“This Wei Chengxiang is an orphan, only fifteen, originating in Ling County. She and her grandfather were left on their own. Her grandfather’s name is Wei Pengcheng. The two of them worked together in the southern outskirts. They’re purely mortal—there’s no association with cultivation in eighteen generations of their ancestors. The only unusual thing is that when there was a change in the reincarnation wood held by Heaven’s Design Pavilion, Wei Chengxiang’s grandfather had just been arrested by city guard soldiers.” 

Heaven’s Design Pavilion worked very efficiently. It wasn’t long before they knew everything about A-Xiang’s history. 

In front of an outsider, even if the sky collapsed, not even the speed Prince Zhuang blinked at would change. 

But while he had originally been listening calmly, holding his tea, at this point, his expression changed for the first time. “Why was her grandfather arrested?” 

“Recently someone hired a group of workers to cry a grievance in the southern outskirts and slander the court. It’s something like that… Your Highness must know more about it than I do.” Pang Jian gave him a strange look. “What’s wrong?” 

Prince Zhuang quickly covered up his slightly unusual expression and waved a hand. “Nothing. Please continue, Exalted.” 

“A few days later, Wei Pengcheng was released for no reason at all. It was said that a city guard had found out he had been wrongly accused. It sounded strange to me that a city guard would actually know the meaning of the words ‘wrongly accused’, so I found that particularly learned officer and had a karma beast search his residence. As expected, it found spiritual stones and immortal tools. The same night the old man was released, the little girl was involved in another case. A foreman surnamed Lü got drunk and became unruly. He intended to commit unlawful acts against her and another woman. He was unsuccessful and died of a heart attack in the process. After the coroner determined the cause of death, the girl and the woman were released. But Heaven’s Design Pavilion reexamined the body and found that it contained traces of spiritual energy—our guess is that someone shut the arteries in his heart to make it suddenly stop beating.” 

Bai Ling cut in: “An evil cultivator accomplice received word and helped her?” 

“Yes. That was the very day Xi-shidi begged a reincarnation wood carving from the Latent Cultivation Temple. Perhaps the evil cultivator could only communicate with his disciples then,” Pang Jian said. “Apart from that, another mysterious person has appeared beside Wei Chengxiang. This person is unusually alert. He has a crow we suspect of being a spiritual beast. We don’t dare to get close for the moment.” 

Prince Zhuang asked, “What about Wei Pengcheng?” 

“He’s dead.” Pang Jian paused. “He was elderly and weak, already sick in bed. He was beaten a few times in prison. He died the same night he was released.” 

“I see,” Prince Zhuang said slowly. “In other words, that evil cultivator doesn’t actually care what happens to this Wei Chengxiang. He only wants to trick her into joining him. What can a fifteen-year-old orphan girl have that’s worth coveting? Does she have any connection to that prostitute from Overflowing Splendor?” 

Peng Jian thought about it. “Wei Chengxiang’s hemogram¹ is vermillion bird. Jiangli… Jiangli died without an intact corpse. We can’t be sure of her hemogram, but it’s probably the same. Eight out of ten people in Ning’an have the vermillion bird hemogram. Wei Chengxiang’s horoscope happens to be ‘yin in all four pillars,’ and it seems that Jiangli’s is as well…but there are quite a lot of ‘yin in all four pillars’ people. Apart from this, the two of them are unconnected.”   

“Hemogram, horoscope…” Prince Zhuang tapped his palm now and again. “Are their figures also similar?” 

“The little girl hasn’t developed yet, so it’s hard to say. She seems to have a small frame, though her grandpa was of the tall and slender build.” Pang Jian froze, then suddenly caught up. “Your Highness, do you mean…” 

“The spiritual image,” said Prince Zhuang. 

“The spiritual image?” said Pang Jiang. 

The two of them spoke almost simultaneously. 

If different people carved the same inscription character and wanted to achieve the same result, they had to adjust the form of the inscription character. In the immortal sects, some inscription experts believed that this was caused by the cultivators having different “spiritual images.” But as for what a “spiritual image” actually was, how many types there were, whether different types had their own merits and drawbacks, or how they were determined, there were currently no conclusions—there were too few established foundation cultivators, and among them those who would carve inscriptions were few and far between. There was insufficient data for research. 

There was only one commonly accepted conclusion: people with similar spiritual images had similar horoscopes, and they were often alike in physical appearance and disposition. 

“I fought against that chief sacrifice Jiangli,” Pang Jian said. “She was inexperienced, but her cultivation was no worse than mine. At her age, even if she had opened her spiritual eyes in her mother’s womb, she still wouldn’t be able to clarify herself to the point of having spiritual bones. Anyway, if she had opened her spiritual eyes earlier, she wouldn’t have been reduced to prostitution.” 

“Oh,” said Prince Zhuang, “then it may be the Stone Drilled in Bone technique.” 

Pang Jian was already numb towards the extent of his knowledge. He sighed. “A fatal technique. I suspect she was tricked. Back then…” 

Back then, apart from the Dragon Vein, Jiangli must have been just the sacrifice that Tai Sui wanted. Even if Jiangli and the others had succeeded in tricking a member of Heaven’s Design Pavilion into taking her place, in the end, the great evil cultivator still wouldn’t have let her go. He had only been pretending to take all possible means to avoid it in order to make her willingly offer up everything she had. 

Prince Zhuang had no interest in the wrongs committed against an evil cultivator who had endangered the public. He interrupted Pang Jian’s “back then.” “A half-immortal can’t perish without making a sound. Heaven’s Design Pavilion likely has a record. First investigate whether there have been any similar evil cultivators who died for reasons unknown.” 

“I’ll go look through the files.” Pang Jian tactfully followed along with his change of subject. “From Renzong up to the present…” 

“No,” said Prince Zhuang, “start from the present and go backwards. I think that this person hasn’t been causing trouble that long.” 

Pang Jian paused, then understood what he meant—if it were otherwise, the Sea of Stars couldn’t only now have given a warning. And even if the Sea of Stars had broken down, if there really had been an “evil god” hidden beneath the peace of the last two hundred years, then the support he had used to steal the Dragon Vein had been too shoddy. 

Pang Jian thought, If His Highness Prince Zhuang became an evil cultivator, give him ten years and he might have infiltrated all of Xuanyin’s inner sect.

Prince Zhuang watched him walk through the wall and leave. For a long moment, his eyes remained on the shady wall, unmoving. 

Bai Ling didn’t dare to disturb him. He stood there not making a sound. 

After a long time, Prince Zhuang finally seemed to come back to life. He lowered his lashes. “Xiao Bai, do you believe in destiny?” 

Though the lousy idea of hiring people to cry a grievance was something Lord Sun of the Canal Office had come up with on his own, making an issue of the farmers who had lost their land was in fact something he, Zhou Ying, had stirred up from the shadows. He had muddied the waters, made the Crown Prince “plead illness and stay home to recuperate” up to now, reaped the benefits of His Majesty’s anger against land transport… He had thought that the plan was seamless, but who could have expected that the aftereffects created by it would have gone around and at last fallen on Xi Ping? 

The constantly shifting evil flood dragon had opened its mouth to bare its fangs and bitten its own tail. 

Bai Ling said, seriously, “Since the day Your Highness took me out of the Impassable Sea, I no longer believe in it.” 

“The Impassable Sea.” Prince Zhuang’s lips curved in a false smile. “How do you know that the Impassable Sea wasn’t the start of the fork in the road?” 

Just then, the white jade proximal lit up. Prince Zhuang’s still clouded gaze fell on it—since Xi Ping had found a ready mouthpiece in Yao Qi, he had stopped writing anything proper on the proximal. 

Handwriting showed the writer’s emotions. Xi Ping, this magical creature, had stirred the Peak Master of Flying Jade Peak, all of Heaven’s Design Pavilion, and even Prince Zhuang Manor into unease day and night, but he himself was eating well and sleeping soundly, feeling pretty pleased with himself. On the proximal, he praised the Latent Cultivation Temple’s green plums and bazhen cakes, then bragged smugly that he had recited his lessons well and received six spiritual stone points from Yang-shixiong; soon he would have gathered up enough points for another blue jade!

Prince Zhuang stared at the proximal for a moment with a strange expression, not knowing whether to laugh or cry: since he was little, Xi Ping had acted like making him memorize a lesson was butchering him. It was harder to make a few words stick in his head than to reach the sky. Could he have changed now that he was in the Latent Cultivation Temple? This brat! Everyone was holding back for fear of harming him, but he was doing fine, using the evil cultivator to cheat his way to success! 

In the Latent Cultivation Temple’s Qiu courtyard, Xi Ping had just finished writing home. Before he could even stretch, Tai Sui suddenly asked, “Where is your half-puppet?” 

Xi Ping’s joints cracked. 

Without waiting for an answer, Tai Sui controlled him and stood up, then strode out. He grabbed the half-puppet, who was just peering towards Yao Qi’s rooms, and pulled him back. “Don’t think I don’t know what you made him do!” 

Xi Ping’s scalp tightened. In an instant, the cracks in his bones went cold. 

But it was only an instant. Then he caught up—no, Yao Qi had already sent the letter. If the old roundworm had really noticed something, he couldn’t have waited until now to flare up. He was trying to trick him. 

So Xi Ping said inwardly, with justice on his side, “Senior, be merciful, senior, I made him…well, play a little trick, that’s all. I wasn’t playing it on you!” 

Tai Sui dragged the half-puppet inside and roughly tore a wad of paper from his clothes. 

Xi Yue quickly reached out to snatch it back. A finger blast hit his arrays, and the half-puppet fell to his knees without a sound. 

Tai Sui kept feeling that something was touching his spiritual sense, but “Tai Sui” wasn’t his true name, so the direction the spiritual sense pointed in was very blurred. Seeing that Xi Ping’s half-puppet was always sneaking away towards Yao Qi next door, he had involuntarily become suspicious. 

Xi Ping’s eyes became cold. He saw the great evil cultivator use his hands to quickly open up the wad of paper. A big worm the thickness of a finger pattered out and wriggled along the ground. There was a cartoonish face drawn on the unfolded paper. 

Tai Sui: “…” 

Xi Ping cried out: “It’s getting away! It’s getting away! Xi Yue worked so hard to catch it…” 

Before he could finish, one of his legs lifted without warning and stamped the worm flat. 

Xi Ping was pulled into a stagger by that leg. He screamed, “That’s disgusting!” 

“You know what disgusting means?” Tai Sui tossed the paper aside and coldly said, “If you get up to these silly tricks again instead of focusing on cultivation, you’ll be in for another burning.” 

Xi Ping: “…” 

Aside from the words “cultivation” and “burning,” he had heard this sentence many times growing up. 

“What’s the point of memorizing those ancient texts? Be reasonable, senior, do you make your own followers memorize lessons? Can’t they open their spiritual eyes without that?” 

“The rogue cultivators of the mortal world have no formal teaching. They pay all kinds of prices to have people teach them. If someone were willing to read a legitimate ancient text to them, they would get on their knees and be that person’s dog!” 

Xi Ping pressed his lips together. He couldn’t put himself in those people’s shoes at all. 

The princess had finished lecturing and had left the Latent Cultivation Temple with Zhi Xiu. Perhaps the young master felt the danger was past. He had relaxed and was spending all day teasing his classmates or making mischief, not shrinking from any crime. 

He seemed to have turned his head and tossed away his resolution to “work to redress the wrongs of people like Jiangli,” like the dissolute people of the mortal world who, after they were through lamenting the state of their lives, wasted no time in burying themselves in licentiousness.

He had also tossed the reincarnation wood carving aside and lost interest in it. 

Oh, yes, the reincarnation wood carving. 

Tai Sui had another thought—why had he suddenly stopped touching the reincarnation wood carving? 

But before his suspicions could arise, Xi Ping casually grabbed the reincarnation wood carving and said, naïvely and unfeelingly, “I completely forgot, that little beauty you took in as a disciple, how is she doing?” 

As he spoke, Xi Ping closed his eyes, concentrated on the center of his brow with practiced ease, and found A-Xiang. He was just in time to see A-Xiang take out a little paper bag, hesitate a moment while staring at the green powder inside, then pick it up, about to pour it into her mouth. 

Seeing this, Xi Ping thought that she was depressed and planning to take poison. “Hey, don’t eat that!” 

A-Xiang paused at once. She opened her eyes wide and searched all around—she thought someone had just called to her. “Who’s there?” 

Xi Ping didn’t dare to speak again. 

“Is it…Grand Duke Tai Sui?” A-Xiang jumped up and held the reincarnation wood amulet on her chest with both hands. Not hearing an answer, she prayed, “Bless me, Tai Sui, and let me smoothly begin my cultivation and be worthy of my shifu…and of this expensive spiritual stone powder. I’ll definitely avenge my grandpa, make lots of money, and take Auntie Chun away from here…” 

Only then did Xi Ping understand that the bright green powder wasn’t pesticide; it was powdered jade stamps. 

His eyes opened wide. A-Xiang’s prayers still echoed in his ears. “How can she hear me, too?” 

Before, only Tai Sui could talk to his believers through the reincarnation wood. Xi Ping was only a tool; he could only close his eyes and follow along with the action. Why did it seem like the little girl had heard his voice just now?

“Well, there’s no harm in it for you,” Tai Sui said lightly. “Swallowing spiritual stone powder is common practice for rogue cultivators. There’s nothing to be shocked about. Outside, there aren’t the resources your Xuanyin immortal mountains have. If they want to do their best to squeeze out a bit of spiritual energy to nourish their meridians, they have to grind up inferior grade spiritual stones and swallow them.” 

Xi Ping stared at the reincarnation wood in his hands, suddenly feeling a sense of danger. “Senior, am I going to open my spiritual eyes soon?” said Xi Ping, pretending to beam with joy. 

Tai Sui said, “If you aren’t so distracted, then perhaps…it’ll happen before the first leaves fall.” 

Xi Ping’s heart missed a beat. It was the height of summer now, and the Latent Cultivation Temple was in the mountains. The cold came early. It would be only a few days, wouldn’t it? 

But that was wrong! He had been completely feigning compliance the whole time! 

When they trained their spiritual sense in the Qiankun Tower, Xi Ping pretended every day to be competing with His Fourth Highness to be first, rushing to open his spiritual eyes as fast as possible; when he “entered meditation to cycle his breathing,” what he in fact entered was the dragon-taming chain to pass the time chatting with the half-puppet; as for working hard…he hadn’t done a bit of hard work, only used his natural abilities to play the part. 

How could he still open his spiritual eyes like this? And how could the old roundworm know how much progress he had made? 

Xi Ping paused. Then he suddenly picked up Latent Cultivation Notes—everyone had one of these books. It contained the sect rules, information about the Latent Cultivation Temple’s stewards, and other such content. 

“What are you looking for?” 

“I’m looking for the record.” Xi Ping was so “excited” his heart was pounding. “Latent Cultivation Notes has a record of the first person in each class to open their spiritual eyes. Afterwards, nearly all of them entered the inner sect. I vaguely recall that the record for the fastest person to open their spiritual eyes is five or six months… Ha! Senior, do I have those legendary innate spiritual bones or what?” 

Tai Sui: “…” 

You have that legendary “innate shamelessness.” 

Xi Ping, deeply self-satisfied, said, “So why should I work hard? I…” 

To guard against him floating into the sky and knocking down the moon with his self-proclaimed “innate spiritual bones,” Tai Sui splashed cold water on him. “Innate spiritual bones occur in less than one in ten million people. In the last thousand years, the only instance in your Xuanyin Mountain has been Duanrui. If you had innate spiritual bones, you would have caught the inner sect’s attention long before coming here. Stop gloating.”

“Hehehe,” said Xi Ping, “I don’t believe you.” 

Tai Sui: “…” 

A normal person couldn’t talk sense to an idiot. 

So the next moment, it was as if Xi Ping had stepped into a bonfire. Burning pain leapt up his foot, burning up to his knee. At the same time, Tai Sui sealed his powers of speech, so he couldn’t even scream. Xi Yue, however, immediately noticed something was wrong through the dragon-taming chain. He let out a sound and threw himself forward to support him. 

Xi Ping waved a hand at the half-puppet and kept his footing on his own. All the color had gone out of his face. 

In the small study, one couldn’t speak, and the other didn’t know how to speak. Stifling stillness filled the air. The evil cultivator’s soft voice sounded in Xi Ping’s ear… Perhaps it was his mistake, but the voice sounded closer than before. 

“Every night when you’re asleep, I do your breathing exercises for you and make you touch the reincarnation wood. With my powers running through you, naturally your spiritual sense is superior to that of others, and your spiritual eyes are looser than those of others. In the future, as soon as you open your spiritual eyes, your spiritual bones will also be easier to complete than those of others… That’s because you’ve had the good luck to encounter me, encounter that stupid Chen girl who was willing to give up her life for you—there’s no cause for you to think highly of your own accomplishments and slack off, understand?” 

Xi Ping couldn’t answer. 

Having “scared” him, Tai Sui once again became gentle. “Making you work hard is for your own good. The reason you Latent Cultivation Temple disciples open your spiritual eyes slowly is a delicate choice on the part of your shixiongs. It’s so that your meridians, your lungs and heart, your whole body can become fully soaked in spiritual energy, to prevent you from suffering when you open your spiritual eyes. Making progress too fast isn’t necessarily a good thing. There have even been people whose meridians shattered the moment their spiritual eyes opened. Why don’t you go to your Yanhai Building and read the records of failed spiritual eye openings?” 

Xi Ping’s mouth and tongue relaxed. He could talk again, but he didn’t dare to make a sound. He could only nod obediently. 

“Good child. Go to bed early.” 

A little fawningly, Xi Ping said, cautiously, “Senior, what kind of suffering comes with opening your spiritual eyes? Those followers of yours…with no immortal mountains to rely on, what will happen to them? Will A-Xiang be all right just eating spiritual stone powder?” 

Tai Sui saw that he had scared him, so he very patiently explained some common knowledge to him: “When you open your spiritual eyes, if your meridians haven’t been fully soaked in spiritual energy, they may be destroyed by it. There are usually two ways rogue cultivators open their spiritual eyes. One way is by chance. If they live for a long period in a place with abundant spiritual energy, when they encounter mortal danger, their latent potential will erupt at the moment their life hangs by a thread…” 

Xi Ping carelessly asked, “Like Pang Jian?” 

“How did you know?” said Tai Sui. 

“Heard it from someone before coming to the Latent Cultivation Temple,” Xi Ping lied casually—in fact, he had felt it from the way Commander Pang talked. Heaven’s Design Pavilion was the same as the inner sect; it had countless ties to Great Wan’s court. Though each of the Exalteds seemed like a celestial being with classic texts in his belly, Pang Jian didn’t. Xi Ping felt that he wasn’t very concerned with politics; he hadn’t even known the full background of the Imperial Consort’s maternal family. 

“You could call him lucky. There was a mine collapse in the spiritual stone mines in the south. Hundreds of people died, but he survived.” Tai Sui simply assumed all these sons of the aristocracy had their own sources of information and didn’t think much of it. He sighed with emotion, then said, “The other way is like A-Xiang, eating spiritual stone fragments to make spiritual energy enter their meridians from the inside… Though that’s always second best, and rather perilous when it comes time to open their spiritual eyes. Those whose bodies haven’t been nourished by spiritual energy will often be injured and disfigured when the time comes. Or did you think that my followers looked hardly human on purpose?” 

Xi Ping was stunned silent.

After a long moment, he said in agitation, “What? That little beauty is going to be disfigured?” 

He thought: Commander Pang comes from the south? He became a cultivator because of a mine collapse? How does this old roundworm know? 

Heaven’s Design Pavilion’s Exalteds who came from among the common people didn’t especially mention their origins, each more mysterious than the next, because strictly speaking, until they had entered the aboveboard path, they counted as “evil cultivators.” This wasn’t something you could talk about openly. 

Xi Ping’s mind worked quickly. He had an idea. 

The next day, the Qiu courtyard’s disciples all went to morning class. Xi Yue, who had been bent over cleaning, paused. 

He seemed to be tired. He stood and strolled around the courtyard… Unconsciously, he formed writing with his feet. 

Xi Yue diligently memorized his steps. After a moment, he deftly climbed up an ancient cypress in the Qiu courtyard and took a sheet of transversal paper from a bird’s nest in the canopy—he had snatched it from Yao Qi’s rooms under the guise of a “prank” after getting a glimpse of Yao Qi’s letter home. 

Xi Yue drew out the characters he had just memorized by rote on the transversal paper: Pang is from the south.

Then, imitating Yao Qi, he quietly put the transversal paper in the pond. 

“Good morning, Ziming-xiong!” Yao Qi was just copying out scriptures in the Qiankun Tower. Hearing this sound, his hand shook. He was so scared by Xi Ping’s call that he left a big smear on his paper. 

Zhou Xi was sitting next to him. Upon seeing this, he gently puffed out a breath. 

But after a while, His Fourth Highness realized something was wrong—Yao Qi kept trembling. Even his sleeves were shaking. His face was ashen. He didn’t seem startled; it was more like he was scared of something. 

Zhou Xi slowly frowned: what had Xi Shiyong done to him?