The Hither and Yon Seal couldn’t be stamped onto a living person. This, like the fact that shooting a hand cannon at someone’s head would kill them, belonged to the category of blatantly obvious common sense. Shifu hadn’t even wasted words instructing him not to do it. 

But Xi Ping had not only done it, he had placed the stamp on his own spiritual foundation. 

The Hither and Yon Seal that the swords of Flying Jade Peak had scorned came to a bad end. And after the seal had brought together all the reincarnation wood in the world, Xi Ping’s consciousness also dispersed into fine sand, pouring out all over the world. 

He had just established a foundation. His consciousness wasn’t so steadfast. Soon he lost all sense of time. 

In a daze, he thought he was now wandering through fields, now roaming through ruins. Reincarnation wood grew all over abandoned villages and scorched earth, and his blurred consciousness was scattered all over. 

After floating for he didn’t know how long, by the shore of the East Sea, Xi Ping saw A-Xiang climbing up a reef. 

A-Xiang was as good as her word, constantly calling to him. The little amulet she carried drew Xi Ping’s consciousness. Xi Ping was shaken. He suddenly remembered who she was, and only then remembered who he himself was. 

Then, countless voices crying for “Tai Sui” swept his consciousness into heap after heap like a broom. Xi Ping had no time to say anything to A-Xiang before his consciousness was pulled from the seaside back onto the mainland. 

He was like a scrap collector. Following these voices, he picked up bits of his brain along the way. With each piece he got back, his consciousness became a bit clearer. 

There were many people who worshipped “Tai Sui,” and the vast majority of them weren’t Indignant Cicadas.

When people were no longer willing to worship the Southern Sage, wild ghosts and goblins and all their ilk would naturally ascend a level, rise to the incense altar—this “Tai Sui” Xi Ping stood shoulder to shoulder with deities like the Yellow Immortal and the White Immortal¹, lifted onto the shrine by swindlers to give to people who would try anything in their desperation something to worship.  

He heard a child asking an adult, “Why should we worship a yellow weasel? When I see a yellow weasel snatching a chicken, will I have to bow and give up the chicken?” He was just thinking that this was funny when he heard the child continue: “So what’s a Tai Sui?” 

The adult answered: “Everyone says it’s a kind of meat fungus.” 

“And what’s a meat fungus?” 

“A big mushroom that if you eat it, you can live forever without growing old².”

Xi Ping: “…” 

The “big mushroom” miserably picked up his consciousness and left, grumbling and swearing as he cursed these idiots to get diarrhea next time they ate mushrooms. 

Anyway, it wasn’t like any of his curses would work. 

He went deeper and deeper among the multitude, picking up more and more memories—Xuanyin Mountain, the southern mines, the Impassable Sea… One after another, and with every bit he remembered, his steps became more hurried. 

He hadn’t returned san-ge’s spiritual bones yet. 

How was shifu doing? 

Finally, he was no longer in the mood to listen to what the people were saying. He was in such urgency that he would have loved to sprout wings and fly back. 

But these ragged people kept weeping and droning prayers, tangling him up and not letting him go. 

Xi Ping wanted to beg them to go worship someone else—he couldn’t work miracles, anyway. Had he been able to work miracles, the first thing he would have done would have been to curse all these prattling people into becoming mute. 

But the people piously lighting incense couldn’t hear the voice of his mind. His consciousness was bounced from one group to another. Xi Ping couldn’t clearly hear what they were saying. He struggled to the point of exhaustion amid the noise that didn’t seem like human speech. 

The “big mushroom,” nearly nagged to death, could do nothing but hold his head, cover his ears, and run off to find a relatively quiet place to squat, then strain himself to think of something to do. 

Just then, he heard a person next to him say to herself, “Does the lilac look pretty, or does the indigo look pretty?” 

Xi Ping glanced over weakly and saw that this was a girl of seventeen or eighteen, taking advantage of the confusion. While others were piously worshipping, she was kneeling off to the side, making a knotted bag…no wonder it was so unusually quiet here. 

Xi Ping thought to himself that neither color was right. He languidly said, “Pick the blue one.” 

The girl chose the lilac cord, hid it in her sleeve, and began tying knots. 

Xi Ping clicked his tongue, then heard her whispering from time to time. “Tai Sui, I pray, please let me find an ideal husband.” 

Xi Ping rubbed his temples miserably. “I’d love to help, but I can’t. You’ll have to find one for yourself.” 

“He doesn’t need to be very beautiful. He can be neat and tidy like Da Cheng-ge. The important thing is that he needs to be kindhearted, filial, and friendly. He doesn’t need to be very talkative, but he has to be reliable. When you ask him for something, he can always do it…” 

In the midst of all the gloom, the girl’s lively chatter was like a spoonful of clear dew. After listening to it for a while, Xi Ping’s splitting headache eased considerably. Resting his head in his hand, he began to look her over. 

The girl had talked herself into embarrassment. She covered her face with a cry. 

The daughters of the poor went out without makeup and were a little cramped in form. She wasn’t as smooth-skinned as the young mistresses and wealthy wives, but she wasn’t at all plain. She had made herself a flower hair ornament with a rag that was both beautiful and unique. Her flushed face had a pair of eyes like grapes, dark and radiant, sparkling no matter where she looked. The look in her eyes made Xi Ping recall a puppy his grandmother had had when he was little. She became unusually amiable and adorable to him. 

“You’re pretty good-looking,” Xi Ping said. “If you like someone, just try going up to him and saying so. I don’t think you’ll have much of a problem.” 

The girl put her palms together. Holding a double handful of colorful cord between them, she shook her hands. “Tai Sui, please let the person I admire admire me as well.” 

“Fine, then,” Xi Ping said, calculating on his fingers, “I’ve observed the celestial phenomena at night, and I’ve seen that your…your ruling star is bright and sparkling, in the…the what-do-you-call-it, anyway, it’s in a good position, you’ll have good fortune for three years, marry happily just as you wish, be safe and wealthy…” 

The girl couldn’t hear what he was saying. Before he could finish, she sighed. “But Da Cheng-ge has also gone with the Master of Fealty. They say the Master of Fealty used to be a bandit and doesn’t even want to get justice for anyone, he only wants to seize the chance to stage a rebellion… You can get beheaded for that. I told him not to go, but he wouldn’t listen to me.” 

“What’s all this nonsense?” Xi Ping’s long brows flew upwards. “That’s what you call ‘reliable’? Are you as blind when it comes to picking men as you are when it comes to matching colors?” 

The girl whispered, “There’s fighting and chaos all day long. Tai Sui, when will this end?” 

The false Tai Sui, who could hardly protect himself, froze. He had nothing to say. All he could do was sit to one side and stare blankly along with her. 

Suddenly, as if something had startled her, the girl hurriedly gathered up the colorful cords in her hands and straightened her posture. 

Xi Ping followed her gaze and saw a person whose face was veiled walk in surrounded by attendants. There was a putrid stink about him. Xi Ping knew as soon as he saw him that this was an evil cultivator who had taken damage when his spiritual eyes had opened. 

This evil cultivator wasn’t an Indignant Cicada, either. He seemed never to have heard the phrase “better to die in frost than to forsake one's convictions”—these individually packaged evil cultivators would pick up a name at random and go around making trouble. They’d change their game a few times, get taken for immortals aiding the needy, and collect disciples; even the Indignant Cicadas were better. 

Xi Ping saw this guy start to talk, all of it nonsense, teaching the way of “Tai Sui” right in front of “Tai Sui,” yammering a lot of blather. The people prostrated themselves as they listened, all of them calling him an immortal envoy. 

Only the person welcomed by Heaven’s Design Pavilion to oversee the Grand Selection and mend the Dragon Vein was called an immortal envoy! Did this stinking piece of shit deserve the title? 

Xi Ping clenched his fist as he watched, wishing he could get up to some haunting. 

The bullshit “immortal voice” came to a temporary pause, enjoying the adulation of the crowd. A short, skinny man with a stooped back devoutly poured tea for him, eyes radiating zealous light. He was about to bring it up personally, then shrank back out of a sense of inferiority. He brushed his own clothes a few times. Suddenly, he saw the girl who was furtively making a knotted bag. His eyes lit up. He beckoned with his hand. “A-Hua, come over here!” 

Xi Ping frowned and reached out to hold her back. “Slow down.” 

But his body was far away in the East Sea. He couldn’t touch real people. 

The girl stood up uneasily, not even noticing when her half-finished knotted bag fell to the ground. She passed right by Xi Ping’s hand to step forward and mumbled, “Second Uncle.” 

The short, skinny man gave her the cup of tea and ordered her to look after the shameless old evil cultivator. “Go on, offer the immortal envoy a cup of tea.” 

Then he brazenly turned to the evil cultivator and said, currying favor, “This is my niece, my big brother’s child. She’s pretty decent looking, and she’s quick-witted, not yet betrothed.” 

The evil cultivator’s gaze shot out from beneath the rag covered his face and licked the girl like a snake’s tongue. He seemed to be smiling. 

The short, skinny man was wild with joy. He gave the girl an impatient shove. 

She stumbled helplessly, trembling, and fell beside the evil cultivator, then was grabbed by an ice cold hand covered in snakeskin scars. 

What an outrage! 

Xi Ping stood up at once, but a voice calling for Tai Sui sounded somewhere else. He flew away, pulled in that direction. 

Wait, I don’t want to go! I have to kill that bastard first! 

But it wasn’t up to him. He was only a consciousness being dragged here and there by sham shrines. The girl’s panicked gaze sought help all around, and the numb onlookers answered her with empty, gratified smiles. The colorful cord knotted bag she had just half finished knotting was trampled by countless feet… The cheaply dyed cords were as humble as dust. 

Xi Ping’s eyes popped. But he couldn’t work a miracle. 

His curses had no effect, and neither did his blessings. 

The wind swept him away. Xi Ping attempted to remember this place, remember the evil cultivator who had dared to use Tai Sui’s name. In the future, he would cut him down. But he soon found that this was futile. He had no idea where anywhere was. 

Wherever he looked, it was about the same. The stench of evil practices was everywhere. 

The recuperative powers of the hidden bones of the ancient demonic god were astonishing. His reestablished spiritual foundation began to draw back Xi Ping’s drifting consciousness. 

The unbearable noise became more and more distant. Xi Ping seemed to miss a step in a dream. He fell all at once back into his body. 

He abruptly opened his eyes. He was still inside that immortal tool in the shape of a leaf. The immortal tool was covered in cracks. It shattered at a touch. 

Xi Ping climbed out and found that he was on the seabed of the East Sea. 

It was the seabed, but he wasn’t in the water. The nearby water seemed to be kept back by an invisible high wall. Occasionally a whirlpool would approach, then leave at a touch. When some foreign object hit it, faint inscriptions would flash on the invisible “wall.” These inscriptions made you not dare to look at them directly. Xi Ping was horrified—shifu had taught him that only the legendary first-class inscriptions would make you feel the force of their might. 

Oh, right, where was shifu? 

Xi Ping started to run, following the inscriptions. He vaguely remembered that shifu had fallen into the reincarnation wood forest…

He soon found the reincarnation wood forest, but after walking circles around it like a headless fly, he still couldn’t find a trace of Zhi Xiu. 

“Shifu! Shi…” 

Xi Ping abruptly came to a halt. On the other side of the reincarnation wood forest, the mysterious first-class inscriptions surrounded an empty space. There were three people sitting on the ground around a deep pit one chi square. 

The pit seemed to go right down to the center of the earth. Because it was too deep, it appeared to be pure black. Looking fixedly at it would make you dizzy. 

Of the three people sitting in a ring around the deep hole, there was a middle-aged person with his eyes closed, a round-faced and ordinary-looking man, and a delicate youth whose mouth was sealed with white satin. 

When Xi Ping suddenly barged in, the three of them turned their heads towards him simultaneously. Two gazes fell on Xi Ping. In an instant, it was as if someone had shone a light straight through him. 

Right, Xi Ping remembered. After he had broken through shifu’s prohibition, he had sensed a strong aura. At the time, he had stamped the hither seal on his spiritual foundation without a second thought…so whom had he summoned? 

The middle-aged person whose eyes were closed beckoned to him and called out, “Come.” 

These three seemed less alive than the divine image in Southern Sage Temple. Xi Ping had an impulse to arrange incense and present offerings before the three of them. He didn’t dare to act rashly. In the posture of offering incense, he gave each one a bow, then said, “Seniors, I am Xi Ping of Xuanyin’s Flying Jade Peak…” 

The middle-aged man smiled. “I know. Jingzhai is my disciple.” 

Xi Ping was startled: the Dignitary of Fate High Elder! 

Right, the Dignitary of Fate High Elder who was said to stand guard over the Sea of Stars didn’t open his eyes outside of the Sea of Stars. So the other two who were sitting with him as equals…

The round-faced man nodded and said, “I am the Dignitary of Rites.” 

Saying so, he pointed to the youth whose mouth was sealed and said, “He is the Dignitary of Rule.” 

The rarely seen Dignitary of Rites who was behind the main hall of Xuanyin Mountain’s principal peak, High Elder Zhao Yin; and the Dignitary of Rule who was said to always be in seclusion, Lin Zongyi. 

Xi Ping’s heart, suspended in midair, landed with a thump. The three shed skin elders of Xuanyin Mountain! 

Never mind the great demon from the Impassable Sea, they were a sure bet even if the sky fell and the earth cracked. 

So he looked eagerly at the Dignitary of Fate. “Elder, has my shifu been…” 

The Dignitary of Fate extended a hand. A sword that had been smashed to pieces floated over his emaciated palm. 

Xi Ping clearly saw the sword’s hilt and the engraving of its name. His mind instantly roared: Zhaoting! 

The same Zhaoting that had had smacked him on the back countless times when he had started to doze off, that had hung over his head when he was just starting to learn to fly a sword—the same Zhaoting that was just like shizun’s hand! 

Zhaoting was shifu’s vital weapon. If a vital weapon broke, then…

For a moment, Xi Ping couldn’t catch his breath. 

Then he heard the Dignitary of Fate say, “The sword aura of Jingzhai’s last thrust touched the edge of the shed skin stage. The sword aura reached it, but his cultivation level was still far away, and that is why his vital weapon broke—I suppose you know what the shed skin stage entails?” 

In fact, Xi Ping did know, though right now he couldn’t speak: Luo-shixiong had taught them at the Latent Cultivation Temple that the biggest difference between “shed skin” and “ascended spirit” was that the way of the shed skin cultivator had already been accepted by heaven and earth, becoming one of the three thousand paths of the Great Way. Past the boundary of the shed skin stage, a cultivator would already be halfway assimilated into heaven and earth—for example, Zhi Xiu was the Dignitary of Fate High Elder’s direct disciple, and the Dignitary of Fate’s lineage basically had only one heir per generation; reasonably speaking, Xi Ping actually ought to have called the Dignitary of Fate “shizu”; but faced with this middle-aged man, the word “shizu” didn’t even come to his mind. If his shifu had been speaking so pompously, Xi Ping would have answered back rudely by now. But at the moment, while he was obviously anxious enough to want to crack a whip behind the high elder’s words, he still didn’t dare to rush him. 

At a uniform speed, the Dignitary of Fate slowly said, “That stroke of the sword has already left a mark on the way of the sword. He is not yet destined to die. He might be described as gaining a blessing through misfortune.” 

Xi Ping only heard the words “not yet destined to die”; his emotions fluctuated sharply. He nearly broke his spine letting out a sigh of relief. 

Only then was he in the mood to back up and think over what the Dignitary of Fate had said, struggling for ages to understand. Afraid of getting the wrong idea, he asked, “So you’re saying that my shifu registered his sword with the three thousand paths of the Great Way…like how once you’ve deposited your silver in the treasury in exchange for silver certificates, you can report a loss and be paid back for damaged banknotes?” 

Since ancient times, the people of Wan had been tasteful and reserved, deliberately leaving empty spaces in art and writing; they did not speak in long and pompous speeches but only came right to the point. Only a small child or a barely literate member of the lower class would pick words apart and seek verification like this. But the Dignitary of Fate didn’t scorn him for having such a shallow understanding of cultivation. He nodded patiently and went along with what he had said: “Only it’s a little complicated to report the loss and be paid back. His vital sword has been damaged, and his consciousness has been seriously injured. I have already sent him back to Flying Jade Peak to enter seclusion.” 

Xi Ping thought about it, then asked, “Then what about that…that demon whose name no one can say?” 

“He’s here.” The round-faced Dignitary of Rites Zhao Yin pointed at the lacquer-black abyss the three of them were surrounding. “This is a demon seed.”  

While the Dignitary of Fate Elder Zhang was rather amiable, his face looked forlorn. The Dignitary of Rule Elder Lin simply had his mouth sealed with cloth; he probably wasn’t ready to talk. 

Only the Dignitary of Rites Elder Zhao was a little more human than the other two; when he smiled, he even seemed rather benevolent. 

Elder Zhao said, “This demon’s body was made from the resentment of the Great War of Gods and Demons. The masters of the five great sects were powerless against him, so they brought in a demon subduer. Had his demonic soul been permitted to become complete and break the seal, things would have gone badly. The human world no longer has full moon great masters or demon subduers. It would have been a catastrophe. When you by chance broke the demon seal ahead of time, it was like…tearing open a silkworm cocoon ahead of time. The moth inside could not fly yet. This won us a chance of survival. Child, you may claim great credit.” 

Xi Ping put on a very decent false smile and said “you flatter me”—Elder Zhao was clearly imitating the tone that the Dignitary of Fate Elder Zhang had just used to speak to him. 

But Elder Zhang had spoken that way out of consideration for his soaring and plummeting emotions as he worried about his shifu, while Elder Zhao’s speech made him feel uncomfortable; he seemed to be condescending to explain something to an idiot.

Xi Ping asked, “Is there some other lurking danger?” 

The Dignitary of Fate Elder Zhang Jue said, “Beneath the Impassable Sea, the demon host has run wild for eight hundred years, and countless natural spiritual bones have been buried there. It will be hard for their resentment and hatred to dissipate. It will take the East Sea some time to digest it. We will stand guard here.” 

“Oh, that’s all right, then,” said Xi Ping. 

Earlier, the broken Zhaoting had given him such a scare that his legs had gone a little weak. Now, as he stood, his knees were still shaking uncontrollably. 

In front of three shed skin elders, he was only a witless ant. Xi Ping presumed that these three elderly men wouldn’t nitpick an ant’s manners, so he went ahead and ungracefully sat down crosslegged on the ground. 

“Now it’s time to talk about me,” Xi Ping said. “How are you three elders planning on dealing with me?”