Ping had learned.

When the icy clang of metal and hard frozen stone collided, there was an effect as if the mountain were being used as a qin.

Zhi Xiu, directing him from the sidelines, raised his eyebrows slightly—Xi Yue put in all and more than all his effort and could learn anything else just fine, but with this move, perhaps because he had seen Xi Ping use it so many times, little Xi Yue was always going “off-key.” Rather than say this was his sword aura, it would be more correct to say that it belonged to his rebellious disciple. Though the form was similar, perhaps because that rotten disciple had only known this one move for a very long time, there was a wave of “I’ll die if I can’t beat you to death” running through it… When Xi Yue performed it, there was an indescribable sense of staking everything on a single throw about it.

Xi Yue put away his sword, seeming to have noticed something himself. He automatically glanced at Xi Ping.

Xi Ping applauded supportively. “Good! You’re as good at receiving enlightenment as I was when I was little.”

Zhi Xiu said, “Have some shame. Come here.”

Xi Ping patted Xi Yue on the head in passing, instructed him to “work hard on your swordsmanship,” then flew up to the sword platform with shifu.

“This time, you pick for yourself.” Zhi Xiu pointed at the various deep and shallow sword marks on the sword platform. “With the present state of your meridians, you’ll be able to store at most three beams of my sword energy. But shed skin sword energy will empty out your essence, and you’ll only just be able to sustain one move at a time. You might not be able to stand up after using it. Unless it’s a matter of absolute necessity, be cautious.”

“Understood.” Xi Ping had plenty of experience where this was concerned. He went around the sword platform picking and choosing. “But while the sword energy will be gone once I use it, afterwards, I can learn the moves!”

He’d have a handful of “Anger Shifu to Death” moves.

“Afterwards, you’ll misinterpret the moves.” Zhi Xiu sighed helplessly. “It ought to be me going to see Wanshuang…”

“Kunlun and Wangge Luobao have hooked up and are targeting you and the Sword Slave.” Xi Ping made a mark next to a sword cut he liked. “If you go, won’t you be running straight into their arms?”

“Even with the Blind Wolf King to mediate, you still can’t be willful and reckless. Wanshuang isn’t one of the Xuanyin elders, to tolerate your impertinence and rudeness.”

“You can set your mind at ease about that,” Xi Ping promised seriously. Before Zhi Xiu could nod, he added, “It’s not worthwhile for Wanshuang to sink to my level.”

Zhi Xiu: “…”

Fair enough.

“Lin-shixiong hasn’t yet found a way to imitate Lancang’s spirit-conducting gold that could connect to the veins of the earth. If possible, stop by the Lancang Mountains on your way to see if there are any traces of it,” Zhi Xiu continued. “Also, if it is indeed as you have guessed, and the Lovebird Sword Array was dispersed by Lancang’s Sect Leader, perhaps there will be something you can use against it in the Lancang Mountains.”

As Zhi Xiu spoke, he glanced in the direction of the Bell of Tribulation—in fact, the Bell of Tribulation hadn’t acknowledged him, but the Xuanyin Mountains and the Territory Map had already merged. The divine tool of the mountains had had to surrender to the Territory Map. It was tightly imprisoned on the Principal Peak, waiting to wear away along with the spiritual mountains.

But now he thought more and more that letting this thing be might cause disaster.

As they spoke, Xi Ping had already chosen two sword moves. He was going south to the Land of Turmoil to rescue people, not to do battle, so the sword auras he had chosen both inclined towards “defense” and “protection,” so honest and mild they didn’t seem like choices he would make.

“The way of the sword most values defense through offense,” Zhi Xiu warned him. “Don’t only pick that type.”

Xi Ping hopped off the sword platform. “Shifu, there’s a sword move I want to learn.”

A night passed, and Xi Ping, like a force-fed duck, managed to carry away three beams of sword energy that were very burdensome for an ascended spirit. Carrying a letter the Blind Wolf King had written in his own hand, he passed through the reincarnation wood directly to the Wan-He border, said hello to Pang Jian, then silently set foot on the Southern He Peninsula.

At the same time, Wei Chengxiang was working around the clock to count and sort people and goods. There was no time to go to Tao County or the South Sea Hidden Realm; in case things went wrong, they would have to temporarily take to the sea.