“Damn.” Xi Ping was dumbfounded. “These two friends with their quaint skeletons came to Jinping all the way from the south just to divulge information to the immortal mountain! Shifu, are they our spies?” 

Zhi Xiu looked at him. “They could be.” 

This shit-stirrer was idle, but these people had come right to him. Maybe he really could get something out of them. 

Xi Yue silently used snow boiled in an earthenware jar to brew tea, watching this teacher and disciple pair, having gotten through persecuting the north slope, put their heads together to persecute evil cultivators. He felt that Flying Jade Peak was indeed cold. 

Zhi Xiu dipped his finger in water and wrote the key terms “Mining Office,” “spiritual stone shipments,” and “theft of spiritual stones from southern mines,” then gently tapped them with his index finger. The water droplets on the table began to roll around on their own, quickly forming line after line of small writing. 

The immortals were gathered in the depths of the Xuanyin Mountains, but fundamentally they were all still of the mortal world. Only General Zhi was on his own, one of the rare people among the thirty-six peak masters who was truly tranquil. It had been a long time since he had inquired after worldly affairs. If not for the Sea of Stars, there might have been no way to dig him out of his frozen hole. He really didn’t know what was going on at the Mining Office right now and had to make a hasty effort to inform himself at the last moment. 

As soon as he performed the divination, he noticed that there was something fishy: the southern mines transported spiritual stones north four times a year, each type accompanied by a guard fleet comparable to a navy. The convoy ships were full of inscriptions and loaded with immortal tools. 

When the fleet traveled, it would send a “foulness clearing water dragon” a shichen ahead to clear a path and warn passersby to keep out of the way. Never mind stealing spiritual stones, the cultivators of the mortal world were at risk of being mistakenly injured by the inscriptions if they even came close. 

Though desperate criminals were a local specialty of the Land of Turmoil, and there had been people who’d had the idea of stealing spiritual stones, the disparity in strength was too great. The escorting personnel might suffer occasional casualties, but not one single spiritual stone had been lost. 

Right up until these last few years…in other words, after Liang Chen had left office. 

The new Mining Office supervisors had begun to have frequent incidents on the road while escorting spiritual stones—there were always thieves taking advantage of laxness from the guard on duty to strike, steal a small ship and run. None of the losses were big. Normally, when this kind of thing happened, in order to guard against the enemy luring them away from their main camp to attack it, the fleet would strengthen its defenses and not blindly chase after the thieves. Therefore, the burgled spiritual stones mostly weren’t recovered. 

As Xi Ping directed A-Xiang’s dealings with the evil cultivators, he split off his attention to say, “If the new supervisors aren’t particularly useless, then before the old evil cultivator left, he must have put his own believers in place at the Mining Office. As soon as he left, he was no longer the one responsible, so he began to control his underlings from a distance in pilfering, getting spiritual stones from the southern mines to provide to his believers… Shifu, where are Pang-shixiong and the others?” 

Pang Jian had already reached the bank of the canal following General Zhi’s directions. 

It was nearly New Year, the time when goods moved fastest in Jinping City. Big and small ships were stopped by the docks like boiling dumplings, lining up for several li starting first thing in the morning. 

Pang Jian tried sending his consciousness out to search. Unsurprisingly, he came up empty—General Zhi’s note had lacked details, which showed that even he couldn’t clearly divine the exact location. The enemy had to have something that could block the spiritual sense of an ascended spirit master. 

“Commander, there are so many ships. How can we search them all?” a blue-clotheser asked. “The secret order from the inner sect told us to find a girl kidnapped by evil cultivators? What’s so special about this girl? How many evil cultivators have kidnapped her?” 

Actually, Pang Jian was also puzzled. 

He recalled Wei Chengxiang. Liang Chen had fixed his attention on her because her spiritual image matched his and had tricked her into joining the evil cultivators. But the girl had luck on her side. She had escaped in time without becoming either an evil cultivator or nourishment for an evil cultivator. The originator of the evil practices had turned into dust, and all the evil cultivators in the vicinity of Jinping had been put to death, so Pang Jian wasn’t planning on making trouble for a mortal. He had only left behind a karma beast to watch her for a time. Every day, apart from doing hard labor, Wei Chengxiang went to Rat Alley dressed in slovenly male attire help out, cook, clean, and do some carpentry for those listless women—every time she was seen by an old prostitute named Chunying, she would be shooed away like a fiend. She took no notice, going again the next day. 

In summary, she was a little girl who could endure suffering and had good morals. Pang Jian had removed the karma beast and hadn’t bothered her again. 

It had been over half a year; why did General Zhi still have eyes on her? Could it be that the general had expected from the start that the remaining evil cultivators would come looking for this girl? 

Ascended spirit peak masters up in the highest heavens truly were unfathomable! 

“Don’t be indiscreet about a secret order from the inner sect.” Pang Jian waved a hand. “Wait, I’m going to rustle the grass and startle the snake.” 

Saying so, he took out a dragon scale and flicked it into the canal. 

There was a crash as raging waves came out of nowhere on the peaceful canal docks. The scale turned into a water dragon as it entered the water and swam under all the ships. The surface of the grand canal rose sharply. All the ships were gently raised by the waves, then put back down at once. 

A dragon’s roar came from the water, rapping through every cargo hold and container hidden underwater. 

“A foulness clearing water dragon,” Xi Ping heard “Old Mud” say seriously through the reincarnation wood. “Heaven’s Design Pavilion’s blue dogs are searching the water here!” 

“Impossible, how could they know?” White Face said, stunned. “With the ‘prying ban’ inscription in place, never mind Pang Jian, even an established foundation cultivator wouldn’t be able to find our traces!” 

“Heaven’s Design Pavilion has Xuanyin Mountain behind it. What do you know about the ins and outs of Xuanyin Mountain?! I told you that the situation had been tense lately.” A-Xiang combined the wording Xi Ping taught her with her own skills from years of haggling at the market. All at once, she said, “You can’t even guard against the pursuit of Heaven’s Design Pavilion, and you want to rob the spiritual stone mines? Hilarious. Let me ask you, who’s been successful all these years? If you could, you’d have done it yourselves by now. Forget about all this fifty-fifty, ten-ninety, twenty-eighty. If you succeed, it’s all yours. We don’t want a single share! Listen, old uncle, the key to getting the spiritual stones lies with us, not with you. Even if we’re short on manpower, we still have people willing to collaborate with us. You’re the one who needs us. We don’t need you. If you want my opinion, fifty-fifty is still too much for you!” 

“Old Mud” said emphatically, “Indeed, we aren’t as brilliant as others. We have no established foundations or ascended spirits to rely on. But we do have people with a Way of the Heart. Look up at that spotless Sage’s Road and those wealthy mansions stinking of wine and meat! We seek spiritual stones and suffer hardship to cultivate for the sake of smashing those celestial statues and golden nobles pressing down on the heads of the common people, for the sake of winning a corner of the sky for people crawling in the mud! What do those scoundrels count for? Aren’t you people always saying, ‘better to die in frost than to forsake one's convictions’?” 

Xi Ping immediately seized on the key point: the Land of Turmoil lived up to its name—it was full of turmoil. Liang Chen had indeed been an amateur, unable to match the hidden heartfelt feelings of a group of evil cultivators…and what did this person mean that they had no established foundations or ascended spirits to rely on? Did that mean others did have them? Who did he mean? Could it be that ascended spirit and established foundation evil cultivators were running around all over the place, and Heaven’s Design Pavilion didn’t know? 

A-Xiang, however, was suddenly speechless. “Winning a corner of the sky for people crawling in the mud” had struck just right, raising a cloud of dust in her young but hardship-laden heart. 

Just then, the dragon’s roar sounded again, closer this time! 

Xi Ping gave a start. He had just asked Zhi Xiu what a “foulness clearing water dragon” was. Shifu had said it was an immortal tool that opened the way. When a water dragon passed by, it could raise the tide in the sea. 

So in the canal, it must have made bigger waves. Why was the swaying here so slight? 

Could it be that they weren’t in the water? 

No, if they hadn’t been in the water, they wouldn’t have swayed at all. 

Yes, the thing that White Face had taken out to use for light was a luminous pearl… At first, Xi Ping hadn’t taken notice. He only caught up now. Didn’t these evil cultivators have to live frugally to save up for spiritual stones? Did they have to be so ostentatious? 

So he quickly asked A-Xiang, “That fragrance you’re talking about, is there some overripe lychee smell in it, and a bit of raspberry medicine smell?” 

A-Xiang hadn’t worked out what was going on yet. “…how does lychee smell?” 

Xi Ping was speechless for a moment, racking his brains for how to describe it. “It’s like…overly sweet, but when you pay attention, there’s a medicinal smell in it that’s a bit sour, a bit bitter.” 

A-Xiang listened to him and silently took a breath, smelling. “I think there is a medicinal smell.” 

Xi Ping immediately raised his head and said to Zhi Xiu, “Shifu, I think they’re on a ship transporting snow wine. There’s a motionless cabin on it.” 

Snow wine was outrageously expensive, like liquid gold, and it was unusually fragile. Heat, gas, light, strong motion… It was said that all of it would make first-rate snow wine go bad. Within Great Wan territory, it was only permitted to sell snow wine from the southern mines. Transport by water was long. To keep the product from being shaken and damaged on the way, the cargo ships often had a special kind of downgraded immortal tool in them called a motionless cabin—a little like a mustard seed, but unlike a true mustard seed, it couldn’t collapse spacetime. It was only a container that could hang suspended within the ship. Inside the motionless cabin, no matter how the ship’s hull turned over, there would be almost no impact. 

Zhi Xiu frowned, for once stern. “Have you drunk snow wine?” 

“Oh, once. It didn’t taste like anything, like tea dust on the third or fourth brewing. It’s just expensive. Afterwards when they invited me to drink it, I didn’t feel like going,” Xi Ping said. “Shifu, what’s wrong?” 

“Since it’s not good, don’t touch it again.” Zhi Xiu didn’t explain in detail, only said, “It’s spiritual stone miasma. It damages the Way of the Heart and harms cultivation.” 

This time, he didn’t even bother with a note. He simply snapped his fingers. 

Pang Jian’s eyes swam. The sleet in the sky quickly congealed into the words “snow wine,” which flashed in front of his eyes, then once again broke into shards and fell to the ground. 

Pang Jian’s gaze was like lightning. In the space of a single breath, he looked over countless ships and precisely fixed on the precious downgraded immortal tool. 

At the same time, A-Xiang heard Xi Ping say, “When Heaven’s Design Pavilion comes, pretend to be scared, don’t act like you were the one who called them!” 

In the blink of an eye, the moment Pang Jian fixed on the motionless cabin, the two evil cultivators’ spiritual senses were stirred simultaneously. Old Mud, like a tub of dirty water, “splashed” onto the ground on the spot and instantly seeped into the floor and vanished. White Face meanwhile made a grab in midair—it turned out that the door to the motionless cabin was behind him! 

A-Xiang saw her chance quickly. She held the reincarnation wood and squatted on the ground holding her head, crying, “Help! There’s a demon!” 

The white-faced man was about to slip into the crack between the ship’s hull and the downgraded immortal tool, but he ran right into Pang Jian’s arms as the latter came in through the wall! 

White Face froze abruptly—a talisman gun was pointed at his chin. 

“Hey, what a special day,” Pang Jian said, smiling. “First thing in the morning, and someone’s throwing himself at me?” 

Hypnotic ripples quickly appeared in White Face’s strange eyes. There was no time for Pang Jian to look away. 

A-Xiang, whose soul had been muddled once, saw that this blue-clothed lord had also fallen for it. She was hesitating over whether she ought to jump up and yell when Pang Jian asked doubtfully, “That’s all? No other tricks?” 

White Face: “…” 

A-Xiang silently squatted back down. 

“Where did such an unworldly evil cultivator come from?” Pang Jian expressionlessly pulled the trigger. “Your feathers haven’t even all grown in yet, and you still dare come to Jinping to make trouble.” 

Talisman script coated that white face, then spread to the whole body. The white-faced man seemed to turn into a big white moth wrapped in a spiderweb.

Meanwhile, a number of blue-clothesers working together pulled out a big net full of talismans from the water, like fishing, scooping up Old Mud, who had melted out of his human shape. 

Pang Jian casually stuck the talisman gun into the back of his belt and reached out to pull over the “big white moth.” “Take him back to the Quell for a soul-searching!” 

Hardly had he spoken than a note from General Zhi nearly hit him in the face: “Beware the inscription.” 

Pang Jian was startled. Then he saw a peculiar smile appear on the white-faced man’s face. Something dazzling flashed on his chest. Pang Jian had no time to think about it carefully. He abruptly flung the man away. “Out of the way!” 

The white-faced man was tall and broad, but he was flung one-handed by Pang Jian like a pebble and went flying to the sky. Meanwhile, Pang Jian took out an umbrella. The umbrella’s canopy expanded boundlessly in his hand, covering nearly all the ships on the grand canal. 

Those under the cover of the big umbrella only sensed darkness fall over them. Before they could see clearly what had gone up into the sky, there was huge sound. 

The fierce second-class inscription had blown White Face to bits! 

All the ribs of the enormous umbrella broke, and the torn canopy came fluttering down. Stronger waves than when the water dragon had passed earlier surged over the canal. Bloody rain came down from the sky. 

In the net, “Old Mud”’s mouth was nowhere to be found, but he could still laugh breathlessly. “Ancients in their carven caves, called their shelters property… Their homes gave them…dignity, but…the dogs…of the rich…¹” 

His laughter came to a sudden halt as he became a stiff paste of lime. 

His protruding eyes were facing in A-Xiang’s direction. His blurred featured looked like something a child had hastily sculpted. Something seemed to clutch A-Xiang’s heart. She automatically squeezed the reincarnation wood amulet. 

Then there was a puff as “Old Mud,” who had really turned into mud, split apart, bursting into powder, landing in the still surging canal. 

Xi Ping abruptly struggled free of the image in the center of his brow and opened his eyes wide. “Shifu…” 

Zhi Xiu had no need to look. He could already guess what the situation was over there. “They’re dead?” 

Xi Ping had only thought he was having fun, like gambling with strangers. He had been treating those two ugly evil cultivators like opponents in a game. With the game over, he had been ready to put on airs and express his self-satisfaction, but the other side had suddenly put on a self-sacrificing show. 

Zhi Xiu said, slowly, “Our government employs severe punishments against evil cultivators. Once captured, they’re put in prison and soul-searched. A soul-searching carves up part of your bones. Even if you don’t die, your mind will be damaged. Therefore, if they have the chance, they’ll kill themselves. In recent years, Heaven’s Design Pavilion has alternated set after set of immortal tools, yet they still can’t keep up with the evil cultivators’ endless tricks for committing suicide. There’s nothing to be done about it.” 

For a time, Xi Ping was a little dazed. 

In stories, bad guys were always uncouth and steeped in evil; those who laughed wildly on the way to execution were always heroes. When he had listened to operas with his grandmother as a child and complained about them all being the same, his old grandmother had said, “It isn’t that the story writers can’t come up with new ideas. Think about it. These evildoers are all doing it for selfish reasons. They always have to consider the gains and losses first. If you calculate enough, don’t you become a vile person? Dying for loyalty and righteousness means you have heroism in your bones. Even if you turn into mud, your essence will still remain. The body is divided into male and female, old and young, tall and short, beautiful and ugly, but the temperament is always the same. You can recognize it without seeing the person.” 

“Shifu,” he said, a little awkwardly, “with them meeting death so fervently, I feel like I’m the bad guy.” 

The master of Flying Jade Peak looked at him with eyes that had seen two hundred years and suddenly felt that keeping him at Flying Jade Peak wouldn’t necessarily be a good thing. A person brought up in comfort grew slowly. He hadn’t even fully developed his emotional capacity, so how could he go after immortality? He’d just be fooling around. 

So Zhi Xiu said gently, “There are few evil people on earth, and those who die for justice don’t necessarily do good things.” 

Xi Ping: “…” 

Why was it “few evil people” first, “don’t necessarily do good things” later? Shifu was up to standard. Just like when he had been teaching Detailed Account of Meridians, he wasn’t making any sense. 

Zhi Xiu didn’t continue talking about it, only instructed: “Arrange a statement with that girl so she can lay out the fact that the evil cultivators had accomplices in the Mining Office to Heaven’s Design Pavilion. Don’t let her expose you.” 

“Fine,” Xi Ping agreed. He considered it, then said, “Shifu, can we ask Pang-shixiong to get that little girl a different identity? One evil cultivator found her, so there may be others. What will I do if they keep coming after her? That girl’s so much trouble. She can get around the mind-clearing spell. It’ll be no good if she causes another avalanche on the north slope.” 

Zhi Xiu: “…” 

Who did this shameless wretch say had caused the avalanche on the north slope?

“Oh, right, that evil cultivator just now said that one of Tai Sui’s remaining followers was next to someone named Zhao,” Xi Ping said, remembering. “Who in the Mining Office is surnamed Zhao? Does that count as a lead?” 

Zhi Xiu casually reckoned on his fingers. “Mining Office, surnamed Zhao… It must be Zhao Zhenwei.” 

“A relative of Exalt…of Zhao-shixiong in the capital?” 

“Not really. The Zhao clan is too big. He must be from a branch family in Ning’an, your shixiong from the previous class. This person…” 

Zhi Xiu divined something that made him frown. He stopped and didn’t say anymore. General Zhi had the manners of a gentleman and didn’t discuss people’s shortcomings behind their backs. Since he had come to a sudden halt, his next words certainly couldn’t have been anything good. 

Xi Ping froze. 

A shixiong from the previous class. In other words, ten years ago. From the Ning’an Zhao family…

“A collateral branch of the Zhao family in Ning’an wanted to get one of their descendants in and decided to bribe the immortal envoy, so they thought about what they could give to make themselves stand out…and they took a shine to the Chen family’s green ore field.” 

Ho, another unexpected harvest. 

“Shifu.” Xi Ping licked his canine tooth and began to scheme. He said, “There’s a remaining follower of Tai Sui in the Mining Office, perhaps more than one. All these leftovers seem to be in high demand, with all the evil cultivators lining up to use them to steal spiritual stones. It makes me worry…” 

Zhi Xiu said, “If you have something to say, just say it. Is it anything to do with you?” 

“It is!” Xi Ping pointed to himself. “I am Tai Sui!”