That year, Xi Ping celebrated the New Year with shifu on Flying Jade Peak—the concrete distribution of labor was that Divine Physician Wen made the New Year’s Eve dinner, Xi Yue assisted, and Master Zhi, Master Lin, and little Master Xi played cards while they waited to eat.

Zhi Xiu occasionally helped translate the expletives it took Wen Fei ages in puffing and blowing to get out, then gave a few mild and gentle words of consolation; but he had no intention of moving his ass. Lin Chi was responsible for being abashed, and Xi Ping was responsible for answering back on everyone’s behalf to the accompaniment of shifu’s completely insincere Do not be wanton.

Just then, Flying Jade Peak received a flying goose message from Zhao Qindan.

“Sir Xu” had lately been writing a history, using popular novels to relate the rise and fall of the immortal mountains. If there was something she couldn’t work out and needed research done on, she would send a letter to ask Xi Ping.

Xi Ping gave a long sigh and craned his neck to lazily read the letter. “It’s the New Year, can’t this lady cool off a bit? Why so much fighting spirit? …Oh, the origin of the water dragon beast spirits?”

Zhao Qindan said that the Tao World Record had received letters from its readers asking whether the water dragon beast spirits were actually manmade puppets or whether there had once really been such a spiritual beast, and if they were real spiritual beasts, what heinous crime had they committed to still be imprisoned in Heaven’s Design Pavilion, serving out their sentences thousands of years later?

“Do all the people in the world already have justice? They’ve even started worrying about the beasts,” Xi Ping muttered. “Shifu, do you know where the water dragon clan came from?”

Zhi Xiu automatically looked up at the sky, then remembered that “observing celestial phenomena” was a trick that no longer worked. Apart from being able to tell whether it would rain tomorrow, you couldn’t see a thing. Therefore, he pretended not to have heard and tossed his cards aside. “Hey, Fenghan, why are you doing all that on your own? It’s a disgrace. I’m coming to help you!”

Xi Ping: “…”

Lin Chi gave a dry cough. “There are records concerning beast spirit arrays on Moon Plated Peak. You could probably look into the history as well…”

“It’s the New Year!” said Xi Ping. “You want me to trek through the mountains to do research? Are you nuts? Am I taking the imperial exams next year or something?”

Lin Chi blinked. “Oh, you don’t want to go look at them?”

Xi Ping fumingly stood up and bundled himself up into a sphere. Humiliated, he said, “…I’m going.”

In ancient times, there had been a clan of water dragons in the East Sea. They had once been auspicious beasts that lived far from the continent, with shrimp soldiers and crab generals as their daily provisions, having no association with humans.

But there were always belligerent people who didn’t know what was good for them. The whole continent was insufficient for them to show themselves off, and they had to run out and fight in the East Sea as well. When these people fought, their arms and legs would go flying all over the place. The smell of blood and the essence splattering everywhere attracted the enormous beasts from the depths of the sea.

The water dragons had a moment of greed and got a taste. From then on, there was no turning back.

This was a problem. Eating stinking fish and rotting shrimp would at most give you the runs, but eating bits of festering human would go to your head.

These dismembered body parts contained not only flesh and blood, they also contained Ways of the Heart and the consciousnesses of that group of people, dead in the midst of resentment, which tried to snatch the huge dragons’ bodies after they were consumed. But how could a human consciousness occupy as large a head as that of a dragon of distant antiquity? The body-snatching failed, and instead the Ways of the Heart and consciousnesses were “digested” by the huge dragons.

The huge dragons today ate ten jin of “insatiable avarice,” tomorrow ate a vat of “heinous lust for power,” the day after that mistakenly consumed a half-bushel of cultivators gone out of their minds…and thereupon had a change of attitude.

The auspicious animals developed completely unnecessary intelligence and henceforth became vicious beasts, stirring up trouble almost every day, snatching a few people from the shore to munch on.

Seeing that there was no saving them, the masters on the eastern continent could only slaughter a dragon whenever they met one, and the Southern Sage was particularly mean—he created an art to collect beast spirits; when he captured a water dragon, he would skin it and rip out its tendons, trap it in an array, and go around releasing the beast spirits to clean the silt from the waterways, ordering them around like earthworms or loaches.

This was the origin of the water dragon beast spirits.

“This thing is ancient.” Xi Ping was reading carefully through handwritten bamboo slips, afraid of accidentally breaking them. Casually, he asked, “Whose writing is it?”

The handwriting on the slips, blurred by time, couldn’t be called good, but it was very neat. Supposing that handwriting matched its owner, Xi Ping thought that the person who had written this must have liked cleanliness.

Lin Chi said, “Most of the ancient works on Moon Plated Peak were left by our ancestor.”

Xi Ping stared: the Dignitary of Rule Elder?

Reading ahead, he saw that at the very end of the bamboo slips was written: The gallbladder of the water dragon is deep blue, like first-rate blue jade, but…

But what? The bamboo slip broke off there. The remainder of the writing was lost.

Lin Chi held it with both hands and tucked it away in his sleeve. He said, “Traces of the writing remain. The Unbound Furnace ought to be able to restore the missing portion.”

“Eh, that’s enough.” Xi Ping thought to himself that even if a dragon gallbladder could restore life to the dying, the things had been extinct for thousands of years. Even if he read it, the knowledge would be useless—anyway, the young mistress hadn’t asked.

He was in a hurry to report back to Zhao Qindan. He gathered up the main points, copied them out concisely, and sent a letter back, then took the cable car between the mountains to go back and play cards, no longer concerning himself with this matter.

But maybe Master Lin had some “wanting to fix anything he saw broken” problem. After this, he couldn’t let it go until he had asked Xi Ping to use the furnace flame to restore the missing portion of the writing.

The remaining writing contained records concerning living water dragons: “the dragon gallbladder can calm the mind, restore the reason of a lunatic,” etc., etc. It was in fact all useless information. Lin Chi just liked repairing things, he didn’t have a hobby of archeological studies. When it was repaired, he put it away without reading it closely.

It was only many years later, when Xi Ping couldn’t find anyone to play cards with, when he had so much time he didn’t know how to use it up, that he turned up this book on the already cheerless and deserted Moon Plated Peak.

Perhaps it was boredom, and perhaps it was that he was now as old as the Dignitary of Rule Elder Lin Zongyi had been back then. He read about the hundred and eight uses of all the water dragon’s organs, then still felt unsatisfied and dove again into the Unbound Furnace, attempting to use the furnace flame to decode this work, see the ancient story behind the writing.

He found to his surprise that Lin Zongyi had written this book of bamboo slips during his youth. At the time, the Xuanyin Mountains hadn’t yet formed. The Southern Sage had made his home in a valley. His disciples and acolytes added together made up several dozen people. His manor was called the Xuanyin Manor.

Being turned into beast spirits by the Southern Sage was the water dragon tribe’s great shame. The dragons felt bitter hatred for the Southern Sage. They couldn’t defeat him, so they had to bide their time and nurse their grudge. Once, they finally seized upon an opportunity to settle the score and get revenge: during the disastrous snows in the Beijue Mountains, the Southern Sage was called upon by the Sword Ancestor to support the continent’s array. He departed in a hurry, leaving only a crowd of young disciples behind in Xuanyin Manor.

While the Southern Sage himself was gone, the manor’s array remained. The water dragons brought a flood that submerged the valley, but not a drop of it penetrated the array. That vile manor seemed to be wrapped in an inflated fish bladder. The dragons, mad with rage, slammed against the array while opening their bloody maws wide, spitting obscene language meant to provoke the enemy.

Li Fengshan was the eldest of the Southern Sage’s direct disciples. All the members of the sect called him “da-ge.” Naturally he had taken responsibility for the manor’s defenses.

“Chunsheng!” Li Fengshan held up the young shidi who had run into him in a panic. “Don’t be scared. Did you send shifu the letter?”

“Chunsheng” was the nickname of his shidi Zhao Yin. He had been born with a smiling, round little face. He always appeared full of joy; everyone liked him on sight. Though he wasn’t very talented and liked to slack off, his progress so slow it gave you a headache, shizun still couldn’t bear to be strict with him.

His little round face was all red from running. Amid the earsplitting roars of the dragons, Zhao Yin raised his voice and cried, “Shizun didn’t answer! Da-ge, can that ‘Heavenly Question’ or whatever really reach the northern continent?”

Li Fengshan wasn’t sure himself, but he couldn’t very well show it. All he could do was console his shidi, saying he was certain it could while inwardly considering who else they could reach out to for help.

As soon as he was finished placating Zhao Yin, he turned his head and saw another shidi, Zhang Jue, still slowly drawing talismans to reduce noise and disturbance. “A-Zhuang, that’s useless, don’t waste spiritual energy! We may have to face a tough battle soon.”

Zhang Jue was an orphan with a painful childhood, but he had been born with the body of a young master.

When other children went out to play, they would get as tan as frisking little potatoes and come back covered in calluses. Zhang Jue couldn’t do that. If he was out in the sun too long, his skin would start peeling, and before he could get calluses from his straw sandals, his feet would become a bloody mess. All shifu could do was give him the nickname “A-Zhuang” and hope that he could become a little sturdier. Sadly, events had run contrary to his desires; having grown to the age of starting to grow facial hair, Zhang Jue was still more delicate and fair than a little girl. He stayed indoors all day, like a person made of ice, who could only melt, not stumble. It was frustrating to behold.

Zhang Jue said, “Their speech is filthy. Listening to it may easily distract hearts.”

Li Fengshan waved a hand restlessly. “Distract which hearts? Who’s going to listen to the howling of some beasts? Not even an idiot would fall for those serpents’ tricks, don’t…”

No sooner had he spoken than he heard a cry of alarm: “Lin-shixiong!”

He’d forgotten about that one!

Li Fengshan’s heart stuttered; he instantly had an ominous premonition. He looked up and saw a green streak shoot into the air, with a sword pointing straight at the lead water dragon’s head. “Brutes! You dare to insult my shizun!”

There really was an idiot who would fall for it.

Li Fengshan sucked in a breath and yelled so hard his voice broke. “Lin Xiaoman, you get back here!”

Lin Xiaoman’s given name was “Zongyi.”¹ He was the outstanding figure of their generation, phenomenally talented and a hard worker, eager to be best in everything. In the whole of the Xuanyin Manor, among the disciples and the acolytes, none could surpass him.

However, he was still quite popular and didn’t attract much jealousy, because all his smarts seemed to be devoted to cultivation. He would answer any question he was asked and believe anything anyone said. His thoughts were straighter than a ruler; he always seemed a little slow.

Lin Zongyi turned a deaf ear on the rebuke. The manor’s great array only blocked external enemies from invading; it couldn’t stop those inside from getting out. The green-robed teenager formed a hand seal and rushed out of the great array. Before his fellow sect members could react and back him up, he had already charged solo among the dragons.

Naturally the foremost disciple of Xuanyin Manor wouldn’t go down without a fight. He cast three talismans, drawing lightning into the water. Apart from Lin Zongyi, who had a lightning-repelling talisman on him, everything in the water crashed against the lightning. The huge dragons slowed. Lin Zongyi raised his hand and brought down his sword, severing one obscene water dragon tongue.

The shocked and furious roars of the water dragons nearly shook the disciples with weaker cultivation off their feet. Amid the reek of blood, the dragons went berserk, easily breaking through Lin Zongyi’s protective talisman. The teenager’s form vanished amid the forms of the demonic dragons.

Even the most phlegmatic Zhang Jue looked alarmed. He jumped to his feet. “Xiaoman!”

Without hesitation, Li Fengshan flew up and went in pursuit, meanwhile pushing back Zhao Yin and Zhang Jue, who had followed him. He shouted at his shidis, “Stay back, look after the crux of the array, wait for shifu!”

Only after he had burst out of the manor’s array did Lin Zongyi realize he had been reckless. He was only an early phase established foundation; he hadn’t had time yet to go on solitary travels to gain experience. He’d just seen plenty of the water dragon beast spirits in the manor and thought they were merely big and thick-skinned.

But compared to the originals, the beast spirits were nothing but paper kites made to look like them. The water dragons that had swallowed the consciousnesses of countless cultivators had a viciousness that was practically demonic. Even a peak established foundation master meeting one in the wild would have a tough battle cut out for them if they weren’t adequately prepared, never mind him—never mind that there were seven or eight water dragons surrounding Xuanyin Manor now!

The dragons’ breath passed over him, and Lin Zongyi’s physical senses stopped working altogether. He could only just barely dodge by relying on his spiritual sense. A glancing blow from a dragon’s tail shattered his protective spiritual energy.

At the same time, Li Fengshan flew out of the manor’s great array carrying dozens of talismans. He parted the water in the valley and flew among the group of dragons. “Xiaoman, run!”

He had meant to catch them off guard and give Lin Zongyi a chance to escape back into the array, but unexpectedly, the water dragons who had just been struck by lightning had learned the lightning-repelling talisman from a single sight of it. The talismans that had scooped out nearly half of Li Fengshan’s essence were easily brushed aside like a heap of scrap paper by the water dragons.

An ominous undulation passed through the water. Li Fengshan hurriedly stuck his sword out behind him. The sword struck the fangs of a water dragon launching a sneak attack and broke into several pieces. Li Fengshan was sent flying. Another water dragon opened its bloody maw, ready to snatch its meal out of the air.

The corrupted water dragons were ruthless and base; they took pleasure in tormenting living creatures. When eating a cultivator below an ascended spirit, they never swallowed them in one gulp; they would pierce the cultivator’s essence with their fangs, relish the excitement of the essence bursting in their mouths, then, when the cultivator’s consciousness was delirious from the torment of their body being crushed, tear it apart and fuse it into themselves bit by bit.

Li Fengshan thought, It’s all over.

Just then, an invisible whip made of spiritual energy split the “lake” filling the valley in two and struck the water dragon with its mouth wide open head on. The moment Li Fengshan fell into the dragon’s mouth, the dragon’s head was torn off by the brutal spiritual energy. Hard bone fragments and gore knocked the early stage established foundation junior dizzy.

The headless dragon corpse flew straight forward and crashed into the group of water dragons surrounding Lin Zongyi. The water dragons were all intelligent; they understood what they were up against and immediately fled in all directions. But it was already too late.

Li Fengshan, shielding his head with his arms, pushed aside the gore covering his eyes and looked up with difficulty. He saw a man dressed in a short jacket of coarse cloth land on the surface of the water.

Though he was shabbily dressed, he was tall and imposing, with a well-developed skeleton of the sort only possible in a person who had never gone hungry, who had never stooped or cowered while being beaten and scolded. His cuffs were faded from many washings, and his hair was perfectly arranged to the point of constraint, in complete contrast to the fashion of the day, which sought to be wanton and unrestrained. His cold gaze met Li Fengshan's for just an instant. Then he went straight along the path that had just been opened in the water.

At the man’s feet was a tree vine that had grown halfway up the mountain. Such a tree had never been seen in Xuanyin Manor’s valley before. It was like a willow, with a trunk more indolent than the willows that trailed into water from the shore.

The vine had already extended dozens of zhang, and it was still endlessly extending. When the water touched that vine, it parted automatically, only too eager to avoid this divine killer. Dazzling talismans flowed from the vine, wrapping around the water dragons’ necks and limbs.

Next, there was a crisp pop.

It was like the sound of dry kindling splitting apart in a gentle heat. Li Fengshan and Lin Zongyi’s eyes opened wide simultaneously—

The talismans of varying size wrapped around the water dragons burst one by one like water spraying. The dragons wrapped in them burst into bits, chunk by chunk.

This was a slaughter that looked like a fireworks display, almost magnificent. The noiseless talismans silently dissolved in the water, and all was still. Even the ripples fell silent. A dozen water dragons big enough to form hills when coiled up had instantly turned into a bloody mist. The whole valley had turned into an enormous pool of blood.

The unknown man landed in front of Lin Zongyi. Lin Zongyi instinctively wanted to retreat, but his body was still paralyzed by the remaining dragon breath. He couldn’t budge. The man didn’t so much as look at him. He reached into the water, fished up a deep blue water dragon gallbladder, and instantly disappeared.

The scene in the Unbound Furnace disappeared there. Xi Ping reached out to clasp the restored manuscript under his arm.

There were only fragmentary imprints on the ancient manuscript. Even with the Unbound Furnace, it was hard to see especially clearly. And what was “soul-stirringly alarming” to an established foundation could hardly help making Xi Ping, who had experienced the collapse of heaven and earth, yawn.

But…

The person that the sage had asserted “couldn’t stumble” had in the end become covered in grime, the person who answered every question had shut his mouth, the loyal and charming little shidi had grown into an able schemer backed by wealth and power, the “da-ge” shielding his brothers from their own shortcomings had fallen out with them… The mutual reliance and closeness of youth had become a thing of the past.

Time changed all, people and things. Nothing was the same.

He would have been better off not looking. Xi Ping was even more lonely. Only after a long moment of blankness did he force his wits to perk up and try to distract his attention. He thought, The man who came along to save the show was treading on reincarnation wood. It must have been Yuan Hui. What did he want with dragon gallbladders?