Xi Ping was in an enormous pool. The spirit at the center of his brow and all the major acupoints of his body had golden threads passing through them. These golden threads were drawing something out of his body, in texture like mist.

That mist was rooted at Xi Ping’s spirit at the center of his brow—a place most familiar to cultivators. Chang Jun pinched Yao Qi hard and silently said: Consciousness!

Except in a special location like the Law Breaker, the consciousness of a cultivator, especially a high level cultivator, would be invisible to the naked eye, but now Xi Ping’s consciousness was tangled in golden threads, and the glittering thin threads had outlined the form of his consciousness—right now, his consciousness wasn’t in the usual human form; it was in the form of a skeleton.

The consciousness, the same height as his body, was about half a cun away from him, making it seem as though Xi Ping, in the midst of brilliant golden light, was intimately embracing a skeleton like mist.

The golden threads drawing out his consciousness were clustered together, the other end of the cluster tied to Southern Shu’s great evil cultivator, Wangge Luobao.

Though Xi Ping’s present condition was strange, from a distance there was still quite a sense of beauty about it. Wangge Luobao, however, was just plain terrifying.

Yao Qi’s digestion had never been good. With spiritual energy prohibited, his tendency to get nauseated or have diarrhea easily seemed to have returned. He nearly threw up on the spot: he couldn’t even figure out what organ Wangge Luobao was using to talk.

The other ends of the golden threads were all wrapped around a thumb-sized piece of bone, and that bone was embedded in the center of Wangge Luobao’s brow.

The skin, flesh, and sense organs on Wangge Luobao’s face had vanished without a trace, leaving behind only the skull. The little bone wrapped in golden threads at the center of his forehead was expanding at a speed visible to the naked eye, bit by bit taking the place of Wangge Luobao’s own bones.

The creeping bone tore violently into the skin and flesh. The drip-dripping was the sound of Wangge Luobao’s blood dripping into the pool.

Chang Jun suddenly tapped Yao Qi. He pointed at the spirit-conducting gold on the upgraded spyglass, then pointed at the “golden threads” on Xi Ping: Don’t you think they’re similar?

Yao Qi was startled. He quickly swallowed a mouthful of saliva and looked closely despite his nausea.

The spy glass was an upgraded immortal tool made of spirit-conducting gold. Inside the spiritual energy prohibition, only on spirit-conducting gold could a weak spiritual light be seen. It wasn’t only the texture and color; the spirit-conducting gold light on the upgraded immortal tool was identical to that golden thread.

Chang Jun mouthed: Why does that golden thread look like spirit-conducting gold? How can he have spirit-conducting gold? Is there a traitor in Wan?

Yao Qi, his expression grave, shook his head. A traitor wouldn’t betray us in this direction. It’s too far a drop…

He suddenly recalled Lancang’s Sect Leader. Before his death, the Sect Leader had wanted to destroy the Lancang Spiritual Mountains’ inscriptions, make people use spirit-conducting gold to repair the severed veins of the earth, and return spiritual energy to the human world. But he had failed, and the brave people who had escaped harboring spirit-conducting gold had died for their nation. The spirit-conducting gold Lancang had made at the time had been precisely in the form of golden thread like this. A coil of it had somehow ended up in Wangge Luobao’s hands.

In the spiritual energy prohibition now, only spirit-conducting gold could conduct spiritual energy. The great evil cultivator had held a treasure that could benefit the world for so many years, and he actually hadn’t had any thought of developing it, but now, with spiritual energy prohibited, he had taken it out to use for an evil art.

Goodness, this was what you called “everyone has their own ambition”!

Yao Qi’s gaze moved back and forth between Xi Ping and Wangge Luobao. As Wangge Luobao spoke of those deliberately sensational ancient secrets, Xi Ping’s mind was evidently wavering. And every time his consciousness wavered, it would be drained a little thinner by the golden threads—when Wangge Luobao had said the part about “the person who passed on those hidden bones to you,” the entire head of Xi Ping’s skeleton-shaped consciousness had blurred. The parts that dispersed seemed to have been sucked by the golden threads into Wangge Luobao. The great evil cultivator’s bald pate turned entirely golden!

Wangge Luobao was saturated in a deathly air, with only the top of his head shining, like a gas lamp that had been made in the shape of a skull—one that had a broadcasting function!

This scene, as Yao Qi and Chang Jun saw it, was the bone wedged into the center of his brow using the golden threads to absorb Xi Shiyong’s consciousness.

What kind of evil object was that bone?

Yao Qi waved a hand at Chang Jun, took out an upgraded hand cannon, and gestured: The rest isn’t important, anyway he’s not doing anything good. We’re too far away, we might harm our own by mistake, let’s get closer.

Chang Jun sucked in a breath. The upgraded immortal tool in his hands imbued him with boundless courage. Let’s go! We’ll fuck him up!

The two of them had been close friends since they had lived in the same courtyard at the Latent Cultivation Temple. They had a perfect rapport. One quickly turned the spyglass to observe the terrain, and the other quickly took notes in a little notebook. Shortly, Chang Jun had drawn a rough map of this awful place: they would work separately, approach from two sides, and whoever was noticed would act as the bait.

Meanwhile, Wangge Luobao was still disturbing Xi Ping with his patter.

“To take the ancestor and Yuan Hui alive to try the pill on them, the Shamans required a great deal of assets and used many underhanded means. The two of them were taken in and brought back in stone coffins used to imprison violent living corpse soldiers. Of course, those Shamans were afraid that if the pills worked, there would be trouble if the two of them simultaneously rebuilt their bodies and joined forces, so they first gave that pill to the ancestor.

“My clan’s ancestor was too young then. His Way of the Heart was firm, but his spiritual bones weren’t quite ‘consummate.’ But in cultivation, the slightest shortfall means going astray by a thousand li. Even one missing sliver wouldn’t do. When he was forced to take the established foundation pill, his body couldn’t take it, but he also couldn’t simply die at once like a mortal. The Shamans observed him for a whole day, saw his spiritual energy constantly attempting to concentrate in his spirit and constantly flowing out of his maimed body. Seeing that he was on his last gasp, they knew that the pill was good, it was only the ‘test subject’ who wouldn’t do. So they opened the stone coffin of the second test subject—Yuan Hui’s ‘spirituality’ was purer than the ancestor’s, his spiritual bones a grade higher.

“When the stone coffin was opened, she…the vengeful holy woman hiding nearby, immediately saw her own son, who had been separated from her for many years.”

Earlier, Xi Ping had almost succeeded in entering meditation and had been interrupted by Wangge Luobao. Now he was attempting to restrain his consciousness again—but restraining his consciousness had become unusually difficult. Xi Ping clearly sensed his own consciousness becoming more and more muddled, as if he had returned to when he had been learning to meditate in the Latent Cultivation Temple; he absolutely couldn’t control the distracting thoughts racing wildly through his mind.

From the depths of his memory, he turned up Detailed Account of Meridians and attempted to recite it verbatim in his mind. When he had recited two lines, he heard Wangge Luobao’s voice say: “She had a rare power, the ability to turn a portion of her body into mist…”

Xi Ping felt his heart miss a beat.

Where Xi Ping couldn’t see it, as soon as his mind drifted, his skeleton-shaped consciousness nearly disappeared, becoming blurry from the ribs up. The golden light on Wangge Luobao’s head also spread down to his back. His neck tore open like a ghost’s painted skin. His shoulder blades, upper spine, and ribs all turned golden.

Seeing the image transmitted by the spyglass, Yao Qi’s heart tightened: the evil cultivator had sucked away nearly half of Xi Ping’s consciousness. If he was entirely “sucked” up by the evil cultivator, then wouldn’t he be dead?!

With his radiant skull, Wangge Luobao’s posture, bent over to observe Xi Ping, still exuded an unspeakable avarice. In a voice full of bewitchment, he asked, “What, does that power call someone to mind? As expected, it wasn’t wholly without reason that those hidden bones came to you. They have countless connections to you. It was decreed by fate… Viscount Xi, do you believe in fate?”

The words “believe in fate” seemed to knock a bit of clarity back into Xi Ping. His consciousness, which had nearly dissipated entirely, congealed desperately as though struggling to the death. The golden threads between the two of them tensed.

At the same time, Xi Ping inwardly determined something: Wangge Luobao definitely couldn’t read his mind, but he could clearly tell whether his mood was stable or agitated. This Southern Shu evil cultivator must be practicing some kind of evil art on his consciousness.

The hidden bones were attached to his consciousness. It was only because he had resisted that he had been able to escape and take temporary shelter in the Law Breaker.

Wangge Luobao had no reason to aid the hidden bones…and those rotten bones wouldn’t have thanked him, anyway. So there was only one possibility: Wangge Luobao wanted to go through him to get the hidden bones!

“I know you don’t.” Wangge Luobao didn’t give him time to think carefully. He laughed. “Those of your way have had something demonic about them since ancient times.

“At that time, the cultivation world had yet to work out the system of cultivation. The later ‘crash course’ by which you could take pills, pour in spiritual energy, and open your spiritual eyes in the course of a year didn’t exist yet. Those who could open their spiritual eyes were true cultivators. They had no one to guide them. They either encountered radical transformation or went through lengthy probing and enlightenment. They practically all had Ways of the Heart. And Yuan Hui was the son of the holy woman, richly endowed by nature. It is said that he left his native land when he was very young, precisely because he and his mother didn’t get along. He didn’t believe in the spirituality of the universe, the fate of all things, didn’t believe in ghosts and gods and didn’t believe in the Way. He was a misfit in the tribe he was born to.

“Seeing his plentiful spiritual energy, the Shamans thought that he was stronger than the ancestor and that the test was certain to succeed with him. But his own mother knew that Yuan Hui had been able to channel spiritual energy at a young age only because of his exceptional natural endowments. He had no Way of the Heart to speak of. Since the Shaman king had seized the immortality pills, the vengeful holy woman had been waiting in the shadows. She viewed the cultivators who succeeded in establishing foundations as living corpses. Just think of it… Suppose that the Shaman king, unable to recognize his own clan’s secret art for creating living corpses, took the pill. Either he would explode and die, or he would succeed through untold hardships in making himself into a ‘living corpse.’ How ridiculous would that be? As she saw it, that would be the taste of vengeance.

“As for the innocent test subjects… When she saw the Shamans carry in the coffins, she only looked on indifferently. There were so many heroes in the world, and when she had been at her most isolated and defenseless, hadn’t there been no one to help her? But an unexpected sequence of events turned her into an evil dragon biting its own tail.”

Xi Ping attempted to turn a deaf ear. His consciousness struggled even more fiercely.

Wangge Luobao gave a soft ha. “It seems that you still don’t believe it. Then perhaps after you’ve heard the rest of the story, you might have some more veneration for ‘fate.’

“When the vengeful holy woman recognized her son, it was already too late. Though his talents were exceptional and he was an open-eyed half-immortal who had finished rinsing his spiritual bones, he was missing the most crucial ‘Way of the Heart.’ The essence condensed by the established foundation pill had nowhere to alight. His spirit ruptured. Soon he would be beyond saving. So the holy woman used a secret art—”

Xi Ping treated his words like a tortoise reciting scripture and finished reciting the preface to Detailed Account of Meridians. Just then, he heard Wangge Luobao spit out two words: “Life swapping.”

Xi Ping gave a start. The Detailed Account of Meridians in his mind flew up to the high heavens, every last page of it returning to his shifu.

His consciousness, which had concentrated in one place, seemed about to scatter entirely. The “torso” portion of the consciousness had nearly all been absorbed by Wangge Luobao, leaving only two legs.

“Ah…of course you remember ‘life swapping.’”

Xi Ping wouldn’t forget it even in death.

This was an unrelenting talisman. If you drew it on a close personal possession of yours and at the same time made the object of the talisman drink a drop of your blood, when that person sustained a mortal injury, you could take their place. It didn’t require strong cultivation; all it needed was for your cultivation not to be so much lower than the person’s being protected that the talisman would lose effect… All you needed was sincerity.

Back during Jinping’s Grand Selection, at the same time as Jiangli had dragged him into the whirlpool, she had used her birthday jade and a drop of blood in his tea to cast the life-swapping talisman on him, which had pushed him step by step to where he was today.

Hatred for cruel injustice, an avenger ready to stake everything on a single throw, voluntarily transforming her own body at a desperate pass, all of it falling through because of the games of fortune.

The holy woman of ancient Shu whose name was unknown, and the ill-fated Queen of Flowers beside the Lingyang River.

A rebellious son who had left his native land, and an ignorant rich kid…

These bones seemed like a cycle of reincarnation.

“At the last moment, this vengeful holy woman turned her blood into mist and drew a life-swapping talisman that she cast into Yuan Hui’s eyes, nose, ears, and mouth. Life and death were inverted between the two of them. The holy woman’s spirit burst, and she died at once. Her established foundation essence exploded, affecting all the half-immortals and mortals in the vicinity. Yuan Hui and the Shamans watching were crushed to dust. The Shamans went down to the Nine Springs of the underworld to keep company with their living corpse warriors. But Yuan Hui was enveloped in a bloody mist with the life-swapping talisman embedded in it.

“The life-swapping talisman protected his consciousness. The remaining spiritual energy in the bloody mist assembled and regenerated his bones and flesh… It was as if his mother had once again given birth to him. When he returned to the world, he had crossed the established foundation boundary.

“He had no Way of the Heart and couldn’t expand his essence by tempering one. Only through the destruction of his body could he die and be reborn time after time, as if he had an eternal mother.

“And of those present at the time, only one survived and witnessed all of this—my clan’s ancestor. The Shamans, seeing him growing weaker and weaker, had treated him as a failed test subject and tossed him into the stone coffin to live or die as he might. With his spiritual bones incomplete, he was in too much pain after being forced to take the established foundation pill, so like you right now, he couldn’t move, but his consciousness was aware.

“When the holy woman was destroyed, her exploding essence was largely blocked by the stone coffin. The spiritual energy and the dust of the holy woman’s bones just happened to make up for the bit of spiritual bones the ancestor was missing.”

Xi Ping’s consciousness was now entirely formless. The golden threads wrapped around him gradually broke away from the main bundle, and his body sank with a deathly air into the water. And Wangge Luobao had turned entirely into a radiant skeleton. His voice grew more and more urgent: “So in the hands of the ancestor, there remained a small portion of bone that shared an origin with Yuan Hui’s hidden bones.”

Ancestor Tianbo had been let down by his short-sighted clansmen since birth. How could he have wished for good things to come to them? The pity was that he had been born at the wrong time. He didn’t have the chance that the Sword Ancestor had, and Kunlun gained power first.

The ancestor had only wanted to climb upward. His Way of the Heart in fact did not accord with the so-called false Great Way. He ought to have faded at this point. He survived thanks to this small segment of bone of shared origin, which siphoned off the spiritual energy accumulated by Yuan Hui.

“Since neither of you wants these hidden bones, you may as well give them to me…”

If he only consumed Xi Ping’s consciousness using the small remaining segment of the hidden bones, once he took a boat out of the spiritual energy prohibition, he would naturally be able to become one with the hidden bones.

What the ancestor had once failed to do just on the point of success in the Impassable Sea, he would succeed in doing.

And by a series of coincidences, this time, the hidden bones had actually also obtained the ancient inscriptions from outside the Beijue Mountains.

Didn’t this mean that fate had decreed that he would rise to godhood?