Wei Chengxiang was among the first to hear the music. Her consciousness had been flattened by the Law Breaker and her spiritual energy exhausted. She awakened to music, her wounds healing rapidly, her meridians seemingly becoming considerably wider than before. 

As if she understood something, she sat and began to meditate. 

Under the protection of a night of qin music, Tao County slept peacefully—the people had been woken from numbness and submission by the Law Breaker, and their blood had begun to burn, but they had also directly faced the bloody ascended spirit battlefield and the Silver Moon; but the music that reached into each person’s dreams left the fear behind in the deep night, taking only their souls. 

All the cultivators passing through Tao County also had a chance to make progress. Even Zhaoting, suspended on Xi Ping’s spirit, became tranquil. 

When day was breaking, Wei Chengxiang finally opened her eyes to the first rays of the morning sun and the hawking of the peddlers. “Senior, you were rusty at the beginning.” 

“I’ve never played Chu songs before.” Xi Ping held down the strings. With a profound air of seniority and mastery, he sighed with feeling. “Besides, it has been many years since I last touched a qin.” 

The Tai Sui Qin was his vital weapon, but sadly, since its birth, it had hardly been played. If he hadn’t been using it as a big sledgehammer to pound an immortal tool, then it had been sealed along with him at the bottom of the Impassable Sea. Only when he had said goodbye to Wei Chengxiang back then had he hastily played for her… Fortunately she couldn’t read his thoughts from his music, or else she would have heard the uncertainty and panic in his playing. 

Hearing his easy tone and seeing that he was in the mood to hide out somewhere playing the qin, she knew that the matter of the Law Breaker Bracelet must have been resolved. Stretching, she relaxed. She was just about to ask about the details when she suddenly felt that something was wrong. 

Xi Ping sat among the clouds, awaiting the first rays of dawn, his gaze following the dew into the mortal world. He wasn’t prepared to reveal the matter of the Law Breaker Bracelet and its axiom to too many people and had already concocted a set of lies. He was ready to start by showing off in front of the young woman. Then he saw Wei Chengxiang pat herself down twice and sit up straight like a risen corpse. 

Xi Ping prepared his ethereal pose and idly enticed her to ask: “What is it?” 

Wei Chengxiang said, “There’s two liang three qian of jade stamps missing from my mustard seed!” 

Xi Ping: “…” 

With the morning star hanging high in the sky, couldn’t they talk about a somewhat more refined subject? 

Grand Duke Tai Sui’s mind, floating high among the clouds, was dragged back into this mortal world by her babbled “two liang three qian.” Clicking his tongue, he idly said, “That’s not possible. Count again. Maybe you just remembered wrong.” 

He could see all of Tao County. There wasn’t a safer place anywhere. No one had come near A-Xiang. Who could have stolen spiritual stones from her mustard seed without anyone knowing? 

If they were capable of that, would they be interested in that two liang three qian? 

Wei Chengxiang acted as though her personal integrity had been called into question. “How could I possibly have counted my spiritual stones wrong? I only have about twenty liang of jade stamps to begin with!” 

Xi Ping: “…” 

Fair enough. After all, this was the woman who had picked up scales to weigh half a qian of green ore. 

Just then, the cultivators who had been immersed in the music woke from meditation one by one. Xi Ping concentrated and heard the voices coming from all sides. 

“Strange, where did the two blue jades I just put next to me go?” 

This was a worm master. 

“The number of my spiritual stones is wrong, where are you?” 

“I think I’m missing a white spirit!” 

Oh, a cash cow. Xi Ping’s gaze was drawn for a moment by this cry, but he heard someone else say, “One tenth of my essence has been drained!” 

There were quite a few established foundation cultivators in Tao County. Xi Ping quietly noted this one down and became even more suspicious. 

Spiritual stones might have been counted wrong or lost, but how could an established foundation cultivator’s essence be drained out of nowhere? 

Zhao Qindan, who had been knocked out by the Luwu, also woke up and inspected her spiritual stone pouch as a precaution. Her expression was grave. After a moment, even the Luwu staying behind in the Snake King’s Immortal Palace sent him a message: “Senior Tai Sui, each of us has lost about a tenth of our spiritual stones. The cause is unclear. We’ve sent people to make an inventory of the Snake King’s Immortal Palace’s stores.” 

In Tao County, the mortals went on as usual, but each cultivator seemed to be missing one tenth of their spiritual stones; those who didn’t have spiritual stones had lost a tenth of their essence. 

How strange. 

Wei Chengxiang asked, “Can it be the Law Breaker Bracelet getting up to tricks?” 

Xi Ping frowned. As he listened to the cultivators discussing their losses, he plucked the Tai Sui Qin. 

The strings moved, but there was no sound. The spiritual energy at his fingertips spread out in all directions like waves. Xi Ping looked down and closely examined the path the spiritual energy. 

With so many cultivators losing spiritual stones, the quantity wouldn’t be small. A large quantity of spiritual stones gathered together would automatically attract free spiritual energy. 

Xi Ping wanted to see where the spiritual energy flowed, but the spiritual energy floating from the qin strings went hardly a dozen zhang before, as if being towed, it assembled and returned to the Tai Sui Qin. 

Light flashed on the qin strings among the spiritual energy, as if criticizing him for wasting his essence. 

Xi Ping: “…” 

His qin was a miser? 

Reasonably speaking, a vital weapon was the vehicle of a cultivator’s Way of the Heart. When a cultivator cultivated, they refined their Way of the Heart; after decades and centuries of diligent cultivation, the vital weapon would have become a part of their body and mind. 

But Xi Ping had no Way of the Heart, so even though he had by a series of coincidences ended up as a “consummate established foundation,” he actually wasn’t yet very well-acquainted with his vital qin.

Everything was peculiar when it came to him. As if striking up a conversation with a stranger, Xi Ping carefully scouted out the qin with his consciousness, wanting to see what this qin’s “nature” was. The Tai Sui Qin didn’t react, as tepid as the heart-protecting lotus he had given san-ge; perhaps he had knocked it stupid, or it had been shut up in the Impassable Sea too long. 

Suddenly, a song sounded inside the Tai Sui Qin, precisely the one he had just played. Xi Ping was startled: this was wrong. There was an inharmonious aura inside the Tai Sui Qin, as if some foreign matter had gotten into it. 

He chased after it with his consciousness and quickly caught a sliver of golden light within the qin—the Law Breaker Bracelet! 

The Law Breaker Bracelet that Xi Ping and Lin Chi hadn’t been able to find anywhere last night had secretly hidden inside the Tai Sui Qin. 

The Law Breaker Bracelet didn’t seem to want to hide from him. Before he could move, it flew towards him, wrapped in golden light, bumping right into Xi Ping’s consciousness. 

Next, Xi Ping’s field of vision suddenly widened as his consciousness was pulled into a hidden realm. 

The scenery here was all blurred. As his consciousness entered, the empty scenery solidified, transforming perfectly into the form of the rear garden in the Yongning Marquis Manor. 

There was…a garden inside the Law Breaker Bracelet? 

Where the winding paths met, dense spiritual energy was surging out. Xi Ping followed the spiritual energy, took a look, and was dumbfounded. 

In the depths of the garden, a little fishing pavilion was stacked full of spiritual stones, everything from white spirits down to impure jade stamps. In the middle was a big, half-transparent jar, half-filled with spiritual energy in the form of essences drained from persons unknown, being separated into spiritual stones! 

Xi Ping: “…” 

Was this some fantasy concocted as a response to his “daily preoccupations and nightly dreams”? But then why would there be whole ones and partial ones? Was it…to increase the realism? 

In his perplexity, Zhi Xiu’s somewhat concerned voice sounded in his ear: “Shiyong!” 

“Hey, shifu,” Xi Ping, as if in a dream, thoughtlessly answered, staring at the spiritual stones, “hurry up and come slap me.” 

Hardly had he spoken than he heard Zhi Xiu give an exclamation of surprise. Next, a white figure with a blurred face but generally recognizable form appeared beside Xi Ping. 

Xi Ping recognized at a glance that this was his shifu—he had sought for this figure high and low countless times among Flying Jade Peak’s wild winds and heavy snow. He could recognize him at a distance from his outline. 

But…didn’t shifu have only a sliver of his consciousness attached to the shard of Zhaoting? 

Before he could recover, the blurred human figure, upon appearing, without another word, rudely gave him a slap on the back of the head. 

Xi Ping: “Ow!” 

This place was strange. Having his consciousness beaten felt the same as having his physical body beaten. 

Zhi Xiu didn’t have much energy. He had originally been meditating on Flying Jade Peak, but soon he had suddenly woken with a start—he couldn’t sense Xi Ping’s consciousness anymore. 

“Is this inside the Law Breaker Bracelet?” In a flash, Zhi Xiu had examined the garden inside the Law Breaker Bracelet. 

He was half a step from a shed skin, and the shard of Zhaoting was suspended on Xi Ping’s spirit. Reasonably speaking, apart from something of the grade of the demon seal, nothing could obstruct him. This place gave him a sense of being outside the real world. Where it connected, Zhi Xiu couldn’t see clearly at a glance. The Law Breaker Bracelet seemed to be able to cut off all probing—unless Xi Ping was willing to let it in. 

As he spoke, the little garden slowly changed. Snow and ice appeared on the flowers and trees, and the little pavilion in the middle containing the spiritual stones took on the appearance of the cottage on Flying Jade Peak. 

Zhi Xiu paused. 

Xi Ping also quickly realized something. He concentrated and cleared his thoughts. The changes in the scenery stopped. Next, the “hybrid” of Flying Jade Peak and the Marquis Manor’s garden changed once more, turning into a convincing Snake King’s Immortal Palace. 

“It seems I can change the furnishings here as I like…” Xi Ping said quietly. “Strange, why doesn’t the pile of spiritual stones change no matter how the place changes?” 

“These spiritual stones are probably real objects.” Zhi Xiu frowned and calculated on his fingers, recalling briefly. He said, “These must be the spiritual stones those cultivators in Tao County lost. Converting them all into white spirits, you would get about two or three hundred liang.” 

Xi Ping said, “…How do you know, shifu?” 

“I overheard it in your spirit. I can calculate a rough estimate.” 

“You can… How did you calculate that?” Xi Ping asked in astonishment. “Shifu, weren’t you a high general before? How come you can keep accounts better than Cui Ji’s manager?” 

“Going to war is all keeping accounts.” Zhi Xiu waved a hand. “Or how do you think we pay for leading troops? On horseback with sword drawn, a thousand soldiers leaping forward to cut off the enemy general’s head?” 

“Wait,” Xi Ping said, “wait, shifu, you mean that when I played the qin outside last night, this lousy bracelet was hiding inside the qin…secretly collecting a listening fee? And forcing the sale?” 

Teacher and disciple stared at each other in dismay. General Zhi also seemed dubious—how could a sword cultivator like him turn out such an “accomplished” disciple? So he dryly said, “It seems that your proficiency in this field can indeed earn you a living. As a teacher, I am very gratified.” 

Xi Ping became angry at once. He leapt up. “What does this lousy bracelet take me for? A performer who sings ballads for a living?” 

Zhi Xiu stared. He hadn’t expected him to care about this, as if he had shame. 

Then Xi Ping turned and said outwards: “Playing half the night for two shichen, I made three hundred liang of white spirits. Then wouldn’t it take over six hundred shichen to make a hundred thousand liang of white spirits?! Why didn’t the lousy bracelet say so earlier? If it had said so earlier, I’d have played two months in a row, and wouldn’t I have a hundred thousand liang then? Now there’s only about ten days left. There can’t be any delays… Can I get more money if I sell my favors?” 

He could also put on a colorful dress and dance, as long as the officials in the audience weren’t afraid of having their lifespans shortened when they were done enjoying the sight. 

Zhi Xiu: “…” 

General Zhi raised a hand and grabbed his disciple, who had been driven mad by poverty. “All the cultivators in Tao County added together don’t have a hundred thousand white spirits, and if you take their things again you’ll scare them all off! Come back.” 

Xi Ping said urgently, “Who doesn’t want to economize, wait until the livestock are fattened for the slaughter? It’s the spirit-gathering array that won’t wait!” 

Zhi Xiu said, “Have you worked out the rules this Law Breaker Bracelet uses to collect spiritual stones? Sit down.” 

Xi Ping was caught by his shizun and held down among the glittering pile of spiritual stones. After calming down for a moment, he said, “It seems that the Law Breaker Bracelet only took one tenth of each person’s spiritual stones—and it only took from the cultivators. Many mortals in Tao County also have spiritual stones at home, but I didn’t hear any of them say they were missing any.” 

Zhi Xiu thought about it. “With your cultivation level half a step from an ascended spirit, you playing your vital qin has great benefits for Tao County’s lower level cultivators.” 

Xi Ping said, “Well, I wasn’t playing for them… Wait, because I wasn’t playing for them, the Law Breaker Bracelet collected a fee for me?” 

This place’s axiom had been made from the wish of Tao County’s mortals. Cultivators coming from outside fell outside the scope of the axiom’s protection. If they got a benefit, they had to pay the price. 

Xi Ping’s mind immediately became active. His eyes spun. 

Zhi Xiu knocked on his forehead. “Cultivation cannot rely on external things. It’s one thing to have an occasional fortuitous encounter that leads you to some enlightenment. If you really played the qin day and night for two months, you would drive them all mad. Restrain your evil designs.” 

“I’m only…” 

Xi Ping was just about to say something when, suddenly, someone shouted to him: “Tai Sui, help!” 

The shout echoed throughout the whole Immortal Palace inside the Law Breaker Bracelet, like a big bell. 

It was Xu Rucheng.