Zhaoting skimmed over the chaotic surface of the sea and stopped in the air above the Resurrection Vortex. Looking down from high up, the whirlpools of all sizes looked like malevolent eyes. From time to time, cold, oppressive light stabbed through the “eyes.” This was the sword energy that had turned the water upside down. 

Zhi Xiu’s consciousness scanned the whole area of the Resurrection Vortex, noting the sunken ships and the corpses. His search took him to the shipment convoy, which had miserably withdrawn from the neighborhood of the whirlpools. Lü Chengyi’s body, with the criminal brand standing out on it, had been drawn down to the bottom of the sea. The mutilated remains of Shu’s spiritual beast and beast tamer, though dismembered, still had an aura—when an early established foundation cultivator passed away, their aura would linger for at least half a month. 

The only thing he couldn’t find here was Xi Ping. 

As Zhi Xiu sent out a Heavenly Question to notify Pang Jian of the approximate situation of the East Sea at present, he frowned: for better or worse, that disciple of his was a half-immortal with spiritual bones. How could he have disappeared entirely? 

Just then, his consciousness found a tiny living being in the vast ocean. 

Wei Chengxiang was holding onto a piece of driftwood, narrowly maintaining her balance in a gap between the whirlpools. After opening her spiritual eyes, she had enough strength. As long as she stayed alert, she could dodge the sword energy in the whirlpools; it would be no problem for her to float here for half a month. For the moment, she wasn’t in mortal danger; she was only very confused and didn’t know where she could go. 

Her mind and body alike were floating aimlessly amid the vast ocean waves, and the person she had thought would guide her had disappeared. 

Suddenly, it was as if something had pricked the center of Wei Chengxiang’s brow. She quickly raised her head and saw a man in an old-fashioned grey gown fly down on his sword and land in front of her like mist. The simple, unadorned sword was notched all over with old scars. The man on the sword had his back to the light, obscuring his features. As soon as he landed, even the bluster of the Resurrection Vortex was suppressed. The crashing and jostling sword energy gently brushed his swaying hems and obediently circled his old sword. 

Wei Chengxiang’s eyes widened slightly. This grey-clothed immortal was different from any cultivator she had seen before. Supposing that, as she had imagined in childhood, there truly were celestial beings in the world who could grant the wishes of mortals, they would presumably look like this. 

But Wei Chengxiang didn’t make a wish. She tightly clutched the driftwood, arched her back, and warily stared at the grey-clothed immortal. 

She was no longer a mortal. She was an evil cultivator. 

But the immortal didn’t seem to notice anything wrong with her. He only very politely asked, “Miss, might I make inquiries with you about a certain person’s whereabouts?” 

“Who?”

“The person who has always spoken to you through the reincarnation wood. Where is he? Can you contact him?” 

Wei Chengxiang was startled. She thought, How does he know? Who is he? 

Involuntarily, she sank most of the way into the seawater, leaving herself exposed only from the nose up. She dryly said, “Tai Sui goes where he pleases.” 

“He’s no Tai Sui,” the grey-clothed immortal said. He sighed. “You also can’t reach him, right? Fair enough. He wouldn’t have tossed you into the sea on your own if he could help it.” 

Hearing this, Wei Chengxiang’s nose stung out of nowhere. All the hurt in her heart surged up. But then the grey-clothed immortal’s eyes fell on the left side of her face. Wei Chengxiang was startled and instinctively wanted to cover her face—from the corner of her eye to her lower jaw, the left side of her face had a scar like a tear stain. It was a scar left behind by spiritual eyes opening too urgently. If she hadn’t struggled day and night, not forgetting to keep a spiritual stone in her mouth even when she slept, nearly swallowing up the whole bag of blue jade the senior had given her, she would probably have taken even more damage. 

“A half-immortal’s body is far more resilient than a mortal’s. As long as it isn’t fatal, an ordinary wound from a knife or sword will slowly heal—apart from an eye-opening wound. That will be with you for the rest of your life, unless you can smoothly establish a foundation in the future,” the grey-clothed immortal said slowly. Though he was standing on a sword, suspended in midair, he didn’t at all give you the impression that he was gazing down loftily. “Only that step is even harder than opening your spiritual eyes.” 

Wei Chengxiang was already in enough trouble not to care about covering up. In a deep and gruff voice, she said, “That’s right, I’m an evil cultivator. Are you going to put me away?” 

The grey-clothed immortal’s gaze was very gentle. There was even a trace of indescribable sadness in it. He asked, “Do you know what pilfering heaven’s order is?” 

Wei Chengxiang didn’t understand anything. Fearless and ignorant, she shook her head. 

“Then why would I put you away?” the grey-clothed immortal said. “Though an autumn insect won’t survive the winter, when it lets out a wail, if there is an echo, one cry may have a hundred answers. But walking the vast immortal path, you will only have yourself. Child, when you grow up, will you regret it?” 

Wei Chengxiang was fearless with youth. “Of course I won’t regret it. I’m going to kill all my enemies!” 

The grey-clothed immortal seemed to smile. “All right. This meeting was fated. I will give you something.” 

Before Wei Chengxiang could react, the immortal snapped his fingers and made a beam of light that entered the center of her brow. The girl leaned back, feeling a book appear in the center of her brow. When she closed her eyes, she could clearly see the writing in the book and turn the pages as she liked. 

She opened it in amazement and saw that the book described how ranks of cultivation were distinguished, how to manipulate spiritual energy, what each of the three great systems of talismans, arrays, and inscriptions were, and so on… This was common knowledge that the sons of the wealthy learned at the same time they learned to talk, but Wei Chengxiang had never heard of it. 

It was as if she had gained the most precious treasure. In spite of herself, she floated out of the water. 

The grey-clothed immortal said, “Going deeper are the ancient classics of the immortal sects. You’ll have to go work those out for yourself. I’m limited by the sect rules and cannot give them to you.” 

By a series of coincidences, Wei Chengxiang had ended up on the wrong path, but in essence she was a child from a good family. Seeing that this person had no ill intent, she became polite. “Thank you…thank you, Exalted. Do you also know the uncle in the reincarnation wood? Did you come to find him?” 

Hearing the form of address she used, the grey-clothed immortal stared. Peculiar exasperation appeared on his face. He vaguely said, “That scound… I mean, I have some connection to him.” 

Wei Chengxiang said, “Before, he was always there, but suddenly he stopped talking. I’m very worried.” 

“When was this?” 

“Right after the whirlpools in the sea started.” 

The grey-clothed immortal considered it, then asked her, “Can you help me out?” 

First Wei Chengxiang nodded. Then she said, “It has to be something I can do.” 

“It’s nothing hard,” the grey-clothed immortal said. “You can call him directly through his spirit with the reincarnation wood. If he has only a sliver of clarity, he’ll be able to hear your voice. I’ll send you away from here, and you help me out by calling to him a few times, is that all right?” 

Even if he hadn’t instructed her, Wei Chengxiang still would have done this. Naturally she wouldn’t turn him down. Then the immortal gently tapped the water. The water arched obediently like sandy soil, then froze, freezing out of nowhere into an ice boat. Wei Chengxiang had never seen magic like this. She was dumbfounded. Then, she floated up out of the water as lightly as a feather and landed on the ice boat. 

“Go on.” The grey-clothed immortal waved a hand. The ice boat made of congealed seawater dashed straight through the Resurrection Vortex. The formerly scattered sword energy obediently pulled all the big and little whirlpools out of her way. The boat went faster and faster, carrying her towards the boundless land. 

When Pang Jian received Zhi Xiu’s Heavenly Question, he didn’t at first have time to read it closely. He was chasing some Turmoilers in the southern mines. 

In the name of Heaven’s Design Pavilion, he had detained a whole crowd of suspicious individuals. While investigating the people he had arrested, he had found to his surprise that some Turmoilers were furtively watching. 

The people in the southern mines were used to taking the Turmoilers for dimwitted, unfeeling animals and didn’t pay much attention to them. Pang Jian didn’t say anything. Unnoticed, he stuck some talismans onto the backs of the Turmoilers. He saw them gather and walk south together. After walking through a dazzling maze forest, the Turmoilers reached a little hidden village.

The Land of Turmoil had been split up among the four countries, but most places had no one to mind them. Even in Great Wan’s encampment, which was the most flourishing, there was only the town that had taken shape around the southern mines and the canal docks, no more than a thousand mu, and the rest was still wasteland. 

This little village had a temple brimful of the distinguishing characteristics of Southern He. At the temple gate, the other Turmoilers in the village surrounded the ones who had returned and started talking all at once in a jumble of Great Wan official language and Southern He’s local dialect. 

Pang Jian had grown up in the southern mines and was reasonably familiar with this hybridized Southern He dialect. From far off, he heard that these people were discussing the cultivators in the southern mines being arrested. From their speech, they seemed to be very reverent towards some of these cultivators. In spite of himself, Pang Jian was faintly surprised—these Turmoilers were dressed in rather clean and dignified clothing and had a permanent habitation in this village; they even seemed to have a division of labor among themselves… If not for their deformed features, they simply would have been no different from ordinary commoners. 

One of the Turmoilers, who had the look of a village head, said, “For many years, we have been granted the caring attentions of those Exalteds. From now on, I’m afraid we won’t have it easy. Alas, what has the world come to? Why does it always go after the good people?” 

Another Turmoiler said, “What must we do now?” 

The head Turmoiler was silent for a long time. “All we can do is pray for divine aid.” 

Pang Jian thought, Pray to whom? He thought that before Southern He was wiped out, they had worshipped Lancang’s Sword Sage… Was this village’s temple a Sword Sage Temple? 

But then, he heard the Turmoilers’s quiet, garbled prayers for protection; it turned out that these villagers worshipped “Grand Duke Tai Sui”! 

Pang Jian stared: since becoming “Tai Sui”, Liang Chen had secretly housed Turmoilers and even instructed his subordinates to take care of them? 

Before he could finish marveling at Liang Chen’s kindness, he saw a rather familiar figure stroll out onto the little village street. When he got a clear look at the newcomer, a layer of gooseflesh abruptly came up on Pang Jian’s back—this was Lü Chengyi! 

Wait, hadn’t he just read…

Pang Jian quickly took out the Heavenly Question to verify: General Zhi had confirmed that Lü Chengyi had died in the Resurrection Vortex. General Zhi couldn’t have seen wrong, so who was this? 

Above the Resurrection Vortex, having sent Wei Chengxiang away, Zhi Xiu looked down at the shambles his rebellious disciple had left behind—it was his sword energy that had stirred up the whirlpools in the Resurrection Vortex during its calm period. If he only withdrew the sword energy, the Resurrection Vortex would soon calm down and the shipment convoy could leave. 

But for some reason, his spiritual sense was faintly holding him back from withdrawing the sword energy; and he still couldn’t divine anything. 

As he was hesitating, a Heavenly Question came from Pang Jian; it turned out to be quite a long letter. 

Zhi Xiu read through it quickly. His eyelids began to twitch. 

In Pang Jian’s letter, he said that he had discovered a special kind of puppet in the southern mines. Its aura, speech, and appearance were absolutely identical to a real person’s. If he hadn’t caught and soul-searched them, even Heaven’s Design Pavilion’s Assistant Commander wouldn’t have been able to tell that they weren’t human. But these puppets, apart from being particularly realistic, didn’t have any other use. It seemed that they were only there to stand in at the mines for their masters when those masters were away. Lü Chengyi had such a stand-in, and so did many other cultivators involved with Liang Chen. They were hidden in a village inhabited by Turmoilers. 

Pang Jian had dismantled one of the stand-in puppets, found its core array, and searched all over the southern mines for similar objects…which had brought him to digging up graves: in the two hundred years since the southern mines had been established, quite a few of the mine cultivators had either died naturally when their lifespans had come to an end or had died in the line of duty from injury or illness. The miners had set up a small place for these seniors to sleep peacefully, called the Thousand Autumns Forest. The Thousand Autumns Forest contained the remnants of countless arrays. Pang Jian went straight into the earth to investigate and found that among the corpses buried here, nearly half were stand-in puppets! 

In other words, in two hundred years, nearly half of the cultivators in the southern mines hadn’t died; they had disappeared, leaving their stand-in puppets to act in their place in the mines for a time, then find a suitable opportunity to die a natural death. 

A majority of the missing cultivators were surnamed Zhou—imperial kinsmen. 

Zhi Xiu rapidly glanced over the names of the Zhou family imperial kinsmen that Pang Jian had picked out. He still couldn’t divine anything about them. And when he tried to touch these people’s fates, the Resurrection Vortex at his feet abruptly began to surge. 

The Zhou clan…

There was only one place in the world that the Sea of Stars couldn’t look into, and that place was closely connected to the Zhou family. 

The Impassable Sea in ancient legend, sealed in some unknown place. 

Beneath the surging whirlpools, the bloody aura exhaled by the demons was sickening. Xi Ping’s face paled. The fierce pain that the elixirs had suppressed earlier seemed to be making a comeback. He grabbed a handful of wound healing and mind calming pills and said to the heart demon, “If you’re sincere, first make them keep away. I’m going to throw up.” 

The heart demon waved a hand, and the members of the demon host under the trees obediently withdrew from the reincarnation wood forest. They only kept their gloomy eyes wide open, covetously watching the flesh and blood body. 

Xi Ping continued selling out his teammate: “My san-ge says that if my spirit is polluted by you, the best outcome for me will be turning into a walking corpse. I can’t accept that.” 

The heart demon said, smiling, “He’s much too guarded. He’ll miss out on many friends. I only want to borrow your body to leave this awful place, escape the demon seal. There’s a whole world out there, five nations and thousands upon millions of people, no telling how many of them confused by the seven emotions, buried in the six desires—which one among them isn’t more enticing than a young man like you whose reason hasn’t even fully developed? Why would I leave all the delicacies in the world untasted to drink a bowl of flavorless gruel like you?” 

Xi Ping’s eyes moved. “Even if you don’t down me in one gulp, I won’t be able to withstand a single lick, either.” 

At the same time, he quietly wrote in the mustard seed: San-ge, how did you get out of here last time? Point the way.

Prince Zhuang’s words nearly caught in his throat: “Don’t ask me, I can’t shoulder the responsibility. As a mere mortal, I didn’t dare to let the heart demon take a single step onto my spirit. I can’t match the boldness of a talented immortal.” 

From familiarity, Xi Ping handled him far more ably than he handled the heart demon: So you don’t care about me anymore? 

Prince Zhuang: “…” 

Oh, is that the game we’re playing? Fine. 

Through the spiritual bones in the mustard seed, Xi Ping heard the person speaking in his spirit stay silent for a while. Then his voice suddenly became weak. “My spiritual bones were stripped from me before I was even born. After all these years, I’m used to it. Even if you really do bring those spiritual bones out, I won’t be able to bear them. What would I want them for? If I let you die here today, how am I supposed to face my uncle and grandmother?” 

Xi Ping hadn’t expected that this person who had always been reserved and self-possessed would suddenly dig out his heart. He froze, then argued: I used shifu’s sword energy to set off the whirlpools in the Resurrection Vortex. My shifu must have found it by now. As long as…

Prince Zhuang interrupted him: “Can you be certain that General Zhi will come in person?” 

“I…” 

“You can’t. And even if the master of Flying Jade Peak comes in person, he still won’t find the Impassable Sea. For thousands of years, only members of the Zhou family have known where the entrance to the Impassable Sea is. I was able to escape back then because my true body was still in the mortal world, and the heart demon could only keep a grip on my spiritual sense. As long as I kept my spirit clear and didn’t get distracted, he would have nowhere to strike. To disturb my intellect, while I was leaving the Impassable Sea, he suddenly launched an attack and tried to use illusions to trap me… I got out because there was someone who kept watch beside my feverish body all night, who played the qin the whole night through, who brought me out. This…I’ve never spoken of this to anyone else.” 

Xi Ping’s breath caught. 

“Xiaobao¹,” Prince Zhuang called his long-unused pet name, “do you know how I feel right now? Can’t you…can’t you have some pity on your san-ge? What would I want those rotten bones for, to make up an intact corpse to bury?!” 

A little brother’s shamelessness could pierce a person’s weak spot, but a strong person showing weakness gouged out the heart. 

Their internal strife was silent, but it drew blood. 

The heart demon watched Xi Ping with great interest. Seeing him bite into a mind calming pill with a crack, he asked, smiling brightly, “So what do you want?” 

Prince Zhuang said, “Leave my spiritual bones behind. Come back in one piece. Leave me a way to survive, can’t you?” 

For a time, it was as if Xi Ping was being compelled by two heart demons, one internal and one external; he was trapped. 

Only after having stabbed right through him did Prince Zhuang slightly moderate his tone. He instructed, “Think of a way to get him to take you to the inscription exit. The heart demon is full of suspicion. You have to make him think that you’re taking every possible precaution against him. There can only be sincere cooperation if there are precautions.” 

Xi Ping tossed one pain relieving pill into his mouth after another. His lips went numb. 

After a moment, he seemed to finally come to a decision. He said to the heart demon, “First you have to take me safely to the exit inscription, Senior Heart Demon. You’re very powerful. You can control the demon host, kill seventy or eighty of me in the blink of an eye. You don’t have to worry about me escaping right under your nose, right?” 

The heart demon nodded, smiling brightly, and said, “That’s reasonable. What else?” 

Xi Ping, in accordance with what Prince Zhuang had told him, continued: “Back then, Bai-da-ge used a demon subduing talisman to defeat you. I want to place a demon subduing talisman on my spirit. He was a half-demon, and part of the Zhou bloodline. This place couldn’t restrict him much. I’m different. I can only use talismans once I leave, so you don’t need to worry that I’ll launch a sneak attack. I’m only agreeing to take you out of the Impassable Sea. If you refuse to clear out once we’re out of the Impassable Sea, then it’ll be time for the demon subduing talisman.” 

The heart demon’s eyes narrowed in a smile. “That thing is truly fresh in my memory. That brother of yours is so wicked.” 

Xi Ping said, “Do you agree?” 

The heart demon put on an act of being backed into a difficult position, thinking it over for a long time. Then he said, “Well, since you’re so charming.” 

Prince Zhuang said, “Anything can go wrong. Don’t delay, go now—right, you’re injured, aren’t you? Bear up with some hardship, spill some blood from your wound. That way, even with the heart demon there, the other demons will still follow in secret. When the time comes, you’ll attach a demon subduing talisman to my spiritual bones. When you toss out the spiritual bones, you’ll be able to activate the demon subduing talisman using the spiritual energy in my bones. The effect will be limited. It can only hold him off for a moment.” 

Xi Ping didn’t answer. 

“Hurry,” Prince Zhuang urged, “I’ll teach you how to draw a demon subduing talisman.” 

In a final struggle, Xi Ping said, My shifu really will be outside. 

Prince Zhuang said, “How else do you want me to beg you?” 

The heart demon suddenly drew close. He took hold of Xi Ping’s chin. “Haven’t I agreed already? Why do you still seem so heartbroken?” 

Prince Zhuang said, “Shiyong!” 

“There’s one more thing.” Xi Ping’s eyes suddenly reddened. He babbled, “After I get out of here, I have to report this place to the immortal sect, announce it to the whole world. My san-ge and Liang-shixiong…” 

“Oh, hey, shh… It’s all right, it’s all right, don’t get excited. Settle down.” The heart demon gently patted him on the back. A cheerful light shone in his smiling eyes. Just as the other demons couldn’t resist the allure of blood, the heart demon couldn’t resist the hatred and hopelessness of humans when they abandoned themselves to despair. He greedily inhaled those feelings from Xi Ping and quietly said, “You have a long life ahead. In the future, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to see filthier things than this. If you only take me out of here, this awful place—I want nothing more than to see it destroyed. I’ll help you.”