“Bless me, Tai Sui…” 

A prattling voice came from a nearby residence, stealing a thread of his consciousness. 

At the door of a dilapidated residence was a stooped old woman of Western Chu, wearing glasses, carving an image of Tai Sui on a piece of reincarnation wood by starlight. 

“Tai Sui, please let this chaos pass quickly. I’m scared of dying,” the old woman rambled on to herself. “These immortals and divinities come every year, and when they come, people always die. It makes me want to dig a hole in the ground and bury myself inside, then crawl back out when they’re gone…” 

There was a reincarnation wood tree by the window of her house. Tai Sui went to it. Its branches rested against the lattice of her window. He thought, If you’re so scared, why don’t you move away? 

Then he examined the old woman’s home. There was only one room in it, with a worn-out table, chairs, and bed inside, all missing feet and cushioned with mud. There was an oil lamp on the table, but she hadn’t wanted to waste of lighting it, instead working by the light at the door. A basket hung from a roof beam to protect it from mice. Inside the basket was half of a rice cake, and something black and pickled… It was the thing from back in Yuzhou that he would rather have died than eat. In a corner were some little things like rattle-drums, as well as a pile of wicker baskets, crudely made, much worse quality than those turned out by machines; he didn’t know who would be willing to buy them. 

All right, he understood why the old lady hadn’t moved away. 

“Before, when I was sick and nearly died, it was Tai Sui who saved me. I don’t believe in anyone. Whenever anything goes wrong, I only believe in Tai Sui. I have to carve the amulet in secret, because the Snake King won’t let us worship… Ah, I can’t afford to offend the immortals. Do not blame me, Tai Sui…” 

Reincarnation wood was soft and well-suited to carving. She soon finished her amulet and blew the wood shavings away. 

The moment the amulet was complete, a peculiar and faint attractive force came from it, but unlike in the past, Tai Sui’s consciousness couldn’t be pulled by force into other people’s bodies. 

“I heard recently that some people wanted wicker baskets. I’ve been waiting for them to come every day, but they haven’t. Tai Sui, please let them come soon… Please let me get some things from Wild Fox Country this time. Last year I was late, this time I’ll have to go earlier… And please let grain be a little cheaper. My teeth are no good, I won’t be able to chew fourth-grade rice much longer…” 

As the old woman chattered, Tai Sui’s consciousness continued along the little alley. He saw a bare-chested man beating some children. 

This was a Chu theatrical troupe. The people along the Xia River all liked the local plays; there wasn’t anything in them about kings and princes, generals and ministers, scholars and beauties—they were all comical farces. Their distinctive characteristic was the very last scene. All the characters—including those who had just died in the play—would turn somersaults together. 

Out of some strange interest, the Snake King had liked to watch people turn somersaults; he would only laugh and clap when children around ten years old turned somersaults until they were foaming at the mouth. So all the Chu theatrical troupes along the Xia River bank had started desperately practicing somersaults and intensively studying how to make them look more impressive. The bare-chested man was probably the teacher. He was beating a group of children seven or eight years old until they screamed and wailed. The teacher, red-eyed, was wishing desperately that they could improve at once. As he hit them, he shouted, “Why are you running? Am I doing you harm by hitting you? None of you understand anything, what can you do? If you suffer hardships, you improve, don’t you get it?!” 

His voice couldn’t rise to the pitch of the last words; in his excitement, his voice broke. 

Tai Sui went past the theatrical troupe’s door, sneering. 

If you suffer hardships, you improve… As if it would come true if he said it loud enough. 

When Tao County disappeared, the cultivation world’s losses would be catastrophic. 

What about the mortals? 

On the ground was the Cloud Soaring Flood Dragon, on the Xia River were the steamships, but those had little to do with mortals who lived hand to mouth. The greater part of people were like weeds, narrowly eking out a living in a wasteland, growing when the wind blew, withering in the autumn chill, dying easily. For eight parts out of ten of them, the county seat was the furthest place they would go in their lifetimes. What difference did it make to them whether Tao County was in the mortal world or not? 

Well, perhaps there was a bit of difference. With Tao County’s evil cultivators running amok, the factories that burned spiritual stones would avoid this area; without the products of the big machines, the old lady’s business might improve a bit. The spiritual energy of so many ascended spirits dying within such a short time in this little county wouldn’t dissipate; maybe the soil where nothing grew would improve. 

Wouldn’t that be to everyone’s satisfaction? 

So why should he go sticking his nose into other people’s business? 

Did he really want to get locked back up in the divine image with no control over himself, his consciousness constantly shunted around by the joys and pains of others? 

Tai Sui’s consciousness dispersed among all the reincarnation wood in the county, extending to its furthest limits. With one end in the knotted bag Xu Rucheng carried and the other end in the reincarnation wood railings of Tao County’s Xia River ferry crossing, he stretched himself out to the length of all of Tao County. With a thought, all the treetops began to sway gently in the exact same way. When observant common people noticed this peculiarity, they were greatly amazed, prostrating themselves in worship towards the trees one after another. 

He hadn’t been this happy in a long time. 

Then Tai Sui turned around, quickly gathering and shrinking his consciousness. When he passed a certain place, he sent out a very slender beam of spiritual energy. 

The spiritual energy made a precise stroke on the amulet the devout old woman had just carved. 

The old woman gave a cry, startled into dropping the amulet onto the ground. When she looked at it again, a number of symmetrical whiskers had appeared on either side of Tai Sui’s face on the amulet; the divine Tai Sui had turned into a divine cat! 

Then an authentic local accent sounded in her ear: “Don’t depend on me. You got better on your own, what’s it got to do with me? Something good happens today, you plant it on me, and if something goes wrong tomorrow, you’ll plant that on me, too. My head’s covered in grass from all of you planting things on me. Wretches!” 

Before his words had completely fallen on the mortal’s ears, he had already returned to the yard with the young woman from Great Wan. 

Qiu Sha, a mere ascended spirit who clearly had no idea what she was doing, wanted to make arrangements for other people’s destinies. 

He thought: Does she really take herself for one of the five sages? 

And who cared about the five sages, anyway? They’d become gods free from the dust of the mortal world after attaining the full moon positions and gone walking off through the air, and hadn’t the mortal world they’d left behind reached its current pitiful condition? 

Blazes! 

He called out to the familiar-looking young woman dressed as a man: “Hey.” 

The young woman dressed as a man—Wei Chengxiang—abruptly opened her eyes. It was as if she had been struck by lightning. 

“I mean you no harm, don’t be nervous.” Facing someone from Wan, Tai Sui instinctively changed back to the accent he was most familiar with. “I just wanted to ask, do you know that that big idiot Qiu is planning to use you to destroy Tao County?” 

Wei Chengxiang was stunned and speechless. She didn’t hear what he was saying at all. 

This voice… This voice was…

She clamped a hand over the Law Breaker Bracelet. Her first thought was that this eerie immortal tool was pulling some trick. “…Uncle?” 

Tai Sui: “…” 

Wow, what were Great Wan’s customs like now? Were all young women this polite? 

“Sure,” he casually agreed, since there was no point in missing out on taking advantage, “any kind of uncle will do.”

Huh?

As soon as he said this, Tai Sui went blank: these words were also familiar. Hadn’t he said something like this before…? 

He carefully examined the young woman’s thin, weatherbeaten face. He saw the eye-opening scar that looked like a tear track at the corner of her eye. Something seemed ready to come to his call. 

“I didn’t notice it last time,” he heard himself blurt out. “How come you ended up with an eye-opening scar after all?” 

Why would he say “last time”? 

Which time was “last time”? 

Wei Chengxiang’s eyes turned red all at once. 

It had been five years. 

Back then, he had only told her “walk the path ahead on your own” and said they wouldn’t meet again; since then, they really hadn’t met again. 

She had been terrified, had been resentful; later, she had dreamed for a time that the senior in the reincarnation wood wasn’t ignoring her, he was injured or dead. Then she had begun to worry. 

She talked to the reincarnation wood amulet every day. When she was sad she would talk, when she was uncertain she would talk, and when she had reached an impasse, she would also talk…but apart from that one time with the late-autumn red, the reincarnation wood amulet hadn’t given her any response. 

But as she’d talked on and on, she really had gotten used to walking on her own. 

The reincarnation wood amulet seemed to have turned into a dream from her teenage years, a faint consolation. 

“I must be dreaming,” she thought. “Otherwise, why would this voice be exactly the same as back then? Not even the tone has changed.” 

Wei Chengxiang squeezed her eyes shut. The thin corners of her mouth trembled a few times as she struggled to raise them into a smile. 

She had to behave properly. She was no longer the wet-behind-the-ears, inexperienced little girl who didn’t understand anything. She was a cultivator. She couldn’t disappoint the senior. 

But when Wei Chengxiang opened her mouth, she couldn’t keep her voice steady. It reeled and slipped into a tearful tone. “I…ahem, I’m sorry, uncle…senior…” 

Her mind and mouth seemed to be split, each doing its own thing. Her brain was wandering around blankly: How could I be crying? Didn’t the fire in Jinping’s southern outskirts burn up all my tears?

But her mouth was babbling: “I’m just…I’m just a little surprised…” 

Tai Sui watched her a little helplessly. “Don’t cry.” 

Do you know me? 

So before I was sealed away somewhere, I really did exist? 

Who am I? 

“I’m not, no, I’m not crying.” Wei Chengxiang roughly wiped away the tears that had rolled to her chin following the eye-opening scar. “I was just remembering. Senior, you said that all the musicians on the Lingyang River didn’t amount to anything, and your qin could turn a donkey into a famous singer… That was true, you weren’t just talking big. I’ve heard many famous instruments since then, and none of them could match up to yours.” 

The inside of “Tai Sui”’s head roared: yes, it seemed that he’d once had a qin. 

The qin was named…

In all of Tao County, the quiet voices of the Chu people came through the uneven reincarnation wood trees along the roads. 

Tai Sui…

Tai Sui, bless me…

Tai Sui, please help us…

The qin was named “Tai Sui.” 

Wei Chengxiang took off the reincarnation wood amulet hanging around her neck. The tears from her fingers accidentally seeped into the amulet. The person residing in the reincarnation wood tree a few steps away instantly tasted salt. 

Salt, like the turbulent waters of the East Sea. 

In a daze, he was swept up by a salty sea breeze, swept back to the fathomless Resurrection Vortex, the lightless bottom of the Impassable Sea, and to the inside of a leaf, where the Sword that Mended the Heavens had cut his palm. 

There, the demon host had met its end, the sages had broken faith, and the Bell of Tribulation had tolled for someone unknown. Amidst a huge sound, he passed through the rippling songs of the Lingyang River and the snowy skies of Flying Jade Peak; he missed a step amid all this beauty and fell to the bank of the Xia River, into an abandoned village, and as he fell became a wandering ghost…mixed in among the mortals, almost indistinguishable from their minds, congested with the flavor of pickles. 

He remembered. He wasn’t a great monster like Qiu Sha, far from it; he didn’t deserve to be mentioned in the same breath. 

He was only an eccentric young master, born in Jinping’s Dangui Lane, in the deep courtyards of the Yongning Marquis Manor. 

His name was Xi Ping, courtesy name Shiyong, alias Mr. Yu Gan; the most renowned specialist in elopements among the brothels, the most embarrassing rebellious disciple of Flying Jade Peak… It was all like something from another lifetime. 

He had once disobeyed the three thousand paths of the Great Way, claimed the ungovernable way for his own; now that was the only thing that hadn’t changed—it turned out to be just enough. 

“A-Xiang.” After many years, Xi Ping pronounced his old acquaintance’s name like a sigh. “I see your taste hasn’t gotten any worse, so how did you get mixed up with that goblin?” 

Wei Chengxiang smiled tearfully. “But the two of you use almost the same tone when you’re making fun of people.” 

Constant and unfailing self-confidence that seemed to be based on nothing at all. 

Xi Ping: “…” 

She’d learned to talk back! 

The connection between the two of them was quite marvelous. On the one hand, their fates were deeply entangled, able to bridge life and death; on the other hand, their relationship was very weak, held together only by a small reincarnation wood amulet. When it came to speaking of the past, naturally they couldn’t lay out much about the sorrow of separation. Whether it came to drifting through the cracks between Wan and He, between righteous and evil, or wandering among the common people on both sides of the Xia River, these things were both profoundly heavy; light words couldn’t describe them. 

Xi Ping cut a long story short: “I’ve been in seclusion.” 

Wei Chengxiang said, “I’ve mainly been active in the Land of Turmoil.” 

The reincarnation wood tree rustled. Wei Chengxiang slowly pulled herself together and told him about the changes in Great Wan and of the late-autumn red beneath the Lancang Mountains. 

Xi Ping rarely interrupted. As he listened quietly, he raked together all the odds and ends of information he had come across in the last five years: the Crown Prince had inherited the throne; the Yao family must have breathed a sigh of relief. Perhaps Ziming-xiong no longer got diarrhea. 

The country was safe and sound. San-ge was also safe and sound… Putting together this Kaiming Department, he was spending Xuanyin Mountain’s money to support his own people, propping himself up on the strength of many evil cultivators who believed themselves to have sentiments—wasn’t that superior to the Zhou family ancestors digging around in the Impassable Sea? It was the seventh month now, time for the old lady’s birthday. He would have gone back to Jinping. 

Five years. The old lady would be eighty…

As soon as the thought arose, Xi Ping decisively broke it off—he couldn’t go back, so there was no use in thinking about it; he would only be pointlessly depressing himself. It was better to focus on what was in front of him. “You say that Qiu Sha can use late-autumn red to kill people, and she can merge with those trees?” 

Wei Chengxiang said, “That’s why I always suspected she was a tree spirit.” 

Xi Ping: “…” 

A-Xiang had more or less introduced to cultivation by reincarnation wood, so she wouldn’t think there was anything unusual about “plants with magic powers.” 

In fact, supposed “nature spirits” were only dreams of the common people. The nearest thing on earth to those spirits were probably the spiritual beasts raised by the Shu. Ordinary plants and animals couldn’t “cultivate to enlightenment”—not even if they were constantly fed spiritual stones; at most you would get a bit of material for elixirs. The differences between magic plants and ordinary plants were in “Can you eat it?” and “How do you eat it?” Intelligence couldn’t appear out of nowhere. 

There was only one circumstance in which you could use a plant as your own body—that was an “accompanying plant.” 

Xi Ping had only learned about this after fusing Yuan Hui’s complete set of hidden bones. 

A few masters, upon shedding their skins, would produce a type of plant that hadn’t existed in the world before; this plant was called “accompanying.” For example, Yuan Hui’s reincarnation wood. Even after he died, the plant could still find surroundings that were suitable to its existence and keep on growing without end. 

If someone afterwards coincidentally acquired a certain key inheritance, they could “succeed to” that accompanying plant. 

And the strange aspect lay in the fact that all the great sects were overseen by shed skin forebears, yet Xi Ping had never heard of any of them having an “accompanying plant.” So he had thought it was peculiar to Yuan Hui. 

Now it seemed that reincarnation wood wasn’t a singular instance. It was likely that late-autumn red was also a type of accompanying plant. 

No wonder Qiu Sha could sense his existence. It turned out that they really were alike. 

And no wonder her way seemed so strange—Xi Ping had observed a few battles. She didn’t seem to have her own weapons or techniques, but she could “swallow” the essence of a person who had died at her hands and use it as if she were the real thing. That person’s vital weapon wouldn’t miss a beat; it wouldn’t even know that its master had become someone else…until she had exhausted that person’s essence. 

Late-autumn red was a parasitic vine—looking at it that way, it did make sense. 

Xi Ping said, “Let’s not talk about her for now. That ‘Law Breaker’ has recognized you as its master? Can you turn it off?” 

Wei Chengxiang shook her head. “It’s known as the tool without a grade, so anyone can use it. But I think its grade is too high. Perhaps current cultivators can’t understand it. I can only activate it and set the ‘axiom.’ I arranged with her that the Law Breaker would cease to operate when either the axiom was broken, or the axiom came true. Uncle, don’t worry, I know where to draw the line. Tao County won’t disappear.” 

Xi Ping paused. “What does it mean for the axiom to break or the axiom to come true?” 

“The axiom here is that ‘On the seventh day of the seventh month, Qiu Sha will appear at the night feast in the Immortal Palace.’ Once Qiu Sha arrives at the Immortal Palace, the time here will be the time of the Immortal Palace’s night feast. If she dies there or leaves midway, the night feast will be there, but she won’t be. The condition that ‘she’s at the Immortal Palace night feast’ will no longer hold up. That’s called the axiom breaking. The axiom being realized means that the axiom will also have been realized outside of the Law Breaker. The link between the inside and the outside of the Law Breaker will naturally conclude then—in other words, when the human world reaches the Immortal Palace’s night feast on the seventh day of the seventh month, the Law Breaker will put Tao County back.” 

But after he heard this, Xi Ping didn’t stop worrying. He kept feeling that there was something wrong.