When Xie Chu had been selected to enter the inner sect, he had gone himself to find the Second Elder and volunteer his services, because he had heard that the Heart Sword was the only kind of sword that relied on the spiritual sense. Supposing that there was something that required a certain innate talent to learn well, then a person who had that innate talent would certainly have an easier time if he entered that way.

Anyway, that’s what he had thought. He had always preferred easy work to hard work.

The Lingchi Lantern burned quietly. All the parts of Xie Chu’s body that could feel pain had already burned away. Apart from his skeleton and his charred flesh, only the essence, consciousness, and meridians of an ascended spirit cultivator remained… He thought that the Snow Wolf had been able to burn his meridians back then, too, but for some reason, a cultivator’s meridians were like furnace dregs, squalidly left behind. When the fire was extinguished, they would be frozen here forever along with his essence.

“S-since you’ve guessed where I am…” Xie Chu said, sending out a talisman and revealing another patch of inscriptions, “could you at least…ask whether I’m dead or alive?”

Xi Ping asked in turn, “Well, aren’t you already beyond the Beijue Mountain Pass?”

Wasn’t that like shouldering a pack of dynamite and charging at the gates of the underworld?

Xie Chu scolded, “Little asshole,” while exerting all his strength to wipe the snow from the last patch of inscriptions. His vision darkened. Next, Xie Chu realized that he wasn’t the one who had burned out; it was the Lingchi Lantern.

The fire had gone out.

Once the fire went out, his essence immediately began to congeal. Xie Chu raised his head with difficulty. Through the Ceaseless Mirror, he saw Zhou Ying wipe a patch of mist, about to write something. His almost transparent finger hung there for a long while, then retracted as if he didn’t know how to start. He nodded faintly at him.

Xie Chu propped himself up and knelt on the ground. While drawing a little-used array, he said to Xi Ping, “There’s a set of inscriptions outside the Beijue Mountains. Do you know about it?”

Xi Ping opened his mouth. His breathing became rapid. He forgot the words that had come up to his lips. All his attention was focused on listening to Xie Chu’s hoarse, exhausted voice.

“This is a place of desolation. With no one to guide you, finding your way here amid the boundless snow is impossible, unless you are a full moon sage who can go anywhere. Beneath a full moon sage, without the protection of a Heart Sword, your consciousness will be lost in the Beijue Array. Even if someone leads you by the shortest path, you still won’t make it this far. At the feet of the spiritual mountains now, no new full moon sage will emerge. As for the Heart Sword… Kunlun is a millennium-old sword sect, and Zhu Lanze is the only one it has produced. If you want to wait for the next…the next person like my shifu, it might take you another thousand years. This sword he passed down only to me. Because your dad insisted on wallowing in the mundane dust, unwilling to budge, I haven’t taken a direct disciple. That bullshit soft sword of the Snow Wolf’s is only an imitation in form. So this lineage has been lost.”

These were last words—Xi Ping’s throat moved slightly. Exercising his greatest patience, he kept from rushing him.

“Lost… My shifu’s Way of the Heart can’t be passed on, and as for me…” Xie Chu looked at himself in the Ceaseless Mirror. The inscriptions on his spirit began to slowly leave his body, dispersing into the air.

That heartless wretch Zhou Ying, in order to make him finish the work, had interrupted his contemplations several times. But a person couldn’t control their own thoughts. Though Xie Chu had nearly been frozen silly and was slower on the uptake than usual, the truth was still like oil dripping onto paper. Bit by bit, it had seeped through.

He drew on the very last of his essence that could still move and finished drawing the array. The spiritual threads looked like scratches made on a coffin by a person who had been buried alive.

“What I mean is, little devil, in a while, I’m going to die here, and no other living person will come here again. In the world today, no one can obtain a full set of these inscriptions—I…can take a copy of the whole set. Your san-ge is asking, do you want them?”

Xi Ping’s pupils dilated. He was knocked dizzy by this pie falling out of the sky. He nearly blurted out, “So what are you waiting for?”

The whole system of the spiritual mountains was built on this set of inscriptions. These were the extant “heavenly commandments.” If he obtained these inscriptions, he would have the spiritual mountains by the throat. Henceforth, the mountains and rivers, the veins of the earth, the sun, moon, and stars—all of them would be in the palm of his hand.

He could do whatever he pleased, become the sole “true god” in the world, no longer be controlled by anyone, no longer fear any villain or plot.

“Of course I…”

But just then, in the reincarnation wood, Wei Chengxiang put in a word.

“Though I still don’t understand the principle, that actually did work. You’re really something else… Hss…” Wei Chengxiang, exhausted, was leaning against the ship’s hold with her head tilted back. She had used too many talismans. The surge of spiritual energy through her meridians had tied them into a knot. “A cramp—Xiao-A-Sui, the reincarnation wood has been restored, so you must still be in good health, huh?”

Her voice instantly seemed to shatter some illusion. Xi Ping gave a start. Before he could answer, he heard a racket in the reincarnation wood. The Luwu, all talking over each other, were reporting something to him.

“…What?”

“Oh,” said Wei Chengxiang. “The ones going quickly are already in sight of the Guzhou port.”

Guzhou was in Wan’s southwest, adjacent to the South Sea. That they could see Guzhou’s port meant that they had already basically escaped the Southern He Peninsula.

With the replenishment of Zhi Xiu’s spiritual stones, the Luwu had finally caught their breath. Though some ships had capsized and some had simply sunk, they were at any rate all immortal tools operated by spiritual stones. While the masters were fighting fit to bring down the sky, they had fled in a frenzy in all kinds of desperate states, and now they had nearly made it.

It was hard to say what would happen in the future, but at least they had all survived.

“We escaped by the skin of our teeth,” Wei Chengxiang said with a feeling sigh. “Though I’m in no position to represent anyone…thank you.”

Xi Ping didn’t know what he babbled in response. His heart, which had just been beating wildly, sank abruptly.

By coincidence, A-Xiang’s interruption had just happened to extinguish the frenzy that had come over his mind out of nowhere. Xi Ping’s mind went blank for a moment. He thought, What was I thinking just now?

Having calmed down, Xi Ping suddenly realized that he actually couldn’t clearly explain what the inscriptions outside the Beijue Mountains were.

Flying Jade Peak had never been expert in talismans, arrays, and inscriptions. His shifu himself could only just muddle through in this respect, and Xi Ping was like a sprout pulled up too early; even his general knowledge lagged far behind those of the same level as him.

Before this, he had witnessed Kunlun’s Sect Leader give birth to a heart demon and had known what had happened to General Zhi Yi before his death, and then he’d seen Lancang’s Sect Leader via Yao Qi and the next life mist… He had collected a whole heap of causes and effects. If not for that, he might not even have been able to understand what Lin Chi’s letter had been describing.

That being the case, when even Xuanwu had been at a loss before Master Lin had deciphered the inscriptions, how had he, upon hearing Yao Qi relate the Lancang Sect Leader’s last words, known at once that they could control inscriptions?

Could his true identity be some rare inscription genius?

Impossible. All learning in the world that required rote memorization was anathema to him!

Afterward, because of Wangge Luobao’s sneak attack, he had unexpectedly ended up in front of the Ceaseless Mirror. How had he, after seeing the inscriptions on the hidden bones, been immediately certain that those inscriptions could help him reconnect with the reincarnation wood?

It was true that at the moment of crisis, a person would rely on intuition and instinct to act. But “sowing discord,” “exposing illicit love affairs,” and “shifting blame” were his usual level. Learning and applying a set of inscriptions he’d never even heard of shouldn’t have been included.

Also, he suddenly remembered, his panicked rush to find the Blind Wolf King had been so he could ask about Zhou Ying’s current condition. Of course it mattered what was outside the Beijue Mountains, but from his point of view, it had to get in line behind his close kin. But when he had heard about the ancient inscriptions outside the Beijue Mountains just now, he seemed to have actually forgotten Zhou Ying.

The South Sea had been swept by the sword gods from the snow-capped mountains of the north and south. Keen-edged spray flew everywhere.

Xi Ping’s chest went cold—the most frightening thing was that since he had seen the hidden bones in the Sea of Stars, he had been able to distinguish which thoughts were his own and which were those rotten bones making mischief. But right now, had the Beijue Mountain inscriptions not made the hidden bones overly excited, leading them to slip up and expose themselves, he would have had no idea.

After being shattered repeatedly, it was the hidden bones that had brought their cultivation nearly to shed skin level, not him.

“I’m not trying…trying to rush you,” Xie Chu’s voice, weaker than before, came through the reincarnation wood, “but if you dither any longer, I’m going to kick the bucket.”

Inside the Ceaseless Mirror, there was a faint gravity to Zhou Ying’s expression.

Xi Ping concentrated and said, “From what you say, Your Highness the Blind Wolf King, it seems you really can contact my san-ge? How is he?”

Xie Chu paused.

Xi Ping could suppress the hidden bones, but this was a weighty matter. Precautions had to be taken. Xie Chu had received instructions in advance. If Xi Ping didn’t ask about “san-ge,” only set his heart entirely on asking about the ancient inscriptions outside the Beijue Mountains, he shouldn’t give them to him; if Xi Ping immediately answered that he wanted them, without any hesitation, he also shouldn’t give them to him. It wouldn’t be him making the decision.

Xie Chu laboriously turned his head and met Zhou Ying’s eyes. He nodded: normal.

Zhou Ying’s expression at last eased slightly. With a trace of a smile at the corners of his mouth, he raised a finger to his lips and shook his head at the Blind Wolf King: Don’t create new problems. There was no need to tell him much.

“He’s fine,” Xie Chu’s consciousness responded to Xi Ping. “The murderer—that Sect Leader of ours, I mean—has gone crazy, hasn’t he? It was your brother’s doing. His consciousness is intact.”

Xi Ping quickly said, “I know his consciousness is intact. Where is he? How can I bring him back…”

Xie Chu interrupted him: “He wants you to mind your own business. For the moment, he doesn’t want to return to the land of the living by borrowing a corpse, and he has his own place to go—have a heart, young master, my essence is already…completely frozen…”

Xi Ping’s scalp went numb from his urging. He spoke quickly: “W-wait, wait…Y-your Highness, hang on a little longer, please! If this set of inscriptions comes to the mortal world, what will happen?”

If it was only something like a codebook or a tool, that wouldn’t matter. He could act as a human flying goose machine and take it back to the Xuanyin Mountains. He didn’t have the final say in Xuanyin. As for how to use this thing, everyone could talk it over later. The whole of Moon Plated Peak was covered in inscription experts, and if there was really nothing else for it, there was still the Unbound Furnace and the Eternal Flame. The sage of the past was still with them.

But what if this was something he had no way of comprehending at his level?

Concerning the heavenly commandments, there were many fantastical details. For example, when Qiu Sha had become an ascended spirit and broken the heavenly commandments, that commandment had ceased to exist, and in a few short years, ascended spirit evil cultivators had sprung up everywhere like bamboo shoots after a spring rain. For another example, Zhou Ying had previously been unable to speak the secrets of the bottom of the Sea of Stars aloud, and even forcing himself to scrape the edges and disclose a drop had made him cough up gouts of blood, until they had blown the whole Sea of Stars up into huge fireworks, after which they could discuss the fact that “Ways of the Heart of common origin can control junior cultivators.”

What Xi Ping was afraid of was that as soon as this set of inscriptions coveted by the hidden bones flowed into the human world, it might be like a hunk of metal thrown at a spiderweb, piercing right through the human world.

Perhaps the age of the spiritual mountains would end entirely, followed by the landforms altering radically, the sun, moon, and stars adopting new paths. All the common sense familiar and unfamiliar to him might be overthrown… This wasn’t something he—a person who had led an idle life in the lands of the living for a few decades—could control.

Xie Chu said, “How… how would I know? Will you…”

After their essence froze, any cultivator would be like a mortal. Xie Chu’s life was rapidly draining away, and his consciousness was like a gear about to rust through, getting stiffer and slower. The words that followed were so weak that Xi Ping could hardly hear them.

“Wolf King! Your Highness the Wolf King!”

Xi Ping’s back was soaked in cold sweat. He was plainly hidden in a safe place now, but this moment seemed more harrowing than when he had been getting ripped apart by several shed skin masters earlier.

No one knew what would happen after that set of ancient inscriptions appeared in the world, but he thought it was most likely the latter option. Otherwise, if it were a pie falling from the sky, only benefits without shortcomings, san-ge wouldn’t have asked an extraneous question; he would simply have tossed the thing to him.

Meanwhile, with Zhi Xiu, Xi Ping, and Wangge Luobao having simultaneously broken away from the battlefield, the Silver Moon and the Cauldron of Nine Dragons had lost their targets. The Cauldron of Nine Dragons once again dove into the sea to observe from the shadows, and the Silver Moon was hanging like a big lantern above Xuan-Chang’e’s head, shielding him from the Lovebird Sword Array.

The several great shed skins and the divine tools of the mountains both with and without masters were all spontaneously avoiding the Ceaseless Mirror, looking at each other in dismay as they watched Kunlun’s Sect Leader and the Sword Slave having a fight to the death… You couldn’t have called either of these two sword gods clear-headed.

Kunlun’s internal strife was nothing to do with him. San-ge had planted the heart demon seed precisely for the sake of reaping this harvest. The harder they fought, the safer Great Wan would be.

Shifu must already have reached the border by now. With his shifu to guard the country’s gates and the Kaiming Department and Heaven’s Design Pavilion’s elites assembled at the border with countless upgraded immortal tools at their disposal, taking care of the problem of the Impassable Sea’s demon host was only a matter of time.

Even the Lancang Sect Leader’s regrets and his shifu’s anguish from two centuries back could be brought to a satisfactory conclusion: the spirit-conducting gold that Southern He’s last emperor had personally brought out must have been about the same as what Lin Chi was making now, able to surmount the spiritual mountains’ heavenly commandments. It was the inscriptions that the Sect Leader had wanted to spread at the very last that would disperse Lancang into the veins of the earth, and Lin Chi had already decoded them. With the inscriptions and the spirit-conducting gold reappearing in the human world simultaneously, perhaps it wouldn’t be long before flowers really could grow once more in the Land of Turmoil.

In this instance, he had been targeted and plotted against. The journey south had been one mishap after another. But this outcome could already be called a successful conclusion to his virtuous achievements. He could take his time settling the account with Wangge Luobao.

Once he fished up Yao Qi and Chang Jun, he would take advantage of the chaos to retire in glory…

All these thoughts flashed through his mind in the space of a breath. Xi Ping came to a decision: he already knew about the foundations of the spiritual mountains, anyway. It would be better to take it steady, take time to discuss and decide, slowly resolve the chronic illnesses of the southern continent. Currently no one could go beyond the Beijue Mountains, but that wouldn’t necessarily be the case in the future. What if Master Lin could create upgraded spirit-conducting gold, make some kind of miraculous little car to drive over there?

“Do whatever I please, become the sole true god,” Xi Ping thought. “You just looked in the mirror, and already you’ve forgotten that you’re a sack of bones. How about I take a piss and give you another look for free?”

“Thank you, Wolf King,” Xi Ping said. “I’m not worthy. I don’t want them.”

“Fine…” Having heard the response in the reincarnation wood, Xie Chu raised his dim eyes and took a final look into the Ceaseless Mirror at the Second Elder beside Zhou Ying. “Fine… The younger generations will surpass the older. You’re a true hero.”

“Wolf King,” said Xi Ping, “are you…”

“The Lingchi Lantern... can only burn one way, and I don’t have that much flesh. Once I lit it… I didn’t plan to return,” Xie Chu whispered. “I couldn’t let the old fellow remain lost, his fate unknown…”

He had come seeking the truth, and now he had found it. Glimpsing the truth of the spiritual mountains and Ways of the Heart, his Way of the Heart breaking—these were an unexpected harvest.

The ancients said, “If you understand the universe in the morning, you can die in the evening.” He had gone looking for death, and on the way he had unexpectedly comprehended the universe. Wasn’t this a sweet bargain?

Only after these blustering centuries, he had found no soulmate, and he would die without wine. That was a great regret.

“Tell the whole world… what happened here,” the Blind Wolf King said in an almost inaudibly soft voice. “Little devil… give your mother and father… my regards…”

Emotion was faintly visible on Xi Ping’s face. He was just about to say something when, the next moment, Xie Chu poured all the white spirits on him into the array. The array was instantly activated. The spiritual threads crawled out over the snow, sticking to one inscription after another.

With a smack, the reincarnation wood amulet was sucked into the crux of the array. There was an explosion in Xi Ping’s mind. He felt that his consciousness was about to be cleaved apart. Through his consciousness, a group of inscriptions all poured into his head at once.

The Blind Wolf King’s hands, burned black and frozen stiff, remained at the crux of the array. He died smiling… though no one could have identified a “smile” on that face.

Just as no one knew that the most crucial answer he had heard in the reincarnation wood hadn’t been what Xi Ping had said.