At last Xi Yue found a chance to respond. Through the dragon-taming chain, he inexpertly expressed, “Remove…the prohibition, I’ll…report to…the immortals.” 

Xi Ping was silent for a while. “Are you afraid of dying?” 

At first, Xi Yue answered sincerely: “I am.” 

But after considering it carefully for a moment, he thought that there was no sense in him being afraid; it was even a little self-important of him. So he changed his answer: “I’m not.” 

“Oh?” said Xi Ping. “Is there an array in your head, too, or something? If it doesn’t work well, say the word, and in the future I’ll think of a way to get someone to fix it for you.” 

Xi Yue: “…” 

That didn’t seem like a compliment. 

“Listen to me,” Xi Ping said, “not only can I not remove your prohibition, I’m going to have to strengthen it soon.” 

The half-puppet was bewildered. 

“Today the princess ‘scared me so much I couldn’t look after myself.’ When I wake up, I’ll definitely be in a panic. If I don’t even remember to strengthen your prohibition, it won’t seem right,” Xi Ping said. “If I ‘don’t remember,’ that old roundworm that calls himself a grand duke will remember it for me. The two of us put together don’t know as many things as he has at the back of his mind. Trying to match the old roundworm in tricks is just asking for death. So I can’t let him stay on his guard against me, or else he’ll give me hallucinations during the day and won’t let me sleep at night. Who can stand that? I have to steel myself and gang up with him, be even more paranoid than he is, be so paranoid even he’ll be annoyed.” 

The half-puppet only understood some of this. 

Then he heard Xi Ping suddenly stop, then murmur to himself, “Do you think I can trust General Zhi and the others?” 

If expelling the evil was difficult, could he trust the immortal mountain to do their best to protect him? 

A young disciple from the outer sect must be the most minor figure possible for Xuanyin Mountain…

Xi Ping had just entered the sect. He didn’t know how the immortals operated—at any rate, he knew that if something like this had happened in the mortal world, then he would definitely be out of luck. 

The half-puppet was even less familiar with immortal sects, though it was Zhi Xiu who had saved his life with a single sentence, so he stammered out his opinion. 

This time, Xi Ping was silent for even longer. Xi Yue almost thought he really had gone to sleep. 

“They can protect me if they like. It’s their business. There’s nothing I can do about it,” Xi Ping said. “If that bastard succeeds in snatching my body, he might do some wretched things under my identity that would implicate my whole family. But if I render a great service, then even if the immortals accidentally take me along when they’re expelling the evil, they’ll have to give the whole set of posthumous honors and compensation to the bereaved family. Let’s be reasonable.” 

Xi Yue was so anxious he stopped stuttering. “That won’t happen!” 

Xi Ping ignored him. “In Introduction to Spiritual Sense, it says that a master’s spiritual sense can be touched by someone with a karmic connection to him. Just now, I called on General Zhi’s spirit a hundred eighty times. If that lousy book didn’t deceive me, he must have been able to feel it. If tomorrow after I leave he brings people to search my rooms, then we’ll…give the matter some further thought. If he comes by himself, you’ll act according to what I’m going to teach you. Listen carefully, I know you have a good memory, you can hear a tune once and learn to whistle it. You have to get this exactly right…” 

Tai Sui took the opportunity of his noisy and obnoxious “tenant” going to sleep and finally managed to concentrate his attention on cycling the immortal mountain’s spiritual energy. He had just entered meditation when he was disturbed by Xi Ping sitting up like a risen corpse. 

Xi Ping had had some kind of nightmare. Looking scared out of his wits, he suddenly threw off his quilt and got out of bed barefoot, then charged towards the half-puppet in the outer room. On his way he grabbed a decorative sword and slashed at his palm. 

Luckily Tai Sui saw him sleepwalking and guessed what he was about to do. Before the blade touched his flesh, the great evil cultivator just barely controlled Xi Ping’s hand and quietly called into his ear: “Wake up! Kid, you can’t explain that big a sword injury on your hand with simple clumsiness.” 

Xi Ping tossed his head hard to clear it. 

He heaved several large breaths, recovered, then carefully used the sword blade to make a small cut on his index finger. He squeezed out a drop of blood and smeared it on the dragon-taming chain, repeating the prohibition he had put on the half-puppet before. 

Tai Sui thought he was pretty funny. “Didn’t you just do that yesterday? The prohibitions on that dragon-taming chain of yours don’t disappear so quickly.” 

“It’s just in case.” Xi Ping’s gaze was still vague, anxiously wavering over the unlit room, as if Princess Duanrui was going to suddenly pop out at any time. “Until those two great personages from the inner sect leave, I have to apply the prohibition every day… Ah, it’s too much trouble to squeeze out blood every day, what if I cut some discreet place and keep a bowl…” 

Tai Sui thought that things were going badly; the medicine was too strong. This good-for-nothing had already started to rave. “Blood dries when it’s left out.” 

“Oh, that’s right.” Xi Ping froze. “True, true…” 

Using every possible means of persuasion, Tai Sui coaxed Xi Ping back into the bedroom to lie down again. 

In less than half an incense stick, when Tai Sui had just entered meditation again, Xi Ping once again leapt out of bed. 

Tai Sui: “…” 

This time Xi Ping seemed to have gone mad. He cut off a tuft of his hair and tied one strand of hair to every door and window crack. 

“What are you doing now?” said Tai Sui. 

“When I leave tomorrow and close the door after myself, this hair will pull tight,” Xi Ping said bizarrely. “This door has to be opened slowly. If you use a bit of strength to open it, the hair will snap. This way, I’ll know whether anyone’s been here when I come back.” 

Fancying himself clever like a farmer’s wife who could only imagine that the Crown Princess baked bread like she did! 

Tai Sui sighed to himself and patiently said, “If an ascended spirit cultivator wants to investigate a room, he doesn’t need to go inside himself…and he certainly doesn’t need to break in. What are you thinking? Don’t waste your strength. Anyway, there’s nothing untoward in your rooms.” 

“…oh,” said Xi Ping. 

The third time the brat “kicked away the bed,” Tai Sui couldn’t take it anymore. Brooking no argument, he pinned Xi Ping to the bed and wouldn’t let him open his eyes. “Aren’t you finished?” 

“Senior, how long do you think she’s going to lecture? How can I get a bit sick and skip class? Ah…how frustrating, I haven’t even had a cold in eight years. Do you think soaking in cold water would work? What could I eat to make myself get the runs like Yao Ziming? Would dirt work?” 

Tai Sui: “…” 

Tai Sui thought that if he exchanged another word with him, he would be infected with his idiocy. Therefore he forced Xi Ping’s wild heartbeat to slow and suppressed his urgent breathing until it was deep and slow. 

“Senior,” said Xi Ping, “what are you doing, I…can’t…breathe…” 

His breathing wasn’t free, and his head grew heavier and heavier. After a moment, unwillingly, he at last quieted down. 

The next day, all means of resistance were of no avail, and Xi Ping was forced by the great evil cultivator to go listen to the princess’s lecture—Tai Sui controlled his body the whole way. Otherwise, the brat would have fled at the last moment and perhaps gotten up to some other idiocy. 

The Qiu courtyard fell silent. There was only the half-puppet Xi Yue, whistling a lonely tune as he cleaned. 

At chen hour, when Xi Yue had just finished sweeping the courtyard within the rooms and had picked up Xi Ping’s scattered clothes to wash, suddenly, his wooden hand froze inside the basin as he was scrubbing the clothes. 

Xi Yue slowly raised his head and saw that a tall and slim person had at some point landed in the courtyard and was just watching him attentively. 

It was General Zhi. 

On his own. 

Xi Yue focused. He cautiously stood up and bowed. 

“Just as I thought. You’re not scared of me anymore now that I’ve changed clothes,” Zhi Xiu said, smiling. “Come and let me have a look. You’ve grown so tall in the blink of an eye.” 

Xi Yue put his dripping wet hands behind his back and walked over as instructed. 

With the nourishment of spiritual stones, the half-puppet had grown considerably. He actually looked like a real person. While the clothes he wore didn’t quite fit, the materials were sumptuous, tastefully chosen, and scented. It was clear at a glance they belonged to the young master. 

“Shiyong is treating you pretty well.” Zhi Xiu patted him on the head. “You can get back to work.” 

After sending off the half-puppet, across a distance of several zhang, he glanced at Xi Ping’s northern rooms. 

There was a lot of junk, but luckily there was the half-puppet to clean it up for him, so the rooms were quite tidy. There was nothing particularly bad. 

That was only right. If there had been anything, Princess Duanrui wouldn’t have missed it. If there really was something so formless and untraceable, then it probably it had to be a legendary god or demon. 

Zhi Xiu inspected the places where Xi Ping normally lived bit by bit and suspected he was overthinking things. But his spiritual sense had kept leading him here. 

As Xi Yue worked, he whistled. Because of his deformed tongue, the sound of his whistling was very particular. 

Zhi Xiu listened for a while, then asked him, “Has Shiyong been well lately?” 

Xi Yue’s whistling paused. He didn’t answer, only toiled away scrubbing the clothes. 

Zhi Xiu looked at the dragon-taming chain around his neck with golden light flowing through it and thought, There’s a prohibition on him not to reveal his master’s personal business. 

The dragon-taming chain originated in Shu’s Lingyun Sect. Lingyun excelled in taming spiritual beasts. Spiritual beasts were cruel and headstrong and often had a certain degree of intellect. To take precautions against the spiritual beasts rebelling, beast tamers working with toolmaking masters had made the dragon-taming chain. Each dragon-taming chain only recognized one master, and the “keys” were the master’s mind and blood. They could bind even ancient mythical beasts. 

If he had to break it by force, Zhi Xiu would be capable of it, but this half-puppet probably wouldn’t live long… The golden light on the dragon-taming chain was very bright, which at least showed that the master’s mind was clear. 

“All right,” Zhi Xiu said to the half-puppet, “convey to your master that his shishus only find it inconvenient to leave the mountain often. We aren’t the lofty and unfeeling ‘celestial beings’ of legend. You can just treat us like ordinary family elders. If you have some problem…or difficulty, you can always come to Chengjing Hall and see me.” 

After listening to this, the half-puppet, whether he understood or not, kept scrubbing the clothes with his head down. 

Zhi Xiu sighed and turned to go. Suddenly, behind him, the half-puppet blew emptily a few times as though he couldn’t find the right pitch, his whistling running across several notes. 

Zhi Xiu suddenly stopped in his tracks. 

The weather at the Latent Cultivation Temple was fine and clear. Xi Yue had brought all of Xi Ping’s bedding out into the sun. Inside and out, everything was clean and bright. When the disciples returned in the evening, he had just put away the quilt and was rinsing Xi Ping’s writing-brush washer in the courtyard when he saw Yao Qi rush into the Qiu courtyard with his face bright red. Seeing Xi Yue, he glared at him, hating him by extension, then shut his door in inconsolable shame. 

Xi Yue thought nothing of it—Young Master Yao was like this every day. He probably wasn’t likely to hang himself. 

A moment later, Xi Ping arrived right on Yao Qi’s heels, joking and laughing with Chang Jun the whole way. When he reached Yao Qi’s door, he deliberately blew a long, sweet whistle… He must have been getting up to some fresh wickedness. 

When Xi Yue heard whistling, he couldn’t resist imitating a couple of notes. Xi Ping seemed to be in a pretty good mood. For once he didn’t berate him, even patted him on the head as he walked by. When he reached the study and saw that the proximal’s spiritual stone was still going, he took a blue jade out of his clothes and tossed it to the half-puppet. “Here, my reward from Moneybags Luo during evening class. I have no use for it right now, go ahead and eat it.” 

Tai Sui looked on coldly: in the morning, this brat had all but clung to the doorframe, not wanting to go. Now he was pleased with himself. 

Princess Duanrui’s lecture in the Songchuang Great Hall was purely a one-person performance. She didn’t look at the disciples below her at all. At first Xi Ping had found a corner to curl up in, and he had been as nervous as a conscience-stricken thief for a while. Later, seeing that the princess didn’t pay any particular attention to him, he slowly relaxed, his thoughts loosening up once more—the female disciples that he hadn’t seen at all since they had entered the mountain were at last listening to a lecture with them! 

Though there was a bamboo screen between them, it was no match for the acuteness of Xi Ping’s eyes and ears. He heard all the faint movements and whispers on the other side clearly. The talk and laughter of the young ladies seemed to be some kind of potent elixir. Tai Sui looked on as the trembling sick cat turned into an excited big baboon. 

The big baboon’s excitement lasted throughout the day. In evening class, he once again won a spiritual stone relying on cheating, and on the way back had caught Yao Qi to amuse himself. Even when he returned to his rooms to write home, he was still worked up. He wrote densely and quickly. There seemed to be a spring under his ass that might launch him into the sky any time. 

Never mind being useless, he was also a clown and a playboy. 

Tai Sui, who had spent all day being annoyed by him, took a rough glance at Xi Ping’s letter home. He saw that half of it was describing the petty matter of Yao Qi running whenever he saw him. It was extremely dull. Therefore, putting it out of sight and out of mind, he went to cycle spiritual energy on his own. 

As soon as the proximal lit up, Prince Zhuang picked it up. A letter he would normally have read at a glance, he read three times through. After muttering to himself for a moment, Prince Zhuang raised his head and said to Bai Ling, “Xiao Bai, go to Lord Yao’s manor for me.” 

That night, when the grand scribe Lord Yao had already gone to bed, a few page boys cleaned the study, arranged each newly purchased books on the shelves one by one, closed the door, and left. 

For a moment, the study was still and silent. Suddenly, one of the new books shook and shot out of the bookcase on its own. It landed on the ground and opened. A piece of paper fell out of it. After the paper landed on the ground, it turned into a man like a little puppet, who quietly picked up the book and returned it to its original place. 

Bai Ling quickly scouted the study and found nothing. There was only a letter on the writing desk, held down by a paperweight. It was a few insipid sentences, only a report that the writer was safe and sound. The date was the fifteenth day of the fourth month. The signature was “your son Qi kneels to report.” 

Bai Ling touched the letter and felt that the texture was very particular, something like oilpaper. He considered for a moment and suddenly remembered something. He slipped out of the lightly sealed window. Under the eaves by the window, he found a greenware¹ fish hanging like a wind chime. 

“So that’s it.” 

The tool that the Yao family had given Yao Qi to use for sending messages was a transversal fish. 

The transversal fish also came in a pair. Inside the fish’s bellies was special paper called transversal paper. Transversal paper was waterproof. After writing your letter, you soaked it in a mountain spring, pool, or some other outdoor body of water. The paper would dissolve in the water. When the water vapor rose to the clouds, it would float towards the location of the other transversal fish. 

When it rained, the rainwater would once again coalesce into a letter inside the recipient’s transversal fish, and the greenware fish would spit it out. 

The benefit of this thing was that it saved greatly on spiritual stones; one bean-sized green stamp was ample for one year. Its shortcoming was that only heaven knew how long it would take for the letter to arrive after it was written—it all depended on when it rained in the place where the recipient was. 

Luckily, Jinping had entered the rainy season. They weren’t short on rain. 

But in all this time, Yao Qi had only written a letter on the day he had arrived at the Latent Cultivation Temple. Clearly his relationship with his family wasn’t especially close. 

Bai Ling took out a piece of paper and quickly folded it into the shape of a fish. He tapped it, and the paper fish became a greenware fish identical to the original one. Bai Ling switched it out for the real transversal fish, which he took away. Then he left the Yao manor through the rear court. 

The night deepened. Far away in the Latent Cultivation Temple, the other transversal fish was held up by a pair of shaking hands. 

Yao Qi had to get up a shichen earlier than others to go get “tortured” by Immortal Luo, so he didn’t dare to stay up too late. He hastily washed up and crawled under his quilt. When he had just lain down, he felt some foreign object inside the quilt. He reached out to feel for it. Someone had slipped a note into his quilt—

The characters had perhaps been written with someone’s foot. They were bent and crooked, horizontal and vertical strokes and left- and right-leaning strokes all hugging each other, very offensive to the eye. 

But the contents were brief and to the point: Xi is going to get you.