Xi Ping didn’t know from boundaries. His mere mortal eyes hadn’t even been able to understand which side had won in the exchange just now. He could only judge on the basis of his experience with street brawls. He counted up the number of people: fine, Heaven’s Design Pavilion had more people.

So he came to a conclusion: no need to be afraid, it’s a done deal.

When the great demon turned and spoke in his direction, Xi Ping automatically assumed he was talking to him. Perfect. He just happened to have something to say to Jiangli. He wiped the blood from his nose and raised his sword, acknowledging the attribution of “vast magic powers.” He turned and asked the green-robed man: “Exalted, where’s the exit?”

The green-robed man gave him a very strange look, then patted him on the shoulder. “Come, child, stand back. Hold on to the wine pot… and leave me a mouthful. Don’t drink it all.”

As he spoke, he gently shook his sleeve, sweeping Xi Ping behind him.

It was as if Xi Ping instantly became weightless. When he came around, he had already flown into the thicket a length away and landed lightly as a feather.

Next, the night wind poured into his nose and mouth. Xi Ping smelled a rotting wood scent of mingled camphor and cedar, a heavy scent, as though it had steeped in the earth for many years.

The transparent mustard seed had been removed.

The green-robed man moved aside the dry branches hiding him and made his appearance. First he smiled at Tai Sui. Then he waved mildly at the crowd from Heaven’s Design Pavilion. “Good work, everyone. Why don’t you step back for now.”

When he waved his hand, Pang Jian and the others felt as though a mountain had been lifted from them. The oppressive force of golden-eyed Tai Sui disappeared at once. From inertia, nearly all of them stumbled before finding their footing.

Pang Jian recovered his breath and spoke respectfully: “May I ask if I’m speaking to the inner sect’s immortal envoy? Which shixiong are you?”

“I’m not,” the green-robed man said, smiling. “You might have to call me shishu.”

Pang Jian was a bit startled—Xuanyin opened its doors once every ten years; for a cultivator, ten years might mean only a brief stay in seclusion. Fussily sorting out class after class by generational ranking was too confusing, so, whether inner sect or outer, everyone addressed each other as though they were peers. “Shixiong” and “shijie” were broadly applicable honorifics for any member of the sect with whom you weren’t acquainted.

Only the ascended spirit peak masters who had the standing to found lineages and accept disciples were addressed as “shishu.”

But all previous immortal envoys had been established foundation disciples sent down by peak masters who wanted to take new disciples, hadn't they? A slightly slapdash one might simply send a relatively senior open-eyed disciple. Which peak master was this, who had descended to the mortal world in person?

Before Pang Jian could ponder this question, Tai Sui in his burial robes raised his golden eyes again and looked at the immortal envoy. The dragon shadow at his feet grew increasingly fierce, as if it wanted to leap off the ground, open its mouth, and consume. But his tone was still as urbane as before.

“I always knew that the Xuanyin Mountains would find me, but I am surprised that they could bear to send you,” Tai Sui said. “It’s my honor, Zhi Jingzhai… General Zhi.”

As soon as these words left his mouth, everyone present was dumbfounded.

Pang Jian forgot to lower the hand he had just raised, and in the thicket, Xi Ping nearly dropped the wine pot.

The ignorant and incompetent Viscount Xi might at best be able to remember five regnal names of the current dynasty, and those not necessarily in the right order. But even he knew the weight of the name “Zhi Jingzhai.”

“Jingzhai” was a courtesy name. This General Zhi’s given name was “Xiu.”

More than two centuries ago, during the reign of Renzong, there had been a neighboring kingdom to the south of Great Wan called He. The Sect Leader of its Lancang Sword Sect went berserk and ignited the flames of war. Southern He ventured north into the central plains, and Great Wan bore the brunt.

The Lancang Sword Sect had defied tradition, ignoring the separation between mortal and immortal. It sent several master cultivators to travel with the army and used secret arts to cut off communication between the Xuanyin Mountains and Jinping. The Southern He army cut its way irresistibly to Jinping overnight. The overthrow of the capital was imminent.

At the time, Grand Marshal Zhi and the other high generals were all by the border, and none of the local garrisons could send help in time, while Xuanyin couldn’t receive messages. Inside Jinping, there were only thirty thousand imperial guardsmen and some dozen resident open-eye cultivators of Heaven’s Design Pavilion… and, by coincidence, the youngest son of the Zhi family, who was in the capital recovering from an illness.

This young general took command in the crisis. He requisitioned immortal tools from the palace and the homes of the aristocracy, coordinated with the city’s inscriptions and arrays, and, a mortal himself, defended Jinping for a day and a night. He held out while eight Heaven’s Design Pavilion daredevils broke through the siege and sent word to the Xuanyin Mountains.

Later, the other great sects besieged Lancang, and the Lancang Sword Sect was annihilated. Five great sects became four great sects. And Southern He also came to the end of its road; the kingdom fell. Because of lingering demonic energy, it withered for centuries, and the former site of Southern He was today’s Land of Turmoil.

Zhi Xiu made his name in that battle and was afterward appointed high general of cavalry. He was Great Wan’s military star.

Sadly, heaven is jealous of heroes. No sooner had General Zhi been appointed than he contracted a grave illness. Xuanyin’s Grand Selection did not fall in that year, but Xuanyin’s Elder Zhang Jue¹ couldn’t bear to see his star fall. He made an exception, came down from the mountains himself, and took Zhi Xiu as his last disciple. Decades went by, his relatives in the mortal world died one after another, and General Zhi remained hidden in the immortal sect. He never appeared again.

From Renzong to the present, six emperors had reigned. General Zhi was absent from the human world, but his illustrious military exploits became the subject of legends and plays. He was the idol worshipped by every youth in Great Wan. What little boy waving a wooden stick and playing at war in the streets hadn’t fallen out with his little friends over wanting to be General Zhi?

And now this legend was actually before their eyes!

Alive!

And to this day he was still hung up on his annual salary as high general!

“It’s been more than a hundred years since I last went out, yet Your Excellency still recognizes me,” Zhi Xiu said, smiling. “Pardon my manners. May I ask whether there is some connection between us?”

“There is none,” Tai Sui said to him, and even his speech turned modest. “While traveling the world as a young man, this humble one had the good fortune to encounter you. Your merit is eternal, and the martial bearing of the Zhi family inspires deep admiration.”

Zhi Xiu said politely, “You flatter me.”

With the immortal and the demon seemingly competing to outdo each other in politeness, the atmosphere was for a time as harmonious as though they were exchanging New Year’s greetings.

Then Tai Sui made a friendly suggestion: “I have no desire to be your foe. It must have been a hard trip for you from the Xuanyin Mountains to Jinping, General Zhi. Shall we not both step back tonight?”

Zhi Xiu saluted. “Thank you for your solicitude. It wasn’t hard, only running an errand for my sect as duty demands.”

Tai Sui’s expression became increasingly mild. “I only need to borrow a small segment of the Dragon Vein. I guarantee that it can be restored as good as new afterwards, without harming the nation’s destiny. Then we can each take our people and leave. Would that be all right?”

The smile on Zhi Xiu’s face seemed to hold the breezes of bygone springtimes in Jinping.

Then he said, “Sorry, I’m afraid that won’t do.”

Before the others could understand what he meant, the dragon shadow on the ground had already raised its head.

Almost simultaneously, countless water droplets falling out of the sky gathered in Zhi Xiu’s palm and froze into an enormous ice sword that hacked directly at the golden-eyed walking corpse.

Instantly, Tai Sui was ten paces away. All the dry branches within a hundred lengths took on a coating of frost from the sweep of the ice sword!

Tai Sui opened his hands. The dragon shadow at his feet roared silently. There was a crisp sound, and the ice sword in General Zhi’s hand shattered into countless pieces, cutting off a strand of his hair.

The sudden wintry wind chilled Xi Ping to the marrow. “Ah—atchoo!”

His enormous sneeze drew everyone’s gazes to him.

When Jiangli and Pang Jian noticed him, they spoke simultaneously.

“Here you are,” said Pang Jian.

“What are you doing here?!” Jiangli cried out in surprise.

Xi Ping patted bits of grass and ice off himself and crawled out of the thicket.

He sniffled, then muttered, “To answer that, it’s would be a long story.”

“There’s no hurry to tell it,” Zhi Xiu’s voice came from very far away. He was speaking to Pang Jian. “Fall back, and look after this child for me.”

At this point, open-eyed cultivators had no hope of following along with either Zhi Xiu or Tai Sui’s movements.

Wherever this immortal and demon passed, the fine spring rain froze into blades of ice. The blades of ice made from frozen rain were sharp enough to cut through iron as though it were mud. One hit a stone and bounced off, then cut apart the talisman-protected belt of one of the blue-robers!

The walkers in the mortal world and the haunts were forced to gather and retreat to clear the stage for the mighty.

A blue-rober behind Pang Jian said excitedly, “Now that Zhi-shishu is here, there won’t be anything for us to do. Commander, all the haunts who slipped through the net are here. Should we take this opportunity to capture them?”

As he spoke, he was about to raise his sword and get to it. Pang Jian deftly held back the overexcited blue-rober and dragged his rash subordinate back. “Don’t get yourself killed. Out of the way!”

His instruction to get out of the way was silenced by a sky-shaking, earth-shattering dragon’s roar. The dragon shadow moving over the ground had assumed a physical shape. It had leapt off the ground like a pitch-black flame!

In the depths of the flame, the black dragon opened a pair of golden eyes that were staggeringly bright in the night, like two inextinguishable lamps of hellfire.

The ice blades filling the sky instantly vanished into nothing, like a drizzle encountering a conflagration.

All of Jinping shook from the dragon’s roar. Ominous tolling came from Southern Sage Temple.

Pang Jian made a grab in midair and “pulled” over the nearby Xi Ping. With his other hand, he pulled out a metal tool that looked a great deal like a handheld firearm, but when the trigger of this “gun” was pressed, what it shot out was a thick concentration of talismans.

The gun shot quickly and soon formed a talisman net, layer upon layer. But these talismans were so weak they seemed to be made of air; they caught fire as soon as the wind touched them. The speed at which they flew out couldn’t keep up with the speed at which they were destroyed.

Pang Jian, his eyes dazzled, covered the sky with talismans as he shielded the rapid retreat of the others. They were several lengths away in a flash, and the front of his robe was already burnt and ragged, as though it had been soaked in acid from the factories!

The blue-rober who had nearly charged out went weak at the knees. He muttered, “What… what level of cultivation must this be?”

Another blue-rober said, dumbstruck, “Zhi-shishu is an ascended spirit peak master! Can this person be an ascended spirit?”

“Don’t be silly! There’s no such thing as an ascended spirit evil cultivator!”

Xi Ping finally struggled free of Commander Pang’s rough grip on his neck. “Listen, Exalteds… cough-cough… enough ascending spirits. I think if we stay to watch the fun any longer, we’ll be the ones ascending to heaven. If we can’t beat him, can we put some distance between us?”

Just then, the dragon shadow let out a peculiar low roar, as though beckoning to something. The mountain ridges around them cracked. Something seemed to burst out of the ground.

Zhi Xiu’s figure landed not far from the black dragon. The peaceable, polite smile was gone from his face.

“General Zhi, though you are a rare genius, have you been an ascended spirit for even a hundred years? Naturally I would not have dared to come unprepared. I don’t mind telling you, I am a consummate ascended spirit, only a step away from shedding my skin. The distance between two major boundaries is like the distance between heaven and earth. You’re no match for me.” Tai Sui’s voice came from the black dragon. The dragon’s face was like an evil ghost’s, but he still spoke pleasantly.

The walkers in the mortal world who had just been arguing about whether there was such a thing as an ascended spirit evil cultivator were dumbfounded.

If an ascended spirit cultivator had attained the highest heaven, then you could say that a cultivator who had shed his skin was no longer human.

It was said that masters in the shed skin phase could summon crashing thunder, coat midsummer in snow, turn the deep ocean into fertile fields. Many of the “deities” the common people offered sacrifices to at the beginning of each solar term were in fact elders of the shed skin phase.

“It isn’t that I can’t seize Jinping’s Dragon Vein by force. I chose such a roundabout method because I’m unwilling to harm innocent people. I wanted to quietly pry open the Azure Dragon Towers, take a sliver of the Dragon Vein, and go. Why must you spoil my ingenious plan and compel me to seize it by force instead? If I remove Jinping’s Dragon Vein by force, rivers will rise and the earth will shake. Immortals, it’s one thing to care nothing for the millions of ordinary people in the city and outside, but what about the noble people on the west side of the Lingyang River and in the inner courtyards of the palace? Do you care nothing for them, either?”

As he said this, the gigantic dragon’s head turned once more towards far off Pang Jian. “Commander Pang, let’s strike a bargain. For the sake of the big picture, please temporarily remove the seals on the seven Azure Dragon Towers and permit me to borrow a bit of the Dragon Vein, and none of us will disturb the people, all right?”

Sneering, Pang Jian said, “Even as a walking corpse Your Excellency still concerns himself with the country and the people. How truly admirable.”

Tai Sui ignored his fit of pique and responded levelly: “Cultivators value the world above all.”

Pang Jian was stifled half to death in Jinping City. All day he had to put on an act. Only in front of haunts could he reveal a trace of his true obstinate and unruly nature. At once, he clapped his hands and said with a smile, “How rare to see an evil cultivator like Your Excellency with such an open heart. Well said! Cultivators value the world above all. That being the case, why don’t you commit suicide at once? If you’re no longer in the world to cause trouble, you’ll be benefiting mankind and saving the people. I’ll be sure to explain your meritorious deed to my sect and have them raise a memorial temple to you in the Blissful Village. The common people of Jinping will of course be overwhelmed with gratitude and come every year to burn incense and make offerings. Wouldn’t that please everyone?”

The dragon’s head gave him a pitying look and didn’t sink to the level of arguing with this open-eyed ant and his empty rhetoric. Instead, the head turned calmly towards Zhi Xiu. “General Zhi, what do you think?”

“The young walkers in the mortal world are so sharp-tongued these days. I’m not as skilled a speaker as him,” Zhi Xiu answered, also very calmly. “As for whether you can take the Dragon Vein today, why don’t you ask this?”

As he spoke, he swept out his hand, and a sword fell into his palm out of thin air.

A blue-rober cried out in surprise: “Zhaoting!”

“Zhaoting”—this was the peerless sword said to have fended off tens of thousands of Lancang monsters and the Southern He army.

There wasn’t a single stick in Jinping that some child hadn’t picked up to play the part of Zhaoting!

The black dragon’s reaction to Zhaoting was tremendous. Practically at first sight, a mournful dragon’s howl resounded throughout the world. The black clouds covering the sky over the Blissful Village suddenly thickened.

Pang Jian held down Xi Ping’s head while he raised a hand and opened an unprepossessing black umbrella, shielding the two of them. The moment the umbrella opened, countless bolts of lightning crashed down.

Xi Ping felt a sharp pain in his ears and was briefly deafened.

For a time, everything outside the umbrella… even the pouring rain, was swallowed by the lightning. Never mind the immortal and the demon, he couldn’t even see Pang Jian right next to him.

Xi Ping felt that he had become a tiny ant amid a colossal flood, desperately huddling on a leaf that could capsize at any moment. All his ideas took flight, and he felt a trace of bewildered helplessness.

When the storm had plowed through the whole Blissful Village, Zhi Xiu planted Zhaoting in the earth, and the peculiar quaking came to a temporary stop. But at the same time, he was entirely encircled by the black dragon!

Like a python, the black dragon wrestled with the keen sword energy surrounding Zhi Xiu, staring greedily at the green-robed man and Zhaoting in his hand, as though it wanted to swallow man and sword together.

Xi Ping, deafened and dazzled, managed to recover some of his senses and felt that the hand the invincible Commander Pang was using to hold down his head was shaking!

Next, he heard a snap. The canopy of the umbrella in Pang Jian’s hand tore in half down the middle. Its ribs broke.

Pang Jian had already been injured while facing Tai Sui earlier. Now he could hardly stand up. He stumbled.

Xi Ping quickly held him up, and Pang Jian against him, getting an unexpected noseful of the young master’s rich clothing scent. He turned his head away and sneezed.

The sneeze aggravated his internal injuries. He followed it up by coughing up a mouthful of blood.

Xi Ping: “…”

What a disaster. He’d made Heaven’s Design Pavilion’s commander throw up blood!

As Xi Ping was wondering whether he should keep holding him up or, for Commander Pang’s good, push him aside, he heard a voice as thin as gossamer. “Why… why are you here?”

Still supporting Pang Jian, Xi Ping looked in the direction of the voice and saw Jiangli in her mourning garb.

In the thunderstorm just now, both the Heaven’s Design Pavilion half-immortals and the haunts had found their own shelter. Jiangli had been pulled under a coffin by her companions with missing parts.

As soon as the thunderstorm had passed, she had struggled up from under the coffin.

She seemed throttled, scalded by some strange force. She needed answers now.

“Why are you here… How can you be here?” As if obsessed, Jiangli leveled an unfocused gaze at Xi Ping. “Y-you shouldn’t…”

Everyone was in a sorry state now. Only Xi Ping, shielded by Pang Jian, hadn’t lost so much as a hair. He shot back, ignorant and undaunted, “Then where should I be? Divine lady going in disguise through the mortal world, why don’t you instruct me?”

Because of her sudden aging, the bones around Jiangli’s eyes seemed to have collapsed, making her eye sockets bigger and deeper, with two clouded eyes hiding inside.

“You were taken by Heaven’s Design Pavilion,” she babbled. “Why didn’t you give them the birthday jade? Why didn’t you stay at Heaven’s Design Pavilion tonight?”

After all this time in the woods, even if he had been an idiot, Xi Ping would have understood—Jiangli must have put that soul-driving spice into ordinary food or drink and marinated him into a human incense burner without him knowing about it. He was a dissolute night owl; he was sure to run into an unlucky devil infected with the insect eggs and kill him with the scent. These corpses looked very much like victims who had been forced into being a ghost’s wife. Everyone’s first impression being the strongest, they would decide that these people had been forced into an underworld marriage.

Jiangli had counted on him being taken to Heaven’s Design Pavilion, then discovering the birthday jade in the silk brocade bag. Thinking he was also a candidate to be a “bride,” he would have run in terror to hand over the stone, then hidden at Heaven’s Design Pavilion in like a turtle in its shell, seeking protection.

This way, the walkers in the mortal world would certainly have sent someone to investigate Jiangli. But to handle a mere songstress, there wouldn’t be more than one or two people. They would follow the leads the old driver had deliberately left and step right into the evil cultivators’ trap, then be captured by them to use as offerings—presumably in that instance, Jiangli wouldn’t have been the one to bleed.

Once night came, the “incense burner” mixed in among the insect egg hosts would have been able to kill all the cowards who had been sent running scared by the Flower Viewing Invitations to spend the night at Heaven’s Design Pavilion. When the time came, Jinping would have been full of walking corpses. The walkers in the mortal world would be short-staffed, would get flustered. Jiangli’s associates in the city would have had a chance to steal the Dragon Vein!

Pretty fucking well thought out, too, but couldn’t she have asked him before casting him as such a clown?

“Well, I haven’t asked you yet!” Xi Ping said angrily. “What were you thinking? That I would be so scared by a lousy rock that I wouldn’t dare to leave Heaven’s Design Pavilion and get you thrown in the Quell? Why did you cast me as some bleating, pants-wetting coward?! Is that what I’m fucking like?”

Xi Ping’s anger had gone to his head. He even forgot to speak well of the dead and blurted out, “That’s Big Dog Wang!”

But Jiangli didn’t hear a word of it. She was in the depths of despair now, and not because the plan had failed—she had been prepared to sacrifice herself; she hadn’t counted on being able to capture Heaven’s Design Pavilion half-immortals to stand in for her.

All her life, her hopes had all come to nothing, and her expectations had all let her down. There was no exception. She had long ago acknowledged this as her fate.

The soul-driving spice and the insect eggs were both concealed at Overflowing Splendor. She hadn’t hesitated for a moment before giving Xi Ping the wine with soul-driving spice concealed in it. He was the last thing tying her to this world. Once any thought of him had been destroyed, she would be “perfect.”

Hearing that Xi Ping had been taken by Heaven’s Design Pavilion “without a hitch,” she had known that this was a surefire thing. She had only to wait before she, the worthless “toy,” was once again cast aside. Others were willing to coddle her on account of her beauty, but this cold-hearted young master wasn't even interested in that. What suspense could there be?

But this time, the “surefire” person hadn’t cast her away.

He had made all their arrangements fall through at the last instant.

Just this once.

As if her fate was to have all her wishes contradicted… no matter what those wishes were.

Jiangli with her head of white hair screamed, shill and sad: “But your feelings for me are more ephemeral than dew!”

The wretch Xi Ping didn’t understand a thing. He thought he hadn’t explained himself to her, so he boldly and forcefully yelled back, “I don’t love you, so that means I’m a coward? Are you some kind of proving ground for bravery?”

Pang Jian: “…”

In the sky the immortal and the demon were deadlocked. All of Jinping City might shake itself into a pile of ruins at any moment, and every single one of them would be dissolved into a fine powder. And these two still had the time to argue!

And they were arguing about something so irrelevant!