Xi Ping’s eyes were momentarily dazzled by the firelight. When he looked again, the skeleton’s jaws had returned to a normal arc. Through the flesh, they looked peacefully back at Xi Ping himself. They seemed to be saying, This is how your bones look. Don’t be paranoid.

But Xi Ping was chilled to the marrow. He hadn’t jumped into the Unbound Furnace himself. It was only his consciousness that had gone in.

A consciousness was formless. Only in certain places, like the Unbound Furnace and the inside of the Law Breaker, would it give itself a concrete form for ease of communication—it was like a projection.

Since it was a projection, why would it have a complete skeleton?

With a thought, Xi Ping dispersed the human form projected by his consciousness. The human figure vanished, but the skeleton lagged half a step behind, laid bare. Then it caught up and tried to run off as well.

All of Xi Ping’s hair stood on end like flagpoles. “Stop!”

The raging Eternal Flame inside the Unbound Furnace surrounded that skeleton, just like when it had swallowed the star stones. At the same time, Xi Ping understood how Lin Chi had felt earlier—reasonably, he wanted to burn the skeleton, but his spiritual sense was shouting its lungs out in defiance and warning, telling him to run away, as if lightning stronger than that of the ascended spirit heavenly tribulation was about to fall upon his head.

Xi Ping braced himself and ignored it. He thought, Trying to pick up their tricks to fool your own dad…

Before this thought could flit through his mind, the pain of being burned by raging fire engulfed his whole body. Xi Ping’s vision went black. The Eternal Flame inside the furnace nearly went out with no one to maintain it.

Zhou Ying’s calm voice came to his ears: “First burn the star stones. There will be plenty of time later for self-immolation.”

Self-immolation…

Hearing his choice of words, Xi Ping’s heart jumped. Then he stood there watching as that skeleton patted sparks off itself in an attitude that couldn’t have been more familiar. The skeleton’s teeth chattered slightly. He heard his own voice say, “Well, who did you think I was? Of course I’m you…”

I’m you…I’m you…

When the skeleton was through “talking,” it smiled again, then disappeared before his eyes. Xi Ping’s field of vision returned to normal. Had the scorching pain not still been there, everything that had happened just now would have seemed like an illusion.

The Eternal Flame once again surged toward the star stones. The faces in the star stones convulsed with fear. They hurled abuse toward him.

Xi Ping turned a deaf ear to it. His numb consciousness stood by observing, but his heart was full of a Zhuoming-like instinct to pluck out his hair, carve out his flesh, pick out his bones.

When he had first joined Flying Jade Peak, shizun had asked him what he liked, and Xi Ping had responded that he liked eating, drinking, and making merry. He didn’t especially want to be immortal. In his heart, he still wanted to go home.

But now he realized with a start that it seemed he hadn’t craved the feeling of home again. He hadn’t gotten drunk. Since his true body had left the Impassable Sea, he hadn’t slept, either.

In the past, when he had followed Cui Ji’s merchant caravan this way and that, it had been so he could play around wherever they went. Now he went all over to “play” so he could set up spies and plant agents. When he made a friend, he first had to consider that person’s position and decide what identity to use; he still liked “beauty,” but any natural lovely notions he might have entertained when he encountered a beautiful person had long since been obliterated. It was as if he dimly knew that he was no longer connected to worldly desires.

Over the last decade and a half, he had changed completely. He no longer seemed human.

And the most frightening thing was that, in front of others, he would still pretend that he was flesh and blood—to cheer up shifu and Xi Yue, he had deliberately checked the Marquis Manor for new things, “ransacking” the rear courtyard to turn up a steam carriage he had no actual interest in and racing to bring it up and harp on it.

This wasn’t Xi Ping’s first time entering the Unbound Furnace. Here, through Zhuoming’s eyes, he had seen cultivators becoming less and less human the higher their cultivation became; and through Hui Xiangjun’s eyes, he had seen the absurdity and might of Ways of the Heart. He had cursed the spiritual mountains for their indifference, mocked the sages for their ignorance, had laughed at himself for the wrong road he had taken. He seemed to understand all the reasoning perfectly.

But in the same way everyone was always saying “the heart is a servant to circumstance” and “longing is like an ulcer on the bone,” it was all only a slightly sentimental metaphor.

Even just now, when he had discovered the “ghosts” at the bottom of the Sea of Stars, he had still rejoiced that he had no Way of the Heart.

Now, he had at last seen himself: a ghost tied to the hidden bones, lying to himself, lying to others, laboring under the mistaken belief that he still belonged to the land of the living.

“San-ge, let me ask you something. Tell me the truth.” Xi Ping struggled to keep his voice calm. Softly, he said, “Have you heard of Yuan Hui? Do you know how he died?”

“I’ve heard of him. I know.” Zhou Ying’s voice came through the buy-one-get-one reincarnation wood. In the midst of the storm, the established foundation who had turned into mist had been blown who knew where, but his voice was still very steady. “There is no need to ask me. I can’t say, and you can’t listen. But since you have asked, it means you have already understood.”

Xi Ping had in fact understood.

Those who complied with the guidance of their elders and inherited a Way of the Heart would follow the path of their predecessors. Led by the star stones hidden in the shadows, they would cultivate assiduously, accumulate spiritual energy and nourish their Way of the Heart, and ultimately become a part of some star stone at the bottom of the Sea of Stars.

Those with their own obsessions, their own Ways of the Heart, would go through all manner of events and tribulations, be pruned by the spiritual mountains at every step, and finally have an “enlightenment” that would change them into a form the spiritual mountains could accept, transform them into a new star stone to sink into the Sea of Stars, coming by a different path to the same end as the first type of person.

For over a thousand years, this was how the spiritual mountains had operated.

It turned out that the spiritual mountains, which had determined the shape of the landscape, the national boundaries, and the climate were the remains of the full moon sages. The scope covered by the spiritual mountains was the universe that a full moon sage could construct with their Way of the Heart. All the “heavenly commandments” that seemed incontrovertible were manmade.

Later generations had been born into the manmade world and had racked their brains to question “heaven and earth,” climbing up the framework built by the sages; whether “orthodox” or “evil,” they were all in perfect order.

Only the possessors of paramount spiritual senses, who seemed insane, could sporadically sense the human world beyond the bounds.

They weren’t insane. It was everyone else who was blind.

“San-ge,” Xi Ping said softly amid the raging fire, “have you seen the real sun and moon, the real stars? Do they not follow the paths of human fate, not turn red or green because some mountain fell or some person died? Lightning is just a fart let out by the clouds before rain, not doing its interminable best to strike some poor fool… I’ve always thought it was strange. When you pass through the clouds on a sword, they’re only water vapor blown around by the wind. How could they move so fast when it comes to striking people?”

“I’ve been standing too low. I haven’t seen them clearly,” Zhou Ying said. “Perhaps.”

“Don’t be in a rush. If you saw everything clearly, Princess Duanrui’s Way of the Heart would explode.” Xi Ping mumbled incoherently, “I can’t tell others, and even if I said it, at most they’d just sigh and say ‘How right you are,’ and think that my analogy was a just one. It’s said that stone tape ghosts don’t think they’re dead—unless like me…like Lin Zongyi, they see their own ‘way,’ and that spells their doom… I shouldn’t have called Lin Zongyi a good-for-nothing.”

Zhou Ying said, “The soul vanishes when a person dies. Nothing survives. Ghosts are only comforting nonsense made up by the ignorant masses who fear death.”

“Not entirely,” Xi Ping said, coming back to himself. “Haven’t ignorant cultivators who fear death cultivated themselves into ghosts?”

Just like the sages could never use their Ways of the Heart to build a true world restored to its original condition, future generations operating within the framework and order of the spiritual mountains could never assemble a complete world of the sages. Each generation fell short of the one before—the sages had distorted the Will of Heaven and were then in turn distorted by future generations. Now, the Ways of the Heart accumulated at the feet of the spiritual mountains had polluted the origins of the spiritual mountains. The power of the spiritual mountains had waned, letting rebels like him break ground and sprout.

And they, thinking they had seen through the banality of the old order, were in fact only walking the old path of the five sages. When one day one of them “succeeded” and their Way of the Heart became consummate and fell to earth, washing “heaven and earth” clean once more, becoming the new spiritual mountains, they would understand the truth about those who had gone before.

The only difference was that some were controlled by others’ voices, and some were consumed by their own creations.

The one who had taken fifty steps in the wrong direction shouldn’t laugh at the one who had taken a hundred steps.

“Guess what, san-ge.” Xi Ping laughed aloud. Suddenly, the unilateral barrier between him and Zhou Ying also unilaterally disappeared. No matter how Zhou Ying reacted, he could once again comfortably talk nonsense just like before. “I brought a set of burial robes with me back when I left Flying Jade Peak. Aren’t I smart? Too bad I never got to wear them. I lost them back in your old home. You can make it up to me when you have time.”

He had once again scored the winning prize. Others were controlled by a Way of the Heart and would only learn of it on the point of death.

He was controlled by an eccentric set of lousy bones and could never “succeed”; he was also in no danger of a shattered Way of the Heart. He could become aware in advance.

But why must living creatures be controlled by these hearts?

Where had the world’s first Way of the Heart come from? What kind of evil thing had it been?

Using every bit of his strength, Luo Qingshi had managed to get into the Latent Cultivation Temple’s secret passage leading to the outside world.

He had initiated a dozen classes of disciples. His basic skills were strong. As the Latent Cultivation Temple’s sole established foundation steward, he was normally also responsible for all of the Latent Cultivation Temple’s inscription defenses. He might be described as proficient in talismans, arrays, and inscriptions. But now, as though he had been half-paralyzed, he was staggering as he walked. He had the inscription key in his hands, but he couldn’t get it to match up. Over and over, he nearly touched the secret passage’s defense net.

It was as if his Way of the Heart knew that he was going to betray it and was trying by every means possible to obstruct him.

“We were in the same class, Su-shixiong. Do you still remember…what I used to look like?”

That year, the “promising young person” among the four great families belonged to the Zhao family. Perhaps the Zhao family had never been very good at rearing its children. As soon as that Zhao clan direct descendant entered the sect, he was enticed into violating the sect rules through the machinations of the other families. A month after opening its gates, the Latent Cultivation Temple expelled four provisional disciples. The situation might be described as unprecedented. Among the remaining disciples from the big families, there hadn’t been a single presentable one, not even if you went easy on them, so two sons of civil officials who had been chosen to make up the numbers had gotten ahead, one named Su Zhun and one named Luo Qingshi. They were the twin stars of that class of provisional disciples.

Su Zhun had a kind and gentle disposition and was thorough in all matters. Luo Qingshi was haughty and boastful, above it all. The two of them had been at odds since entering the sect and opened their spiritual eyes practically on the same day.

The thirty-six peak masters probably wanted to avoid humiliation and all said openly that they would be accepting no inner sect disciples that year. The only opportunity to enter the inner sect was to take the established foundation steward in charge of the Latent Cultivation Temple at the time as your shifu—first you would go into the inner sect for some years, and after establishing a foundation, you would have to come to the Later Cultivation Temple and take over his role.

Luo Qingshi needed to fill that spot, because at the time, Wen Fei had not yet become an ascended spirit, and Rosy Cloud Peak, which would regularly supply elixirs to the outside world in the future, was still uninhabited. Outside the Xuanyin Mountains, even for members of the four great families, elixirs could only be obtained by getting a favor from someone going to the inner sect. Luo Qingshi didn’t have the connections, and his mother was seriously ill. The medicines of the mortal world were no use. He could only come into contact with Xuanyin’s scarce medicine cultivators by entering the inner sect himself.

When Su Zhun had learned of this, he had gone to report to Heaven’s Design Pavilion without demur, giving up that “road to heaven” in favor of his classmate.

As he had wished, Luo Qingshi entered the inner sect and easily obtained medicine from the medicine cultivator shijie, prolonging his mother’s lifespan by twenty years. He had thought his virtuous achievements complete, not expecting that his nightmare had just begun. The reason his shifu had accepted him was that he was already showing signs of decline. He had only a few years left to live comfortably, and he was in a hurry to find a successor.

Only then did Luo Qingshi learn that in order to take over the Latent Cultivation Temple, he had to inherit his shifu’s Way of the Heart, which was dedicated to giving instruction and dispelling doubts.

But Luo Qingshi’s temperament was reclusive and disagreeable. Everyone was an idiot to him. He was extremely impatient when it came to dealing with people. He was incompatible with his shifu’s Way of the Heart. Had he been the scion of a noble family, his elders would naturally have brought a spare Way of the Heart that would accord with him out of storage—but Luo Qingshi wasn’t. He had been accepted into the inner sect for the purpose of filling this position. He had no choice.

When Princess Duanrui had entered the way of clarity, though she had also been forced into it, at any rate she had received a Way of the Heart of utmost attainments, left by an ancient master. Luo Qingshi’s shifu himself, however, had merely stopped at the middle established foundation stage. Even in the outer sects, his was a useless Way of the Heart that no one would have wanted.

For some perhaps it had been the “foot being cut to fit the shoe,” but for him, it had been unwillingly hacking off all his limbs and being shoved into a jar.

Receiving this Way of the Heart had been exceedingly difficult for Luo Qingshi. Over and over, he had nearly died of it. Only after close to fifty years of struggle had he finally managed to survive amid terrifying alarms. A Way of the Heart could leave marks on the body, and he was the only person in the Xuanyin Mountains with a “foundation-establishing wound”—a full-grown man, he had taken on the ridiculous appearance of a child.

A mortal couldn’t wait fifty years for him. In the end, he had been unable to see his mother one last time.

His only consolation was that the old lady had lived past seventy and died naturally in old age. She had endured no hardships. He heard that when Southern He had invaded Jinping, she had just happened to be in the Southern Sage Temple burning incense for her son far away in the immortal mountains. When she encountered Southern He cavalry outside the city, the Southern Sage hadn’t answered; it was the young general left behind to protect Jinping who had saved her life.

Where no one knew about it, Luo Qingshi noted down that debt.

“You have to look after yourself, Su-shixiong. If you’re found out, you must not resist for my sake. Be adaptable, avoid those established foundations.” The former classmate who had been his hostile opponent—and who now looked like a twelve-year-old child—said to the white-haired, withered old man, “If you die, there will be no one left to remember what I used to look like.”

Luo Qingshi forced his way into the secret passage. He had meant to fly his sword, but his internal energy was in chaos; he couldn’t fly steadily. He grit his teeth and from his mustard seed took a two-wheeled “steam donkey”—a downgraded immortal tool he had confiscated from a wildly audacious wealthy disciple some years ago. He stuck a white spirit into the donkey’s mouth. Before he could sit properly, the “donkey” howled and spurted out a mass of steam, taking to its heels and charging forward.

All toolmaking cultivators were insane!

Only by stretching his feet nearly to the point of cramping his tendons could Luo Qingshi just reach the pedals. Calling out “whoa” did no good. Unable to get the hang of it, he ran into the wall several times. Finally, with a series of unnecessary flourishes, he charged out into the human world.

Naturally, as a traitor sneaking out of the Xuanyin Mountains, he was noticed by the stones at the bottom of the Sea of Stars. The established foundation cultivators in the Latent Cultivation Temple and those of Heaven’s Design Pavilion left to watch over Jingzhou were simultaneously “notified” by their Ways of the Heart.

Luo Qingshi had been prepared. As soon as he charged out, he made ready to send his already drafted Heavenly Question. But it was already too late. Before it could take shape, the Heavenly Question was dispersed by a talisman.

At the same time, the established foundations from the Latent Cultivation Temple also caught up, surrounding the stupid downgraded donkey that had already burned through the spiritual stone.

“Luo-shixiong,” the lead established foundation blue-clotheser said, “I truly never thought that even the Latent Cultivation Temple would betray the spiritual mountains.”

“Su Mingyi, you’d better not have been stubborn about this, old man,” Luo Qingshi thought.

He closed his eyes. Then, glaring with those eyes that regularly appeared in every disciple’s nightmares, he laughed coldly. “Good-for-nothings. I taught every last one of you. Do you really think you’ve made something of yourselves?”

“Enough chatter, get him!”

Luo Qingshi hated his Way of the Heart, and he had never sincerely liked the provisional disciples who had been consigned to his care. He and class after class had mutually tormented each other in the Qiankun Tower. All of them were children of important people; many of them hadn’t experienced as much humiliation in their whole lives as they had in one year at the hands of this dwarf. Now they finally had a chance to wreak their vengeance.

New grievances upon old resentments, a righteous cause and a private score—the situation was tenuous; the two sides immediately came to blows.

Luo Qingshi’s internal energy was in such disorder he thought his Way of the Heart was about to shatter. Though he was simultaneously besieged by eight Heaven’s Design Pavilion established foundations, he wasn’t overcome at once. It was clear that he hadn’t been entirely wrong in constantly saying “good-for-nothings” for over a century.

Luo Qingshi waved his sleeve. A dazzling talisman sent three established foundations of the same level as him flying at once. But the next moment, he found that his essence had been emptied out.

This place was still at the feet of the Xuanyin Mountains. The spiritual energy was abundant. A cultivator in fact didn’t need spiritual stones to replenish their essence. But all his meridians had sealed themselves automatically; external spiritual energy couldn’t enter!

“A Way of the Heart…a fine Way of the Heart.” Luo Qingshi suddenly laughed. “Interesting.”

All of a sudden, he recklessly tore through the circle of blue-clothesers and used the very last of his strength to send six Heavenly Questions in a row. A blue-clotheser stabbed a sword through his shoulder, which wasn’t even as thick as the width of a palm, nailing him to the ground.

“Luo Qingshi, you are unworthy of being a teacher—”

Luo Qingshi’s vision swam again and again. At these words, an even more bitterly sarcastic sneer appeared on his face. “I never even…”

Before the words could leave his mouth, the six Heavenly Questions were all intercepted. The point of a sword had appeared before him.

But just then, Luo Qingshi’s disorderly internal energy suddenly calmed. His sealed meridians unexpectedly reopened. In a flash, with no time to consider, Luo Qingshi hastily sent out a talisman to knock the sword aside—the Ways of the Heart controlling the established foundations had been lapped up by the Unbound Furnace!

Almost at the same time, the eight Heaven’s Design Pavilion blue-clothesers seemed to fall into a daze. Luo Qingshi seized the opportunity to snap off the sword stuck into his shoulder. With a blood-stained hand, he sent off a seventh Heavenly Question.

The spiritual energy that was once again flowing through his body swept up the Heavenly Question with excessive force. The established foundation nearest to him didn’t have time to react!

The Heavenly Question instantly passed over vast distances and landed in the wilderness of the Land of Turmoil.

The next moment, Zhi Xiu appeared right in the back garden of the Marquis Manor.