In Yanyang, at Jingzhou’s northern extremity, Bai Ling, having just received word from the government post, was rushing wildly, driving a carriage. 

The carriage roads between the provinces had yet to be opened, and the Cloud Soaring Flood Dragon’s tracks had been broken in several places by the earthquakes caused by the Territory Map. The waterways were jammed, and the land routes weren’t clear, either. Transportation within Great Wan had nearly crumbled altogether. Immortal tools and downgraded immortal tools had also stopped working. By the time Bai Ling received Xi Yue’s message from the post station after it had passed through many hands, it was already several days later. 

But even if he could have put on wings and flown back, it would have been no use, because the “Zhou Ying” in the carriage was made of paper. 

With Bai Ling’s cultivation level, the paperman had originally been convincing. A cultivator of his level or below at least wouldn’t have seen any difference between it and a real person. But now all magic within Great Wan’s borders had lost effect, and the paperman had also returned to its original form. Though it was considerably finer work than casually plastered together funeral goods would have been, it still wasn’t the real thing—it rustled when the wind blew, and if he wasn’t careful its face would turn all the way towards its back. 

This paperman was a substitute Bai Ling had created for his prince, imprinted with a spiritual image, with a drop of Zhou Ying’s heart’s blood inside it. If there was a social event he didn’t want to attend—for example, dull occasions like the emperor’s ascension to the throne—he would send the paperman over to pass itself off as him. There were no established foundations in Jinping, anyway. 

Right now, Bai Ling wasn’t dragging a paperman around all over the place because he had some peculiar hobby; it was because after Zhou Ying had left, the heart’s blood in the substitute paperman he had left behind had suddenly “spat” out the Riverward’s smoke. The thin smoke had enlarged as it billowed, at last perfectly covering the life-sized paperman. 

Right now, the half-demon had to act as coachman himself, but the Riverward enveloping the paperman didn’t move a hair. Could it be that it didn’t need spiritual energy to operate? Could it really keep the eyes of the shed skins away? 

Bai Ling didn’t know. He was currently completely collected on the surface, but inside he was so anxious he was about to catch fire—since he had lost contact with Zhou Ying, all the news from Jinping that had come to his hands had been old. 

The shed skins still in the human world might descend at any time. 

If the paperman had still been usable, Bai Ling might have felt some sense of security about the Riverward protecting it like this. But the Riverward couldn’t keep it from rustling when the wind blew. If someone got close enough to touch it, never mind a shed skin, even a mortal would have been able to tell that it wasn’t a flesh and blood body. 

The half-demon who had been able to eat spiritual stones since he was born found for the first time that a mortal’s road was so long, that horses were so slow, that the mail was so uncertain. 

Suddenly, Bai Ling hauled on the reins to stop the horse. “Whoa—”

The road ended. 

Jingzhou had the most mountains and watercourses in all of Great Wan. Falling boulders had blocked the road ahead. 

“My lord,” said Bai Ling, taking a deep breath, speaking to the paperman as respectfully as though speaking to Zhou Ying, “please be patient. I will go see what can be done.” 

Without spiritual energy to support it, the paperman couldn’t respond. Bai Ling put on a bamboo hat and ran over like a mortal. 

From the north of Jingzhou, with the Cloud Soaring Flood Dragon cut off, this was the only road that could still be traveled. Bai Ling wasn’t the only one being detained. There were freight shippers who had been forced to go by road after the Cloud Soaring Flood Dragon had stopped, there were those going to the capital to study or find relatives…or to attend funerals. 

All walks of life were mixed together. In front of them were uncrossable high mountains and huge boulders. When Bai Ling arrived, people were using their hands to clear the road. The half-demon stared blankly amid the flying dust. He could only roll up his sleeves and enter the mortal world. 

Without the protection of spiritual energy, the dust treated everyone impartially. Bai Ling’s elegant robes, cleaner than paper, were soon covered in dust. Not long after, it began to rain. The rain mixed with the dust into mud. Bai Ling’s nose and throat were full of grit. He didn’t know how it had gotten in and ground his tongue against his teeth. 

He hadn’t been in such dire straits even in the Impassable Abyss! 

After half a day’s delay, the slow-moving steam-powered truck from Yanyang at last arrived. The wild steam puffed everywhere, leaving everyone’s fields of vision empty, mixing powerfully with the rain and mud. Bai Ling felt that he had nearly turned into rotten paper pulp. His hands, after exerting too much strength moving stones, were shaking uncontrollably. 

Not long after, he heard that the road had been opened. But before he could put on a happy look and report to “his lord” in the carriage, he heard a huge sound as the inconsiderate rain rolled down another pile of boulders. 

Amid the steam, the people whose outlines were blurred cried out loudly. Bai Ling was swallowed up by the flood of people, involuntarily retreating. He had been a secret guard for Zhou Ying, had been a killer, had been the Luwu’s secretive “Mr. Bai.” He had never been this close to mortals. With the hands of a crowd of strangers pushing and pulling, shoving and yanking at him, he was simply a little bewildered. 

A man in his thirties or forties began to wail, his voice so shattering that Bai Ling gave a start. The man sank to his knees and beat the earth with his hands, banging his head on the ground, and said, “I won’t make it in time to see my old mother. Please clear the road. I beg you…I beg you…”

In his desperate need, it was unclear whom he was begging. 

The people around him could only get out of the way and avert their gazes, not looking directly at him, feeling sadness well up. 

Along with the other travelers going through hardships, Bai Ling could only direct his gaze, which had nowhere to rest, towards the indifferent landscape, extending to the horizon. 

When he no longer knew where he had come from or where he was going, a gaze came down from the sky. The two shed skin sages whose existence was tied to heaven and earth and who were not constrained by the spiritual veins of the mortal world were returning to the immortal mountains; they just happened to be passing by here. 

Xuanyin had met a calamity this time. One of the four great families had been pulled up by the roots, and the whole country was in chaos. Zhang Jue and Lin Zongyi’s expressions were both very grave. They hadn’t spoken the whole way. 

Zhang Jue, as if sensing something, suddenly opened his eyes, sending the gaze of his snow white pupils towards the human world. At a glance, he saw the half-demon mixed in amidst the mortals. 

Oh? The Zhou family’s final set of spiritual bones was here? 

For some reason, the Dignitary of Fate kept thinking that there was something wrong about the divination he had performed in the East Sea. This Prince Zhuang’s spiritual bones had spent over twenty years soaking in a den of demons outside the reaches of law and civilization; the Sea of Stars had never been able to distinguish him very clearly. Great Wan was over a thousand li from east to west and even longer from north to south; its territory could be called vast. It had several hundred million inhabitants. Yet he had just happened to encounter Zhou Ying at this moment. There seemed to be something hidden stirring the Dignitary of Fate High Elder’s spiritual sense. 

Zhang Jue was just about to take a closer look, but when his gaze swept down, he saw the rain bringing down the mountain. The horse drawing the carriage was a little startled. Bai Ling wasn’t in time to hold it, and the carriage shook. The “Zhou Ying” inside the carriage miserably flew forward, landing halfway under the seat. 

Zhang Jue only had time for a quick glance when his eyes were seared by the sight of the man beside the carriage desperately kowtowing. 

The Dignitary of Fate High Elder couldn’t bear to watch this. He sighed, waved a sleeve, and it was as if the rain had been blocked by an invisible screen. A path opened among the mud and boulders blocking the road. 

The sages had finally performed a miracle. 

“The lives of the people are hard.” Zhang Jue looked away and closed his eyes once more. He said to Lin Zongyi, “Let’s go.” 

With Great Wan’s spiritual veins broken, the immortals and demons outside the borders all retreated. The various spiritual beasts being kept by Jinping’s wealthy families all seemed ready to go into hibernation, becoming drowsy. 

The busiest person was Xi Ping. 

His consciousness not only had to shuttle back and forth between the Xuanyin Mountains and Western Chu—Xu Rucheng had changed his identity and quietly mixed in among the team “receiving” the Zhaos, becoming an unremarkable page to be ordered around, and Wei Chengxiang was also waiting for her chance to act in Western Chu—apart from that, he was also afraid san-ge would get lonely, so he had to go over to the East Sea to harass Zhou Ying, tell him in real time that “the shed skin elders have returned to the mountains”, “the inner sect is beginning to settle accounts”, “Princess Duanrui is going to stand in as Dignitary of Rites”, and other such firsthand news, as well as asking some very inconsiderate questions, along the lines of “San-ge, everything is safe over there, why won’t you come out of the Riverward, is it because you can’t swim?”; when he was finished asking, he would usually be shooed away from Zhou Ying’s spirit and receive a complimentary “Scram.” 

While Zhou Ying couldn’t use spiritual energy and was trapped in the Resurrection Vortex, unable to get out, his “eyes” in the Xuanyin Mountains gave him the most commanding view of the whole situation from beginning to end. 

It gave him a false impression that he was omniscient and could hold everything in the palm of his hand. 

Apart from Zhou Ying, who had overheard the shed skins talking, no one knew when the spiritual veins would be repaired. Bai Ling could only travel night and day as he attempted hundreds of times to use immortal tools to send a message to Zhou Ying. 

The horse collapsed from exhaustion, and the immortal tools gave no response. 

Until the ninth day after the spiritual veins had been severed. 

That day at sunset, the deadly still inscriptions at last showed a faint brilliance. The stagnant spiritual energy began to flow once more. 

Zhou Ying was just listening to Xi Ping saying that the nine Zhao peak masters had been collectively “sent into seclusion”, with concrete arrangements to be discussed later; perhaps they would have to wait until the Heavenly Questions had been restored and listen to the opinions of Heaven’s Design Pavilion and the court. 

“Had the Zhaos not thought of touching the Territory Map, perhaps this could have been passed off as a misunderstanding,” Zhou Ying said casually. “But they played their final card too quickly…oh?” 

A paperman leapt from his body. Before it could open its mouth to speak, its energy was exhausted, and it flimsily lay down. Zhou Ying pinched the paperman between his fingers, feeling the scant spiritual energy at his fingertips. “The spiritual veins are beginning to circulate, the Heavenly Questions should be in position soon. You wait and see. I’m also curious about what His Majesty will decide.” 

Hearing this, Xi Ping thought, What’s there to see? He’ll probably get out of Xuanyin Mountain’s way. 

He had even temporarily put Xu Rucheng and Wei Chengxiang in Western Chu on hold, gathering up all his consciousness, completely absorbed in waiting for san-ge to take him back to Jinping. He had all but trotted over with a leash in his mouth. 

Zhou Ying said, smiling, “People aren’t as sensitive as low-level immortal tools for sending information. For flying on swords, or for Bai Ling to use his paperman substitutes, I think it will take until daylight at least to work unimpeded.” 

At this point, he suddenly paused. Because he had seen that after flimsily lying down, the paperman was once again struggling to get up, clinging to his sleeve with all its limbs, seeming to be struggling… What was the matter with Bai Ling? 

Zhou Ying suddenly felt uneasy, so he didn’t meditate as usual. As he waited for communications to be restored, he repeatedly reviewed everything that had happened recently, considering what might have been omitted. 

First, blurry writing flashed on the paperman, disappearing before it could be distinguished. Then it happened again and again… Bai Ling had sent him countless messages, exhausting the paperman. Its limbs curled up at the edges, and it rolled onto the little piece of reincarnation wood Zhou Ying was toying with. 

“Hey, san-ge,” Xi Ping said from the reincarnation wood, “I think Bai Ling-da-ge has filled up the front, the writing has even gone to the back, it says…” 

His voice abruptly cut off. At the same time, Zhou Ying picked up the paperman. 

This time, the handwriting was finally clear. What the paperman said was: Old Madam Xi is gravely ill.

The first autumn rain fell in Jinping. The osmanthus had already prepared its buds. The mornings and evenings were cool. 

With spiritual stones unusable, at least thirty or forty percent of the factories in the southern outskirts, built around gold smelting furnaces, couldn’t operate. The sky became distinctly clearer. Flocks of wild geese would soon be flying back from Northern Li. 

On the emperor’s orders, the Director of the Office of Imperial Physicians went in person to the Yongning Marquis Manor along with a few other old imperial physicians. They prescribed medicines and performed acupuncture. At this point, the old lady couldn’t take any more medicine, and she no longer recognized anyone. 

The Marquis himself saw the Director out the door. The grey-bearded old Director cupped his hand and didn’t ask him to escort him any further. “You ought to prepare the clothing she will need to be changed into. Acupuncture is painful, let us not make the old lady suffer any more.” 

The Marquis said, “The old lady is waiting for some people. In your opinion…” 

The Director waved a hand. “I have heard that all the roads have been severed outside, and letters can’t get out, either. At a time like this, there’s nothing to be done… Alas, there’s nothing to be done.” 

The Director was already prepared to retire; he was very elderly. Saying this, his mind wandered slightly as he remembered somebody in the rustling early autumn. After a long moment, the old Director shakily patted the Marquis on the arm. Whether counseling him or speaking to himself, he said, “Among blood relations, there are close ties and distant ties. Sometimes they can be picked up in the next life, and sometimes they are exhausted before the present life has even ended. You and I are both mortal. This cannot be forced, so let it go.” 

Having said this, leaning on his disciple’s arm, he walked away, his stride uneven. 

The Marquis watched the old Director go. After a long time, he lowered his head as if in acknowledgment of something. He called a servant. “Send someone with a letter to the palace… We should tell the Dowager Imperial Consort.” 

In the west of Guangyun Palace, the Yuying Palace. 

As Dowager Imperial Consort Xi got older, she shunned noise more and more. Inside Yuying Palace, people usually all wore soft-soled shoes. Anyone whose clothing was likely to rustle had to keep their sleeves and pant legs tight. They spoke amongst each other in whispers. But right now, a young palace maid was running like mad. 

Her soft-soled shoes made dull thuds as they hit the bluestone tiles. The sound of the footsteps was unpleasant, making the voiceless dogs inside the palace bark. 

She opened the door of the inner rooms. The smell of snow wine hadn’t dissipated. The refreshing scent coolly curled around her face, and the hot sweat on the maid’s forehead instantly disappeared. She shivered from cold. 

She dropped to her knees with a thud, kneeling before the drunkenly swaying Imperial Consort. 

Inside the fragrant jade miasma, Dowager Imperial Consort Xi was a carefree girl. Their family had always been like this. If the boys wanted to pursue a distinguished career, of course that was great, but it was no problem if they amounted to nothing; everything was fine as long as they didn’t go out and commit crimes. And for the girls, it would be hard for them to go out and commit crimes even if they wanted to, so they were left even more to their own devices; the shrewd had their own shrewd approaches to life, and the fools were foolish. 

At home, even the crooked plum blossom tree that didn’t bloom once in three years and the cats and dogs picked up off the streets would become treasures if they stayed long enough, never mind a little girl carved from jade. 

She had muddled through her needlework and never studied properly. Apart from coming up with new ways to get spending money out of her big brother’s pockets, all she cared about were her looks. She was absolutely unrestrained. All the distinguished young ladies in Jinping wanted to be like her, and Cui Ji’s young mistress had also come along to make friends…though she had found out afterwards that Young Mistress Cui had ulterior motives. 

Those had been the good days. 

With her eyes open, the Dowager Imperial Consort was still sunk in the amber-like past when she heard someone say something like “His Majesty has permitted the Dowager Imperial Consort to leave the palace to pay a visit to her mother, to see the old lady one last time.” In her confusion, she didn’t understand very well. In a daze, she had her maids attend to her clothing and makeup, thinking, I’m allowed to go home? 

The palace maid Xiao Song who had come to the palace with her had now become Auntie Song. She had become careless with age, accidentally knocking over a bottle of lotion. The jade bottle broke into pieces when it hit the ground. The crisp sound forced Dowager Imperial Consort Xi into wakefulness. Without warning, the young girl amid the fragrant jade miasma met the eyes of the woman in the mirror, who had passed half a century. 

As if she had been frightened, she knocked the mirror on the dressing case away. 

The palace maids and eunuchs knelt everywhere amid the thick fragrance. The Dowager Imperial Consort stared blankly for a moment, then wearily waved a hand. “I’m not going.” 

Auntie Song followed a few steps after her, shuffling on her knees. She said urgently, “My lady, they say at the manor that it won’t go well this time. If you don’t see her now, then…” 

“I won’t see her. I’m not going.” 

Why should she see her? To show her mother how the frail little orchid she had painstakingly nurtured had steeped in snow wine until its roots had rotted? 

The Dowager Imperial Consort pulled out her hairpin, and her hair fell over her shoulders like water bursting a dyke. There was no undulation in her tone as she said, “Warm another pot of snow wine for me.” 

Looking out from the fragrant jade miasma, it was all the same. And anyway, Dangui Lane wasn’t her home. 

A lifetime’s joys and sorrows were like illusions. Why would anyone want to wake up? 

Why would she want to wake up? 

For a moment, Xi Ping thought irrelevantly that if he were still the “Tai Sui” of Tao County, who didn’t know where he came from, a spirit in some rotten wood, then couldn’t he have avoided experiencing the ordeal of suffering? 

Zhou Ying clutched the reincarnation wood, as if he could grab hold of Xi Ping through that piece of rotten wood. 

“Don’t worry, Shiyong.” His voice was so low it was unclear whose benefit he was saying it for. “It’s not necessarily… Let me think of something.” 

Xuanyin Mountain’s old fool had said “Jingzhou” before, so Bai Ling had still been held up in Jingzhou then. He wouldn’t have been able to fly after the spiritual veins had been severed. The Zhaos had touched the Territory Map without authorization, he didn’t know what state the roads were in. Bai Ling might not make it in time…

The veins stood out on the back of Zhou Ying’s hand as he squeezed the reincarnation wood. He calmed himself down and quickly sent Bai Ling a message: Have the half-puppet make a transport array and receive something, then take a drop of Grandmother’s blood…

Before he had finished writing the last line, the writing vanished from the paper. 

These were the faint shackles of the demon seal currently under his feet—he couldn’t reveal this information. 

Damn it! 

Zhou Ying tore a corner of the paperman. 

“San-ge.” Just then, Xi Ping’s voice sounded in his spirit. Unexpectedly, Xi Ping was very calm. 

He had lingered by the Xia River for five years and was used to being calm. The “little young master in the lap of luxury” seemed only like an old piece of clothing that he could put on to relive an old dream. When he came back to himself and pulled it off, in the blink of an eye he was once again the Tai Sui among the evil cultivators of Tao County. 

“Don’t worry. If the spiritual veins start circulating tonight, then you’ll take me back tonight. If they start circulating tomorrow, then you’ll take me tomorrow. If you really can’t make it in time, that’s still…” 

Zhou Ying turned a deaf ear. In a flash, he sent a sketchier message through the paperman: Half-puppet, transport array. 

This time the message went through. Zhou Ying “composedly” said, “Bai Ling should be able to guess my general intentions, and that half-puppet was with you before, he knows about reincarnation wood, too, right?” 

Xi Ping sighed. “With the demon seal operating, reincarnation wood that has held my consciousness can’t pass through a transport array. Don’t waste…” 

Zhou Ying seemed to have gone deaf. Before Xi Ping could finish, the transport array was complete. Zhou Ying quickly pared a small piece off the reincarnation wood, but before he could put it into the array, the wood disintegrated and vanished in midair. 

Ferocity suddenly flashed in Zhou Ying’s seemingly tranquil eyes. Xi Ping suspected he was regretting not having smashed the demon seal. 

“San-ge.” Xi Ping quickly hid all his disquieting anxiety and restlessness and said, “Let’s wait together for a while. If there are no elixirs, there will still be imperial physicians. Even when she was eating a bowl of curd cheese, the old lady would leave me some. Of course she’ll wait for me. Hey, san-ge, why don’t you tell me about what’s been going on at home…” 

Zhou Ying ignored him. Suddenly, he pared off another piece of reincarnation wood. A transport array took shape in his other hand. Before Xi Ping could catch up, he pierced his own finger and pinched the Riverward that was wrapped around him. 

The Riverward reacted instantly to his thought, gathering in the palm of his hand, wrapping around that piece of wood that shouldn’t have existed, lightly dropping it into the transport array. 

At the same time, Zhou Ying, having lost the protection of the Riverward, landed at once in the Resurrection Vortex. 

“San-ge!” 

“Go. It won’t kill me.” 

Brooking no argument, Zhou Ying drove him out of his spirit. Wrapped in the Riverward, the reincarnation wood and Xi Ping’s consciousness together flew towards distant Jinping. The moment they fell into Xi Yue’s hand, the Riverward’s thin smoke dissipated. Zhou Ying had used the last precious “ferry” on the mortal world. 

Xi Yue stared blankly for a moment at the piece of reincarnation wood that still had bloodstains at its edges, suddenly realized something, then took to his heels and ran. 

Is it you? You’ve come back… How could you have waited so long to come back! 

Familiar buildings and gates flashed in front of Xi Ping’s eyes. But while the carved railings were unchanging, the forms of the moss altered, the plants grew and withered, and people aged. Everything had become strange. 

“Grandmother…Grandmother!” 

The unfilial child who had said he would come back from the mountains after a year came knocking at the door. The dying woman’s spirit was like a tottering sandcastle, constantly collapsing under the urging of time. 

A light like a sudden burst of radiance before the end flashed in old Madam Xi’s eyes. “Xiaobao…” 

The demon seal covered up her voice. The family only saw her lips moving and drew close, uncomprehending, but they didn’t hear anything. 

Old Madam Xi said, “Why have you come so early?” 

Xi Ping went blank. At first, he didn’t know whether the old lady was confused or ironically rebuking him. 

Then he heard old Madam Xi gently and quietly negotiating with him: “Grandmother knows you’re lonely on your own, just wait a little longer, wait for your aunt and brother, I know my baby understands…” 

Just like when he had been little, impatiently looking at the Southern Shu candies and little spiritual beasts that Cui Ji had delivered, and his old grandmother had sent someone to call her other lonely grandson out of the palace to play while coaxing Xi Ping to wait a little. 

The old lady thought he had come from “the other side” to get her. 

The ordinary old woman in the big compound didn’t know anything, yet she knew everything. 

Xi Ping curled up in her constantly crumbling spirit, wanting to tell her a funny story, but after thinking for a long time, he found that there were no funny stories. All he could do was make something up, listening to her answering voice becoming weaker and weaker, quieter and quieter. 

Then day broke, Xi Ping’s vision blurred, and his consciousness returned to the reincarnation wood, just as it had rebounded back to the divine image in Wild Fox Country countless times. 

He heard suppressed crying and methodical voices and knew that everything was already prepared at home. 

Spiritual energy flowed through the calendar block hanging on the wall, and it lit up once again. Writing popped up on it, saying today would be clear—how curious, why was the Marquis Manor using downgraded immortal tools now? 

Zhou Ying nearly tripped over the threshold of the Marquis Manor. He had climbed out of some unknown awful place. There were bloodstains on him, and his hair was still wet. 

The most self-restrained and well-mannered man in Jinping City hadn’t washed or changed his clothes, abandoning decorum. When he saw the Marquis Manor’s servants coming to greet him, he realized something. He tried and failed to hold himself up against the courtyard wall, slowly sinking to his knees. 

There had been a pair of guileless eyes in this world waiting to see him, not a prince, not an offering, not the head of the Kaiming and the Luwu, not a demon throwing the world into chaos, but only Zhou Ying. 

But though they had kept looking until they were weary, he hadn’t come in time for them to see him.