Chapter 10

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Xi Ping knew nothing about levels. His mere mortal eyes hadn’t even been able to understand which side had won in the exchange just now. He could only judge on the basis of his experience with street fights. He counted up the number of people: fine, Heaven’s Design Pavilion had more people.

So he came to a conclusion: no need to be afraid, it’s a done deal.

When the great demon turned and spoke in his direction, Xi Ping automatically thought he was speaking to him. Perfect, he just happened to have something to say to Jiangli. He wiped away the blood from his nose and raised his sword, acknowledging the description of “vast magic powers.” He turned and asked the green-gowned man: “Exalted, where’s the way out?”

The green-gowned man looked at him very strangely for a while, then patted him on the shoulder. “Come on, child, stand back a little. Hold on to the wine pot… Leave me a mouthful. Don’t drink it all.”

As he spoke, he gently shook his sleeve, sweeping Xi Ping backwards.

It was as if Xi Ping instantly became weightless. When he came around, he had already flown into the thicket a zhang away and landed lightly as a feather.

Next, the night wind poured into his nose and mouth. Xi Ping smelled a rotting wood scent of mingled camphor and cedar. It was very heavy, as though it had been steeping in the earth for many years.

The transparent mustard seed had been removed.

The green-gowned man moved aside the dry branches blocking him and made his appearance. First he smiled at Tai Sui. Then he waved mildly at the crowd from Heaven’s Design Pavilion. “Good work, everyone. Why don’t you step back for now?”

When he waved his hand, Pang Jian and the others felt as though a big mountain had moved aside. The oppressive force of golden-eyed Tai Sui disappeared at once. From inertia, nearly all of them stumbled before finding their footing.

Pang Jian let out a breath and spoke respectfully: “May I ask if I’m speaking to the inner sect’s immortal envoy? Which shixiong are you?”

“I’m not,” the green-gowned man said, smiling. “I think you’ll have to call me shishu.”

Pang Jian was faintly startled—Xuanyin Mountain opened its doors once every ten years; for a cultivator, ten years might be only a brief stay in seclusion. Fussily sorting out class after class by generational ranking was too confusing, so, whether inner sect or outer, everyone addressed each other as though they were of the same generation. “Shixiong” or “shijie” was a broadly applicable honorific for any member of the sect with whom you weren’t acquainted.

Only the ascended spirit peak masters who had the standing to found lineages and accept disciples could be addressed as “shishu.”

But hadn’t all the previous immortal envoys been established foundation disciples sent down by peak masters who wanted to take new disciples? The more slapdash ones might simply send an open-eyed period disciple with a comparatively long service record. Which peak master was this who had descended to the mortal world in person?

Before Pang Jian could consider it carefully, Tai Sui in his grave clothes raised his golden eyes again and looked at the immortal envoy. The dragon shadow at his feet grew increasingly fierce, as if it wanted to leap off the ground, open its mouth, and attack. But his tone was still as polite as before.

“I always knew that Xuanyin Mountain would fix their attention on me, but I didn’t expect that they could bear to send you out,” Tai Sui said. “It’s my honor, Zhi Jingzhai… General Zhi.”

As soon as these words left his mouth, everyone present went blank.

Pang Jian forgot to lower the hand he had just raised, and in the thicket, Xi Ping nearly dropped the wine pot.

The ignorant and incompetent Viscount Xi might at best be able to remember five regnal names of the current dynasty, and those not necessarily in the right order. But even he knew the weight of the name “Zhi Jingzhai.”

“Jingzhai” was a courtesy name. This General Zhi’s given name was “Xiu.”

Over two hundred years ago, in the reign of Renzong, there was a neighboring country to the south of Great Wan called He. The leader of its state sect Lancang Sword lost his mind and stirred up the flames of war. Southern He expanded north into the central plains, and Great Wan bore the brunt.

The Lancang Sword Sect had gone against tradition. Ignoring the separation between mortal and immortal, it sent several master cultivators to travel with the army and used secret arts to cut off communication between Xuanyin Mountain and Jinping. The Southern He army cut its way irresistibly to Jinping overnight. The capital was overthrown in an instant.

At the time, Grand Marshal Zhi and the other high generals were all by the border, and none of the local garrisons could send help in time, while Xuanyin couldn’t receive news. Inside Jinping City, there were only thirty thousand imperial guardsmen and Heaven’s Design Pavilion’s several dozen resident open-eye period cultivators…and, by coincidence, the youngest son of the Zhi family, who was in the capital city recovering from an illness.

This young general took command in this crisis, requisitioned immortal tools from the palace and the homes of the aristocracy, coordinated with the city’s inscriptions and arrays, and, a mortal himself, defended Jinping for a day and a night. He held out while people from Heaven’s Design Pavilion, risking death, broke out of the encirclement and sent word to Xuanyin Mountain.

Later, the other great sects encircled Lancang, and the Lancang Sword Sect was annihilated. Five great sects became four great sects, and Southern He also came to the end of its road; the country was destroyed. Because the evil energy didn’t disperse, the country withered for a hundred years, and the former location of Southern He was today’s Land of Turmoil.

Zhi Xiu made his name in that battle and was afterwards appointed high general of cavalry. He was Great Wan’s military star.

Sadly, heaven is jealous of heroes. No sooner had General Zhi been appointed than he contracted a grave illness. That year wasn’t Xuanyin Mountain’s Grand Selection Year, but Xuanyin’s Elder Zhang Jue1 couldn’t stand to see his star fall. He made an exception, came down from the mountain himself, and took Zhi Xiu in to be his final disciple. Decades went by, his relatives in the mortal world died one after another, and General Zhi remained hidden in the immortal sect. He didn’t show himself again.

From Renzong to the present, six reigns had gone by. General Zhi wasn’t present in the human world, but his illustrious military exploits became the subject of famous stories and legends. He was the idol worshipped by every youth in Great Wan. What little boy waving a wooden stick and playing at war in the streets hadn’t fallen out with his little companions over wanting to be General Zhi?

And now this legend was actually before their eyes!

Alive!

And he still perfectly recalled what his annual salary as a high general had been!

“I haven’t gone out in over a hundred years, yet Your Excellency still recognizes me,” Zhi Xiu said, smiling. “Pardon my manners. May I ask what our connection is?”

“There is none, in fact,” Tai Sui said to him, modestly. “In my humble travels through the human world in my youth, I had the good fortune to encounter you. A general’s merits persist throughout the ages, and General Zhi’s graceful bearing inspires admiration.”

Zhi Xiu said politely, “You honor me.”

With the immortal and the demon seemingly competing to outdo each other in politeness, the atmosphere was for a time as harmonious as though they were exchanging New Year’s greetings.

Then Tai Sui made a friendly suggestion: “I have no desire to be your foe. It must have been a hard trip for you from Xuanyin Mountain to Jinping, General Zhi. Why don’t we both step back tonight?”

Zhi Xiu saluted. “Thank you for your solicitude. It wasn’t hard, only what I ought to do for my sect.”

Tai Sui’s expression became increasingly mild. “I only need to borrow a small segment of the Dragon Vein. I guarantee that it can be restored as good as new afterwards. There will be no harm to the nation’s destiny. Then we can each take our people and leave. Would that be all right?”

The smile on Zhi Xiu’s face seemed to hold the bygone spring air of Jinping City.

Then he said, “Ah, I’m afraid that won’t do.”

Before the others could understand what he meant, the dragon shadow on the ground had already raised its neck.

Almost simultaneously, countless water drops falling out of the sky gathered in Zhi Xiu’s palm and froze into an enormous ice sword that sliced directly towards the golden-eyed walking corpse.

Instantly, Tai Sui was ten steps away. All the dry branches within a hundred zhang radius took on frost from the stroke of that ice sword!

Tai Sui opened his hands. The dragon shadow at his feet roared silently. There was a crisp sound, and the ice sword in General Zhi’s hand shattered into countless pieces, cutting a strand of his hair.

The sudden wintry wind chilled Xi Ping to the marrow. “Ah—atchoo!”

His enormous sneeze drew everyone’s gazes to him.

When Jiangli and Pang Jian noticed him, they spoke simultaneously.

“So you’re here,” said Pang Jian.

“What are you doing here?!” Jiangli cried out in surprise.

Xi Ping patted the bits of grass and ice off himself and crawled out of the thicket.

He sniffled, then muttered, “Well, it’s a long story.”

“There’s no hurry to tell it,” Zhi Xiu’s voice came from very far away. He was speaking to Pang Jian. “Retreat a bit and look after these kids for me.”

At this point, both Zhi Xiu and Tai Sui’s movements were nothing that open-eyed cultivators could follow along with.

Wherever this immortal and demon passed, the fine spring rain froze into blades of ice. The blades of ice made from frozen rain were sharp enough to cut through iron as though it were mud. One hit a stone and bounced off, then cut apart the talisman-protected belt worn by one of the blue-clothesers!

The walkers in the mortal world and the evil cultivators were forced to gather and retreat to clear the stage for the mighty.

A blue-clotheser said excitedly behind Pang Jian, “Now that Zhi-shishu is here in person, there won’t be anything for us to do. Commander, all the evil cultivators who slipped through the net are here. Should we take this opportunity to capture them?”

As he spoke, he was about to raise his sword and get to it. Pang Jian nimbly held back the overexcited blue-clotheser and dragged his rash subordinate back. “Don’t get yourself killed, stay out of the way!”

His instruction to stay out of the way was silenced by a sky-shaking, earth-shattering dragon’s roar. The dragon shadow roaming over the ground had assumed a physical shape. It had leapt off the ground like a pitch-black flame!

In the depths of the flame, the black dragon opened a pair of golden eyes that were staggeringly bright in the night, like two inextinguishable raging fires.

The ice blades filling the sky instantly vanished into nothing, like a drizzle encountering a conflagration.

All of Jinping City shook at the dragon’s roar. Ominous bells rang in Southern Sage Temple.

Pang Jian made a grab in midair and “pulled” over the nearby Xi Ping. With his other hand, he pulled out a metal tool so long it looked very much like a hand cannon2, but when the trigger of this “hand cannon” was pressed, what it shot out was a thick concentration of talismans.

The hand cannon shot quickly and soon formed a talisman net of layer upon layer. But these talismans were so weak they seemed to be made of air; they caught fire as soon as the wind touched them. The speed at which they flew out couldn’t keep up with the speed at which they were destroyed.

Pang Jian, dazed, covered the sky with talismans as he shielded the rapid retreat of the others. They were several zhang away in a flash, and the front of his robe was already burnt and ragged, as though it had been soaked in acid from the factories!

The blue-clotheser who had nearly charged out almost went weak at the knees. He muttered, “What…what level of cultivation must this be?”

Another blue-clotheser said, dumbstruck, “Zhi-shishu is an ascended spirit peak master! Can this person be an ascended spirit cultivator?”

“Don’t talk nonsense! There’s no such thing as an ascended spirit evil cultivator!”

Xi Ping finally struggled free of Commander Pang’s rough grip on his neck. “Listen, Exalteds…cough-cough…stop discussing ascended spirits. I think if we stay to watch the fun any longer, we’ll be the ones ascending to heaven. If we can’t beat him, can we move away?”

Just then, the dragon shadow let out a peculiar low roar, as though beckoning to something. The mountain ridges around them cracked. Something seemed to burst out of the ground.

Zhi Xiu’s figure landed not far from the black dragon. The kind and gentle smile was gone from his face.

“General Zhi, though you are a rare genius, have you been an ascended spirit for even a hundred years? Naturally, I dared to come because I had something to rely on. I won’t conceal from you that my ascended spirit is consummate. I am only a step away from shedding my skin. The distance between two levels is like the distance between heaven and earth. You’re no match for me.” Tai Sui’s voice came from the black dragon. The dragon’s face was like an evil ghost’s, but he still spoke kindly.

The walkers in the mortal world who had just been arguing about whether there was such a thing as an ascended spirit evil cultivator were dumbfounded.

If you said that an ascended spirit cultivator had attained the highest heaven, then you could say that a cultivator who had shed his skin was no longer human.

It was said that the mighty cultivators in the “shed skin” period could call up thunder, cover midsummer with snow, turn the deep ocean into fertile fields. Many of the “deities” the common people offered sacrifices to at the beginning of each solar term were in fact elders of the shed skin period.

“It isn’t that I can’t seize Jinping’s Dragon Vein by force. I’ve only gone by this roundabout method because I’m unwilling to harm innocent common people. I wanted to quietly pry open the Azure Dragon Towers, take a sliver of the Dragon Vein, and go. Why must you spoil my ingenious plan and compel me to seize it by force instead? If I remove Jinping’s Dragon Vein by force, the river will rise and the earth will shake. Immortals, it’s one thing if you care nothing for the millions of ordinary people in the city and outside of it, but what about the noble people on the west side of the Lingyang River and those in the inner courtyards of the palace? Do you care nothing for them, either?”

As he said this, the gigantic dragon’s head turned once more towards far off Pang Jian. “Commander Pang, let’s talk it over. For the sake of the big picture, please temporarily remove the seals on the seven Azure Dragon Towers and permit me to borrow a bit of the Dragon Vein, and none of us will disturb the people, all right?”

Pang Jian said, smiling coldly, “Even as a walking corpse Your Excellency doesn’t forget to concern himself with the country and the people. How truly admirable.”

Tai Sui ignored his fit of pique and responded levelly: “Cultivators value the world above all.”

Pang Jian was very repressed in Jinping City. All day he had to put on a decent act. Only in front of evil cultivators could he reveal a trace of his true obstinate and unruly nature. At once, he clapped his hands and said, “How rare to see an evil cultivator like Your Excellency have such an open heart. Well said. Cultivators value the world above all. In that case, why don’t you commit suicide at once? If you’re no longer in the world to cause trouble, you’ll be benefiting mankind and saving the people. I’ll be sure to explain your meritorious deed to my sect and have them raise a memorial temple to you in the Blissful Village. Of course the common people of Jinping will be overwhelmed with gratitude and come every year to offer sacrifices. Wouldn’t that be to everyone’s satisfaction?”

The dragon’s head gave him a pitying look and didn’t sink to the level of arguing with this open-eyed ant and his empty rhetoric. Instead, the head turned calmly towards Zhi Xiu. “General Zhi, what do you think?”

“Today’s young walkers in the mortal world truly are sharp-tongued. My speech isn’t as skilled as his,” Zhi Xiu answered, also very calmly. “As for whether you can take the Dragon Vein today, why don’t you ask this?”

As he spoke, he swept out his hand, and a sword fell into his palm out of thin air.

A blue-clotheser cried out in surprise, “Zhaoting!”

“Zhaoting”—this was the peerless sword said to have fended off tens of thousands of Lancang monsters and the Southern He army in the past.

There wasn’t a single stick in Jinping that some child hadn’t picked up to play the part of Zhaoting!

The black dragon’s reaction to Zhaoting was considerable. Almost as soon as they met, a mournful dragon’s howl resounded throughout the world. The black clouds covering the sky over the Blissful Village suddenly thickened.

Pang Jian held down Xi Ping’s head while he raised a hand and opened an unprepossessing black umbrella, shielding the two of them. The moment the umbrella opened, countless bolts of lightning crashed down.

Xi Ping felt a sharp pain in his ears and temporarily lost his hearing.

For a time, everything outside the umbrella, even the pouring rain, was swallowed by the lightning. Never mind the immortal and the demon, he couldn’t even see Pang Jian right next to him.

Xi Ping felt that he had become a tiny ant amid a colossal flood, desperately huddling on a leaf that could capsize at any moment. All his ideas took flight, and for a moment he actually felt a bit lost.

The storm plowed through the whole Blissful Village. Zhi Xiu quickly planted Zhaoting in the ground, and the peculiar shaking of the ground stopped temporarily. But at the same time, he was entirely encircled by the black dragon!

Like a python, the black dragon wrestled with the keen sword energy all over Zhi Xiu, staring greedily at the green-gowned man and Zhaoting in his hand as though he wanted to swallow the man and the sword together.

Xi Ping, deafened and dazzled, managed to recover some of his senses and felt that the hand the insufferably arrogant Commander Pang was using to hold down his head was shaking!

Next, he heard a crisp sound. The canopy of the umbrella in Pang Jian’s hand tore in half down the middle and its ribs broke.

Pang Jian had already been injured while facing Tai Sui earlier. Now he could hardly stand up. He stumbled.

Xi Ping quickly held him up, and Pang Jian fell on him, getting an unexpected noseful of the young master’s rich clothing scent. Stifled, he turned his head away and sneezed.

The sneeze aggravated his internal injury. He followed it up by coughing up a mouthful of blood.

Xi Ping: “…”

What a disaster. He’d made Heaven’s Design Pavilion’s commander throw up blood!

As Xi Ping was wondering whether he should keep holding him up or, for Commander Pang’s good, push him aside, he heard a voice as thin as gossamer. “Why…why are you here?”

Still supporting Pang Jian, Xi Ping looked in the direction of the voice and saw Jiangli in her mourning dress.

In the thunderstorm just now, both Heaven’s Design Pavilion’s half-immortals and the evil cultivators had found their own shelter. Jiangli had been pulled under a coffin board by her companions with missing parts.

As soon as the thunderstorm had passed, she had struggled up from under the coffin board.

She seemed to be choked and burned by some strange force. She absolutely had to understand.

“Why are you here…? How can you be here?” As if obsessed, Jiangli stared at Xi Ping with an unfocused gaze. “You…you shouldn’t…”

Everyone was in a sorry state now. Only Xi Ping, shielded by Pang Jian, hadn’t even lost a strand of hair. He shot back, ignorant and undaunted, “Then where should I be? Divine lady going in disguise through the mortal world, why don’t you tell me how it should be?”

Because of her sudden aging, the bones around Jiangli’s eyes seemed to have collapsed, making the eye sockets bigger and deeper. Inside were two clouded eyes.

She muttered incoherently, “You were clearly taken by Heaven’s Design Pavilion. Why didn’t you give them the birthday jade? Why didn’t you stay at Heaven’s Design Pavilion tonight?”

After spending so long in the woods, even if he had been an idiot, Xi Ping would have understood—Jiangli must have put that soul-driving spice into ordinary food or drink and marinated him into a human incense burner without him knowing about it. He was a dissolute night owl to start with. He was sure to run into an unlucky devil infected with the insect eggs and kill him with the scent. The appearance of these corpses was very much like that of a victim who had been snatched to be a ghost’s wife. Everyone’s first impression being the strongest, they would decide that these people had been snatched for an underworld marriage.

Jiangli had counted on him being taken to Heaven’s Design Pavilion, then discovering the birthday jade in the silk brocade bag he was carrying. Thinking he was also a candidate to be a “bride,” he would have run in terror to hand over the stone, then hidden at Heaven’s Design Pavilion in like a turtle in its shell, seeking protection.

This way, the walkers in the mortal world would certainly have sent someone to investigate Jiangli. But to handle a mere singing girl, there certainly wouldn’t be more than one or two people. They would follow the leads the old driver had deliberately left and step right into the evil cultivators’ trap, then be captured by them to use as offerings—presumably in that instance, Jiangli wouldn’t have been the one to bleed.

Once night came, the “incense burner” mixed in among the insect egg hosts would have been able to kill all the cowards who had been sent running scared by the Flower Viewing Invitations to spend the night at Heaven’s Design Pavilion. When the time came, Jinping would have been full of walking corpses running around. There wouldn’t have been enough walkers in the mortal world, and they would have been flustered. Then there would have been an opportunity for the evil cultivators’ associates in the city to steal the Dragon Vein!

Pretty fucking well thought out, too, but couldn’t she have asked him before casting him as such a clown?

“Well, I haven’t asked you yet!” Xi Ping said angrily. “What were you thinking? That I would be so scared by a lousy rock that I wouldn’t dare to leave Heaven’s Design Pavilion and get you thrown in the Quell? Why did you cast me as some bleating, pants-wetting coward?! Is that me?”

Xi Ping’s anger had gone to his head. He even forgot to speak well of the dead and blurted out, “That’s Big Dog Wang!”

But Jiangli didn’t hear a word of it. She was in extreme despair now, and not because the plan had failed—she had been prepared to sacrifice herself; she hadn’t counted on being able to easily capture Heaven’s Design Pavilion’s half-immortals to stand in for her.

In all her life, all her hopes had come to nothing, and all her expectations had let her down. There was no exception. She had long ago acknowledged this as her fate.

The soul-driving spice and the insect eggs were both concealed at Overflowing Splendor. She hadn’t hesitated for a moment before giving Xi Ping the wine with soul-driving spice concealed in it. He was the last thing tying her to this world. Once any thought of him had been destroyed, she would be “perfect.”

Hearing that Xi Ping had been taken by Heaven’s Design Pavilion “without a hitch,” she had known that this was a surefire thing. She had only to wait before she, the worthless “toy,” was once again thrown aside. Others were willing to coddle her on account of her beauty, but this cold-hearted young master didn’t even care for that. What suspense could there be?

But this time, the “surefire” person hadn’t thrown her away.

And he had made all their arrangements fall through at the last minute.

Just this once.

As if her fate was to have all her wishes contradicted…no matter what those wishes were.

Jiangli with her head of white hair screamed, shill and sad: “But your feelings for me are clearly more ephemeral than dew!”

The wretch Xi Ping didn’t understand a thing. He thought he hadn’t explained himself to her, so he boldly and forcefully yelled back, “I don’t love you, so that means I’m a coward? Are you some kind of proving ground for bravery?”

Pang Jian: “…”

In the sky the immortal and the demon were deadlocked. All of Jinping City might shake itself into a pile of ruins at any moment, and every single one of them would be dissolved into a fine powder. And these two still had the time to argue!

And they were arguing about something so irrelevant!