The heart demon clicked his tongue a few times and deliberately said nothing. 

Prince Zhuang said, “Xi Shiyong!” 

Xi Ping didn’t answer. He found the elixirs Pang Jian and Zhi Xiu had given him in the mustard seed. Both of them had been absolutely orthodox in what they gave him. Apart from a small bottle with an established foundation pill that open-eyed cultivators regularly carried as encouragement, the elixirs the two of them had given him were practically all of the mind-calming and wound-treating sort that a mortal could also use. They wouldn’t cure an illness, but they wouldn’t kill you, either. Therefore, there were no prohibitions on using them. 

Xi Ping grabbed a handful and munched them like candy. 

The products of Rosy Cloud Peak were out of the common run. The elixirs dissolved as soon as they were in his mouth, and the effects were instantaneous.

As they slipped down his throat, Xi Ping’s spirit cleared at once. Then, a shallow-rooted shadow was pulled out of his spirit by the mind-calming pills. The unsteady emotional state he’d been in since he had come to this damned place settled rapidly. Xi Ping calmed down. 

It turned out that at some point the heart demon had already gotten to work on him. 

His spiritual sense, which had been crowded out by emotion so much that it couldn’t operate, recovered and all but grabbed Xi Ping by the neck and shook him, warning him that the man-shaped monster in front of him was dangerous. 

The heart demon wasn’t in the least bit embarrassed, looking at him with Madam Cui’s soft, smiling eyes. “Don’t misunderstand. My heart demon seeds can’t be removed by an open-eyed grade pill. The vast majority of this world’s worries are what people have imagined for themselves, but, alas, they always want to blame me.” 

“How true,” said Xi Ping with a false smile. “Blame the pillow when you can’t sleep, blame the heart demon when your six roots of sensation are unclean—anyway, you can’t be the problem. How worthless of them.” 

This heart demon was different from that crowd that would bite you as soon as look at you. He was glib-tongued and looked at a glance like bad news; he gave Xi Ping the impression of being a person. Xi Ping just happened to be the type who would always play to an audience. When no one was watching him, if his temper went to his head, there was no telling what kind of suicidal stunt he might pull. But if there was an outsider present, however much he was falling apart, whatever impulses he had, he could still quickly piece together his wavering reason. 

“A general in the field needs no permission to meet an emergency.” Xi Ping pulled back his severed ankle. The elixirs had temporarily eased the pain. He leaned the injured ankle against his intact leg. “It’s no use for you to provoke him. He’s not here in person, and I don’t do what he says. Come on, let’s chat.” 

Prince Zhuang: “…” 

This scoundrel. He hadn’t been punished enough as child. All of this hadn’t been knocked out of him, and he’d gone to ruin. 

The heart demon narrowed his eyes and examined Xi Ping for a moment, then said, “If I’ve guessed right, the Resurrection Vortex ought to have been in a calm period. The Impassable Sea isn’t connected to the outside world during calm periods. Since you got in, it means that something has gone wrong during this one, right?” 

Xi Ping—the chief culprit in agitating the Resurrection Vortex—nodded without hesitation and played dumb. “We were escorting a spiritual stone shipment north. Naturally we calculated to make sure that the Resurrection Vortex would be in a calm period before we set off. But as soon as we got there, an evil wind came out of nowhere, and suddenly there were whirlpools in the perfectly calm sea. And as if that weren’t enough, we ran into some evil cultivators trying to steal the spiritual stones, and somehow I got carried down here.” 

Meanwhile, he quietly wrote on Prince Zhuang’s spiritual bones: Can you contact Pang? In the southern mines.

Prince Zhuang said, “I can think of a way to contact him, but I can’t speak of the Impassable Sea to outsiders.” 

Having calmed down, Xi Ping’s mind began to work once more. He wasn’t surprised by this—his san-ge wasn’t some kind of silently enduring punching bag. If he hadn’t said a single word in all these years, it had to be because he couldn’t say anything, whether directly or by suggestion. 

Moreover, neither he nor Prince Zhuang knew Pang Jian well enough to have a perfect tacit understanding. How could they get the word out…? 

Xi Ping wrote: Try asking him to send a “Heavenly Question” telling my shifu not to withdraw the sword energy. 

Prince Zhuang: “…” 

Fine. Now he knew why whirlpools had arisen in the Resurrection Vortex during its calm period. 

Bai Ling saw an expression of disbelief momentarily appear on the prince’s face. 

Prince Zhuang sighed and muttered, “It seems he isn’t the wrath of heaven sent to punish me, he’s the wrath of heaven sent to punish the whole Zhou family… When Zhou Kun spared the Xi family, did he forget to check whether their horoscopes accorded with his?” 

Saying so, he took out a piece of paper and successfully wrote down Xi Ping’s words at once. But no matter what, the words “do not withdraw the sword energy” wouldn’t remain on the page. 

“Won’t work,” Prince Zhuang said. “The demon seal can’t be tricked by your clever little games. Think of something else.” 

Xi Ping cursed inwardly. Before he could consider it closely, he heard the heart demon say, sighing, “As I thought—he is returning.” 

“Who?” said Xi Ping. 

The heart demon waved his sleeve and scooped Xi Ping up. “A-Ying can’t speak of this secret. I’ll take you to see.” 

Unexpectedly lifted by him, Xi Ping was swept by that long sleeve up into the canopy of the ancient trees. His field of vision instantly widened. From high up, Xi Ping saw a small mountain made of heaped up spiritual stones. The spiritual stones, not carefully handled, still had rock snow on them. The surging spiritual energy mixed with the murderous energy exhaled by the Impassable Sea’s demon host; it was like the smell of agarwood mixing with body odor, making it so that you didn’t know whether to inhale or not. 

Just then, a demon lying on the cliff met his eyes and turned its head to shout at him. But the next moment, Xi Ping watched as the demon, as if held down by an invisible hand, was pressed tightly against the cliff, struggled a few times, and then…vanished into thin air!

Xi Ping’s eyes opened wide. 

Where did it go? 

The heart demon said quietly into his ear, “Look into the valley.” 

Xi Ping followed his gaze, looking towards the valley. Countless demons that had lost their offering were turning impatiently around the altar, greedily sniffing and licking the already dead spiritual bones, gathering into a heap. But sometimes, a demon would get halfway through squabbling with another demon, then disappear for no reason, leaving behind only its bewildered opponent…as well as Xi Ping, who thought his eyes were deceiving him. 

“The ones who disappear have been swallowed by him.” The heart demon sighed. “You cannot see him, but he is omnipresent. The whole Impassable Sea is merely nourishment to meet his unlimited demand—this is what Great Wan’s Zhou family has spent nearly eight centuries rearing…the head of the demon host that was once scattered by their ancestor. Little master, are you ready to hear the story of all the bones of the dead that lie beneath your Lingyang River?” 

Prince Zhuang couldn’t resist saying something to distract Xi Ping: “This miserable business—you can guess most of it without him needing to say anything…” 

Xi Ping squeezed his wrist bone. 

Prince Zhuang said, “A heart demon seed can shatter the Way of the Heart of an ascended spirit or shed skin master. I’m telling you not to listen to his lies!” 

It doesn’t matter, Xi Ping thought. I don’t have a Way of the Heart. 

In response to his mood, the reincarnation wood forest made an anxious rustling. Xi Ping raised his head and said to the heart demon, “Go ahead.” 

Meanwhile, Pang Jian was rapidly scanning all the records of mine collapses. 

He was like a born hunting dog; he could sniff out the clues between the words at top speed—in the records of mine collapses, there was no need to look at the causes of the mishaps; they were all excuses. What he was chiefly concerned with was the mine supervisor who had been in charge of the affected area at the time. He quickly arranged two hundred years of mine collapses according to the person responsible. 

He quickly caught a trace: the numbers of dead and wounded in the mine collapses had no connection to the scale of the collapse, but the connection to the person responsible for the affected area was great. 

When Liang Chen and the other early mine supervisors who had opened their spiritual eyes due to the defense of Jinping had struck, no matter where or how big the collapse was, the casualties among the miners were very small. But when it came to Zhao Zhenwei and the others like him, while they had spent less time at the mines and handled fewer mine collapses, the casualty numbers were appalling. 

No…

Pang Jian frowned. It wasn’t that the casualty numbers later were high. Gold and iron mines also had mishaps, and given Pang Jian’s understanding, the later casualty numbers were the normal ones; it was the ones from before that were wrong. 

And among all the records, the records of the mine collapses Liang Chen had handled in particular were the strangest: there had only been one big mine collapse in the area he was responsible for—precisely the time that the whole Pang family had been buried in fragrant jade miasma. 

And after that, while there had been cave-ins in the mine Liang Chen was responsible for, not one single person had died. This was because after that big mine collapse, the mine he was responsible for had a strict work and rest schedule; every time a cave-in occurred in a working area, the timing was after the miners had stopped working. 

What compassionate spiritual stones. 

Pang Jian read these records carefully and found that in the most extreme instance, a few miners who were after rock snow had prolonged their working period without authorization and had gotten spiritual stone ore dropped on them by a cave-in. They had actually ended up caught between the ore and survived completely intact. 

If they had this kind of luck, why were they still working as miners? They ought to have gone to buy a Gold Tray Lottery ticket and set up house! 

Pang Jian read these bizarre records several times, then suddenly shut them. Distant memories floated up from some corner—when he had been lifted, confused, out of the fragrant jade miasma, the cultivator who had stayed by his side, full of so much genuine emotion that it was hard to say which of the two of them had been bereaved…he thought that had been General Commander Liang…Supervisor Liang. 

Pang Jian simply wanted to sneer. He smashed the record of mine collapses against the table with a thump—so this was how the thieves inside the house had quietly consoled themselves, causing mine collapses while protecting the miners…what, did they have consciences, too? When they went too far and brought about tragedies, could they also feel profound responsibility, be heartbroken from grief? 

He suddenly remembered something else and went to flip through the records of all the cultivators in the mines who had opened their spiritual eyes as miners. He quickly sifted out those among them who had been vouched for by Liang Chen—there were quite a few, starting with Lü Chengyi; it was nearly forty percent in all. 

And these people, Lü Chengyi included, who had been brought into the sect by the false Tai Sui Liang Chen, had all been sent to run errands like escorting the shipment convoys; not one of them had been responsible for mining. 

Liang Chen had actually been protecting these juniors, not letting them stain their hands with the lives of the miners. 

“For hundreds of years, only members of the Zhou family have been able to enter. There were members of the main bloodline, and members of collateral branches. All carried criminal brands on their spiritual images, making them keep the secret like the dead. They used special immortal tools to hide in the Shu encampment, stealthily arrive here, deliver the spiritual stones, and leave their allies a ‘toll fee.’” At the bottom of the Impassable Sea, the heart demon was closely watching Xi Ping’s blank expression. He twisted a loose strand of Xi Ping’s hair and carefully rubbed the blood off of it. 

This heart demon seemed to know that the young man’s faith in the whole world had collapsed. He seemed unusually tender. “These people were very cautious of me. Before entering the Impassable Sea, they would use the secret technique of the demon subduers to seal off their minds and spirits, turning themselves into marionettes, only acting rigidly according to prearranged plans. Many people were unlucky and came just as the wind was rising in the Impassable Sea, and were broken here—how did the little paperman at A-Ying’s side come here? A half-demon born because a succubus seized a human body. The poor child…he came into the world by prying apart his father’s organs and belly. From the moment he was born, he was trapped in this lightless place. Honestly, he would rather run the risk of being dismembered by the demons than talk to me.” 

Xi Ping came back to himself and snatched back his hair, dodging the heart demon’s paw, which was stroking his face. 

The heart demon laughed, taking no notice. “Apart from you, the only other bearer of a different family name was the previous owner of those hidden bones you carry. He got in by mistake nine years ago, during the earthquake in the Impassable Sea, when A-Ying and the little paperman escaped and the ten position demon seal just happened to be unstable.” 

Xi Ping said, “Why didn’t you run away back then?” 

The heart demon shrugged. “Ask that ingrate brother of yours.” 

Prince Zhuang said, coldly, “The heart demon can control a person’s spiritual sense. If there’s the slightest crack, he can invade the spirit through the spiritual sense. He agreed back then to force the spiritual sense attached to my spiritual bones into a single finger bone, let Bai Ling break off that finger bone, and take it out of the Impassable Sea. If he had only wanted to take advantage of the demon seal loosening to escape the Impassable Sea, that would have been one thing, but his greed is bottomless. He attempted to invade my spirit. Otherwise, Bai Ling’s sneak attack wouldn’t have succeeded. Reap what you sow—whose fault is that?” 

While the heart demon couldn’t hear him, he seemed to know what he was saying. “A-Ying, you correctly predicted that I couldn’t nimbly slip out of the crack in the demon seal like that little half-demon. You deliberately lured me into using your spirit to escape, then had that little devil launch a sneak attack against me… Look at your whole family—that wretched old however-many-times great-grandfather of yours took my heart demon seed for a plot to snatch another country’s spiritual mountains. When your father brought you here, he also took along a seed in passing—I don’t know who he wanted to use it to harm. And you, when you had nothing else to do, you used me to relieve your boredom and secretly learn about inscriptions. You enticed me into helping you, then turned around and stabbed me. It’s no wonder the Zhou family is a family of demon subduers. You’re filthier than the demons.” 

Prince Zhuang said, “There’s not much to choose between the two of us.” 

Xi Ping put in a word: “And later, that old demon…Liang Chen, didn’t he get out, too? Why didn’t you take the opportunity to be a parasite on his spirit?” 

The heart demon sighed. “Oh, him. Don’t mention him. The quality of his bones was too poor. He was approaching the end of his lifespan without even completing his spiritual bones. I wanted to ask him to take me along, but I only said a few words to him, and his Way of the Heart shattered. Once the Way of the Heart shatters, the spirit also goes to ruin—who would have thought that a person who didn’t even have spiritual bones would have a Way of the Heart? Anyway, you ought to blame A-Ying. If he hadn’t wounded me to begin with, I wouldn’t have been so agitated and slipped up like that.” 

Xi Ping froze. Liang Chen had had a Way of the Heart, which had shattered at the bottom of the Impassable Sea. 

For some reason, he suddenly remembered the demented questions and laughter of that pitiable man who had taken the wrong road, on the point of death. 

He had fought for the nation and the people, come back from the brink of death, unexpectedly opened his spiritual eyes, received the courtesy name “Mianzhi” that had floated down from the distant immortal mountains… What had his Way of the Heart been? When he had taken on the criminal brand, done those filthy things for the Zhou family, had he believed that he was making sacrifices for some great cause?

There was no way to know. 

At any rate, the moment he had seen the heart demon, he had known the truth behind that war two hundred years ago, known that his lifetime of strife and sin had been only a joke in the palm of someone else’s hand. 

And his inspiration no longer remembered him. 

Xi Ping, his expression unwavering, said, “But when I saw Liang-shixiong later, he had already established a foundation.” 

“Thank heaven and earth.” The heart demon seemed to be genuinely relieved on Liang Chen’s behalf. “It seems that the half-skeleton of hidden bones he took from this forest brought about a fortuitous occurrence. That’s worthy of the relics of an ancient demonic god. Here I thought that person had been destroyed as a consequence. I’ve been conscience-stricken for a long time.” 

That person had in fact been destroyed as a consequence. 

Xi Ping raised his head and looked at the sky of the Impassable Sea, letting out a long breath. The desire to kill rose in him… That war two hundred years ago had impacted more than one person. 

He had used his shifu’s sword energy to stir up the whirlpools in the Resurrection Vortex. With such a major incident befalling the convoy, shifu would likely come down from the mountain in person to see what was happening. Perhaps he was already above the Resurrection Vortex now. 

Xi Ping calmly thought, I absolutely can’t let this heart demon leave. 

The heart demon likely never would have thought that an open-eyed ant hardly different from a mortal would dare at this moment to indulge in a wild fantasy, examining him with the gaze of a hunter. This wasn’t even a snake wishing to swallow an elephant; this was an ant wishing to slaughter a dragon. 

“He will be awake soon. Until he is restored, the demon seal won’t break, keeping us all trapped here. But as soon as he returns, we will be his nourishment. It’s so hard to be a demon with a mind. Luckily, heaven hasn’t abandoned me. It has brought you here. I’ll take you out, and you’ll help me escape—how about it?” 

Xi Ping said, “I don’t know how to break the demon seal. You could count the number of open-eyed arrays I’ve managed to memorize on one hand. I don’t even know how I got in here. Sir, aren’t you overestimating me?” 

“I don’t need you to break the seal.” The heart demon smiled very sweetly. The curve of his smile was Jiang Li’s. “You’re a living person. I like living people best… I only need you to let me attach myself to your spirit for a moment.” 

Xi Ping stared at his smile, thinking of something unknown. He slowly said, “I don’t think I can say no to that.” 

Hardly had he said this than he heard the sound of rustling below him. 

Xi Ping looked down and saw that at some point countless demonic figures had come to surround the base of the tree. Now they simultaneously raised their heads. On each and every one of the different grotesque faces was a smile identical to the heart demon’s. 

Xi Ping nearly threw up. He closed his eyes at once. “If you insult the dead again, I’ll die right here and leave you without a ride.” 

The heart demon said, smiling, “I don’t believe that. If you could stand to leave A-Ying’s bones behind, you wouldn’t have brazenly snatched food out of the mouths of the demon host.” 

“Don’t even think about it. If your spirit is polluted by the heart demon, the best that can happen to you is becoming a walking corpse,” Prince Zhuang said to him quickly. “Listen to me, think of a way to bring that heart demon to the demon host. When he’s not expecting it, throw my spiritual bones at him. Even the heart demon can’t suppress instinct. The starving demon host will fight to the death over the spiritual bones. You can control the reincarnation wood trees, right? When the time comes, use the opportunity to escape. The shipment convoy has encountered an attack, Xuanyin Mountain will have to pay attention to it. Hold out for a while, I’ll think of a way…” 

Xi Ping, eyes closed, finished listening to his ideas, then said to the heart demon, “That could work, too.” 

Prince Zhuang: “…” 

The heart demon looked at him, smiling brilliantly. “A-Ying has no objections?” 

“Well,” said Xi Ping, putting “a general in the field needs no permission to meet an emergency” into practice, “he wants me to throw out his spiritual bones. Didn’t I say before that I don’t do what he says?” 

Bai Ling saw his lord’s veins all stand out. He clutched his chest, so angry that he couldn’t even manage to cough.