The nation of Chu, the county of Yu Family Bend. 

Yu Family Bend was located to the northeast of Tao County, somewhat higher on the reaches of the Xia River, squeezed among the mountains. 

Looked at from above, there was hardly any level ground in the whole county. If there were ten mu of land, that was enough to throw together a town. If the locals wanted to borrow an onion from their neighbors, they’d have to climb several dozen steps. Thin, zigzagging mountain roads like threads linked different parts of the county together, presenting a terrifying sight, as if they would snap when the wind blew. Most people would scrape together a few bits of bare earth in their front or back yards, planting a bit of rations wherever they saw an opening. Their livelihoods, meanwhile, mostly relied on two ores. In the west of Yu Family Bend were iron ore mines, surrounded by the gold smelting factories that relied on them. It was said that one third of Great Chu’s Moon Plated Gold came from here. Towards the north, meanwhile, was a big green ore mountain carved into terraced fields that produced a large quantity of medicinal herbs annually. 

In this world, apart from kidnapping people for ransom and practicing evil arts, there truly weren’t many professions that brought in more ill-gotten gains than gold smelting factories or green ore fields. Yu Family Bend was a piece of precious land with a foul atmosphere. 

In the southwest corner of Yu Family Bend, there was a hill a little taller than the others around it that was called Longevity Peak, a name picked out by some mean person that seemed to be hinting at something—this hill was bald. 

Perhaps there was something wrong with its fengshui; this Longevity Peak often attracted lightning strikes, now and then experiencing a fire, burning it full of bumps and potholes starting from midway up. There was also a dilapidated temple at the summit, of which only charred ruins remained. The ragged banner hanging at the door was blackened, sobbing when the wind blew. The local villagers avoided this place, especially at night. Everyone said the dilapidated temple was haunted. 

The westering sun had already sunk amid the mountains. The evening wind was a little chilly. A young person with a big wooden case on their back went up along stone steps overgrown with weeds. 

The young person took off a worn-out bamboo hat with holes in it and looked up at the inscribed board on the dilapidated temple. Empty-handed, they drew a few strokes in the air. Spiritual energy stirred at this person’s fingertips, and a talisman without medium took shape and nimbly flew out. There was a crash, and the dilapidated temple, like the moon reflected in the water, was shattered by the talisman. The charred courtyard walls vanished, revealing a small building quite full of Western Chu style. 

At the door of the small building stood a pair of dwarf half-puppets around three chi high. They might have been born identical twins, or they might have been altered to look the same afterwards. Sticking out long, thin tongues like a snake’s, they watched the visitor covetously. In unison, they said, “Welcome, visitor. Please come in.” 

It turned out that this was a way station specifically devoted to receiving cultivators, and it was rather haughty, too—many of the upstarts of Western Chu filled themselves up with elixirs and spiritual stones for decades to open their spiritual eyes. These people didn’t cultivate; they opened their spiritual eyes purely to extend their lifespans and preserve their youthful looks. They didn’t know a thing about talismans, arrays, and inscriptions. They were more ordinary than ordinary. There was a camouflage array on the outside of the small building. You could only glimpse its true appearance if you had the skills to cut through the camouflage, clearly showing that those fake cultivators weren’t welcome. 

“The half-puppets get tipped with spiritual stones.” Xi Ping’s voice sounded in the ears of the young person—of Wei Chengxiang. “Give them some.” 

Wei Chengxiang already felt she had wasted spiritual stones drawing a talisman to enter. “I won’t. The local customs are inappropriate.” 

Xi Ping said, laughing, “Aren’t you worried they’ll put something in your food?” 

Wei Chengxiang lowered her head, pretending not to see the half-puppets’s expressions. “I’m poor. They can poison me to death, and I still won’t give them anything.” 

This cheapskate found a dark corner to sit in and put aside the big wooden case containing the Silver Tray Lottery. This thing was cumbersome, and it took up space. It quickly drew sidelong glances from people nearby. She took no notice, letting Xi Ping help her read through the menu written in Chu writing, which she didn’t understand very well. She memorized many characters and ordered the cheapest noodles. 

In a way station specifically devoted to receiving cultivators, the food usually had medicinal herbs added to it, but the cheap dishes didn’t; they were purely for satisfying hunger. The half-puppet, not receiving a tip, had understood that this was a pauper, so he rolled his eyes and said, “Pay first. We take spiritual stones.” 

“Half a qian of fourth-grade green ore.” Wei Chengxiang pointed to the unfamiliar Chu writing on the menu. Frowning, she grumbled, “Why not just go out looting?” 

Then, in full public gaze, she took out a small set of scales of the kind used in medicine shops. Barehanded, she scraped a few crumbs off a piece of low grade green ore the size of a fingernail and weighed them—no more and no less, precisely half a qian. Then she carefully gathered the crumbs into a paper bag and offered it to the half-puppet. “Here.” 

The half-puppet: “…” 

Xi Ping: “…” 

In the field of miserliness, even Pang Wenchang would have to concede defeat. 

The half-puppet recovered and snatched away the paper bag, then left, cursing. 

“Wei-laoban,” Xi Ping said with a sigh, “you did after all enter the Way eating blue jade.” 

“I was young and ignorant, and you didn’t warn me. If I had known back then how much blue jade cost, I wouldn’t have taken it even if it meant turning into a rotten melon.” Wei Chengxiang still grudged the cost. “Senior, couldn’t the person you arranged for me to see have gone somewhere else? Did we have to come to such an expensive place?” 

If she had been on her own, she could have gotten all the way to Dongheng nibbling on a pocketful of flatbread. This meal cost enough to buy a whole cartload of noodles!  

“This was the place he chose. This is an important person, very cautious, unwilling to show himself outside of his own territory,” Xi Ping said unhurriedly. “The Zhao family remnants came ashore in Yu Family Bend, and we’ll have to rely on them to get into Dongheng. This is on our way.” 

Wei Chengxiang asked, “Who is he?” 

Xi Ping said, “Have you heard of ‘worm masters’?” 

Hearing this, Wei Chengxiang automatically looked up at the dwarf half-puppets bustling around the shop. 

Having traveled widely, of course she knew what a ‘worm master’ was—it was a specific kind of toolmaking path; the materials it used weren’t spiritual beasts or spiritual stones, but living creatures. 

When evil cultivators pilfered heaven’s order in a place for a long time, it would impact the surrounding mortals, especially pregnant women and small children. Newborns were often deformed, and babies would contract peculiar diseases. If they weren’t taken care of, they would soon die young. So there was an unorthodox practice that made these half-dead children into half-puppets. Well-made half-puppets even had cultivation and magic powers as soon as they were created. 

Because these half-puppets were also called “earworm half-puppets,” the toolmaking masters were known as “worm masters.” 

Using living people as toolmaking materials decreased one’s merit, so the profession of the worm masters had many restrictions, the first among them being that they couldn’t deliberately harm people and could only use “living ghosts”—in other words, people who had been infected by evil influence and were dying. On one hand, worm masters pulled these dying people back into the human world, performing a life-saving miracle; on the other hand, these half-puppets could only live by eating spiritual stones, and they were often taken as costly slaves and ill-used, living lives worse than death, like Xi Yue when he had been little. So it was hard to say whether what the worm masters did was good or bad. Anyway, they were always carrying on with all kinds of evil cultivators, and in the eyes of the orthodox sects, they were all just as bad as each other. 

Wei Chengxiang’s heart tightened, remembering the full moon scab she had found on the child in Tao County. “What?” 

“After what you said last time, I looked around and found that quite a few worm masters had come to Tao County,” Xi Ping said. “The way not even a blade of grass was left growing where the Silver Moon had passed reminded me right away of pilfering heaven’s order. I suspect they’ve all come looking for ‘materials’.” 

Wei Chengxiang said, “But doesn’t ‘pilfering heaven’s order’ happen in the long term?” 

Spiritual energy in the mortal world was sparse and unevenly distributed to begin with. Even if the Silver Moon had drained all of Tao County dry in one gulp, there was no lid over it. The wind would soon blow spiritual energy from other places there. The frail seedlings dead in the ground would be hard to bring back to life, but the mortals shouldn’t have been so easily impacted. 

“I don’t know… He’s here, ask him.” 

Hardly had Xi Ping spoken than Wei Chengxiang smelled a scent of pine. Then her vision blurred, and a person seemed to appear out of nowhere across from her. 

This person was wearing gloves and a brocade robe that was at odds with the surroundings; he was so ceremonious it was a little odd. He was tall and thin, with a limber figure and precisely-sculpted features, but put together, for some reason, all of this…wasn’t especially attractive. 

It was the kind of unattractive where you couldn’t pick out anything wrong with him, but looking at him long enough was a little spine-chilling. 

The half-puppet who was about to serve Wei Chengxiang all but knelt when he saw the newcomer. He turned and ran, not daring to serve the tampered-with food. 

The newcomer smiled at Wei Chengxiang. His features seemed to have parted ways—only his mouth moved when he smiled. His eyes were very direct, and his voice was neither masculine nor feminine. “Nice to meet you, miss. Please pass along my regards to His Highness the Snake King and the 'Grand Duke Tai Sui’ behind you.” 

Wei Chengxiang raised her eyebrows—it had been a long time since anyone had exposed her identity. 

“Fine,” said Xi Ping, “pass along my regards to the Mr. ‘Heartless’ behind this puppet.” 

Wei Chengxiang was startled and furtively asked him, “This is a dummy? He’s Chu’s most mysterious worm master, Bu Zhichou?” 

“Settle down,” said Xi Ping. “When he comes to Wild Fox Country’s Great Market to buy stuff, he still has to pay protection money to the Snake King’s Immortal Palace.” 

Wei Chengxiang: “…” 

She could guess that Great Wan’s government forces had infiltrated the Snake King’s Immortal Palace, and furthermore that they had a profound connection to this Senior Tai Sui. So she nodded coolly to the puppet and said a few polite phrases as instructed.

The puppet then said, “I know what you want to ask. It’s true, we have all come for the ‘living ghosts’ left by the Silver Moon.” 

The corner of Wei Chengxiang’s eye twitched. 

The puppet said, “The turbid energy of the Silver Moon is heavy. The place it has swept will become a Moon Shadow. Within the next half year at least, spiritual energy won’t be able to flow in from the surroundings. I’m afraid all the little ones three years old and under will turn into little dolls.” 

Wei Chengxiang blurted out, “Dongheng’s Sanyue…” 

…isn’t going to do anything about it? 

“Don’t talk nonsense,” Xi Ping interrupted her in her spirit. “Many little brats die during famine years. When the harvest is bad, people will eat their children, or bury them alive when there’s an epidemic. There’s nothing new about it. What does this amount to? Tell Bu Zhichou that when he comes to the Immortal Palace’s night feasts, no matters what business he does, half the cost will be deducted. Ask him what to do.” 

Hearing this, the puppet smiled, two frightening lumps of flesh appearing on his face. As if he had been prepared in advance, he took a roll of sweet-smelling silk. “I’ve always said that evil cultivators aren’t necessarily any more hard-hearted than parents—here, a spirit-gathering array.” 

Wei Chengxiang was just about to reach out to take it, but the puppet held her back. “But let me warn you, your excellency, this isn’t worth your while.” 

Wei Chengxiang gave him a fake smile, snatched the silk, and opened it up. She saw an array meticulously drawn on the silk. As if he had been worried she wouldn’t understand, he had very considerately pasted on a map of Tao County. 

She only took a glance, and her heart sank: the array needed an astronomical number of white spirits. 

“The spirit-gathering array needs time to gather spiritual energy. The array must be completed by the Mid-Autumn Festival at latest.” Softly, the puppet sarcastically said, “Alas, it’s already the end of the seventh month. I’m afraid there won’t be time to transport spiritual stones from the Sanyue Immortal Mountains—at any rate, I gave you the idea. You can’t take back the conditions you laid out.” 

“You…” When Wei Chengxiang looked up, the seat across from her was already empty. The puppet had vanished.

Just then, the dwarf half-puppet conscientiously brought her food in a big bowl like a serving basin, accompanied by a dish of beef shank, half a jin of ham, a number of side dishes, and an extra pot of top quality Shaoxing wine whose fragrance assailed the nostrils. 

But Wei Chengxiang had lost her appetite. Both of them were silent for a while. 

At this time, she heard a cultivator quietly saying nearby, “…I hear there’s a branch of Great Wan’s Zhaos in Yu Family Bend. The Yu family patriarch personally received them, and someone even came from Sanyue’s inner sect.” 

“So much ceremony?” 

“They’re one of Xuanyin’s four big families. They carry a hidden realm wherever they go. Heavens, only the Zhaos themselves can enter it, and once they’re inside, no one can find them. The Zhao family showed themselves in Yu Family Bend because they want to make friends. Who doesn’t want to eat such a big piece of fatty meat? Thousands of years of the accumulated resources of an orthodox clan—how many good things must they have?” 

Wei Chengxiang took a deep breath, forced herself to rally, and began to eat like a whirlwind, making a clean sweep. As if to distract herself, she picked up the others’s topic and asked Xi Ping, “What is the Yu family? A big family of Sanyue?” 

“In Chu, there are no so-called ‘big families’ apart from the Xiang family,” Xi Ping said. “They’re talking about the local thugs around here.” 

Chu and Wan were neighboring countries, but while there was only a river separating them, their landscapes and geography were very different. 

In Wan, apart from Jingzhou, which was connected the Xuanyin Mountain Range, and some mountainous areas in Hongyin and Shuozhou to the north, the other regions were all plains. There were nine great provinces in the country in all, with prefectures and counties under them. A canal passed from north to south, transportation was well-developed. If a wind rose in one place, in a few days it would have flowed throughout the whole country. Some powers—for example, the former water transport department—were laid along the canal system; others, meanwhile, were trans-provincial associations of officials and merchants with a complex web of connections everywhere, linking up in all directions; you could talk about it for a day and a night without feeling that you had explained it all properly. 

But on this side of the Xia River, Chu’s local customs were far more isolationist. 

There were many mountains and hills here. Before, when there had been no steam engines to cut through mountains and make roads, it would take several days riding a cart to get from one side of a mountain to the other. Both transportation and communication had been difficult. Because of this, since ancient times, Chu hadn’t had big provinces, only various prefectures and counties delimited by the mountains. To come and go between different counties, you often had to trek over mountain ranges. There was layer upon layer of obstacles. Local thugs had great power. 

Above everything was Western Chu’s Xiang family dominating Dongheng’s Sanyue, divinities in heaven, emperors ordained by heaven; and every place also had its own local despot. 

Yu Family Bend’s local despots were the local big family, the Yu clan. They occupied this precious land and had overbearing riches and power. The clan leader was a half-immortal who had become so without authorization…of the sort that didn’t cultivate, which didn’t prevent him from living with greater pomp and ceremony than the ascended spirits and shed skins of the Xuanyin Mountains—in the county of Yu Family Bend, there were several memorial halls consecrated just to the worship of the clan leader. At the doors of the gold smelting furnaces were big statues of the clan leader over a zhang high; if you hadn’t known better, you would have thought he had invented the Gold Imitation technique. It was said that this clan leader also had a granddaughter who had married a prince in Dongheng and given birth to a supposedly very promising son, who had entered the West Peak of Sanyue’s three principal peaks—East, Central, and West. 

Xi Ping added: “I think that Xiang Zhao whose bones may or may not have all been collected came from the West Peak.” 

“I understand. Boundless prospects,” Wei Chengxiang said. Then she sighed. “Why doesn’t Tao County have a local thug with such overbearing riches and power?” 

If there had been one, they might have thought of a way to plunder without having to go far. 

Xi Ping thought: Tao County is remote and backwards, but next door isn’t. And next door, a crowd from a rich and arrogant big family of Xuanyin has just arrived. 

Right now, in the Snake King’s Immortal Palace, the “Snake King” had become Lao Tian, while Xu Rucheng had followed orders and joined with another batch of Luwu to infiltrate the hidden realm where the Zhaos were hidden.

Today, Yu Family Bend’s clan leader had entertained the Zhao clan leader. The clan leader had attended the feast with a few half-immortals from Heaven’s Design Pavilion. While they were away, Xu Rucheng had quickly placed invisible spying talismans everywhere. 

The Zhaos returned earlier than he had expected. 

The Zhao family’s young mistress Zhao Qindan had nailed her features in place to keep her face from slipping. As soon as they returned to the Zhao family hidden realm where they were temporarily staying, before she had even found her footing, her temper erupted: “Father, what do they mean by it?” 

Zhao Qindan was the daughter of the clan leader of the Yuzhou Zhao clan. The Yuzhou Zhao clan was far from the main family. Though they had relied on their distance from the capital and the lack of oversight to secretly raise quite a few half-immortals in their clan, they still hadn’t dared to set their sights on Xuanyin Mountain’s Grand Selection. During the Grand Selection six years ago, the clan had as usual submitted the names of a few juniors of the appropriate age at random, among them Zhao Qindan. 

They had submitted the names, but no one had thought anything would come of it. How could they know that this time, General Zhi would be personally overseeing the Grand Selection? No one knew what criteria this sword god had used to pick people, but at any rate, when the selection card had been delivered to Yuzhou, the whole family had been as stunned as the Yongning Marquis Manor. 

Zhao Qindan’s family background, appearance, natural endowments…even her luck, all of them were remarkable. In the Latent Cultivation Temple, she had been among the first few disciples to open her spiritual eyes. She had gone right onto Heaven’s Design Pavilion’s roster. Upon leaving the mountains, as was only to be expected, she had joined the Yuzhou branch. 

There were many members of the Zhao clan in the Yuzhou branch. The assistant commander was a senior who had come from the main family in Jinping. When a young girl like this suddenly arrived, it naturally goes without saying that she was doted on in myriad ways, everyone praising her and giving way to her. Normally whenever anything good came from the inner sect, she would have first pick. She was never permitted to touch any dirty or tiring work. 

She had previously believed she was a one-in-a-million proud daughter of heaven. 

Who could have thought that worldly affairs could be so inconstant? The Zhao family’s old forebear had fallen, and the former “great immortal clan” had become the scorn and target of all, a rat crossing the street. She had crossed west over the Xia River along with a few seniors in Heaven’s Design Pavilion, from then on becoming a rootless traveler in an alien land. 

The Chu were so rude. A person whose vision was limited to a mere county town had actually said right to her parents’s faces that they wanted her to marry the Yu family’s imperial grandson in the inner sect, whom no one knew anything about! 

“What are they? Are they worth…” 

Clan Leader Zhao waved a hand, interrupting her. “No matter what the mother’s family background is, he is still an imperial grandson of Great Chu, and our family is only a branch family from the border. On the subject of family status, it would count as a step up for us. Never mind that His Highness is an inner sect disciple of Sanyue’s principal peak…” 

“Ha!” Zhao Qindan gave a cold laugh. “An inner sect disciple who hasn’t managed to open his spiritual eyes after eight years among the immortal mountains?” 

This ridicule came from the fact that immortal sects’s inner sects were all unreachably high—excepting Dongheng’s Sanyue. 

Xuanyin recruited one class of disciples every ten years. No matter which family the disciples came from, the Latent Cultivation Temple only let them stay for three hundred sixty days. If they couldn’t open their spiritual eyes during that time, they would be sent back to where they came from; there would be no second chance. Even if you were a prince or princess, you still had to wake up before dawn.

But Sanyue had no so-called “Grand Selection.” They took disciples based on “predestination”—in other words, it depended on connections. After the disciples went there, they had to pay a tribute to their teachers. For example, the West Peak, whose “fine environment nurtured great talents,” didn’t require its established foundation disciples to pay; if they performed some trifling work, they could even collect spiritual stones to use. Disciples below an established foundation were separated into four grades according to their natural endowments. For the top grade, each person had to pay three liang of white spirits monthly. Each grade down, the “private tutoring fees” doubled; the more useless you were, the more you paid. 

If you could afford it, you could hang around the immortal mountains until you died of old age. 

The Yu family’s imperial grandson nephew was of the third class. He had to pay Sanyue nearly a hundred fifty liang of white spirits annually—what did that mean in practice? Calculating the money value according to market prices, next door in Tao County, the entire county’s annual tax revenue might amount to that much. They had been paying for eight years. A green teenager had gone in, and now he had grown a beard and was still a mortal; what willpower! 

But Clan Leader Zhao paused and said tactfully, “After all, we’re outsiders. If we want to put down roots in Sanyue, our best choice is to make ties of marriage with the Xiang family.” 

Zhao Qindan understood her father’s implication and stared at him in disbelief for a long moment. “So you’re agreeing?”