“Th-th-this has nothing to do with me!”

Xi Ping had collapsed without warning, his out-flung consciousness refusing to be called back no matter what. A sword cultivator only knew how to kill, not how to heal. Zhi Xiu didn’t know what to do. All he could do was call over Wen Fei.

When Peak Master Wen came, before he could even take a close look, he saw tears of blood suddenly start to flow from Xi Ping’s eyes. Wen Fei was so scared that he snatched his hand back as if he had touched a hot iron, as panicked as a young wife who had knocked over a vase left out deliberately by a ruffian working a scam.

Zhi Xiu sensed the sword shard concealed in Xi Ping’s spirit trembling incessantly. Cracks suddenly appeared on that spirit. He quickly reached out to put a hand on the center of Xi Ping’s brow. Just then, Xi Ping abruptly opened his eyes.

Flying Jade Peak’s ice-cold spiritual energy rushed towards him in a body, nearly forming a vortex around him. Everything next to Xi Ping was knocked aside. Wen Fei waved his fan, picked up Xi Yue, and hid at the door. Zhi Xiu, afraid of hurting Xi Ping, took half a step back, not daring to touch him.

The surge of spiritual energy broke his hair crown. With a crisp crack, the jade crown fell to the ground. His spirit healed. Xi Ping sat up. When he moved, the caked blood in his eyes fell along with his hair.

He covered his eyes with his hands. For a long moment, he didn’t make a sound.

There was no need to check Zhou Ying’s disciple name token. Right now, there was a high-level “bone-sharing” talisman floating in his spirit, brought back by his consciousness. This could let him share in a portion of the vital power the person who had drawn the talisman—through this talisman, he could easily locate the hair san-ge had planted on Zhou Huan; it had already reached Northern Li’s capital city Yanning.

The flames of war were everywhere on the southern continent. It was perfectly reasonable for Great Wan’s exiled nobility to choose to go north. Kunlun, for its part, believed that the Xuanyin Mountains had been occupied by demons and would need to secretly unite with the old noble families. Zhou Huan, a game piece buried in advance, was perfectly suited to being a “plant”…but that wasn’t the important part.

The important part was that a dead person’s aura would dissipate. When a person was dead, some talismans would indeed have residual power, but the bone-sharing talisman, which was so closely bound up with the one who had drawn it, would certainly lose effect.

A dead person couldn’t share his bones!

The Ceaseless Mirror was the most mysterious of the five great divine tools of the mountains. Since the spiritual mountains had formed, it had practically never appeared. There were vanishingly few records. Xi Ping didn’t know why it could overpower the Xuanyin Mountains and sever a person’s connection to a name token linked to his life, and he wasn’t planning on getting to the bottom of why it could allow a person whose Way of the Heart had shattered and whose body had been destroyed to leave behind an intact bone-sharing talisman.

He wiped away the blood on his eyelashes. He would rather trust san-ge.

Supposing that the Ceaseless Mirror was the origin of the spiritual mountains, supposing that through it one really could reach the so-called “place beyond the bounds”…

Wen Fei met his still bloodshot eyes and hung back by the door, not daring to enter. Standing on tiptoe, he tossed a bottle of mind calming pills to Zhi Xiu. “Y-y-you give it to him.”

Then he nervously held his fan up in front of himself, saying, Do you still recognize us? Who am I?

Xi Ping said, “…You’re that quack from next door whose ancestral tombs have just been dug up.”

They saw that he hadn’t lost his mind and wasn’t going to bite anyone; they heaved a collective sigh of relief.

“What happened?” Zhi Xiu asked. “Did your consciousness just go to Kunlun? What happened to His Highness Prince Zhuang? Is he well?”

“He’s been taken hostage by Northern Li,” Xi Ping said, clenching his teeth. “The Xuanyin Mountains aren’t so well off, we don’t have the money to ransom him, so let him stay there for now. He’s poison, Kunlun will regret it sooner or later. Right now, I want to find out what history the Blind Wolf King and the Sword Slave have.”

The heart demon seed had already been planted on the Kunlun Sect Leader’s Way of the Heart, and it pointed directly at the Sword Slave. Something would have to happen soon… Reasonably speaking, the Sword Slave was far below those ancient shed skins in generational ranking, and the sturdiness of a shed skin sword cultivator’s Way of the Heart was something that an outsider was incapable of imagining. Being jealous of a junior, to the point of leaving an opening for a heart demon to slip in, was altogether too petty.

Zhi Xiu and Wen Fei exchanged a look. Wen Fei became serious and waved his fan towards Xi Ping. The north has little contact with us, and you joined the sect late. Before refining herself into a puppet, Wanshuang’s Sword Slave was a nobody. I don’t know much about her. But I did see Xie Chu once…I mean that so-called “Blind Wolf King.”

Meanwhile, the Luwu on the northern continent were gradually breaking free of the Perplexing Sword. They woke and looked around themselves in confusion.

The sword energy that had done them no injury returned unnoticed to its master’s hand.

When the Snow Wolf entered the room, the knickknacks the Wan envoy had brought were spread out all over the small couch at the Blind Wolf King’s feet—an exquisite desk clock, a tinderbox, a quicksilver mirror, a flying goose machine, and so on.

On the Blind Wolf King’s nose were a pair of glasses, with their thin chain of new Moon Plated Gold hanging around his neck. He was just staring blankly at a ball of sword energy like a tangled skein.

The Snow Wolf saw at a glance that this sword energy came from the Perplexing Sword. He instantly stopped in his tracks in dread.

Then he calmed himself and thought, The old fool is content with his lot ruling over the feet of the Beijue Mountains. If he’s not drinking or hibernating, then he’s wandering around the Beijue Pass staring blankly at the snow. I haven’t seen him practice the sword once in all these years. His cultivation hasn’t advanced. We’re both ascended spirits now. What’s so scary about the Perplexing Sword?

Remembering that Linked Heart promising him Posuo Palace, the Snow Wolf came to the sudden realization that he was already qualified to stand on a level with the Blind Wolf King. He felt an involuntary surge of emotion. He believed himself to be a person unmoved by honor or disgrace, so after a few breaths, he restrained himself and determined to play up earnestly to the last shred of cover. He paid his respects to the Blind Wolf King, a grasshopper at the end of autumn. “You wanted to see me?”

The Perplexing Sword’s energy was like the silk spat up by spring silkworms, spinning as it twined around the Blind Wolf King’s fingertips.

On being addressed, the old Wolf King raised his eyelids and looked at the ice all over the Snow Wolf. “Have you been hard at work in the snow again?’

The Snow Wolf responded, “Oh, no, I picked it up outside. The weather is strange today. It was fine in the morning, but earlier a gale came out of nowhere, and it started snowing like mad.”

The Blind Wolf King cocked an ear to listen to the shrill north wind. He muttered, “The wind from the Beiyuan Plains has come so early this year. I’m afraid it’s going to be another bad winter.”

With harsh winter coming early, the farmers who relied on the weather to eat had once again ended up in trouble because the heavens had turned on them. The beasts of burden had it as hard as the people. Who knew how they would get through the winter?

“Now that the Wan envoy has come, I hope that Kunlun’s divine swordsmen, apart from thinking of the southern mines and the struggle between the righteous and the evil, can also remember that the people need to eat,” the Blind Wolf King said slowly, “and not forget to ask for some provisions from the south.”

The Snow Wolf rather critically thought, And you’re still worried about the people and the nation? That’s really all you need. I figure the Wan envoy is already cold by now.

But what he said was, “Quite right. What instructions did you have for me?”

“Oh, a trifle.” The Blind Wolf King dispersed the sword energy in his palm. “Send the Lord Sword Slave a letter for me. It’s nearly the anniversary of our shizun’s death. I don’t know whether she’ll be able to make it back in time this year. Remind her to burn some paper for him if she can’t.”

The Snow Wolf took a quick glance at him and agreed unreservedly. Seeing that he had nothing else to say, he respectfully withdrew.

The Blind Wolf King’s gaze passed through the glasses, watching the Snow Wolf’s retreating figure with an ambiguous look. He knew that every word of the letter he sent the Sword Slave would appear on a desk in Kunlun’s inner sect.

He gave a grim, soundless laugh, drew his fox-fur robe tighter around himself, picked up a pot of wine, and in a flash blended with the heavy snow, arriving at the Beijue Pass in an instant—this was the end of the Beijue Mountains.

The accumulated snow was already thicker than the height of a person. Only a straw pavilion stood out, floating on the ice. The fierce gale that could have swept cattle and sheep away couldn’t budge the pavilion’s thatch. Evidently, this was an immortal tool.

The Blind Wolf King landed in the pavilion. He waved his sleeve, and an earthenware pot on a small stone table inside the pavilion filled with clean snowmelt. He put a blue jade under the stone table, and soon, the water in the earthenware pot began to boil. Warm, enshrouding steam filled the small pavilion. It seemed to have nothing to do with the whistling snowy wind outside.

This was the Blind Wolf King’s Snow Observation Pavilion. It burned one blue jade per day; he was the only one who came here—low-level cultivators wouldn’t approach the Beijue Pass without reason, and the Snow Wolf was busy climbing up to heaven. He turned his nose up at this “indulgence,” spuriously cultured and expensive besides.

The Blind Wolf King took off his fox-fur robe and tossed it aside. He brewed tea and cast his gaze onto the vast and unpeopled Beiyuan Plains.

North of the Beijue Mountains was a vast expanse of no-man’s-land, a place of utter cold that could freeze even a cultivator’s essence.

Outside the Beijue Mountains was a great array left behind by the Sword Ancestor, which shielded the continent from the fatal cold. That was a place where only a master near the full moon boundary could reach. It was hard for even Kunlun’s great sword cultivators to approach. The great array had had no one to repair it for a long time, and the north had been growing colder year by year. There had been nothing Kunlun could do. They had had to patch it up with an array to block the wind and snow at the Beiyuan Pass and spend a large quantity of spiritual stones here every year, but the results were hardly better than nothing.

It was said that this was the most difficult time in Northern Li’s history. Unnumbered people froze or starved to death. This continued until a rare talent refused to inherit Kunlun’s ninefold sword and established a sword heart for the sake of the people, creating his own “Heart Sword,” which did not rely on external objects, using his body as a sword and his consciousness as its cutting edge. Without the Sword Ancestor’s cultivation level, his physical body couldn’t go to the edge of Beijue’s great array, but a sword cultivator cultivating the Heart Sword could use his consciousness to penetrate the utter cold and reach the Beijue Array to repair the Sword Ancestor’s relic—this genius who had suddenly emerged had been the Second Elder of the Kunlun Mountains.

But sending your consciousness to travel beyond the Beijue Mountains was extremely dangerous. It was said that the place that could freeze your essence would make your consciousness hallucinate; the least slip, and it would never return. Over two hundred years ago, while patrolling the Beijue Array, the Second Elder had disappeared, body and mind, at the Beijue Pass.

Not long after that, Xie Chu, the sole disciple to inherit his Heart Sword, was expelled from his sect for questioning Kunlun’s ninefold sword, violating the sect’s rules, and fighting fellow sect members.

Kunlun’s treatment of rebels and evil cultivators alike had always been utterly merciless, but the Heart Sword was unique, and Xie Chu was its only inheritor. If there was no one who could repair the Beijue Array, Kunlun would once again have to pile up a “wall” of spiritual stones to block the wind. That would be far more costly than supporting a rebellious ascended spirit. Kunlun could do the math on this, so, on the pretext of fellow sect members interceding on his behalf, they had only banished Xie Chu to the Beijue Mountains, ordering him to tend to the Beijue Array.

Since then, he had wandered between righteousness and evil. He had given himself a pseudonym, the Blind Man. Because each time his consciousness left by the Beiyuan Pass, it would have to find the way back facing near certain death, he changed the name of the Heart Sword to “Perplexing.”

The people of Northern Li worshiped wolves and honored him as the Wolf King.

Right now, outside the Beijue Pass was chaos and darkness, the blizzard tying sky and earth together, the frigid wind like a gluttonous wild beast, roaring as it tried to charge through the pass.

The Snow Wolf had been right. Even in the place of utmost cold, a blizzard still wouldn’t strike entirely without warning. There was something strange about this frosty wind.

The Blind Wolf King’s consciousness pierced through the frigid wind and landed amid the vast wasteland—the Beijue Array had been subject to major repairs only forty-some years ago. He had remained here for forty-nine days and nearly perished. Reasonably speaking, there shouldn’t have been a problem this soon.

The ancient inscriptions that the Sword Ancestor had left behind were like ice sculptures carved at the end of the wasteland. Every extra moment you stayed here added to the danger. The Blind Wolf King didn’t dare to linger. His consciousness flitted quickly over the Beijue Array.

Just then, he heard tapping coming from the depths of the Beijue Array.

The Blind Wolf King concentrated to the utmost and determined that this wasn’t the sound of the gale hurling around chucks of ice and stone.

Holding his breath, he listened for a long moment. His consciousness abruptly returned to his true body. He fished up the flying goose codebook from his fox-fur robe and quickly compared the knocking he had just heard against the code written in it, translating it into Wan writing.

My…Way…of…the…Heart…has…broken…

The Blind Wolf King’s pupils contracted slightly. The fierce winds of the Beiyuan Plains struck the little cottage with a rumble; half of the blue jade supporting the immortal tool turned grey in an instant.

He was afraid he had misunderstood the Wan language and quickly found a Li-Wan dictionary to carefully consult it and make certain. He saw that the following code read: My body is dead. I have entered the Ceaseless Mirror. If you are receiving this message, then you and I have guessed rightly.

The Blind Wolf King’s hand holding down the codebook trembled slightly. He took out a name token—as the envoy of Great Wan’s Xuanyin Mountains, Zhou Ying, in order to prove his identity to low-level cultivators when crossing the border, had brought along one of his own disciple name tokens.

The characters “Zhou Ying” on the name token were flashing brilliantly, indicating that the name token’s owner was unharmed and in good health; everything was normal.

A person whose body had died and been sent into the Ceaseless Mirror—why would his name token be unscathed? Could this divine tool of the mountains that no one had seen conceal a person’s death?

And why would a message from a “dead man” appear in the unpeopled Beiyuan Plains?

Or rather, what was the connection between the Ceaseless Mirror and the Beiyuan Plains?

In the Xuanyin Mountains, Zhi Xiu asked, “You’ve seen him? When you pursued that evil cultivator to the Cangye Plains?”

Wen Fei nodded. He was the ascended spirit sword cultivator that Kunlun sent to clean up. If it hadn’t been for him, we might all have frozen under a snowdrift in Northern Li and turned into fertilizer. It’s said that he was the direct disciple of Kunlun’s Second Elder, originally an inner sect master with boundless future prospects… Oh, the people of Northern Li don’t care for all these convoluted titles. That crowd of warriors all talk with their swords. Apart from the extremely mysterious High Priest, the best fighter is the Sect Leader, and after him comes the Second Elder and so on according to strength. This Second Elder was younger than all the other shed skins. He wasn’t even born in time to study under the Sword Ancestor. And he didn’t cultivate Kunlun’s ninefold sword. If he weren’t gone, it’s hard to say who the Sect Leader would be now.

“He passed away?” Zhi Xiu was somewhat taken aback. “I don’t think I’ve heard of a master sword cultivator passing away in recent years…”

Wen Fei shook his head. It doesn’t count as passing away. There were no unusual phenomena in the heavens, and we in fact didn’t hear of anything here. Kunlun announced that he had “gone into seclusion.” This seclusion has gone on for over two hundred years, since before you entered the sect. I feel that this seclusion is of the same nature as Li Fengshan and Xiang Rong’s. I’m not sure what went wrong, but his seclusion turned into a permanent one. Otherwise, how could he not have come out to say something when something as major as his head disciple betraying Kunlun took place? When you were half-dead and caught on the shed skin threshold, you were still always coming out to wipe your Flying Jade Peak ancestor’s ass for him.

Zhi Xiu had been prepared in advance; he flicked his fingers, knocking aside the spiritual energy his rebellious disciple had sent flying towards Wen Fei’s fan. “Impudent.”

Then he turned around and gave Wen Fei a look, frowning. With a sigh, he said, “How old are you?”

Wen Fei waved his hand indifferently. As for that Sword Slave, I don’t know anything for sure—aren’t there Luwu in the Beijue Mountains? Why don’t you get in contact with them and ask around?

Xi Ping was just about to say something when suddenly, his spiritual sense moved slightly. He immediately turned his gaze onto Jinping.

In the Yongning Marquis Manor, the Marquis, who was writing out large characters, suddenly froze. A thread of light like silk flew out from the center of his brow and struck the wall of the study. Before he could get a clear look at it, Xi Ping had already returned to the Marquis Manor through the reincarnation wood. The sound of a string, like tearing silk, broke off contact between the Marquis and that light.

The shadow on the wall cried out in oddly-accented Wan language: “Wait!”

The Marquis abruptly stood up. “Shiyong, do not be rude!”