A karma beast that had been curled up in the wall napping instantly bristled. Pang Jian said, “Wait.” 

Zhou Xi turned his head. His twisted features returned to normal. “Hm?” 

The karma beast quickly raced from the wall to the floor and warily sniffed at his heels. 

Zhou Xi was bewildered. He lifted the hems of his robes to let the sacred beast smell him. “What’s wrong, General Commander? Have I picked up a stink?” 

Pang Jian scanned Zhou Xi with his consciousness and aimed an evil-expelling, pestilence-avoiding talisman at him, but…nothing happened. 

The karma beast didn’t sniff anything out, either. It tossed its head in confusion and began to chase its own tail. 

“It’s nothing.” Pang Jian wearily pinched the center of his bow. “I’m a little dizzy. You don’t need to stand your shift, you’re also tired after today. Find a colleague to swap shifts with.” 

Zhou Xi was very perplexed. He thought, What’s tiring about going on a short trip to Zheluo? 

But the general commander had said he was tired, so he couldn’t very well boorishly insist on saying “I’m fine, actually,” so he agreed and, obeying orders, left. 

Before, whenever Pang Jian had gone to Jinghua Village, he had taken Xi Yue. Xi Yue spoke little, but he could always understand the sighs of others. Unfortunately, Xi Yue had taken leave today, and it wouldn’t have been appropriate for Pang Jian to go alone, so he had snatched up Zhou Xi before going. As expected…he would have been better off not taking him. The prince probably couldn’t imagine that lowly mortal women could have their own joys and sorrows. 

Perhaps because he had taken a different person, Pang Jian kept feeling that something was off. Feeling awkward himself, looking at Zhou Xi also made him feel awkward, and that had made him a little paranoid—when the karma beast had bristled just now, he had thought that a shadow had flitted over Zhou Xi. 

Pang Jian focused. If someone really had brought to bear methods undetectable to him, that person would have to be an ascended spirit or better. With the current tightness of Jinping’s defenses, the Azure Dragon Towers would have started up a “concert” by now; it wouldn’t be so quiet. 

Taking a glance at the already calm karma beast, he shook his head to shake off his inexplicable thoughts. 

“Tsk.” Zhuoming briefly pulled his consciousness out of the Territory Map rubbing. “The Xuanyin Mountains really are the mountains of tortoises. They all live in their iron shells.” 

“Really,” Wangge Luobao echoed, maintaining the posture of meditation. “No wonder they’re the originators of this bad precedent of sending spies to foreign nations. You can only seal yourself up like a drum if you know everyone else’s leaks inside and out. Shu’s Zhaoye City couldn’t catch up to them after three centuries of trying.” 

One of Zhuoming’s eyes rolled up to the top of his bald head. “Ditch your little ploys, don’t think I don’t know you’re making fun of how I talk. If you’re in such a hurry to give me your mouth, just come out and say it.” 

“My Chu is poor, and you’re the only proper Chu person around me. It’s unavoidable that I would inadvertently imitate you. Of course I’ll stop if you’re unhappy about it,” Wangge Luobao said indifferently, smiling. “Zhuoming-xiong, that soul-sucking lotus seal of yours makes too much of a fuss. You can only borrow a person’s senses temporarily. Just now when you tried to seep into that little half-immortal’s consciousness, you immediately alerted Jinping’s sacred beast. If you really tried to seize his consciousness, I’m afraid the Azure Dragon Towers wouldn’t agree to it. What is to be done?” 

“I got to use their eyes to find the entrance to the legendary Jinghua Village thanks to that wife-deserting, child-abandoning blue-clotheser, didn’t I? That Jinghua Village was built out of nothing by a master using a layered mirror array. A place like that, which tramples all over their ‘three improvements and three abstinences,’ naturally has to come up with a way to avoid the surveillance of the spiritual mountains. It’s a blindspot in the sightline of the Xuanyin Mountains’ spiritual veins, perfectly suited for planting lotuses.” 

As Zhuoming spoke, he extended a hand. His arm grew seven or eight chi long. He broke off a length of lotus stalk from under his own ass and shook it out into the water. From the sticky crack, the images of some young children floated out, disappearing as soon as they came to light—these were the children from Jinghua Village. 

When the Heartless Lotus swallowed a person’s consciousness, whether they were an established foundation or an ascended spirit, if they had slipped up and let their consciousness be seized by the Heartless Lotus, they would all turn into empty shells, dead as doornails, controlled for a while by lotus stalks before they rotted. 

There were thousands upon millions of evil cultivators in the world, but tied together in a bushel, they couldn’t outdo one single Heartless Lotus for evil. This Zhuoming’s behavior was excessively deranged. In a rare occurrence, Wangge Luobao frowned. He closed his eyes and didn’t watch. 

“A child’s intellect isn’t fully developed, you can’t keep them if you absorb them, and there are limits to what their bodies can do. Why would you do something so atrocious and detrimental to yourself…” 

Before he could finish, the lotus stalk that had been gamboling around him suddenly sprang towards him like a viper and gave Wangge Luobao a firm slap in the face. 

“Are you lecturing me?” said Zhuoming. 

A few nearby Miah cultivators happened to catch sight of their clan leader being insulted. They gave angry cries and raised their weapons, ready to charge over and start hacking at lotus stalks. 

Zhuoming didn’t give a damn whether anyone understood him or not. In the Chu language, he said provocatively, “Come at me. I’ve put my stamp on your new clan leader. He sold himself into slavery to me long ago. We’ll see who he’ll be able to protect when I kill you all!” 

Wangge Luobao raised a hand, stopping his clansmen from a distance. 

He seemed to go deliberately still for a moment. Then his thin eyelids covered his odd-colored eyes. Like a person made of dough who had no temper, with the red mark from the lotus stalk’s slap on his face, he spoke an ancient Miah proverb: “The tamer of beasts lives cheek by jowl with talons and fangs. It’s no matter.” 

The Miah cultivators continued to glare wrathfully at Zhuoming. 

Though Wangge Luobao’s tone was light, there was no question about his ascended spirit might. “Do not meddle where others tame beasts. Go.” 

The Miah were powerless. They made some local rude gestures towards Zhuoming and then were driven off by their new clan leader, muttering oaths. 

“You misunderstood me, Zhuoming-xiong. I meant nothing by it. I was only worried about you,” Wangge Luobao at last said earnestly. “Since there is an array left behind by a master in Jinghua Village, if you cause too much commotion, it’s sure to alert that person. Anyway, even if you can have your own way in Jinghua Village, what’s the use? The moment those walking corpses get walked out of the village by the lotus stalks, how will it be any different from you yourself walking around in Southern Wan’s main streets? It will also alert Xuanyin. Moreover, while Jinghua Village can avoid Xuanyin’s surveillance, you’ve already taken the lives of mortals. Even if the spiritual veins don’t spot it, the Xuanyin Mountains still have the Sea of Stars. Aren’t you alerting the enemy…” 

Seeing that he was neither alarmed nor angry, Zhuoming felt very bored, so he said, sneering, “Bah, you beast-taming vipers. You’d let a person spit on your face and wait for it to dry. There must be nothing but ice flowing in your veins—who said I wanted to make a bunch of walking corpses leave? I’m not a corpse-puppeteer. Do you think it takes tricks to control mortals, idiot?” 

Having said this, like a child eager to show off his talents, he snatched up Wangge Luobao’s consciousness, which he had put a lotus stamp on, and plunged into the Territory Map rubbing. 

However much one felt another’s pain, other people were still other people. The people in Jinghua Village had in the end scattered, and the abandoned woman desolately went home alone. 

Her little daughter was still in her swaddling clothes, her son only five years old. She had to endure the remainder of her days. 

As soon as the woman came in, she found to her surprise that the lights were on at home. Her little boy hadn’t obediently gone to bed, nor had he snuck out to play. Under the dim gas lamp, he was oh-so-quietly sitting beside the soundly sleeping infant, now and then lightly rocking the cradle. 

The woman turned around hurriedly and wiped her face. She squeezed out a smile and softly called the boy’s nickname: “Fuhu, why haven’t you gone to bed yet? Careful not to wake your little sister.” 

The boy jumped off the bed without a sound and ran over to hug the woman’s legs. He turned his face up to look at her. Those big black eyes were like two wells in which corpses had been sunk. 

The woman didn’t notice anything unusual about the boy. Her nose stung, and she nearly wept. She drew the child into her arms, seeking a trace of consolation from that small body. 

A blurred lotus seal flashed on the side of the boy’s neck. In that body that had been taken over by an evil cultivator, the original owner’s immature consciousness had vanished. The dead spirit contained only two malign evil cultivators. 

Zhuoming made a scornful pronouncement: “The enmity of mortals is like oil. It goes up in flames at a single spark. Watch the show. Today I’ll slit a hole in the Dragon Vein without anyone the wiser.” 

He made the boy slowly turn his head and whisper poisonously into her ear, “Mom, when is Papa coming home? I miss him.” 

The woman’s body stiffened. Her arms tightened around him. 

The boy’s lips turned up at both sides. “Mom, they say I look like Dad.” 

Wangge Luobao looked on, thinking with admiration, What skill. Even his breathing is hateful. 

But contrary to his expectations, the tempest Zhuoming was anticipating didn’t develop. 

The haggard woman, as if about to collapse, took several deep breaths, then unexpectedly controlled her trembling body. She picked the child up gently. “Your Dad, he’s gone very far away to fight demons. We can’t let those evil cultivators get in and disturb our Fuhu’s sleep.” 

Wangge Luobao raised his eyebrows in some surprise. 

A clean scent came from the woman as she exhaled. With her weak, useless hands, she patted the boy’s back. “Our Papa is a big hero. Fuhu has to eat up, sleep well, and in the future…” 

Zhuoming’s expression turned cold. He interrupted the woman: “He left you.” 

The woman’s already bloodless face paled further. “Fuhu…what are you saying? Has someone been saying things to you?” 

Zhuoming outperformed himself in the Wan language. His pronunciation was extremely crisp, nearly surpassing the average level of a Wan child. “He’s gone to find his future and tossed you aside.” 

Come on, vent your powerless anger on your son, you useless good-for-nothing. Your man’s gone, so who are you playing the loving mother for? 

“You’re an undignified piece of old clothing, and me and that sniveling brat are two wads of used toilet paper…” 

The woman’s lips were trembling. Her expression nearly fell several times, but she narrowly managed to hold out. Finally, she only looked into the boy’s wrathful eyes and gently said, “Child, it’s not like that.” 

Wangge Luobao sniggered. 

His quiet laughter lit an indescribable anger in Zhuoming. “You’re lying…” 

“It’s not like that.” The woman gently stroked his hair. The same clean scent came from her sleeve. Maybe the scent she used was a specialty product of Southern Wan. In all the centuries he had lived, Zhuoming had never smelled anything like it. 

“You don’t understand grown-up business yet, but whether Papa comes back or not, you and Baozhu are still my treasures.” As she spoke, she smiled, accidentally squeezing traces of tears from the corners of her eyes. “What bad person taught you to talk like that? Little ingrate, Papa loved you so much when he was here, but you don’t trust him, you’d rather believe what bad people say. What’s the sense in that? Your Dad has just left it all to your Mom to love you. Just wait and see, Mom is much stronger than him…” 

Wangge Luobao laughed aloud. “Zhuoming-xiong, you really are lucky. How did you pick out such a good mother at random?” 

Zhuoming was simply beside himself with rage. 

The boy’s small body erupted into inhuman strength. He broke free of the adult’s arms. A lotus seal emerged on his forehead. He opened his mouth and spat out fog. 

“Hey,” said Wangge Luobao, dying to make trouble, “you said you weren’t going to use any tricks. Why are you using illusions on a mortal…?” 

Zhuoming flung out a hand and sent him away. He began to torment the mortal’s untempered mind with all-consuming illusions. 

“No more nonsense, listen to me, we’ll leave here quietly, go give those blue-clothed dogs and Jinping bighats something to look at. Mom, be good—”

The Heartless Lotus’s tricks could make an established foundation long for death, but when half the night had passed, this mortal, whom he could have poked dead with one finger, still wouldn’t do as he wished. With her life and her dignity, she kept her rage and resentment contained, unwilling to reveal a sliver of it in front of her child. 

At last, amid Zhuoming’s howl of “Why won’t you listen?”, the mortal’s mind completely collapsed. 

But while the light of her spirit had been extinguished and saliva was leaking uncontrollably from the corners of her mouth, she didn’t stop whispering the nicknames of her two children. 

“Fuhu…don’t be scared…Baozhu…don’t cry…don’t cry…” 

The lotus stalks controlling the boy broke through the body’s forehead. Zhuoming had nearly lost his mind from anger. 

Her consciousness was dead. He had failed! 

The mighty Heartless Lotus had wasted half the night, unable to delude a mortal! 

Zhuoming had never thought that his first attempt would fail so miserably, nor that the “gutter” he overturned his boat in would be so small. 

He grabbed the hair of the boy he was possessing and desperately pulled down. The infant in the cradle, after being forced to share a room with demons, was crying so hard she was nearly blue in the face. 

Why did a woman like this exist? 

Why did these gap-toothed brats with no redeeming qualities deserve to be protected like this? 

Why…why…

“To hell with it!” 

Wangge Luobao’s voice entered his consciousness from far away. “There’s no more time, Zhuoming-xiong. Give it up, leave at once. The people you’ve killed tonight will alert the Sea of Stars. Those two walkers in the mortal world have your lotus seals on them. They can’t sense it themselves, but a master will understand at a glance. It’ll be a matter of moments for them to find Jinghua Village then. I think we ought to take it a little at a time. Well, it’s too bad. We’ve spent so long plotting, but we’ve still alerted the enemy in advance.” 

This Miah degenerate really knew how to start a fire. Zhuoming had already been on the edge of losing control and flying into a rage. The provocative words turned him into a Cloud Soaring Flood Dragon, all the apertures of his face insufficient to spurt out the steam! 

In the room, the infant’s crying came to an abrupt halt. A clump of reckless “fog” exploded from the small house. An ascended spirit grade illusion instantly covered the whole of Jinghua Village, reached into every person’s dreams. 

Now completely unreasoning, heedless of the consequences, Zhuoming clean forgot all previous plans like “infiltrate in secret, no one the wiser.” 

The spiritual energy bursting out in the village instantly disturbed the village’s array. In the Xuanyin Mountains, Wen Fei, who had already averted his gaze, instantly woke with a start from meditation. Who was that! 

And meanwhile, in Jinping City, Pang Jian kept feeling a little dizzy. On returning to his residence at the general office, he sat quietly to examine himself and settle his mind. He felt faintly that he had picked something up on his eyes, ears, nose, and tongue, but it was vague, hard to see clearly with his level of cultivation…

Suddenly, a Heavenly Question from the inner sect flew in. Disturbed, Pang Jian’s mind wavered. 

The faint traces that had only been lightly stuck to his senses came to “life,” seizing the opportunity to start burrowing into his consciousness. Seven or eight karma beasts scrambled over to surround him. The bronze bells on the eaves clamored. 

Crap! 

By the time Pang Jian realized something was wrong, it was already too late. 

The faint traces turned into lotus seals, firmly biting down on his consciousness. His spirit ached sharply. Just then, someone kicked open the layer upon layer of arrays on this critical location of Heaven’s Design Pavilion, charged right in, and landed in front of Pang Jian. Two ice-cold fingers touched the center of Pang Jian’s brow. 

There was a buzz in Pang Jian’s head. A blizzard seemed to blow through his spirit, chilling him to the marrow. The sinister lotus seals were shattered to bits. 

He heard someone curse under his breath in a familiar voice: “That relentless bald donkey again?” 

Pang Jian abruptly opened his eyes. A face not one whit different from fourteen years ago struck them. But while he opened his mouth, he didn’t dare to recognize him at first. 

The newcomer was Xi Ping, who had returned through the night from the Xuanyin Mountains. There was no time to exchange pleasantries. He rudely yanked over the Heavenly Question and tore it open. “That medicine-making mute? What’s his connection to Jinghua Village…? So is that where you were just now?” 

Trespassing into Heaven’s Design Pavilion, starting right off with an impertinent remark, hair down and not wearing shoes…”medicine-making mute”…

Pang Jian was poleaxed by the aura of evil cultivator coming off him. For a time, he didn’t know whether the bronze bells outside were ringing because of the lotus seals or to “welcome” this personage. 

“Yes, what about Jinghua Village…” 

Before Pang Jian could finish his sentence, messages from his colleagues suddenly surged in like an explosion. 

“General Commander, has something happened in Jinghua Village? Why did my wife just leave without authorization?” 

“My wife, too, I can’t sense the protective talisman I placed on her…” 

“Wait, I sense her now, why would she suddenly be in Jinping!” 

Day was just about to break in Jinping. A woman from Jinghua Village, riding a talisman, landed in a Jinping street. There just happened to be an unobtrusive break in the spiritual vein there. 

She looked vacantly around her for a moment. In her blank, staring eyes, bitter rancor appeared bit by bit. She picked something out of her hand and flung it fiercely at the vein of the earth—it was a lotus seed. 

Jinping’s defenses were instantly activated. Dazzling light fell from an Azure Dragon Tower. Just then, a sapphire-blue figure flashed by as if flying, protecting the woman, using his back to block the light coming from the Azure Dragon Tower. The mortal and half-immortal were simultaneously obliterated amid the dazzling light. 

The lotus seed the woman had dropped seized that opportunity to fall into the spiritual vein, put down roots and sprout, spreading outward. 

At the same time, the same thing was happening in several places throughout Jinping. The Dragon Vein began to tremble, warping the tracks where public trams ran. Underground, the sewage drains ruptured. A foul stink floated up—

There was a twang as the sound of a qin reverberated in the air above Jinping. 

A figure landed on the Azure Dragon Horn Tower in Dangui Lane. Wrapped in the music of the qin was sword energy received from Zhaoting. It instantly settled the uneasy Dragon Vein and took aim right at the mutinous lotuses. 

The clamoring bells on the eaves abruptly stopped. 

Pang Jian was startled. He hadn’t yet had time to give Xi Ping the Dragon Vein map, yet the latter seemed to know it like the back of his hand…

Was this Xi Shiyong? For a moment, he was dazed, unable to match his memories to the person he saw. 

Never mind the Dragon Vein underground, Xi Ping might not even have been able to find his way around if he’d been standing in Jinping’s main thoroughfare. But the instant the Dragon Vein had started to heave, the shard of Zhaoting in his spirit had immediately responded. Instantly, the whole shape of the Dragon Vein and the broken areas were projected within his spirit. 

The Tai Sui Qin didn’t stop, but a heavy shadow flitted over Xi Ping’s heart. While he didn’t completely buy what the Dignitary of Fate had said, it was evident that his shifu’s vital sword did indeed have a profound connection to the Dragon Vein. 

There were ten thousand questions in his mind that he couldn’t untangle, and there was no longer a person at the other end of the reincarnation wood who had listened to the talk of all the demons and could dispel his doubts. 

Now Xi Ping had only his intuition as an ascended spirit, and he had a very bad feeling about this… How could the fate of a whole nation depend on a single person? Wouldn’t he be crushed by that weight? 

But there was no time now for all of that. 

The seven Azure Dragon Towers were brightly lit. Heaven’s Design Pavilion and the Kaiming Department had been fully deployed. 

Wangge Luobao watched Zhuoming in front of him, his consciousness sunk into the Territory Map as cut after cut from a sharp weapon appeared on him. He couldn’t resist a laugh. 

Though he was only too eager for the lunatic Heartless Lotus to get chopped to pieces by his old acquaintance, he still resolved to put the big picture first—

Wangge Luobao grabbed a lotus seed next to him and said to the person at the other end of that lotus seed, “Elder Xiang, if you hesitate any longer, you’ll lose your chance.” 

If the four great spiritual mountains didn’t fall out now, the road to heaven that he and the other ascended spirit evil cultivators had torn open for themselves would be under threat once more.