This was no ordinary spiritual sense perturbation.

Actually, a cultivator’s spiritual sense was always being touched by the outside world. The higher one’s cultivation level, the more one would be aware of—for example, next door in the Latent Cultivation Temple, the mighty instructor Luo Qingshi cursed him by name three meals a day, rain or shine—but those who persistently brought down curses on his head were too numerous; for Xi Ping, this was all “background noise” that he could easily ignore.

But just now, that had been different. It had been weak and remote, as if something were gently dragging his heart down. It was fleeting, so quick it seemed to have been an illusion. Xi Ping couldn’t grasp it.

Just then, in his spirit, the bone-sharing talisman Zhou Ying had left him with showed signs of movement.

Unskillfully, Xi Ping concentrated. Through the bone-sharing talisman, he sensed that Zhou Huan, carrying the strand of hair his brother had planted on him, had reached a place brimming with spiritual energy.

Zhou Huan had first lost the mother who had been his backbone and then been forced into exile, turning in the blink of an eye from the sovereign of a nation to a stray dog. The drop was truly too great. When he had first reached Yanning, the climate had disagreed with him, and he had fallen seriously ill. Xi Ping had been afraid for a time that he would die. Fortunately, the cultivation world had elixirs and medicinal herbs that could preserve a person’s life. Zhou Huan had recovered only after nearly a month of nursing, then had gone north to the Kunlun Mountains.

Before immortals, Zhou Huan had no place to speak. He was trotted out, bewildered, only an “item” worn by the Li and Zhang families, amounting to a white cloth these people were wearing in mourning for their native land.

Through the black hair planted on “White Cloth Zhou,” Xi Ping heard Kunlun’s Third Elder, who was receiving them in secret, constantly sighing and wringing his hands, on one hand recalling his friendship with Li Fengshan, on the other hand commenting in strong terms about demons bringing chaos to the world. After they had gone back and forth for several rounds, the Third Elder swore up and down that Northern Li would not stand by and watch as their good neighbor fell into the hands of evil cultivators.

The “evil cultivator” silently pricked up his ears on Zhou Huan’s head and heard the Third Elder say, “‘Zhaoting’ holds all of Great Wan’s veins of the earth in his hands, and he has locked up many of my fellow cultivators from the thirty-six peaks in the Xuanyin Mountains. He is holding the entire country hostage. We cannot harm the common people. In order to avoid doing more harm than good in our attack, we must contend with them for now.”

Great Wan’s fugitive cultivators were moved to tears. In unison, they exclaimed in admiration of the Third Elder, finding in him a soulmate as far as “concern for the nation and the people” went.

The Third Elder said, “If we can lure him into leaving the Xuanyin Mountains, we will have no further reservations. Even if Wanshuang will not leave its sheath, I am willing to petition the Sect Leader and go see that so-called ‘Sword of the South’ for myself.”

“And just who do you think you are?” Xi Ping thought derisively.

At the same time, he was a little curious to know what Kunlun was planning to use to lure his shizun away.

Then he heard one of the Wan cultivators obediently ask that question for him.

The Third Elder said, “The Xuanyin Mountains’ spiritual energy is draining away. They will not hold out for more than a century. ‘Zhaoting’ will undoubtedly covet the southern mines. It is only because he fears Kunlun’s Wanshuang that he temporarily does not dare to act rashly. That is why he has hypocritically sent an envoy to sue for peace. By my reckoning, in another seven days, it will be the anniversary of the day that the Sect Leader of Southern He’s Lancang Sect died and Lancang’s great mountain array and Lovebird Sword Array vanished. The Lancang survivor has always held this as a day of disgrace for her vanquished nation. She is certain to act on that day. The Lord Sword-bearer will pretend to be incapable of defeating her and ask for help from her nearest ‘ally.’ Zhaoting will not be able to sit tight. We have already placed an impregnable net in the Land of Turmoil. If he so much as sets foot there, he won’t be able to escape.”

Overhearing this plot that exceeded his imagination, Xi Ping’s first reaction was: What kind of idiocy is this? Do you think everyone is like you?

Then he mulled it over briefly and noticed something else not quite right: the commemoration day for Southern He’s destruction happened every year. It had been happening for over two centuries, and he had never heard of there being any particular ceremony to celebrate it. How could Kunlun’s old man be so sure that the evil cultivators would do something on that day?

Also, didn’t their Sect Leader suspect Wu Lingxiao of betraying them?

Why was this plan still treating her as one of their own, making her “pretend to be incapable of defeating” a foe? With the Sword Slave’s bull-headed character, if Kunlun really did order her to play dead and be “incapable of defeating” a few ascended spirits for the sake of trapping Zhi Xiu, she might very well cut down the official sent to deliver the order on the spot, then send a written challenge to war directly to the Xuanyin Mountains.

An exiled Wan cultivator asked the Third Elder, “How do you know that the evil cultivators will act, elder?”

“I will not conceal from you, fellow cultivator,” the Third Elder said, “that we also have an ally from another nation, an orthodox cultivator who, like you, has been forced to leave his native soil. He has given us a guarantee that he will facilitate this matter. The Li family has concealed considerable forces in the southern mines over the years. If we join forces and act with one heart, we are certain to prevail in defeating evil and defending the Way, returning the world to purity.”

The group of Wan cultivators exchanged looks. From the consideration that they had no bargaining chips, they offered up all the agents they had left in the Land of Turmoil.

Xi Ping split his attention, listening in and recording while thinking, An “orthodox cultivator” forced to leave his native soil who knows the Queen Mother of the West’s movements like the back of his hand. He can’t possibly be talking about that purebred evil cultivator Yu Chang.

He narrowed his eyes. “Wangge Luobao.”

There had been a schism between Southern Shu’s two clans, the Miah had revolted against Lingyun, and Wangge Luobao was the Miah’s savior, as well as a former Dragon Subduing Knight. If you insisted on calling him an “orthodox cultivator” who had been forced to leave his native soil, it didn’t seem entirely unfeasible.

Wangge Luobao had always mingled ambiguously with people like Yu Chang and the Emperor of the East, not doing anything major, so Xi Ping had automatically viewed them as all of a kind. If not for Zhou Huan’s hair, he never would have thought that this Shu cultivator who secretly had a foot on eight different boats would also be colluding with Northern Li.

That person was like the legendary next life spiritual fish. You knew full well that he existed, but he could always make sure he was overlooked at the critical moment.

Wait!

Xi Ping had suddenly realized that among all the evil cultivators who had made names for themselves to this day, Wangge Luobao was the only one he wasn’t very familiar with. The one and only contact between them—and even that one-sided—had been the invitation to the South Sea Hidden Realm.

It was clear that the lunatic tone for that sloppy plan had been set by Zhuoming.

A thought appeared in Xi Ping’s mind: if not for Zhuoming, Wangge Luobao wouldn’t necessarily have invited him.

He had been spending the vast majority of his time “in seclusion” in the Land of Turmoil, splitting his attention eight different ways, occasionally running the Luwu’s errands for san-ge. He hadn’t actually had any time to be a social butterfly among the forces of evil. But the Luwu were drinking straws that had taken root in the black markets of all the nations. Apart from those who had personal grudges against him, the overwhelming majority of known evil cultivators had had some dealings with him.

The sole exception was this Lingyun rebel who went around everywhere seducing everyone and repeatedly selling himself… It might have been a bit self-aggrandizing, but Xi Ping thought that Wangge Luobao seemed to have been deliberately avoiding him.

As a mixed-blood Dragon Subduing Knight who had shown himself to be a singular talent among his fellows, he ought to have been a person that both the Xiuyi and the Miah couldn’t stand, but he had risen above the rest and become Southern Shu’s sole ascended spirit outside of the spiritual mountains. As soon as he appeared, he had cut the Lingyun Spiritual Mountains down to half their size and led the Miah clan’s leader and its two elders to their deaths, swallowing what they had accumulated over many years in a single gulp. And that was nothing; after all, looking throughout the northern and southern continents, masters of the way of “digging pits and burying people in them” existed in some number. But he had turned around and recovered the whole Miah clan, making the Three Islands—from the common people to the cultivators—all worship him as a god.

It was very easy to pry apart the conjunctivitis sufferer and his band of die-hards; Xi Ping and Zhao Qindan between them had already pulled it off… While lately he had persisted in fooling himself and her, playing dead and not daring to go talk to the young mistress, always beseeching his Grandma Wei to pass on messages for him, it hadn’t held up their business.

The Queen Mother of the West had personally opened a back door for him; Yao Qi and Chang Jun were keeping an eye on her. And the Emperor of the East’s lackeys were plentiful, it wasn’t hard to find them if you put in some time.

Only Wangge Luobao and the Miah clan were like sealed drums. An outsider could find no crack to get in.

Xi Ping looked and scanned the history book on his desk. In seven days…

When he paid attention to Wangge Luobao, Xi Ping had a sudden sensation of being unable to sit still, urging him to go investigate Wangge Luobao’s plans at once.

He had faced countless frightening enemies in his life, but whether it was the full moon sage or the divine sword Wanshuang, his intuition had never given him such a strong warning.

“Queru.” Through the reincarnation wood, Xi Ping sent a message to Li Manlong in the South Sea Hidden Realm. “You haven’t checked in with an all’s well yet today. Has there been any change?”

After discovering the Ways of the Heart of common origin lying silent in the spiritual mountains, when Xi Ping had finished being run off his feet dealing with Great Wan’s domestic affairs, what he had been most concerned about had been the South Sea Hidden Realm.

After all, what the South Sea Hidden Realm contained were also “spiritual mountains.”

He had almost wanted to move Chief Li and the others to Tao County there and then.

Once Wangge Luobao found out that a crack had opened in the South Sea Hidden Realm, the Miah half-immortals under his command would be able to get in and seize the hidden realm. It was Southern Shu territory. Xi Ping’s reach wasn’t long enough, no matter what.

But the Turmoilers couldn’t bear to leave.

Chief Li had said, “This so-called heavenly edict can come in the blink of an eye. If the spiritual mountains in the hidden realm really could communicate with Wangge Luobao, the Miah cultivators would have been here long ago. Why would they give us time to react? My people have only just managed to build a home for themselves, and in a few months, little Hope will be born… Tai Sui, however good Tao County may be, it is a human place.”

Xi Ping had nothing to say to that—in the eyes of the world, the Turmoilers in fact didn’t really count as human. Even with the toilet bulletins, people’s deep-rooted notions weren’t about to change overnight.

Most importantly, he couldn’t enter the South Sea Hidden Realm; he couldn’t force the Turmoilers who had gone there to pack their bags and go.

Xi Ping was helpless. All he could do was make them report with an all’s well every day and ask the Southern Shu Luwu who hadn’t withdrawn to keep a constant eye on the situation in Shu.

But very soon, he had realized that what Li Manlong said made sense. Since the Xuanyin Mountains speaking and his fireworks blowing up the Sea of Stars, nearly a month had passed, and all the Xiuyi and Miah had done was kill each other. No one had gone to the depths of the South Sea…and Wangge Luobao, who was said to have inherited the founder Tianbo’s Way of the Heart, had been loitering in the vicinity of Southern He with no idea that the South Sea Hidden Realm he had worked so hard to pursue had opened a crack.

This was very delicate.

The spiritual mountains of all the nations had begun secretly taking part in human wars through their heavenly edicts. Reasonably speaking, since Wangge Luobao, who had inherited the founder Tianbo’s Way of the Heart, could summon forth the South Sea Hidden Realm using that Way of the Heart, he ought also to be receiving the spiritual mountains’ “heavenly edicts”…so why weren’t the hidden realm’s spiritual mountains paying attention to him?

This Wangge Luobao, who was so mysterious it made Xi Ping’s blood run cold—what Way of the Heart had he actually inherited?

Was the crack in the South Sea Hidden really a coincidence?

Why had that ascended spirit sword aura knocked open precisely a passage that would only permit those below an established foundation to pass? Was there some peculiar law of conversion at work here, or…did the spiritual mountains in the South Sea Hidden Realm only accept people “without a Way of the Heart”?

Just then, a ray of light came flying from Rosy Cloud Peak like a shooting star and landed in the snow with a bang, knocking out a string of big, gaudy writing, like implanting a set of big gold teeth in the snowy mountain; it interrupted Xi Ping’s train of thought.

Wen Fei wrote: Tai Sui, when can you provide the silk dragon hearts?!

Heaven’s Design Pavilion had a group of elites who were as remarkably talented as Pang Jian, who had happened to run into unique turns of fortune in life and had been able to refine Ways of the Heart for themselves. Facing the current instability, while “upgraded immortal tools” had already been sent out in secret, ultimately, external objects still couldn’t match up to genuine established foundation cultivators. With Pang Jian’s tacit consent, this group of elites had been writing to request the immortal mountains to release established foundation pills.

Here in Southern Wan, while the key figures all knew that inherited Ways of the Heart of common origin were no good, they still didn’t know that they themselves had already fallen into the trap. Xi Ping, the only one who didn’t fear his Way of the Heart shattering, was destined to find the truth difficult to proclaim, while the only person in the world who could discuss these matters with him…had gone on a long journey.

Xi Ping had already been fretful. When he thought of Zhou Ying, it increased his despondency. He was extremely unhappy and not in the mood to respond by sending a message back, so he walked out the door, plastered a talisman to his throat, and shouted in the direction of Rosy Cloud Peak: “There aren’t any! The Territory Map nearly drove the silk dragons to extinction! It’s hardly been a month! Do you think silk dragons breed like maggots?”

His voice raised echoes. All of Flying Jade Peak quivered to the shout of like maggots…maggots… until the snow massed on the north slope was on the verge of collapse.

A tree branch flew from the snow shuffler at the cottage door, coming towards Xi Ping’s forehead like a sword.

A human voice came from the snow-white tree trunk: “Not only have I not taught you swordsmanship over the last decade and more, it seems I also haven’t taught you that you—can’t—make—a—racket—on—a—snowy—mountain!”

Xi Ping had no time to dodge. The tree branch left a red mark on his forehead. He leaned backwards quickly and scurried off like a frightened rat.

At the same time, he livened up again and thought to himself, Right, silk dragon hearts are in short supply now, especially in places where they haven’t realized the danger of Ways of the Heart of common origin yet. Their price has gone sky high on the black market. Only Northern Li hasn’t made a peep. I suppose they must have hooked up with Lao Wang from Southern Shu’s Three Islands, the source of spiritual beasts.

Silk dragons were rare on the outside, but there were plenty of spiritual beasts in the South Sea Hidden Realm. Before, he hadn’t dared to let Li Manlong and the others get near spiritual beasts, but lately he had sent over a batch of spirit-conducting gold weapons, making it much easier for the Turmoilers to deal with spiritual beasts. The silk dragon itself wasn’t a ferocious spiritual beast, anyway, and the Turmoilers had been occupied in rearing spiritual beasts. They were familiar with their habits.

They could scare up a batch of silk dragon hearts from the South Sea Hidden Realm and hand them over to Wei Chengxiang to sell off, pretending that they had come out of the Southern He peninsula. They would earn spiritual stones, and the supply of silk dragon hearts would be imputed to Wangge Luobao. Teach him to lurk!

But before he could say anything, in the South Sea Hidden Realm, Li Manlong sent a reply through the reincarnation wood: “All’s well today. It’s only that my people probed deep into the mountains and discovered an unusual situation, which held them up for a while. I was just about to tell you, Tai Sui.”

Xi Ping said, “You’re exploring the spiritual mountains? I wanted to ask a favor to do with that. What unusual situation? You first.”

“Before, when Miss Zhao was transferring silk dragon hearts from the black market, she practically talked her mouth raw. We were helpless spectators, powerless to help. So we were thinking that these things are rare on the market and can’t be quickly restocked, and Tai Sui was sure to need some later, so we had better prepare some for you ahead of time.”

Xi Ping raised his eyebrows, thinking, Queru is wonderful, always ready with whatever you need.

But Li Manlong said, “But we searched for nearly a month, in all the places silk dragons could dwell—Tai Sui, there are no silk dragons in this hidden realm.”

Xi Ping froze, letting the tree branch chasing him hit him full in the back. He fell face first into a snowdrift.

In the South Sea Hidden Realm, which was like a twin to the Lingyun Mountains, all kinds of living things existed, including the extinct eternal spring brocade…with the sole exception of one species of spiritual beast?