“They’ve been throwing their weight around, haven’t they?” Zhou Ying said to himself, speaking towards Xi Ping’s body. “Why?” 

The hollow body didn’t answer. 

Zhou Ying suddenly smiled. “The immortal sect…the immortal sect…” 

Supposing that Xi Ping had been killed by the demons in the Impassable Sea, his death couldn’t have been any more just and honorable; Xuanyin Mountain wouldn’t have hidden that. Now, seeing how the reincarnation wood clung to Xi Ping, what more did Zhou Ying need in order to understand? 

While his spiritual bones had been sealed on the altar, he had heard vague discussions among the demons of the ancient god’s bones in the reincarnation wood forest. He had only taken it as an anecdote, listening to it and letting it go. He hadn’t thought that many years later, he would end up entangled with that anecdote in this fashion. 

It turned out that he had never escaped the Impassable Sea. 

The thin smoke of the Riverward now gathered and now dispersed, following him closely. When it dispersed, it was like mist. When it gathered, it would show the indistinct form of a person. Landing beside Zhou Ying, it looked more like a living person than the one Zhou Ying had brought down from the trees. 

Zhou Ying didn’t turn his head. He coldly said, “Scram.” 

He sent the smoke of the Riverward scattering in alarm. 

The Riverward would change its shape depending on who was using it. This unnecessary adornment meant that when it had wrapped around Zhou Ying and taken him down into the Impassable Sea, it had nearly given him the impression that it was Shiyong himself guiding him, having once again gotten up to mischief somewhere, taking him to come to the rescue. If only Zhou Ying made it in time, he could return him intact to the Marquis Manor before the tenth. 

And if he didn’t make it in time, he would indeed regret it, but it would be no big problem, either. If he missed the old lady’s birthday, at worst he’d send that brat to put on a show to make it up to her; he was shameless, anyway. 

Except that…

“Was it really you who helped me get the Riverward in Tao County? If any bit of your soul is still in this world, will you give me some answer?” 

But Zhou Ying waited amid the demon seal inscriptions on the ground for he didn’t know how long, and there was only silence all around. 

When a body half a step from an ascended spirit was constantly supplied with spiritual energy, it would preserve its appearance, would even have residual warmth; it was even normal for it to have a heartbeat. But Zhou Ying couldn’t sense a sliver of Xi Ping’s aura; this body was “empty”, the consciousness so shattered that it had vanished without leaving a trace. Only the sword aura that cut anyone who came near still showed a bit of life. 

Zhou Ying closed his eyes. 

“You blame me for not blocking that selection card, right? That’s fine…that’s all fine, go ahead and blame me if you want. Anyway, you’ve never hesitated to throw a tantrum when you were mad at me.” He softly deliberated with the corpse: “Ge will smash this damn place for you and take you home, and then you’ll come visit me in a dream, okay?” 

The empty shell didn’t speak. 

“Not even a couple of sentences?”

Not even the reincarnation wood trees were moving anymore. 

As if his negotiation had fallen through, Zhou Ying, slightly helpless, gently put the warm body into the undergrowth. He rubbed Xi Ping’s head with force. “Scoundrel.” 

Then he walked forward, following the demon seal. 

Carving inscriptions was different from writing. Whoever was carving them had to do it according to standard; they couldn’t exhibit their own “handwriting”. Sometimes two inscriptions that looked identical to the naked eye might have completely opposite effects because one stroke was a fraction longer, or simply because they were put in different places. So the inscription characters covering the ground looked like they had been birthed by the same mother. 

Many contemporary figures who claimed to be inscription masters—for example, shoddy goods of Sanyue’s Yinyang Reverser’s ilk—wouldn’t even dare to fly over a rare first-class inscription like the demon seal at three zhang high, never mind stepping on it; but Zhou Ying was totally nonchalant. 

There was only one type of person on earth to whose eyes inscriptions were different. 

Princess Duanrui had asked how the world looked to a person with a paramount spiritual sense.

It looked like this: to his hearing, the fluctuations in people’s pupils, the flow of their blood, their heartbeats, were as raucous as though all of them were shouting their desires through a trumpet; since opening his spiritual eyes, cultivators’s probing consciousnesses and roaming spiritual senses had been visible to him; in his eyes, all inscription characters were three-dimensional, dynamic. 

Even if Zhou Ying wasn’t familiar with an inscription, there was still no need for him to worry that he would blow something up if he tampered with it—he could “see” how inscriptions clashed and merged with their surroundings. 

This was why he had dared to learn inscriptions from the demon in the Impassable Sea. In this respect, no demon could fool him. 

As Zhou Ying walked straight towards the demon seed the three high elders had sealed, the dangerous first-class inscriptions didn’t move a hair, as if they were only ornamental designs on the ground. 

The inscriptions on the demon seal had been carved by Xuanyin’s three elders working in concert. Zhou Ying could see who had written each inscription—because to his eyes, those inscriptions were nothing alike; they even had the remnants of different people’s auras. 

One part belonged to the Dignitary of Rites Elder Zhao Yin, whom he had seen once; one part had a slight, faint echo of the sword energy attached to Xi Ping and perhaps belonged to the Dignitary of Fate Zhang Jue; the remaining inscriptions had mainly been written towards the end, with a faint character of holding the line and making a decision, which seemed like the work of the Lin family’s Dignitary of Rule, who only spoke to pass judgment. 

Inscriptions carved by different people all had subtle exclusion zones at their boundaries; this was especially clear between Zhao Yin’s and Zhang Jue’s. 

Even more subtle was unevenness to differing degrees in the auras of the inscription characters left behind by the three elders, especially serious with Zhao Yin’s; a part of the inscriptions that were near the demon seed had practically reached the point of “weakness”. 

As expected…

Zhou Ying stopped beside the demon seed. 

When he had seen the Dignitary of Rites Zhao Yin five years ago, he had sensed a familiar aura on Zhao Yin. But back then he had only been a mortal whose spiritual bones hadn’t yet been restored. He hadn’t seen clearly. But when he had found that there were indications of an exposed Way of the Heart on Princess Duanrui, it had already been after he had opened his spiritual eyes. 

In other words, Zhao Yin’s situation was far graver than Duanrui’s, who was an ascended spirit. The influence of the heart demon was coming from the top down. 

Zhou Kun had gone down into the Impassable Sea twenty-nine years ago, and not long after there had been internal strife in the Xuanyin Mountains. An ordinary person would perhaps suspect the internal strife had been triggered by a heart demon seed. But afterwards, Zhou Ying had carefully looked into that history and had felt that when it came down to it, the internal conflict had been caused by the Zhao and Li families having too many people; the Xuanyin Mountains only had thirty-six mountaintops—there weren’t enough resources to go around; that had given the Zhou family an opportunity to go fishing in troubled waters. The people involved had all behaved very rationally; there hadn’t been anyone involved who, like the Lancang sect leader, seemed to have lost their reason. 

With Zhou Ying’s understanding of his own lunatic father, he’d made a guess back then that had now been confirmed: from the inscriptions of the demon seal, it seemed that the Xuanyin Mountain elders had all been impacted by the heart demon. Of those three old bastards, Zhang Jue was frequently submerged in the Sea of Stars, Lin Zongyi had spent more than half his life in seclusion, and Zhao Yin, who oversaw Xuanyin Mountain’s principal peak and had comparatively more opportunities to make an appearance, was still a rare creature that only the ascended spirit peak masters could occasionally see—what opportunity would a mortal like Zhou Kun have had to gather the three of them together? 

Only one—when he was struck by heavenly lightning and the existence of the great demon in the Impassable Sea was made known. 

When that happened, it was certain that the Bell of Tribulation would sound; the three high elders of Xuanyin Mountain would be certain to come to the Resurrection Vortex. 

So back then, Zhou Kun probably hadn’t taken the heart demon seed away at all; he had used some means to leave it on the demon seal…likely even on the head of the demon host with the unspeakable name. 

When the Bell of Tribulation sounded, the Ways of the Heart of the three high elders would have to suffer questioning; the heart demon would take that opening to sneak in without anyone noticing. 

The reason Zhao Yin had been the most deeply harmed among them was likely that the Bell of Tribulation was usually exhibited at Xuanyin Mountain’s principal peak. 

This was the last means of fighting back that Zhou Kun, as a mortal, had had when he had dimly sensed the fetters of the will of heaven.

It was also the true “legacy” he had left for his descendant. 

In single-handedly establishing the Kaiming Office and the Luwu, Zhou Ying had originally meant to slowly bury his game pieces in the four nations, wait for the heart demon Zhou Kun had planted to mature and bear fruit, then follow the example of Renzong and provoke a war. 

He had wanted to use the chaos of the four nations and everything under heaven to sound the Bell of Tribulation on Xuanyin’s principal peak and see which of the sages who had contracted a heart demon the tolling of the bell would carry off. 

When one of the people who had laid down the demon seal was consumed by a heart demon, that would be his chance to open the demon seal once more and rip this world to shreds. 

Who could have expected that Qiu Sha would give him an unanticipated surprise, let him avoid having to work so indirectly and be brought here ahead of schedule by the Riverward? 

Wasn’t this destiny urging him on? 

Zhou Ying half knelt and reached out to touch the demon seed. 

Stimulated by the blood of the descendant of the demon subduers, the demon seed pulsed like a heart. Some inscription characters near it were immediately inundated; the other inscription characters automatically bore down, forcing the demon seed to retreat. 

And while the demon seed drowned those inscriptions whose aura had already been fragile, Zhou Ying took the opportunity to calmly pour spiritual energy towards his fingertips, carve out two of the inscriptions, and quickly swap their positions. 

The exquisite inscription characters were like two automatic, obedient ropes; as he pushed and pulled, the misplaced inscriptions linked together. When the wave of demonic energy had subsided, there was a new little crack in the perfectly dovetailing demon seal. 

The wound on Zhou Ying’s hand was torn open once more. The demon seed greedily absorbed his blood and expanded into the gap. 

He took a pill from his mustard seed and swallowed it. A bit of color returned to his face. He cycled his breathing for a moment. He had deliberately picked out Zhao Yin’s inscriptions as his target, cleverly avoiding the inscriptions of the other two. 

And because the inscriptions that had come from three different people’s hands each had their own separate functions, the inscriptions of the other two were as undisturbed as if nothing had happened. 

The heart demon seed, the Bell of Tribulation, and the addition of the Silver Moon appearing in a neighboring country now—was Elder Zhao Yin still well? 

Currently, on the principal peak of the Xuanyin Mountains, an inner sect disciple who was sweeping the floor had yet to recover from the ringing of the bell when he saw a stream of smoke fly up from behind him, heading straight towards the Sea of Stars. 

The disciple stared blankly for a moment, came back to himself, and simply dropped the broom. “Dignitary of Rites High Elder?” 

Shed skins couldn’t spy on neighboring countries, but Xuanyin Mountain couldn’t avoid being alerted when a place by the border was swept by the Silver Moon. The moment that the Silver Moon’s moonlight had fallen on Tao County, on Xuanyin Mountain’s principal peak, Zhao Yin had opened his eyes—once again, he “saw” the “future” that he had glimpsed before through a crack in the Bell of Tribulation: society falling into disarray, the power of the immortal mountains waning, the demonic gods that had once been suppressed in throughout the world emerging one by one, causing the mountains to crumble and the earth to crack. 

As if to validate his secret worries, the first ascended spirit evil cultivator in the thousands of years since the spiritual mountains had formed had towered into view. After Xuanyin Mountain’s Bell of Tribulation had rung several times within a single year, Sanyue’s Silver Moon had been forced to descend to the mortal world. 

Five years ago, Zhao Yin had known that his Way of the Heart was unsteady after being shaken by the Bell of Tribulation. After this long in seclusion, there had not only not been the slightest turn for the better, his condition had become aggravated. 

While on the principal peak, he always thought that he could hear the incessant chatter of the Bell of Tribulation in his ears, repeatedly saying to him: The crisis in the Impassable Sea hasn’t truly calmed; it was a colossal mistake to compromise with the Dignitary of Fate back then and spare that corpse that had inherited the demonic god Yuan Hui’s tradition; sooner or later, it will lead to disaster. 

And neither before nor after that, at just that time, he suddenly sensed the demon seal being touched! 

Once an inscription took shape, it would break away from its carver; only the loss of a first-class inscription, which was a matter of vital importance, would alert the spiritual sense of the carver. 

Zhao Yin was startled and furious: who was it?! 

The Sea of Stars was agitated by the entrance of a shed skin. The Dignitary of Fate Zhang Jue, disturbed, frowned and held down the undulating mist. “Zhao-shixiong?” 

“Someone has broken into the Impassable Sea,” Zhao Yin said without preamble. “The inscriptions on the demon seal have been touched. I can’t reckon who it is. I need to use the Sea of Stars to observe.” 

Zhang Jue looked at him in astonishment. 

“Hurry, this is a matter of utmost importance. There can be no delay!” 

Zhang Jue scrutinized him closely for a moment, not responding. He pinched his fingers together and sent out a beam of spiritual energy. Waves rose once again in the Sea of Stars. The image of the Dignitary of Rule Lin Zongyi appeared in them. 

Zhang Jue asked, “Lin-shixiong, have you noticed any changes in the demon seal in the Impassable Sea?” 

Lin Zongyi didn’t remove his mouth seal, but his voice came through the Sea of Stars: “No.” 

“Me, neither.” Zhang Jue turned to Zhao Yin. “Zhao-shixiong, you…” 

Like tying a rope knot, Zhou Ying followed Zhao Yin’s inscriptions and cleverly swapped two more characters. 

Then it was as if he had been drained dry. For a time, he was a little unsteady on his feet. Zhou Ying put another pill in his mouth and saw that the inscriptions Zhao Yin had laid down were shaking even more fiercely than he was; at the edges, they were even showing a tendency to merge with the demon seed. 

Zhou Ying drew close to those inscriptions and quietly said, “The Bell of Tribulation rang recently, and now the Silver Moon has lit up. The spiritual mountains are shaking, Zhao Yin, can you feel it?” 

Zhao Yin…

Zhao Yin…

The malicious demon’s voice pricked Zhao Yin’s spiritual sense from the abyss. 

Can you feel it…? 

“Zhao-shixiong? Zhao-shixiong!” 

Zhao Yin turned and left. 

“Wait.” Zhang Jue came out of the depths of the Sea of Stars and blocked his path. “Zhao-shixiong, where are you going?” 

“To the East Sea to expel demons,” Zhao Yin said stubbornly. “We left behind a lurking danger back then, and now it has become a calamity. It must be expelled.” 

Across space, Lin Zongyi and Zhao Jue exchanged a look, their expressions both becoming grave. 

“Slow down. First take a look.” Zhang Jue swept his sleeve—the Impassable Sea had been a place that the Sea of Stars couldn’t see into, but five years ago, it had been the Xuanyin high elders who had replaced the demon seal, so with the inscriptions Zhang Jue had left behind as a thread, it peered into the Impassable Abyss. 

When the “starlight” fell, the Riverward immediately became a clump of mist, covering the uninvited guest under the demon seal. 

And the inscriptions Zhang Jue had left behind were all calmly lying in their original positions. When the “starlight” swept past, it showed a scene of total tranquility. 

Zhang Jue said, “You saw?” 

Zhao Yin was bewildered for a moment. He abruptly closed his eyes and pinched the center of his brow. 

After cycling his breathing for a moment, Zhou Ying opened his eyes and saw that the differences between the inscriptions belonging to the three of them had become even more pronounced; the other two’s inscriptions were even more obviously repelling Zhao Yin’s now. 

Dongheng’s Sanyue’s Xiang family was its only big family, so no matter what foulness they got up to, no one could do anything about it; Xuanyin was fussy and full of checks and balances, with four elders working together—though there were only three left now, there was still discord among them. 

The demon seal was like a dam a thousand li long, and he was a tiny termite that had crawled into a crevice and chewed it up until it was on the point of bursting. 

Zhou Ying took a breath and held it, reaching towards the third pair of inscription characters. In a low voice he said, provoking, “Among the thirty-six peaks of Xuanyin, nine peaks answer to you, and besides that there are three cultivators half a step from an ascended spirit waiting to become peak masters. The Zhao clan’s main bloodline is everlasting. Its collateral branches are spread throughout every province. The spiritual mountains are your great wall. What does a loner like the Dignitary of Fate understand?” 

Meanwhile, the Dignitary of Fate Elder Zhang Jue waved a hand to disperse the starlight. “Dignitary of Rites, five years ago you were impacted by the aftereffects of the Bell of Tribulation and nearly destroyed the corpse. How has your Way of the Heart failed to stabilize in the least after five years in seclusion? Can the corpse of an established foundation truly become a stumbling block for your heart?” 

In a flash, Zhou Ying swapped a fourth pair of inscriptions. “Previously, the Lin clan was the head of the four great families. But after the decline of the Li clan, the Zhao family rose to prominence through sheer numbers. How do you think the Dignitary of Rule regards you?” 

In the Sea of Stars, Lin Zongyi’s voice came from his image. He said, “Dignitary of Rites, if your Way of the Heart is swaying, you can temporarily withdraw from the principal peak, and the Dignitary of Fate and I can take turns minding the Bell of Tribulation.” 

Zhao Yin abruptly raised his head, the area around his eyes reddening slightly. “First the Bell of Tribulation, then the Silver Moon. The demons have risen on all sides. Though the two of you have your selfish motives, ought you not place the highest value on the overall situation now? How can you still be angling for the authority to speak on the principal peak at a time like this?!” 

Once a person walks into paranoia, they fall out of alignment with the outside world. The things they are firmly convinced of and believe to be obvious at a glance appear incomprehensible to others, totally disconnected. 

Right now, Zhang Jue and Lin Zongyi thought that Zhao Yin seemed to have gone crazy: it was a great matter that the Silver Moon had come down to the mortal world, but it was a great matter for the nation of Chu. Was it connected to the Impassable Sea? How could he talk about them in the same breath? The Sea of Stars had even shown that everything was completely peaceful in the demon seal, and of the three of them, two thought that Zhao Yin was just making trouble out of nothing. Lin Zongyi had sensed that his Way of the Heart wasn’t very firm and had made the well-intentioned proposal that he stay away from the Bell of Tribulation. How had that turned into “angling for the authority to speak on the principal peak”? 

Zhang Jue said, “Dignitary of Rites, what are you saying!?” 

Zhao Yin began to laugh coldly. 

Lin Chi, who ought to have gone to the principal peak to return his token to leave the mountains, paused abruptly. The blue luan that was flying at a crawl suddenly leapt up, dodging the wake of a beam of spiritual energy. In the sky above Xuanyin’s thirty-six peaks, the wind suddenly rose and the clouds began to roil. A beam of black energy surged up from the Sea of Stars and swept towards the principal peak. 

Lin Chi wasn’t the type who liked getting in on the action to begin with, and he was even less inclined to do it now, when he was carrying the reincarnation wood and had a somewhat guilty conscience. Seeing signs of a problem, he didn’t return the token. He urged the blue luan to rise. “The Dignitary of Rites? What’s the matter?” 

After Zhao Yin, two figures flew out one after another, one from the Sea of Stars, and one from Xuanyin’s Yuntian Palace—the discipline hall. They followed close after him to the principal peak. 

Xi Ping’s consciousness was hidden in the reincarnation wood in Lin Chi’s sleeve, but he could still feel the breathless sense of pressure. 

“Wow, how come they’re fighting?” At first, Xi Ping was bewildered. Then he reconsidered—let them fight, the harder the better. It would be for the best if the three old men were busy clawing at each others’s faces; no one would have time to pay attention to the Impassable Sea. 

Xi Ping’s original body had been tightly sealed by the demon seal, or else he wouldn’t have ended up not even knowing who he was for five years. But as Zhou Ying wore down one side of the demon seal, Xi Ping began to establish a weak link to his body, held by the Impassable Sea. 

But Xi Ping wasn’t pleased about this in the least—this wasn’t a good thing. This clearly showed that san-ge really didn’t just want to snatch a corpse; perhaps from the very start, he’d been coveting the Riverward so he could tear up the demon seal! 

Lin Zongyi brought his long sleeves together, shielding all the nearby inner sect disciples below an ascended spirit in his sleeves. Zhang Jue opened his eyes and cut Zhao Yin off with a hand seal. “For established foundations and ascended spirits to leave the mountains, they must request a token from the principal peak. Shed skins cannot take a single step outside the Xuanyin Mountains without authorization; the other elders must unanimously agree. Never mind what is necessary to ring the Bell of Tribulation again. Dignitary of Rites, have you abandoned even the rules of our forebears?” 

Zhao Yin grimly said, “Move—aside!” 

As Xi Ping struggled to connect to the bottom of the Impassable Sea, he split off some attention for his puzzled musing: what did all of this mean? Zhao Yin wanted to carry the Bell of Tribulation off the mountain, and the other two wouldn’t let him? Why was Zhao Yin the only one in a rush? 

What was san-ge doing to the demon seal?

Also, wasn’t the Dignitary of Rites Zhao Yin a pretty good talker? Of the three of them, the most loquacious was the principal peak’s bell ringer; he was full of smooth talk. How had he suddenly become unreasonable? 

What had he eaten wrong…? 

In a flash of brilliance, Xi Ping remembered that the heart demon at the bottom of the Impassable Sea had said that in the fifth year of Taiming, the former emperor Zhou Kun had stolen a heart demon seed, and the heart demon didn’t know whom he had planted it on. 

Just then, lightning fell, lighting up the carved railings and stone pillars of Xuanyin Mountain’s principal peak’s great hall. In the dazzling white light, the visages of the auspicious animals on the stone pillars were blurred. There was only one coiled dragon glowering up at the firmament.  It instantly made Xi Ping remember the imperial robes Emperor Taiming had worn when Xi Ping had left home to go to the Latent Cultivation Temple. 

Xi Ping sucked in a breath… A heart demon? No way! 

The Zhou family’s father and son had both overreached themselves! 

With a burst of energy, Zhou Ying swapped the fifth set of inscriptions. His open-eyed cultivation level couldn’t hold out any longer. His meridians ached fiercely, and his ears rang. He had just spat out a mouthful of blood into his palm, which had alleviated the pain slightly. 

But he felt carefree. He absorbed a handful of spiritual stones through his palm and began to laugh quietly, looking towards his next target. 

But just then, amid the ringing in his ears, he suddenly heard an auditory hallucination. 

“San-ge!” 

Zhou Ying’s laughter came to an abrupt halt. The lightning above the Xuanyin Mountain’s principal peak seemed to have crossed the vast distance to strike him. 

The reincarnation wood trees behind him rustled, as if they were impatient to say something. 

Zhou Ying’s figure flashed, and he instantly landed beside Xi Ping and seized him by the shoulders. 

But it had been too long since he had “plucked” that body from the branch. The false warmth maintained by spiritual energy had dispersed, and it was cold to the touch. Xi Ping’s head drooped lifelessly as he moved him, and even the broken sword was too lazy to give him a response. 

Zhou Ying stared blankly. His spine lost support, and his back bumped into the reincarnation wood tree beside him, where the bloodstains had yet to dry. 

The spiritual stones he carried with him slowly scoured his dried up meridians—he had been chronically ill as a mortal, and his body was still slower to recover than those of other half-immortals. He was a bit exhausted. 

So, leaning back against the tree trunk, Zhou Ying slid down, the frenzy and the hope in his eyes both going out. 

But the next moment, as if he was frozen in place, he turned his head bit by bit and looked at the tree behind him in disbelief. 

A familiar voice was coming from that reincarnation wood tree, distant and vague, intermittent…

The brat seemed to be scolding him.