The next year—it was no longer called by the old era name; when the hidden bones had swallowed Kunlun, Zhou Huan had unfortunately been impacted, dying in the torrent of wind and snow, without time to issue an edict abdicating the throne. But the teenage crown prince, who had remained in Yanning City, was perceptive. He dutifully wrote a letter back to his country, indicating that he had no talents and no virtues and could not ascend the throne. He would leave everything up to the immortal to decide.

Zhi Xiu took him at his word. He decided to change the era name to “Kaiming,” letting the Kaiming Department and Heaven’s Design Pavilion respectively continue to act for him in all affairs of government and defense, with an annual examination to select talented individuals, the subjects and system in the course of slow progressive fluctuation. Zhi Xiu handled matters in much the same way he behaved, without haste.

The secret spell of the Shamanic Way and the accompanying plant had sent ashes to ashes and dust to dust, laying the living corpses to rest in the earth and fully dispelling the sword god’s essence and Way of the Heart, leaving them at the northern extremity of the continent. All that remained to him was his sword. He was no longer a god, having returned to the condition of a half-immortal…like the Latent Cultivation Temple’s Su Zhun.

Although inside the spiritual energy prohibition, there wasn’t much difference between half-immortals and shed skins. They all had to take cars or walk, anyway. The only difference was that the minor ailment he’d had in his youth of being given to coughing when the seasons changed had come back, and the extreme cold seemed to have damaged his joints, so he was always a little uncomfortable on rainy days.

But without discomfort, you couldn’t appreciate how pleasant it was to be at ease. He himself thought this was pretty good.

In the second year of Southern Wan’s Kaiming Era, in the spring, the baby was born in the South Sea Hidden Realm, a girl, with a voice like a large bell as soon as she emerged. She was born with thick hair and would certainly be strong-featured in the future. In two hundred years, she was the first normal child born among the Turmoilers.

As everyone had previously arranged, Li Manlong gave her the name “Hope.”

Hope that with the veins of the earth repaired, the Southern He Peninsula would once again be full of spiritual energy; hope that the drifting exiles would be able to return to their native soil, even if it might take decades.

He wouldn’t last that long, but by the time little Hope had become old Hope, they would be able to go home.

Northern Li’s tens of thousands of arrays and the towering snow shuffler…no—for public purposes, official documents called it the “moonlight frost” forest—the towering moonlight frost forest there blocked the utterly freezing wind.

The hidden bones seemed to have vanished. Zhi Xiu said that they had only themselves to blame; they had frozen in the land of utter cold.

There were some people with a special bearing natural to them that made others believe what they said. He successfully covered up the secrets of the Shamanic Way’s secret spell and the vanished Way of the Heart and essence.

With the crisis resolved, troublemaking profiteers got ready to act up again. The Xiuyi and Miah clans were about to have another falling out; Yu Chang used his numerical advantage to seize the Sanyue Mountains, and the nation of Chu entered the era of Are those princes and nobles, those generals and ministers born any better than us?

Northern Li recovered after nearly freezing solid and prepared to repay kindness with betrayal; some powerful officials in Yanning got the idea of attacking the southern continent to demand the annexed territory of the Southern He Peninsula. They were cut down at one stroke by Wu Lingxiao—Wu Lingxiao, with Lin Chi’s skillful modifications, had swapped many of her meridians and a great deal of bone jade for spirit-conducting gold and could finally move freely, like a human.

But these were all minor problems. After all, inside the spiritual energy prohibition, reincarnation wood was everywhere, and it couldn’t be wiped out if you couldn’t use spiritual energy. All reincarnation wood trees were Xi Ping’s spies, and he had something on everyone. Moreover, during the emergency, practically everyone had spilled their blood on the reincarnation wood, and who knew what that “Tai Sui” would use it for? Because of this, Xi Ping’s word still had weight.

Even Yu Chang was forced to hold his nose and once again indicate that he wanted to work with Tai Sui.

Tai Sui was unexpectedly accommodating. He not only admitted him with pleasure, he even seemed to find his conscience; he returned the Chief Offering’s vital weapon, and had only one request: that Yu Chang not leave the spiritual energy prohibition.

The Unbound Furnace would one day burn out. The spiritual energy prohibition was constantly shrinking, some dozens of li per year.

Hearing his unreasonable request, Yu Chang said to himself that of course it had been too good to be true; how could Tai Sui find his conscience? That asshole had no conscience. So he had to go out and have a look around.

So Yu Chang spent three years becoming the new master of Dongheng. When the domestic situation had been stabilized, he impatiently packed his bags and took a ship outside of the spiritual energy prohibition to the south…and was dumbfounded.

Yu Chang suddenly found that after spending three years in that cursed spiritual energy prohibition, his cultivation level had fallen from middle stage ascended spirit back to established foundation—a major boundary!

Yu Chang nearly broke down. He cast aside the nation and resolved to live as a savage on a desert island. But he soon found that even outside the spiritual energy prohibition, his essence was constantly draining away. He tried all the means he knew of and finally lost hope.

The great turmoil created by the hidden bones had broken something in the mortal world. He couldn’t accumulate spiritual energy, and his Way of the Heart was constantly dissolving.

After returning in dejection to Dongheng, Yu Chang gave no outward signs—no one could know of this. Since he had the initiative, he had to prepare in advance. Therefore he offered Xuanyin a sky-high price to purchase a batch of spirit-conducting gold.

Xi Ping said, “Sell it to him. That’s my brother who’s shared in mortal peril with me. Even if we give it to no one else, we have to give it to him!”

So Southern Wan cleaned out all the spirit-conducting gold gathering dust in its warehouses and gave it to Yu Chang at a high price. Yu Chang left feeling very pleased, ready to throw all his forces into producing a heap of upgraded protective appliances.

The next month, Moon Plated Peak announced an upgrade to spirit-conducting gold. The new version of spirit-conducting gold could be used by ordinary people; it was cheap, and its output greatly increased. Yu Chang immediately got a headache. Never mind that this later became a much-told tale.

Xi Ping, having tricked him down to threadbare underwear, ran back to the Xuanyin Mountains through the night to tell Zhi Xiu the results of his experiment with the great fool Yu Chang—the Ways of the Heart of the world’s cultivators were indeed silently dissolving.

There was no need to go to the trouble they had taken dealing with the hidden bones. Inside the spiritual energy prohibition, with everyone having spilled blood on reincarnation wood, the Shamanic Way’s hidden spells carved on reincarnation wood trees were like cluster after cluster of three-day dream grass, working day and night to dissolve every Way of the Heart in the world.

And no one knew about it. Thanks to Ancestor Tianbo, the Shamanic Way’s secret spells had died out long ago, anyway.

But for some reason, when Zhi Xiu had heard this, he didn’t look happy. He only gave the “heartless” Xi Ping a somewhat worried look and suddenly said, “Shiyong, I’m in charge of the Xuanyin Mountains, and I don’t hold with so many restrictions and taboos. You…could find a companion and get married. You don’t have to restrict yourself based on family background and history, as long as it’s not someone too preposterous…”

Xi Ping choked on a mouthful of wine. “Cough-cough-cough…huh?”

Zhi Xiu said, “Aren’t you on good terms with Miss Zhao? And she’s a classmate and friend…”

“We won’t be friends for much longer!” Xi Ping waved a hand. “As soon as she writes five toilet bulletin articles scolding me this year, I’m breaking off all ties with her…and she’s already written four!”

“Miss Wei…”

Xi Ping turned pale with fright. “Unacceptable, there’s a generation gap!”

“Then…”

“Shizun, have you been possessed by my mother’s second cousin’s wife?” Xi Ping made off with two jars of his homemade wine and hugged them to settle his nerves. “It’s impossible. But the venerable old lady does send me a gold bar in a red envelope every year. Why don’t you learn something from her? Hey, hey, hey, I’m scramming, I’m scramming.”

Then, in a whirl of bustle and disarray, the fourth year of the Kaiming Era came.

It was the last month of the year.

The Yongning Marquis Manor’s Madam Cui stood abruptly, felt dizzy, and fell, dying painlessly. And she was nearly eighty; it was a happy death.

Half a month later, when the first snow broke the branches of the reincarnation wood tree in the garden with its weight, the page went as usual first thing in the morning to get the Marquis out of bed to do shadowboxing exercises, but he couldn’t get him up.

Xi Ping, having seen off his parents, cleaned up the house, lived there alone for the better part of half a year, then left Haozhong to take care of it while he returned to the Xuanyin Mountains.

He no longer had a home in Dangui Lane.

In the sixth year of the Kaiming Era, the previous General Commander of Heaven’s Design Pavilion and steward of the Latent Cultivation Temple Su Zhun declined, passing away on the praying mat in his meditation chamber. Luo Qingshi became the new steward.

Xuanyin’s inner sect no longer accepted new disciples. The Latent Cultivation Temple became the place where the Kaiming Department and Heaven’s Design Pavilion advanced their cultivation, a gathering of geniuses and talents. Luo Qingshi was no longer forced to build a wall with muck. He relaxed and grew a handspan.

In the seventh year of the Kaiming Era, the spiritual energy prohibition retreated over a hundred li, and the cultivators at last discovered a problem: a small group of people who had gone exploring outside the spiritual energy prohibition, and some who hadn’t gone, began to show early signs of decline. The cultivation world panicked.

For a time, all kinds of explanations seethed and bubbled. Despairing cultivators tried one unbelievable method after another in close succession, trying to hold onto their dissolving Ways of the Heart. They worked at it for a full twenty years—the spiritual energy prohibition was receding faster and faster. The utter north no longer seemed so cold. It wasn’t only the Ways of the Heart dissolving, it was also the spiritual mountains, with Lancang and Xuanyin taking the lead, having nearly halfway dissolved; and even the Sanyue Mountains shrank several zhang at a speed visible to the naked eye.

The Tao Word Record published an article, the gist of it being: the cause of the great natural disaster in Beiyuan had been uncontrolled fighting among cultivators, which had led to the seasons being turned upside down and the climate becoming changeable. Now the spiritual mountains were dissolving, and cultivators’ essences and Ways of the Heart were dissolving—wasn’t this returning spiritual energy to the mortal world?

No one paid attention. The cultivators were still in the midst of blank despair.

There followed an incredibly chaotic thirty years, during which one heard all kinds of unbelievable news every day.

Fifty years later, the spiritual energy prohibition retreated to the continent, and high level cultivators began to show signs of aging one after another—began to be plagued by minor injuries and illnesses.

The human world had been changing with each passing day, and the cultivation world at last belatedly acknowledged that there were new heavenly commandments.

In a century, accompanied by a clap of spring thunder, all the spiritual energy of the Xuanyin Mountains melted into the veins of the earth, leaving only the empty mountains and stones.

Wheat seedlings grew in Southern He. Zhi Xiu’s hair was grey.

The following year, when the cicadas sang, teacher and disciple were fishing outside the Latent Cultivation Temple when Zhi Xiu suddenly brought up an old topic and said to Xi Ping, “Shiyong, why don’t you get married?”

“Mother’s second cousin’s wife,” said Xi Ping.

Zhi Xiu used his fishing rod to splash water all over him.

Xi Ping leapt up and hid inside a reincarnation wood tree on the bank. “I have little Xi Yue to keep me company, shi…uh.”

Before he could finish, he saw a teenage boy dressed in fisherman’s clothes poling a boat, gawking at him from not far away. He had just happened to see him go into the reincarnation wood tree. “Tai…Tai Sui!”

The teenager went to his knees with a thud, planning to kowtow to the legendary divine grand duke.

When he looked up, the two former celestial beings who had come down to slack off in the mortal world were already gone. It was as if he had been hallucinating.

“Shifu.” Xi Ping was carrying their fishing rods and pails. He turned his head and looked around. Seeing that there were no interlopers, he said seriously, “I heard from Master Lin that you bragged to that old monster Xuanwu and said, ‘The disciple of my Flying Jade Peak is willing to make the sacrifice for the sake of the world.’ Look, when you’ve already bragged about it, how could I let you down?”

Zhi Xiu said nothing else, only sighed.

In another three years, Great Wan had been run by humans for several generations and had gotten entirely on the right track, so Zhi Xiu left a letter and went out traveling.

He didn’t come back.

So Xi Ping no longer returned to Xuanyin. The Xuanyin Mountains were no longer his home.

Later, everyone he knew, everyone he didn’t know, his kith and kin, old friends and enemies…he saw them off one after another, the Ways of the Heart that had stood as commemoration for thousands of years returning to the earth.

When the first soft shoot grew at the Beijue Mountain Pass, the half-demon Bai Ling disappeared. At the end, he bid Xi Ping farewell.

The half-demon’s death wasn’t as wretched as a human’s. He seemed unharmed, only said, “Viscount—”

Bai Ling had called him “Viscount” all his life.

“Shall we bet?” he asked. "Do you think you’ll be the first to see my lord, or will I see him first?”

“Me,” said Xi Ping categorically.

Bai Ling laughed loudly and turned into a lump of paper.

He had even saved on paper money.

This was Xi Ping’s last friend. From then on, he moved into the reincarnation wood. The human world was no longer his home.

In another two hundred years, one day, Xi Ping sensed something. In a rare occurrence, he walked out of a reincarnation wood tree in Tao County.

He had been sleeping for forty years inside the tree. Seeing the dazzling rays of the morning sun, he only thought it looked unfamiliar to him, as though something were missing.

Dongheng’s Sanyue, the very last range of spiritual mountains in the world, had also vanished.

Xi Ping raised a hand and found that not a sliver of his essence remained, but he could use a bit of spiritual energy. The spiritual energy prohibition was gone.

“Tai Sui!” A voice from the South Sea Hidden Realm came through the reincarnation wood—the younger generations didn’t know who he was; they recited this title out of habit like their ancestors. “We’ve floated up! The South Sea Hidden Realm has emerged into the world!”

There was a crack. A little bracelet fell out of the Tai Sui Qin. The Law Breaker’s axiom had been realized; the borders had been broken.

The fire in the Unbound Furnace was extinguished.

A little out of the habit, Xi Ping put a hand to his chest. Suddenly, he recalled something, and began to run like mad—without the Law Breaker and only half-immortal cultivation left to him, he could no longer pass through reincarnation wood. He could only fly a sword.

But soon, he found that technology had developed too quickly in the last forty years. Flying a sword wouldn’t be as fast as taking a train.

After a day and a night, he got off the Cloud Soaring Flood Dragon, switched to flying a sword, had his ears filled with fantastic stories of the South Sea Hidden Realm emerging, but he was too busy to pay attention to it and turned a deaf ear, only raced north—further north.

The furious Beijue Mountain Pass seemed to have been appeased by the cultivation world returning its spiritual energy. The snow on the mountain slopes had melted somewhat, and small flowers had bloomed all over it. Some years ago, people had begun mining here.

As soon as Xi Ping arrived, he heard people gathered together talking about some “strange phenomena” and “mirages”… What they were talking about were shepherd’s songs suddenly being heard outside the Beijue Mountains.

In addition to the South Sea Hidden Realm, there was unexpectedly also a hidden realm outside the Beijue Mountains, in no-man’s-land. It wasn’t large, and it didn’t have as many resources as the South Sea Hidden Realm. It was like a paradise. The people there were herders—they said that this was the village where the Sword Ancestor had lived while cultivating.

They didn’t know about Kunlun, but unexpectedly they still remembered the great natural disaster that had brought about the birth of the spiritual mountains. They only said that before the utter cold had come, in a moment of emergency, the Sword Ancestor had sent their whole village into a mustard seed.

After that, most likely the mustard seed’s master had died, leaving it broken, and the people in the little village had never found other outsiders.

Others didn’t understand it and stood around in circles having rapid discussions, but Xi Ping suddenly realized that this hidden realm might have been like the South Sea Hidden Realm and Great Wan’s Territory Map, the unreconciled human heart cut away from the Sword Ancestor, the founder of the spiritual mountains, left outside the “heavenly commandments.”

“Are you a divinity?” While Xi Ping was lost in thought, a curious child suddenly ran over. He wasn’t shy of a stranger, having presumably seen that he had a tidy look. He hugged Xi Ping’s leg and said, “There’s a big mirror hanging on the mountain at the village entrance! There’s a divinity inside the mirror, who looks kind of like you.”

Xi Ping gave a start. “Wh…”

“Nara, don’t talk nonsense, get over here!” The nervous mother snatched back her child and smiled at Xi Ping. In ancient and exquisite Northern Li language, she said, “It’s only a stone that’s been polished very clean. It must have broken in the earthquake. Otherwise we couldn’t have found the way out…”

“Take me there!” The crowd saw the man who looked like a divinity suddenly seem to go insane. He removed practically all the gold, silver, and other valuables he was carrying and shoved them into people’s arms. “Take me there!”

“No need, no need…it’s right there.” The village head assigned a few tall, strong men to accompany him. “It really did break entirely. Look, everyone put the broken stones they cleaned up over there. What divinity? It was just a child looking in a mirror and not being able to tell what he was looking at… Hey, you!”

Xi Ping gathered the remainder of his weak spiritual sense in his eyes and at a glance picked out a smooth stone from the pile. There was writing on it.

“Oh!” His guides also went over to observe. “What kind of writing is that?”

It was Wan writing.

The familiar handwriting on it said: I was here.