Xi Ping’s heart lurched.

Just then, there was a flicker of light and shadow in the flame as Lin Chi’s face flashed through it.

Xi Ping froze. Then he immediately realized what was happening: the Unbound Furnace’s true furnace flame had been in his hands all along; reasonably speaking, he could control the Unbound Furnace through its furnace flame, and he could use the furnace flame to see what the toolmaker was doing!

Earlier, he had been knocked dizzy by the sudden events and hadn’t thought of it right away—Xi Ping hadn’t used the furnace flame to peep before, because the Unbound Furnace was regularly packed with all kinds of important materials, and a layman prodding at the furnace flame at random was likely to cause problems. It wasn’t like Master Lin was unreliable, and he didn’t understand the little universes inside the furnace; what would be the point of blindly messing around?

And if he wanted to use the furnace flame to communicate with Lin Chi, he needed Lin Chi’s cooperation. At the very least, he would first have to light the Unbound Furnace and send his consciousness into it. Under ordinary circumstances, if he could contact Lin Chi in order to instruct him to do all these things, he could also say whatever he needed to say. There was no need to use such a valuable thing in place of a Heavenly Question.

No one had expected a situation like the current one to happen.

Zhao Qindan had sent flying goose messages to Luwu outside Tao County, and the Luwu’s Heavenly Question had come to Lin Chi’s hands on Moon Plated Peak. The information had passed through many hands, and it was unclear how much of it had been lost by the time it reached Lin Chi. Lin Chi was all at sea when he heard, only roughly understood that reincarnation wood couldn’t be used and Xi Ping’s consciousness was trapped in Tao County.

Tao County was the place enveloped by Hui Xiangjun’s Law Breaker. As soon as Lin Chi heard, he thought of the Unbound Furnace’s flame, so, while sending a Heavenly Question to ask the Luwu for concrete details, as though trying his luck, he cleaned out all the materials inside the Unbound Furnace and sent his consciousness into it.

Seeing Lin Chi now, Xi Ping acted as if he were seeing his long-lost grandpa. He even took the initiative to develop manners: “Lin-shishu!”

This form of address took eight centuries off Lin Chi’s lifespan. He quickly said, “C-c-certainly not! General Zhi keeps looking for you, are you all right? What’s…”

“I’m not all right!” said Xi Ping. “I’m nearly cold! Burn some paper money for me, I’m heading to the Underworld to hire an assassin to take down that wolf spirit Xie Chu for me, then bribe the Kings of the Underworld to make sure he reincarnates as a pig in the next life!”

“Don’t joke…” said Lin Chi.

This time, he really didn’t joke; Xi Ping poured out the whole sequence of cause and effect for Lin Chi. “The reincarnation wood is out of control, Lin-shishu. The most urgent matter is to work out how long the Law Breaker can hide me and what to do about these damned inscriptions.”

Lin Chi seemed unable to digest this information at once. He was silent.

Come to think of it, from Xi Ping’s thrilling escape from before the Ceaseless Mirror to the hidden bones showing their true colors, the situation had developed rapidly; in a brief span of time, the world had simply turned upside down. If anyone survived, this single day could fill up a hundred pages in the historical annals.

After a long moment, the stalled Li Chi finally “slowly came to awareness.” “Wen-shixiong, give me another one of those pills from earlier—Shiyong, what did you say? I’ve always thought that the hidden bones were like the ungovernable way’s Way of the Heart, how…how could they escape your control and even try to push you into a deathtrap?”

Xi Ping gave a start, immediately realizing that he had slipped up. Lin Chi had personally experienced the inference of the Ways of the Heart of common origin; what if he kept thinking along those lines? Wouldn’t that harm his Way of the Heart?

He was just about to touch up his words when he heard Lin Chi continue: “In ancient times, the ‘unorthodox ways’ that weren’t among the three thousand paths of the Great Way disappeared when the Kunlun Mountains formed. Only the demonic gods of the reincarnation wood, the heartless lotus, the eternal spring brocade, and the late-autumn red gave birth to accompanying plants… Their ways are indeed strange. They seem to be entirely different from the present system of the cultivation world.”

Xi Ping opened his mouth and realized that Lin Chi had gotten ahead of him to say everything he had been about to say, and this self-deluding talk was more comprehensive than his lies would have been. All he could do was dryly agree: “…Right.”

At the same time, something flashed through his mind. Before Xi Ping could catch hold of the idea, Zhao Qindan suddenly knocked urgently on the reincarnation wood tree’s trunk—

Meanwhile, at the boundary of Tao County, one of the “troops” from the Northern Xia Garrison suddenly opened his eyes wide, a panicked expression flashing over his face.

The person behind Tao County’s Northern Xia Garrison was Zhou Ying. After eight years, a number of Luwu had of course infiltrated the troops. With the spiritual energy prohibition in Tao County, half-immortal Luwu were normally no different from mortals. But just now, one of the Luwu among the troops had suddenly felt his whole body lighten, his eyes and ears abruptly become sharp. Spiritual energy poured through his spiritual eyes into his meridians. He could use spiritual energy again!

The Luwu was startled and thought that he had accidentally stepped over the spiritual energy prohibition line. He quickly raised his head to look at the boundary marker standing on the line, but the boundary marker was still two zhang away from him.

Without the mortals being any the wiser, Tao County’s spiritual energy prohibition line had shrunk by over two zhang.

The Luwu knew very well that this was a matter with far-reaching consequences. He quickly found an excuse to be relieved from his shift by a colleague and hurriedly went back to send a report. Before leaving, he turned his head back to take a look.

After the connection between Tai Sui and reincarnation wood had been exposed, many reincarnation wood trees in Chu outside of Tao County had been torn down… Though in this period of tumult, that sloppy and incompetent bunch of Qilin Guards hadn’t taken care of them all, outside the spiritual energy prohibition line, there certainly weren’t forests of reincarnation wood. Now, because the spiritual energy prohibition line had shrunk, a big swath of reincarnation wood forest had moved outside the line. Perhaps the Luwu was imagining it, but he suddenly thought that these reincarnation wood trees seemed different from usual.

The lush shadows of the trees flickered, overlapping on the ground. These were clearly the same trees he was used to seeing, but it seemed that countless pairs of ghastly eyes had appeared on them and were watching that Luwu greedily.

The Luwu’s blood ran cold. He made a mark at the new spiritual energy prohibition line and raced to a Luwu inn. Without even saying hello to his colleague inside, he rushed straight into the basement and sent a message to Seventeen Li Town.

The area enveloped by the Law Breaker was slowly shrinking!

On receiving the news, Xi Ping and Lin Chi were simultaneously startled.

The Luwu rapidly calculated the speed at which the spiritual energy prohibition line was moving. It was one chi per incense stick, and the rate seemed to be increasing.

The Unbound Furnace flame in Xi Ping’s hands, previously steady, began to dance slightly like a candle flame, as if it might go out at any time. Xi Ping’s earlier ominous premonition had come true. This was dire!

“Contact my shifu,” Xi Ping quickly said. “Lin-shishu, why is the Law Breaker’s scope shrinking? Is it running out of oil, or running out of spiritual energy? How can we give it a refill?”

“I’ve already contacted him.” Lin Chi’s scalp was numb. “The Unbound Furnace flame isn’t her Way of the Heart, it’s something she made… She never even mentioned it to me. As for how it was made, how we can maintain it… Fenghan! Give me another pill!”

Wen Fei smacked him with his fan. If you take another one, you’ll be going to see your ancestors.

Despairingly, Lin Chi said, “I can’t do it…”

Wen Fei’s fan flew up and stretched to over a zhang wide in midair.

Peak Master Wen, a former Heaven’s Design Pavilion thug who had gotten mixed in with the “weak medicine and toolmaking ways,” picked up Lin Chi and the Unbound Furnace, then tossed them onto the fan. The He people have died off, the Xiang family is all useless, Li and Shu have never valued the way of toolmaking. There’s no one presentable among them. You’re the Golden Hand. If you can’t do it, who can? We’re going!

Lin Chi stumbled. “Going wh—”

The words on the fan nearly pierced the clouds on the immortal mountains. Tao County!

When Zhi Xiu, at the Wan-He border, received word, the first thing he did was to set off a firework.

Right now, all the shed skins had discovered that the great arrays of all the immortal mountains and all the border inscriptions had collapsed. Their consciousnesses were no longer limited by anything. They could sweep across the better part of the continent.

Though there were some thousands of li between the Lancang Mountains and the Wan-He border, the shed skins could now speak as though they were face-to-face.

“Everyone, listen to what I have to say—”

As Zhi Xiu spoke, his consciousness swept out toward the bottom of the sea, searching for Xi Ping.

To keep Xi Ping away from the pursuit of the reincarnation wood, Yao Qi and Chang Jun were certain to be using ascended spirit grade upgraded immortal tools, all Moon Plated Peak products, familiar to Zhi Xiu. Reasonably speaking, he should have seen them at a glance, but while his consciousness instantly covered the better part of the South Sea, he didn’t find so much as a shadow.

Zhi Xiu’s heart sank.

Meanwhile, Yao Qi and Chang Jun had escaped with Xi Ping from the reincarnation wood tree that was like a sea monster. The big fish that could travel stealthily over the seabed was gone. They’d had to squeeze into the leaf-shaped upgraded immortal tool.

This was a “protective immortal tool,” not a boat, and there was only enough space inside for one person to move around. With three grown fellows stuffed into it, it was almost bulging. It was pushed by the wind and waves on the sea, hopping up and down.

“Ziming…would you kindly lift your foot, you’ve nearly tapped out a New Year’s Greetings song on my belly!”

“It’s not my foot!”

“Right… I was wondering why it hurt so much… I’m going to throw up…”

“Hongzheng-xiong, don’t—”

Just then, the protective immortal tool gave a violent shake. Xi Ping’s ascended spirit heel was thrown against Chang Jun’s stomach, nearly twisting his half-immortal brother’s spine through the skin of his belly. Chang Jun’s face turned green. Exerting every bit of his strength, he freed up a hand to cover his mouth. But Yao Qi gave a start; he had a bad feeling.

The immortal tool that had been rolling wildly through the sea seemed to have been caught and stabilized. Through the half-transparent “leaf,” Yao Qi saw the figure of an enormous snake-like body, wrapped around the tiny protective immortal tool.

It was a waking dragon.

Flute music played in the water. The waking dragon wrapped around them moved as soon as it heard. It jumped several times. The two half-immortals inside the immortal tool no longer knew where they were.

A long, slim hand reached out of midair and tapped politely on the leaf immortal tool. Then came Wan language with the distinctive clinging character of the Miah clan: “There are none of those evil trees here. It’s safe. Gentlemen, come out and have a word with me.”

The legendary ascended spirit evil cultivator of Southern Shu.

Yao Qi and Chang Jun trembled simultaneously, like two frogs with a viper’s eyes on them, not daring to breathe too loudly.

Chang Jun quickly made a “hand cannon” gesture at Yao Qi, indicating for him to take aim at the ascended spirit. But Yao Qi, his expression dismal, shook his head—that ascended spirit grade hand cannon had slipped out of his hand while they were being chased by the reincarnation wood.

Chang Jun: “…”

He yanked Xi Ping’s hair hopelessly: Wake up, brother, save us! The two of us won’t even make a snack for that man!

Wangge Luobao landed on the waking dragon’s head like the sea god himself and gently stroked the upgraded immortal tool in the shape of a furled leaf. He clicked his tongue in admiration. “So this is the spirit-conducting gold that lit the red moon eight hundred years ago. Amazing. This manmade object is sixty to seventy percent as effective as a cultivator’s essence at conducting spiritual energy. If you had sheer force of numbers on your side, that would be disastrous. Fortunately…”

As Wangge Luobao spoke, there was a tooth-aching crack. He had found the location of the immortal tool’s array with pinpoint accuracy. He pressed his flute to it and laughed softly.

Violent spiritual energy, completely out of keeping with that gentle sound, instantly pierced the immortal tool. Whatever other properties spirit-conducting gold might have, it was still a manmade object. Though it was also of ascended spirit grade, it could still never match up to a genuine ascended spirit master who had spent centuries cultivating. The immortal tool’s core cracked in response.

In the blink of an eye, seawater was pouring in. Yao Qi and Chang Jun’s vision darkened. They were knocked dizzy by a swipe of the waking dragon’s tail as it rolled over. Xi Ping’s wound-riddled body floated out and landed in a pair of arms.