Chapter 175: Imperial Decree
Chen Ping'an scooped up two handfuls of snow, rubbed his hands together, and smiled as he returned to the small cliffside cave. After warming his hands by the fire, he took a book from his bamboo backpack and sat down to read by the firelight. It was a Confucian classic gifted by the old sage. Chen Ping'an had a good memory and had been diligently flipping through the chapters along the journey; he already knew the content by heart. But he still enjoyed reading the book this way, softly reciting the passages.
Li Baoping had once said that reading a book a hundred times, its meaning reveals itself.
Chen Ping'an felt this was a truly excellent saying.
So now, whenever he practiced the stances and walking routines recorded in the Mountain-Shaking Manual, he applied this concept to his martial arts. He silently told himself that if reading was like this, then punching should be similar. Perhaps after a million punches, the boxing intent would naturally emerge. After all, he trained so diligently, day and night, spending seven or eight hours daily mending his previously shattered, dilapidated body like patching up a broken house. The results were significant. Especially the breathing method taught by Old Man Yang, combined with the breath-circulation technique of the Eighteen Stops, allowed Chen Ping'an to clearly sense his body gradually growing stronger. Staying alive was no longer his only goal.
Chen Ping'an wanted a bit more. For example, if he had the chance to meet that certain girl again and demonstrate his stance-walking for her, she wouldn't look at him like he was an idiot, as on that day at the old house on Mud Vase Lane, as if saying, "How can there be such a fool in this world?" Instead, she would give him a thumbs up and say those two words again: "So cool!"
The pages of the book in Chen Ping'an's hands were slowly turned one after another, read with extreme concentration. The flickering firelight shone on the boy's dark face. If someone looked at him for a long time, they would see a unique vitality.
The pink-dressed girl, though a fire python in true form, had the heart of a child. In the Zhilan Cao family's library tower, she had lived a reclusive life, afraid to show herself easily for fear of attracting disaster. Following Chen Ping'an back to his hometown, she was gradually recovering her lively nature. She was busy stacking snowmen over by the plank road, only regretting that the heavens hadn't bestowed a heavier snowfall.
The blue-clad boy, though a water snake and naturally fond of water, had no interest in this ordinary winter snow. He listlessly curled up near the campfire, lamenting his bad luck in meeting the wrong master and his ill-fated life.
The pink-dressed girl had built a snowman resembling her master, lifelike. She was just about to boast to Chen Ping'an when her expression suddenly changed. She scurried back into the cave in a panic. "Master, master! A man and a woman are coming this way along the plank road. I can't make out much about the man, but the woman has a huge demonic aura! What do we do?"
The blue-clad boy sniffed the air vigorously and immediately perked up. "Oho, it really is a big demon. Smells like fox stink all over. Master, let me tell you, fox demons in this world are all incredibly beautiful. Watch me—I'll catch her for you to be a warming-pan bed maid. She's sure to be much better than that stupid girl who's like a dried bamboo pole!"
Chen Ping'an closed the book and said, "If they're just passing through, we'll give way on the plank road. If they want to harm anyone, we'll act then. No rush."
The enthusiastic blue-clad boy sighed, resignedly sitting back in his spot. "Master, you should give me a chance to earn some merit."
Chen Ping'an smiled. "Getting back home safely is itself a great merit."
The blue-clad boy said aggrievedly, "We've already entered the Great Li Kingdom, and yet we're always so steady and cautious. When will I ever get to turn two cores into three?"
On the ancient plank road carved into the cliff face, a man and a woman walked one behind the other through the wind and snow. The woman wore a splendid palace robe, graceful and charming, with a veil hat covering her face. The man had a refined, handsome face, a tall and slender figure, and was draped in a white sable fur coat. At his waist hung a vermillion wine gourd. He seemed to have completely merged into the snowy night, becoming one with the wind and snow.
When the pair passed by the cliffside cave, the woman glanced at the three inside and didn't look again.
That casual glance made the blue-clad boy, who had been so eager just moments before, freeze as if struck by lightning. He sat more rigidly upright than even Chen Ping'an. The pink-dressed girl, who was slightly inferior in cultivation, didn't yet understand the gravity of the situation and couldn't help glancing again at the pair. Chen Ping'an placed the book on his lap, reached out to warm his hands by the fire, and remained calm with his gaze level.
When the man passed the snowman, he squinted and smiled, finding it quite amusing. After a moment's hesitation, he turned directly toward the cliff cave but did not intrude. He stopped at the "doorway," looked straight at Chen Ping'an, and asked in fluent and polished Eastern Treasure Bottle Continent standard speech, "Traveling through the snowstorm, my maid and I are truly exhausted. Would this young gentleman allow us to rest for a while?"
Chen Ping'an turned to look. It was a man with a gentle demeanor. Chen Ping'an knew well that in this chance encounter, whether it brought fortune or misfortune was unavoidable. If the man had ill intentions, whether Chen Ping'an nodded or not made no difference. So he simply smiled and said, "You may."
The man entered, but the veiled woman he called "maid" did not follow. She stood at the entrance of the cave, straight-backed and solemn.
The man sat cross-legged without hesitation, facing away from the cave entrance. He took down his wine gourd and was about to drink. Before drinking, he said candidly, "My maid is a fox demon. Earlier, she sensed your presence, so I had her release a bit of her demonic aura as a greeting, to avoid unnecessary conflict. We have no ill intentions."
After noticing the blue-clad boy's stiff and fearful manner, Chen Ping'an knew something was wrong. But since things had come this far, instead of worrying, he focused his mind and breath, ready to respond at any moment if the man or his maid suddenly attacked. Whether they were mountain immortals, spirits, or demons, good and evil were hard to judge. Once a powerful enemy appeared, life and death were often decided in an instant. Chen Ping'an was no stranger to this. From the confrontation with Cai Jinjian in the alley, with Fu Nanhua in Old Dragon City, the entanglement with the Mountain-Moving Ape, the fight with Ma Kuxuan at the Immortal's Grave, the white serpent at Chess Mound Mountain, and Zhu Lu's assassination attempt at Pillow Courier Station—through a series of storms, the reason Chen Ping'an had survived was that he remained calm and centered—those two words were crucial.
The man took a sip of wine, his gaze as clear as moonlight. He looked at Chen Ping'an and said straightforwardly with a smile, "Young sir, your martial realm isn't high, but your boxing intent is exceptionally solid—truly not easy. If you can persevere, reaching the Beyond Realm is within reach."
The blue-clad boy swallowed his saliva and dared not move.
Big demon, a truly big demon. Damn, it was as big as the sky!
The reason was simple. Among the demons of the world, fox demons were famous not only for their skill in bewitching hearts, but also for a key reason: compared to other mountain spirits and monsters, they found it much harder to conceal their demonic aura. As a result, in the widely sung tales of cultivators slaying demons, the targets were often lesser fox demons.
Logically, as the fox demon outside the cave approached, her fox demon aura should have become stronger and stronger. But when she passed the cave entrance, her aura had already become pure, authentic human qi. To the blue-clad boy, she felt even more ordinary than a mortal—like someone who could snap her slender waist with a single finger. The blue-clad boy himself was one of the demon creatures of this world. Taking human form was merely the first step for mountain swamp cultivators to attain the Dao. The distance from truly becoming a human was as far as from Great Sui to Great Li.
Someone who could make him—a local overlord of the Imperial River at the Sixth Realm, with combat power comparable to the Seventh—unable to detect any abnormality... After weighing the situation, the blue-clad boy decided that playing the grandson was the most appropriate tactic. If this seemingly amiable "dragon crossing the river" felt that a grandson wasn't lowly enough, he'd even be willing to play the great-grandson.
The blue-clad boy judged the palace-robed woman to be at least at the Ninth Realm, perhaps even a supreme expert at the Tenth. Fortunately, that possibility wasn't high.
For demon creatures of the Haoran World, whether they could reach the Tenth Realm was a huge watershed, no less difficult than for human cultivators breaking through the Tenth Realm bottleneck. This meant being acknowledged by the world's Great Dao—how incredibly difficult! One could imagine how much fortune and training were required.
That was why the mysterious old flood dragon, father of the Hanshi River God, with his Tenth Realm cultivation, could match the strength of an Eleventh Realm cultivator.
Chen Ping'an didn't understand the finer details, but with danger looming, that didn't stop him from gathering his strength. When he heard the man's compliment, he didn't let his guard down, only responded politely, "Thank you for your kind words, sir."
The man took small sips of wine and spoke a few words that hit the mark: "Young sir, it's a pity your Bridge of Longevity is broken. Repairing it is as hard as reaching the sky. You might consider taking a different path—build a new one entirely..."
At this point, the man let out a puzzled "Oh," as if somewhat surprised. After thinking for a moment, he glanced at the book on the boy's lap and smiled. "Well, well. What a coincidence—without coincidence, there is no story."
The man slowly rose and thus departed. When he reached the cave entrance, the palace-robed woman had already silently gone ahead to lead the way.
The man turned his head to look at the snowman on the plank road, smiled, and murmured, "Without coincidence, there is no story."
In the wind and snow, the man and woman continued their journey. The palace-robed woman did not turn her head but said respectfully, "Master Bai, was this chance encounter a scheme by the two sages?"
The man shook his head. "This trip is a leisurely excursion, without desire or ambition. I have been very careful to hide my traces, not disturbing any forces. If I am still to be schemed against under these circumstances, then I..."
Under her veil hat, the woman's face was devastatingly beautiful, her eyes burning with fervor.
But the man sighed. "What can I do about it?"
A heavy snowfall.
The world was vast and white, clean and pure.
After walking three or four li along the plank road, the man honored as "Master Bai" stopped, looked up at the sky, his expression desolate.
The palace-robed woman had no choice but to stop as well. Seeing that he showed no sign of moving, she ventured cautiously, "Master Bai?"
The man was still looking up at the sky. He said softly, "The tree wishes to be still, but the wind will not cease. You say you grew up in the Haoran World, so why do you always yearn to pass through the Inverted Mountain? If you were homesick and wanted to return to your roots, that would be perfectly reasonable. But your roots are right here. What are you after? A cataclysm that leaves nine of ten houses empty—is that really so much fun?"
The palace-robed woman was terrified out of her wits. She turned and knelt, prostrating herself on the ground, her body trembling. Looking down from above, her graceful figure undulated like hills. She said, trembling, "Spare me, Master Bai!"
The man acted as if he hadn't heard, asking himself and answering, "I don't think it's fun. Not interesting at all."
The fox demon was in extreme fear. Gritting her teeth, she instantly erupted with an earth-shaking, mountain-toppling surge of qi.
In the next moment, a massive, mountain-sized eight-tailed fox appeared on the plank road, pure white all over. It clung to the cliff face and frantically climbed upward, trying to escape from this man.
The man remained unmoved, gently speaking a single name: "Qingying."
With a bang, a mass of blood splattered like a rainstorm down the cliff—one of the fox's tails exploded on the spot.
Countless goose-feather snowflakes were stained with blood. The stretch of sky and earth near the plank road where the man stood turned into a sinister, terrifying scarlet blizzard.
Legend says that countless demons once ran rampant across all worlds, causing chaos everywhere. Mortals knew none of their names and were helpless, with the land full of lamentations. In later ages, a virtuous sage cast a great tripod, inscribing the names of ten thousand demons and recording their origins and histories. He then ordered the casting of over a thousand copies of this great tripod, placing them atop great mountains on each continent for the people below to memorize. Commoners braved the dangers to climb those mountains, and this experience was the beginning of mountain cultivators.
Most of those great mountains later became the sacred peaks of various nations, worshipped from afar by countless monarchs and commoners.
The colossal creature on the cliff face fell like a comet into the mountain gorge.
Clearly, it was more than just losing one tail and suffering severe damage to its cultivation.
Given the inherently violent nature of demon creatures, when near death or severely wounded, their ferocity often becomes even more terrifying.
All the mystery lay in the name "Qingying" spoken aloud, and in who spoke that true name.
The fox demon crashed heavily at the bottom of the cliff, sending up countless splinters of snow. It seemed on the verge of death, exhaling clouds of bloody mist that melted the surrounding snow, revealing a patch of muddy ground like a scar.
The man stood before the fox demon at some unknown moment, raising his vermillion wine gourd to take a sip. Compared to the massive, curled-up fox demon, he was no more than an ant before a human, utterly minuscule.
"Before you cultivate your eighth tail back, behave yourself and stay by my side. Some affairs are not yet yours to meddle in."
The man spoke slowly. "If not for that little bit of past affinity, you would already be dead. Since you're still alive, cherish it. Come, let's continue."
With a flick of his sleeve, he removed the hidden barrier of heaven and earth, returning the small pocket realm he had casually cut out back to the great world.
The fox demon gradually reverted to human form, struggled to her feet, and staggered after the man.
The palace-robed woman looked desolate.
The difference of a single tail was a world apart.
What once had made her stand proudly above her kind had now reduced her to mediocrity.
But she had no thought of revenge.
To those born and raised in this world, Master Bai's whims were the majesty of heaven itself.
---
Inside the cliff cave, the blue-clad boy wiped the sweat from his forehead, still shaken. "Too terrifying, too terrifying..."
The pink-dressed girl asked in ignorance, "Was that senior lady very powerful?"
The blue-clad boy jumped up and scolded, "A fool is a fool! A fox demon at minimum ninth realm is not terrifying, so what is? And if a maid is that powerful, the man who's the fox's master must be even more monstrous?!"
The pink-dressed girl said weakly, "But our master isn't as powerful as us."
Chen Ping'an couldn't help but laugh.
The blue-clad boy's eyes lit up. "Huh? That's right."
He burst into laughter, then coughed a few times, looking a bit embarrassed. "Lost my composure, lost my composure. Forgive my rudeness, master. No one is without fault—even a sage can err. Let this minor flaw be carried away by the wind. Forget it, all of it."
Chen Ping'an went back to reading, but he couldn't settle his mind, so he put away the Confucian classic. After thinking it over, he took out the several prescriptions from the young Daoist surnamed Lu—all written in neat, upright standard script—and picked up a thin branch to squat down and practice calligraphy on the snow-covered ground outside the cave mouth. To keep the prescriptions from getting wet, he had to be very careful, reading one character at a time before writing it.
The blue-clad boy, having lost face tonight, shouted that he was going to sleep. The pink-dressed girl went around Chen Ping'an to continue perfecting the snowman.
At the end of the last prescription, the Daoist surnamed Lu had taken a green jade seal from his sleeve and stamped it onto the paper. The vermillion seal read four characters: "Lu Chen's Decree."
That night, as he practiced writing, Chen Ping'an copied the entire text from beginning to end, even the four seal characters at the end.
When Chen Ping'an, at the cliff cave, meticulously wrote the characters "Lu Chen" with his branch—
Far away at the bottom of the mountain gorge, the man followed by the palace-robed woman abruptly turned his head.
When Chen Ping'an finished writing the two characters "Decree"—
In an instant, it felt as if heaven and earth had flipped upside down.
The man remained still, his expression grave. But the palace-robed woman was already pale with shock, nearly unable to stand.
The fox demon was restless, a primal fear seeping through her entire body. She unconsciously drew closer to the man and whispered, "Master Bai?"
The man withdrew his gaze and walked forward. "It's nothing. Just that well water and river water should not interfere with each other."
Which was the small well water, and which the great river water?
Heaven only knew.