In the deepest recesses of the Sea of Stars was the Dignity of Fate Elder Zhang Jue’s place of quiet cultivation. It was an empty space containing nothing but a faded prayer mat. There wasn’t even a place where one could occasionally recline. 

It was said that the Dignitary of Fate Elder had sat here day and night for a thousand years, refining his Way of the Heart by resisting the desire to open his eyes. 

Fate could not be grasped. If you couldn’t take the temptation and glimpsed your own fate and that of those closest to you, the originally fixed trajectory would take a turn in an unknown direction. At best, matters would go contrary to your wishes. At worst, you would become obsessed and perish, body and way both. 

The person sitting here on this lonely old prayer mat could only look at two kinds of things: things that had already happened, which the Sea of Stars could aid in interpreting, and things that would influence the general course of events in the world, for which the Sea of Stars would create a fog to give warnings to all living things, which the Dignitary of Fate could convey on its behalf. 

Zhang Jue did not cultivate the way of clarity. Relying purely on his personal self-restraint, he really had kept himself blindfolded here for a thousand years, not taking a step over the line. 

One didn’t know whether to admire him or pity him. 

The slightly glowing “dust particles” floating in the air were the “stars” in the Sea of Stars. They would float for the length of a lifetime before falling to the ground. When these particles stuck together and congealed, they formed a star stone. 

The Xuanyin Mountains had formed over a thousand years ago. Surrounding that prayer mat, the star stones were spread all over the ground. 

These star stones that seemed dirty because they had so many facets did indeed closely resemble the demon seed, though they were of a different material. Because they were made of fine sand stuck together, the star stones were slightly more spongy, and the facets on them weren’t as regular as the demon seed’s. Moreover, the star stones covering the ground were all different sizes: there were those as big as a human head and those as small as a bean. 

The saying that “mirrors reflect the heart” had existed since antiquity, and prisms took the shape of countless “small mirrors.” In the cultivation world, things with this structure were usually all connected to the “heart.” Many “mirrors” meant that they could reflect many points of view, easily echo what was in the depths of the human heart. It wasn’t strange that they should obstruct the senses and trap the consciousness like the heart demon seed. 

But the metaphor in this made one fearful: after the luminous stars “died,” they gathered together to become stones like the demon seed. 

Just then, there was a loud noise from outside; they must have started fighting on Moon Plated Peak. Zhou Ying ignored it. He put a pill to suppress pain and focus the mind in his mouth. His eyes changed shape, becoming demon eyes. 

The excuse Xi Ping had come up with at the last moment after hearing the contents of the heavenly edict from Lin Chi wasn’t exactly seamless, but Zhi Xiu’s prohibition was keeping Zhang Jue from speaking to refute him, and there seemed to be no problem with what he had said at first listen. But no sooner had he spoken than a peak master surnamed Li tossed a talisman right at him without a word. 

“What a glib tongue! The heavenly edict distinctly said that you people had used us to take possession of the Territory Map and steal the immortal power of the spiritual mountains.” 

The Xuanyin Mountains didn’t necessarily adhere to reason, but they certainly adhered to politeness. Since the downfall of the Li family’s backer, the family had drifted along as though they were invisible. Xi Ping hadn’t expected there to be such a fractious peak master among them. 

The talisman turned into a rain of swords above Xi Ping’s head, dense enough to turn him into mincemeat. Lin Chi quickly stepped forward. A line of light flashed on the ground. As if it had turned into a screw, the summit of Moon Plated Peak twisted downward a zhang. Twelve rabbit heads leapt out of the ground, drawing spiritual energy directly from Moon Plated Peak to shoot upward, shooting up twelve astral winds. 

This gust seemed to scatter even the stars in the sky. The rain of swords in midair was also swept away. 

“Stop,” said Lin Chi, “why would the heavenly edict…” 

But his words were shouted too slowly. The other Lis had already charged forward. Two sword thrusts from the Tai Sui Qin flew out. Xi Ping hadn’t gone easy; his meridians were even aching faintly. After forcing his opponents into a brief retreat, he immediately wanted to find a reincarnation wood tree in the Xuanyin Mountains to swap places with, but as soon as he moved, he froze—there was no more reincarnation wood in the Xuanyin Mountains. 

The ones Lin Chi had planted on Resonant Stone Peak, the reincarnation wood trees and seeds that had accidentally been left behind in thickets and bushes during the process of transport… At some point, all of them had been wiped out. 

Xi Ping abruptly looked up. Around countless heads, he looked at Zhang Jue, standing in midair.

At Zhang Jue’s feet, there were only two small stones. From a distance, he looked like a puppet hanging there. 

During this brief pause, an iron chain came hurtling towards Xi Ping’s head. Yet another peak master was seizing the opportunity to attack. In a moment of desperation, Lin Chi summoned forth his own vital toolmaking furnace. The furnace crossed the sky to block that iron chain. 

A toolmaking furnace was for making tools, not for fighting. Lin Chi was thoroughly shaken. He took several steps back. But he was entirely unharmed. There was only a crack—a “Fly Ten Thousand Li Like the Roc” green jade pendant he was wearing had split apart. 

This had been bestowed on him by the Dignitary of Rule when he was young. 

At the time, he had been immersed in intensive study of the spirit-conducting gold, abandoning food and sleep, making tremendous strides along the way of toolmaking, accidentally becoming outstanding among his peers. 

Xuanyin’s Lin clan didn’t have as many people as the other big families, but they were all very close. Every year, they had a “family feast” for the Mid-Autumn Festival. Anyone who wasn’t in seclusion came. That year, for some reason, the Dignitary of Rule also made an unexpected appearance. The atmosphere of the whole family suddenly became like the Yuntian Palace Discipline Hall. Everyone greeted each other with looks. Some ascended spirit seniors kept the elder company, not daring to breathe too loudly. 

Fortunately, Lin Zongyi only stayed briefly. As if performing routine business, he pointed out a few juniors to ask about their cultivation, naturally including the “outstanding” Lin Chi. Lin Chi even got nervous speaking to his own shizun. When he saw the Dignitary of Rule, it was like a mouse seeing a cat. He nearly fainted. He had no idea what answers he gave…though they had definitely been stupid. When the Dignitary of Rule Elder, who was like an ice sculpture, had heard him out, his eyes actually curved slightly. In a rare occurrence, he spoke, saying to Lin Chi’s shifu, “I remember him.” 

Then he beckoned him over and gave him that jade pendant, pronouncing a weighty utterance: “Your future is boundless.” 

He couldn’t not wear an item that the old ancestor had bestowed on him. Though the jade pendant carried the harsh and awesome aura of the Yuntian Palace, over time, he had still gotten used to it. In the centuries he had spent confined and confining himself, it had even been the only living energy beside him. 

Sometimes, Lin Chi would wonder whether that utterance of “Your future is boundless” had been one of the Dignitary of Rule Elder’s rare mistakes. Would the elder be disappointed when he recalled it? But probably he wouldn’t—what expectations could a sage have had of him? 

Instinctively, Lin Chi reached out to grab for it, but the familiar aura flew out from between his fingers and vanished. 

Xi Ping’s eyes became cold. The sound of the Tai Sui Qin was nearly sharp enough to pierce a person’s skull. Sword energy swept out. Then he pulled out the Discard the False and Keep the True book and tossed lotus seals copied from the Heartless Lotus everywhere. 

His cultivation was limited, and the lotus seals were copies. He couldn’t simply capture the consciousnesses of great ascended spirits whose boundaries were higher than his, but he could still stab their consciousnesses hard enough to hurt. 

At the same time, the Lin family member who had told Lin Chi to get out of the way struck, beside himself with rage, aiming directly at the person who had launched the sneak attack with the iron chain. His voice brimmed with spiritual energy: “What a disgrace!” 

Lin Chi came back to himself. All the rabbit heads on Moon Plated Peak quickly shifted to form an array, encircling Xi Ping and Lin Chi. They puffed out a patch of dense steam. The situation became deadlocked. 

One of the Li family members forcibly stabilized his wavering spirit and coldly said, “What powerful evil cultivator tactics. You all saw that. With the tightness of Jinping’s defenses, how could it be invaded by external enemies? Why did evildoers mount a surprise attack as soon as he returned?” 

The members of the Zhou clan, who had thus far been standing by and watching, exchanged veiled looks amongst themselves. One peak master surnamed Zhou put in a word hesitantly. “Do not get excited, shixiong. You are only speaking in anger. The Territory Map will soon blend with the veins of the earth, and the spiritual mountains’ immortal power will then disperse throughout the country. There do not necessarily appear to be selfish motives here…” 

“If you’re pilfering millet, everyone looks like a thief.” Xi Ping gave a “ha.” Amid his bitter sarcasm, he didn’t forget to sow discord. “It was Li Fengshan who wanted to steal the Territory Map and kill a fellow sect member, not me. Take a good look, why don’t you? None of you are my unworthy descendants.” 

The rabbit heads were forced to puff away yet another killing blow for him. 

As expected, when the unknown Zhou peak master heard these words, he said without batting an eyelash, “But hasn’t Flying Jade Peak thought that, without the Xuanyin Mountains, the border inscriptions and arrays will all fail? When that happens, won’t a patch of fertile land like Great Wan become a fish on the chopping block for others?” 

Though these words were critical, there was still the intention of turning Flying Jade Peak into one of their own. 

“Accompanying plants are possessions of the ancient demonic gods. Zhi Jingzhai has betrayed the spiritual mountains. The spiritual mountains were born on account of the full moon sage, and they are closely bound to the existing shed skins. As for why they were so powerless in the face of the Territory Map, there must be a connection to Flying Jade Peak’s traitor. The heavenly edict commanded that, if there was truly no other way, we must first think of a way to sever the whole country’s veins of the earth, execute the evildoers, and allow the immortal mountains to regain their strength.” 

As soon as this last sentence was spoken, disapproval appeared on the faces of a number of peak masters. Even Zhang Jue frowned. 

“The heavenly edict I heard wasn’t so extreme. If the veins of the earth are severed, wouldn’t the common people…” 

“Shixiong, you didn’t listen to the heavenly edict in its entirety. If the veins of the earth are temporarily severed, some of the elderly and frail in the current generation will indeed be harmed, but in this way, we will keep future generations safe. Otherwise, if we preserve this generation, it might be Great Wan’s last!” 

“Shixiong, that’s your interpretation.” 

Xi Ping forced down his seething internal energy and met Wen Fei’s eyes from a distance. 

Seeing that he had the situation under control, Wen Fei hadn’t stepped in. He had blended in with the crowd of peak masters, pretending to be on their side. Whenever anyone spoke, he would nod enigmatically. 

Now, Wen Fei silently squeezed the reincarnation wood in his sleeve. “Why are these people all singing in different keys?” 

All the peak masters seemed to be saying the same thing, but there were subtle differences in the details and their attitudes. 

Xi Ping said, “Peak Master Wen, you didn’t receive this so-called ‘heavenly edict’?” 

Do you perhaps never do your daily lessons, hardworking senior that you are? 

Wen Fei somehow understood his implication and waved his fan rapidly. He thought, You’re the sword god’s disciple, and you only know two moves. You’re always running around copying others’ powers like an evil cultivator. How can you have the face to scold others? 

“No,” said Lin Chi, also putting in a word through his reincarnation wood amulet, “having your spiritual sense ‘pricked’ is very painful. You would feel it even if you weren’t meditating.” 

So Xi Ping silently asked Lin Chi, “Did the ‘heavenly edict’ issue some kind of riddle that can be interpreted any way you like?” 

“Not at all,” said Lin Chi hesitantly. “In my opinion, it only told the facts. The Lis seem to have been bewitched.” 

No…it wasn’t that the Lis had been bewitched. Xi Ping’s eyes flashed faintly. A guess appeared in his mind: if it was only a matter of different interpretations, they wouldn’t have been so certain from the get-go. It was likely that the “heavenly edicts” they had seen had had different contents.

Why? 

Didn’t everyone have the same heavens above their heads? 

Xi Ping had traveled extensively through black markets everywhere. He was unusually sensitive towards subtle currents among people. Now, as soon as he swept the scene, from a few words spoken by the Xuanyin peak masters among whom internal strife was conventional, he was able to faintly distinguish the camps—those with the same surname or belonging to the same faction weren’t necessarily together, and those with different surnames certainly weren’t together. Wen Fei, the “spy” mixed in among them, immediately became like a louse on a bald man’s head, exceedingly obvious. 

But, after all, Wen Fei was an old fox who had been general commander of Heaven’s Design Pavilion. Keeping his composure perfectly, he subtly shifted over a few steps, calmly moving to the fringes of the scene. “This grouping today is different from before…” 

A thought struck Xi Ping; he had faintly touched something. “How is it different?” 

Wen Fei said, “The big families are more fragmented than usual.” 

The Zhaos were confined, their circumstances unknown. The Lis were all fairly worked up. But the Lin and Zhou clans, which stuck together most of the time, had ceased to cooperate. Apart from family interests, what else would separate Xuanyin’s peak masters…? 

In a flash, the two of them simultaneously worked it out and spoke almost in unison in the reincarnation wood. 

Xi Ping said, “Are they grouped according to Ways of the Heart?” 

Wen Fei said, “Ways of the Heart of common origin!” 

By “Ways of the Heart of common origin,” what was meant was that—regardless of whom the Ways of the Heart had been inherited from, whether they had been passed on from a living shifu or refined from a dead person’s vital weapon—they could be traced back up to the same ancestor. In distinguished families, apart from the direct disciples accepted by the family’s masters, the clan would accumulate high-quality Ways of the Heart belonging to deceased masters to provide an alternative for talented inner sect disciples whose temperaments were truly unsuited. Therefore, not all the cultivators of a single family line had Ways of the Heart of common origin. 

Why was Wen Fei the only one who hadn’t received the “heavenly edict”? 

Because as a direct descendant of the Lin family, Lin Chi’s Way of the Heart had been inherited from his shifu, while Wen Fei, a feral walker in the mortal world, had fumbled around and found his own. 

The difference between them was one dead shifu! 

Zhang Jue had also said earlier that he hadn’t heard any “heavenly edict.” That was because, as the Southern Sage’s direct disciple, the Dignitary of Fate Elder had also fumbled around for his own Way of the Heart in ancient days. 

So this so-called “heavenly edict” was the cultivators’ Ways of the Heart prodding their spiritual senses! 

Xi Ping felt that since he had come to the Xuanyin Mountains today, his goosebumps hadn’t subsided—what the hell were these Ways of the Heart that all these immortals had on their spirits, tied to their very lives? 

Meanwhile, Zhou Ying, not seeing anything with the demon eyes, frowned as he pondered briefly. He got out the heart demon seed and tossed it right into the pile of star stones. 

There was a “silent” bang in the depths of the Sea of Stars. 

“Silent” meant that others didn’t hear it; the “bang” struck Zhou Ying’s ears directly. If he hadn’t first taken a pill, he probably would have been knocked unconscious. 

When the heart demon seed fell into the pile of star stones, it was as if it had blown a hole. On all the star stones larger than the size of a fist, countless human faces flashed. The larger the stone, the more faces there were. 

The faces on the same stone, regardless of whether they were male or female, whether their countenances were youthful or showed signs of age, no matter how vast the difference in the outlines of their features, were all extremely similar…as if the same ghost had put on different skins. In unison, they were pouring their “ways” into Zhou Ying’s ears. 

The larger the star stone, the louder the voices. 

This was like simultaneously “debating” with thousands upon thousands of people. Had it not been a cultivator of the way of clarity standing there, the debate would have reduced his Way of the Heart to smithereens. 

But not for nothing was the “way of clarity” the legendary origin of the three thousand paths of the Great Way. Zhou Ying stood his ground, treating it like the croaking of frogs. 

As these star stones squabbled, they hurriedly rolled away on their own, avoiding the heart demon seed. The thick layer of stones was broken up by the demon seed, revealing the smooth, mirror-like surface of the ground below; it was dozens of li in area. 

The demon eyes fell onto that “mirror” and saw an enormous human figure appear on it, as crystal-clear as a living person. He suddenly opened his eyes, and his gaze shot at Zhou Ying like lightning. Tears of blood immediately fell from Zhou Ying’s eyes. 

This turned out to be an unimaginably large star stone, growing in the Xuanyin Mountains like a tumor. 

Zhou Ying didn’t avert his gaze. He kept his eyes fixed on the human figure in the “mirror.” He recognized this as the Dignitary of Code Li Fengshan. 

As one of the Xuanyin Mountains’ four elders, his picture sometimes appeared in the ancient texts. Because he had betrayed the spiritual mountains, he had been sealed by the other three elders working together into “seclusion to death.” When the demon eyes had swept over all the Xuanyin Mountains, they had even been able to see Zhi Xiu, but they hadn’t seen Li Fengshan. It was said that he had already shown signs of nearing the end of his lifespan over forty years ago. Reckoning it, he must just have given out in recent years. 

When their Way of the Heart shattered, a person would die immediately. But if a person died for a different reason, the Way of the Heart would remain. 

For Xuanyin’s orthodox cultivators, the essence they took from the immortal mountains would return to the immortal mountains after their deaths, and the Ways of the Heart they left behind would be absorbed by star stones. Ways of the Heart of common origin would converge, stick together, and grow. 

Since the spiritual mountains had formed, few shed skins had died naturally of old age. The Dignitary of Rule and the Dignitary of Rites had both died from their Ways of the Heart shattering. In their lineages, the Ways of the Heart of common origin had all been left behind by disciples after they died, with ascended spirit cultivation at most. 

Only the Dignitary of Code Li Fengshan had been embedded in the Xuanyin Mountains as a shed skin. 

The Xuanyin Mountains’ Sea of Stars, which observed fate—did it really only observe? 

Or had it been controlling the puppets’ Ways of the Heart to strengthen the waves all along? 

Now that the Xuanyin Mountains had been ruined, the Ways of the Heart could at last hold themselves back no longer. They had lost patience with imperceptible influence and openly deployed the “heavenly edict.” 

Zhou Ying wiped the bloodstains from the corners of his eyes. “A misstep.” 

Meanwhile, Xi Ping’s heart skipped: if it was the Ways of the Heart sending the “heavenly edict,” then it wouldn’t only have been the inner sect peak masters who had heard it—the Ways of the Heart of outer sect established foundations practically all came from the inner sect! 

Crap.