Even a person who stepped up to answer before you asked a question rarely had good intentions, so what about a strange divine image in this den of evil cultivators? 

There was drowsy mischief in that voice; he sounded like bad news. 

The fake officiant was evidently a practiced hand. He knew that untimely curiosity could kill. He raised a hand, planning to toss the weird divine image away. But the wicked wood just happened to have a rather deep crack in its grain that had caught the knotted bag inside it. The cords used to make the knotted bag weren’t very solid or high quality to begin with, and they were starting to wear out after all these years. The fake officiant didn’t dare to hastily yank it out. 

While he was tugging, the beast that had come out of the painting came right up in front of him. 

The voice in his ear faintly said, “All you see before you is false…” 

The fake officiant didn’t listen to his nonsense. He took a breath and stabbed forward with his knife. The knife seemed to hit stone; it nearly shattered. He flew forward after his knife, about to hit the array on the wall. 

This fake officiant’s reactions in the face of danger were very quick. He instinctively wanted to toss away the divine image he was holding to suffer in his stead. But as the divine image flew, the side the knotted bag was caught on was facing the wall. A small colorful cord was just about to get pulled in by the array. The fake officiant cursed quietly and bent in half in midair, shielding the divine image with his body, taking the hit. 

From the disturbed array, another identical beast suddenly appeared and snapped its jaws toward the fake officiant’s shoulder, its fangs leaving a bloody mark on his back. 

If he hadn’t ducked quickly, that thing might have bitten off his shoulder. 

The divine image tsked feelingly and gave a huge, elaborate yawn, sounding even more in need of a beating. 

One beast was already enough to get rid of him, never mind a pair; the fake officiant couldn’t stick this out. All he could do was race around the room, tossing out all kinds of talismans as though they were free, hitting the beasts. But the two animals weren’t injured at all. 

The divine image slowly announced his new observation: “Those who do not listen to their elders will always come to grief. Haven’t you realized that those two look like they were birthed by the same mother?” 

The fake officiant automatically looked where he indicated and saw that the two beasts surrounding him were indeed identical. Even the decorative patterns on them looked like rubbings from the same source! 

The divine image said, “You understand now, right?” 

The fake officiant: “…” 

Understand what? 

“Ah,” the divine image sighed at length as though profoundly moved by the fact that he’d woken up to find that there were so many more simpletons; there was truly no hope for this world. “Which one of us hasn’t woken up yet? Listen, did you come here to be an assassin, or did you come to sleepwalk? All the arrays in this place are like mirrors. They reflected the knife light and the beast. Since it’s a reflection, naturally the decorative patterns are reversed. How could they be facing the same direction? It’s because you heard what I said and got the idea that they were identical, so they became identical in your eyes. These are illusions—illusions! How much clearer do you want me to be, Brother Da Cheng?” 

Hearing this, the fake officiant suddenly went blank. “Da Cheng” had been his pet name in his hometown. No one had called him that for many years. “How did you…” 

“Look out, don’t get distracted!” 

In the nick of time, the fake officiant crouched down and threw himself forward, his chopper striking out in front of his chest, dodging an attack from a huge beast on each side, one after another. 

He falteringly backed up a few steps and hit the array, and in the limited space, two more huge beasts appeared! 

Indeed, the fake officiant saw that the decorative patterns on these new beasts were reflected. He had been distracted by the evil god in the divine image; his mind was a little confused. As soon as he thought, “Why were they not reflections before, but now they’ve gone back to being reflections?”, the decorative patterns on the four beasts changed once again, bewilderingly. 

The divine image said, “The five colors blind men’s eyes. If I were you, I’d stop looking.” 

The fake officiant said, “Shut—up!” 

Just then, a little metal ring clamped to the helix of his ear began to vibrate, a sharp whistle that only he could hear coming from inside it—this was a warning from his colleagues. 

A series of short, rapid sounds meant that more help had arrived for the other side. 

Wild Fox Country was the Snake King’s domain, and all the evil cultivators who came and went in it were his people. The so-called “Immortal Palace” was complex and intricate on the inside. Their ability to infiltrate it depended entirely on luck. If they couldn’t win a decisive victory quickly, infiltration would become difficult. 

For this assignment, their superior wanted to take down Wild Fox Country on the Wan-Chu border and had sent more than one team. Their colleagues had presumably already infiltrated Wild Fox Country’s business transactions. In fact, he shouldn’t have been taking part in such a big matter. He was here because that gentleman had remembered his vendetta and gone out of his way to give him this opportunity as a special attention. He knew that neither his experience nor his cultivation were equal to those of the others, and his plans couldn’t be as comprehensive as the plans of his colleagues; that was why he had gone the route of direct assassination… If he failed now, never mind getting his brothers in trouble, he was afraid he would also impact the overall plans of his other colleagues and his superior. 

The fake officiant threw caution to the wind and braced himself. He abruptly closed his eyes. 

But while he could close his eyes, his nose and ears didn’t have lids. He could still smell the reeking wind, could still hear the breathing of those huge animals. All the hairs on the back of the fake officiant’s neck stood on end and began to tremble. He was about to be buried in the mouths of the beasts. 

Damn it! In a rash moment, he had been deluded by that evil god of unknown origin! 

But the “evil god” coldly said, “Such a nice young woman—what was she thinking liking you? Alas, blind at such a young age… You closed your physical eyes without closing your mental eyes, and you’re still standing there remembering the illusions you just saw, idiot!” 

“Who are you talking about?” For a moment, the fake officiant’s mind and soul were shaken. The murderous illusions were immediately forgotten. “What young woman?” 

“I’m telling you,” the evil god said with emphasis, “there’s a secret passage here, and the entrance is in the mouth of that beast.” 

The fake officiant instantly opened his eyes. In front of him was the big, bloody maw of a beast. 

In that moment, he became strangely calm—at the speed these animals moved, if they had been real, they would have run over and bitten off his head in the blink of an eye; they certainly wouldn’t have let him talk to the evil god for so long! 

They really were illusions. 

Faith, firm as a rock, steadied his spirit. Without turning a hair, the fake officiant stepped up and walked into the huge beast’s big, bloody maw. Its fangs nearly touched the top of his head! 

But the next moment, the reek suddenly disappeared. His vision went dark. When he came back to himself, he was in a narrow corridor. 

The evil god egged him on: “Thank heaven and earth, finally you’ve wised up. Go on, slaughter that ogre!” 

The fake officiant: “…” 

Wait, with this evil god’s esteemed countenance, how could he have the face to call someone else an “ogre”? 

As the fake officiant dashed forward, he quickly untied the knotted bag from the reincarnation wood divine image. “Aren’t you the evil god that the Snake King worships? Why would you bite the hand that feeds you?” 

These words enraged the indolent evil god. The evil god cursed at length in genuine local vernacular. “You’re the evil god, you’re the one biting the hand that feeds you! What am I supposed to have eaten of his?” 

“…incense ash?” 

“And what part of my body would I use to eat incense ash? Do you think you could grow some more brains if you ate incense ash? I think I should stick some incense up your nose,” the “evil god” who was unusually adept at swearing said angrily. “Every time that ogre has a big business deal, he brings me out and torments me until I wake up so I can watch them sell their dads, sell their moms, sell themselves. It’s even worse during the New Year celebrations. He brings in some good-for-nothings to make music and fumigates me all day with his lousy incense burner, then nauseates me with a pile of raw meat, and he still has the face to ask me to bless him with good luck for the coming year. Bah! My blessing is for him to die soon and reincarnate soon! Hurry up, deliver retribution. If you dare to disappoint me, I’ll curse you, too.” 

“Who are you, anyway?” 

“The ogre calls me ‘Tai Sui.’ That lousy name doesn’t sound very auspicious, but I’m used to it by now, you can call me that, too,” the evil god said. “I am an old tree spirit.” 

“Bullshit!” The fake officiant stuck the divine image under his arm. “There are three thousand ways in the world, and mountains of ancient texts. Not one of them has a record of a tree that could cultivate a spirit!” 

In that tone that was asking for a dozen beatings, Tai Sui said, laughing, “Well, pardon my lack of manners, brave warrior. May I ask how many of those ancient texts you’ve read?” 

The fake officiant: “…” 

“Whether there are mountains of ancient texts or oceans of them, what have they got to do with you? Ignoramus. Look out for sneak attacks, Xiao Chengcheng!” 

Hardly had he finished speaking than the fake officiant slid, narrowly avoiding a shot from a sniper. 

The fake officiant tossed the divine image aside and took out a talisman. An invisible shield immediately took shape in front of him, blocking the dense sniper fire. 

There were both shots from hand cannons and talismans coming his way. The hand cannons couldn’t pierce through the spiritual shield, but the talismans mixed in with the dense fire made crack after crack in the shield. It was about to give out at any moment. 

The fake officiant gave a loud cry. Going against the direction of the sniper fire, he nearly turned into a gust of wind. 

The spiritual shield broke! 

The hand cannon fire exploded right on the fake officiant. Even if this fire power couldn’t kill a half-immortal, it still nearly tore most of the flesh off his shoulder. As if he had no sense of pain, he activated the array on his knife’s blade with a handful of blood. Instantly, the knife seemed to become a magic weapon that could press forward indomitably. 

It was cast viciously by its owner in the direction the talismans were coming from. 

The Snake King, seeing the sniper attack succeed, had just relaxed when, without warning, the knife cut straight through his chest! 

Tai Sui, trying to stir things up more, called out in praise, “Nice hit!” 

Back draped in blood like some god or demon, the fake officiant charged forward, grabbed the handle of the knife, and pushed it forward on the strength of inertia, pinning the Snake King to the wall! 

Tai Sui laughed heartily. 

The fake officiant stared fixedly at the Snake King’s horrifying face and kept his voice very low. “Five years ago, in Yuzhou, you pretended to be the ‘immortal envoy of Tai Sui’ to fool the people. All the people who followed you, who believed you, were common people with nowhere to go. You didn’t just swindle them out of all their money, you squeezed their marrow dry, then sold them to the Chu, turning them into cannon fodder in the war between the two nations. You also…you also violated a young woman, just seventeen years old—do you remember her?” 

Tai Sui’s laughter suddenly stopped. 

The chopper had broken all of the Snake King’s meridians. He was pinned to the wall by the little knife like a mortal…no, like a gecko, desperately struggling with all four limbs, his single glaring eye like a bronze bell. 

“She couldn’t bear the disgrace and escaped out of your hands…then she was brought back by your lackeys. A mortal woman beaten black and blue actually dared not to submit to you—you were beside yourself with rage. In front of everyone, you yelled ‘Tai Sui delivers your punishment,’ and in front of the whole village, you burned her to death.” 

The tendons in the fake officiant’s neck stood out. His eyes were red. He quietly roared, “Do you remember?!” 

Tai Sui suddenly interrupted him: “Hey, he’s almost finished his array.” 

The fake officiant suddenly came back to himself. He glanced down. The hand seal that the Snake King seem to have been drawing at random had already formed a complete array. He was about to raise a hand to press it to the wall. 

The fake officiant reacted extremely fast. When he broke the Snake King’s hand with a kick, a white spirit rolled out of the reptilian paw. The array had half-activated, but it died down without going further. 

“Don’t be in a rush to collect on a debt, Xiao Chengzi. His left front tooth is a mustard seed. Look out for secret plots.” 

“I have a full name, show some respect!” the fake officiant, at the end of his tether, howled at the divine image of Tai Sui. At the same time, his hand didn’t rest. With one punch, he broke the Snake King’s chin, narrowly avoiding a mouthful of poison mist. 

The mustard seed disguised as a front tooth rolled several chi away and landed beside the divine image of Tai Sui. 

The joyously smiling divine image met the Snake King’s panicked and desperate eyes. The fake officiant heard Tai Sui say softly into his ear, “First cripple him. He has plenty of resources and is skilled in all kinds of tricks. Don’t let him take you at a disadvantage again, fool. Then tell him…” 

Just then, the fake officiant finally realized that the Snake King couldn’t hear the “divine oracles” of this Tai Sui that he worshipped. 

The evil god he had worshipped for years could in fact work miracles, and the first miracle he worked was to help an outsider kill him. What kind of bizarre karmic retribution was this?! 

The believer didn’t hear the “divine oracle” say: “Just say, ‘Imposter, Tai Sui delivers your punishment.’” 

The fake officiant broke out in gooseflesh. Before, this Tai Sui had been speaking in the local dialect that mixed Wan and Chu speech; his swearing had been especially authentic. So without noticing it, the fake officiant had actually lowered his guard and had even started to talk back. 

But these last words had been spoken in perfect, sweet Jinping official language. 

“If you continue along this secret passage, you can find the underground rooms where he keeps his private collection of treasures and spiritual stones. I haven’t been to that place, but I have my guesses,” Tai Sui said grimly. “There’ll be enough to set on fire and send him on his way.” 

The fake officiant didn’t listen to this. His hands tightened. The light of his chopper blazed, and he cut the Snake King right in two, splitting his spirit. 

He was utterly dead. 

Tai Sui tsked. “How dull.” 

After killing the Snake King, the fake officiant drew several rough breaths, then took out a whistle, brought it to his mouth, and blew hard several times. The whistle was voiceless; only those wearing a special item would hear it. 

Having notified his companions outside “I’ve succeeded, clear out”, he tore the Snake King’s body off the wall, took out a “cloth” as thin as a cicada’s wings, and covered the body with it. 

As soon as the cloth fell on the body, it melted, and the body of the Snake King under it took on the appearance of the fake officiant. The fake officiant scrutinized it for a moment, then stepped forward to pinch together the body’s knife wound and use his fingertip to draw a few strokes on the body’s shoulder. 

The knife wound disappeared, and marks from a wild beast’s teeth appeared on the body’s neck, so it seemed as if a beast had chewed off its head. 

Then the fake officiant took out another cicada wing and draped it over himself. In the blink of an eye, he took on the Snake King’s appearance. 

“Oh,” said Tai Sui, looking on, “so you aren’t just here for private revenge. You have quite the appetite, and you’re pretty daring.” 

The fake officiant’s manner had become considerably more respectful. He introduced himself: “My name is Xu Rucheng. May I ask what your connection to me is, senior? How do you come to know my pet name from my hometown?” 

Tai Sui didn’t answer for a long moment. He really did seem like an old tree, caught in a memory that was too old. 

Only when Xu Rucheng thought that he had left the divine image did he hear the evil god’s voice in his ear: “I heard A-Hua say it. I guessed it was you.” 

Xu Rucheng abruptly raised his head. 

Tai Sui softly said, “So A-Hua is dead?” 

“How…how do you know her?” 

“Oh, I saw her once.” The voice of the evil god in the reincarnation wood became low; it made you weary to listen to it. “I’ve slept too long. Apart from the ogre occasionally waking me up with his noise for a while, only you…only that ugly knotted bag you’re carrying has woken me up.” 

Xu Rucheng took out the knotted back. “Her mom secretly picked this up when those people sold her to the evil cultivator—A-Hua was a mortal. She never had any contact with an immortal sect. And she wasn’t…she wasn’t some kind of peerless beauty. Why do you remember her, senior?” 

“I don’t remember anymore.” The evil god was silent for a while, then dully said, “I was always dreaming about her. I kept thinking that she’d asked me for something, and I hadn’t done it yet.” 

Saying so, he yawned. His voice became fainter and fainter. “I suppose it might have been getting revenge for her. I slept badly whenever I dreamed of her. Now I’ve finally done it…” 

“Wait, senior!” Xu Rucheng stepped forward and went to one knee before the divine image. “You said before, ‘Such a nice young woman—what was she thinking liking you?’…Senior, what did A-Hua say to you before she died? Senior?” 

The divine image didn’t speak again. Xu Rucheng looked down. The wooden carving was the same, but strange, mysterious aura from before had suddenly disappeared. Now it was only a lump of wood.

“Senior?” 

Xu Rucheng waited for a long time and tried hanging the knotted bag on the wooden carving again. 

But this time, there was no response. 

Dressed in snakeskin scales, he knelt on the floor, staring blankly into space for a while. Hearing voices in the secret passage, he thought that the evil cultivator’s companions were coming. He carefully put the lilac knotted bag away and gathered up all his focus to go deal with these people. 

“As heaven wills it,” he thought, kneading the wound on his shoulders into the form of a knife wound, pulling it all the way to his neck—this way, he wouldn’t need to talk for a while and could avoid slipping up—then lay down on the ground and picked up the divine image. 

The evil cultivators who charged in ran towards their “Snake King” with exclamations and carried him and the divine image away together. 

Xu Rucheng pretended to be seriously injured. Late at night, when all the interlopers had left and Misty Willow, who was looking after the invalid, had let his mind wander, Xu Rucheng silently let out some bewildering scent. Misty Willow went down without a sound. 

Xu Rucheng looked at him, then took a very small jade proximal from his mustard seed and wrote on it: “The Snake King is dead.” 

After a moment, the writing on the proximal disappeared. 

From the other end came an answer: “I have notified our other brothers. They will cooperate with you.” 

Xu Rucheng let out a sigh of relief. 

Then the writing on the proximal changed again: “The dead can rest peacefully now.” 

Xu Rucheng stared blankly at this line of writing for a long time, his lips beginning to tremble faintly—Mr. Bai remembered why he had entered the Way. 

The Latent Cultivation Temple had sent away its disciples and become increasingly quiet. It was an ideal place to cultivate without distractions. 

After over five years, the bamboo and the trees in the repaired Qiu courtyard had grown back. 

Straw children swept the fallen leaves in the courtyard. In the meditation chamber of the northern rooms, a pair of eyes quietly opened and looked at the Heavenly Question unfolding in front of them. 

On the scroll was Bai Ling’s familiar handwriting: Seventeen Li Town has been taken.