Chapter 763: On Jise Peak

Chapter 763: On Jise Peak

Song Jixin stood there for a while, then turned around and silently walked away. Just as he himself had said, these two contemporaries who had been neighbors for years in Nipin Alley didn't actually have much to talk about. They had always looked down on each other since childhood and were never on the same path. It was just that neither of them had probably expected that the two people who once lived separated only by a courtyard wall—one being the "bastard son of the Overseer" who recited texts loudly, the other being a kiln apprentice who perked up his ears to eavesdrop on the reading—and earlier still, one was a carefree young master with a maidservant managing the household, while the other was a straw-sandal-wearing, mud-legged kid who often went hungry and occasionally helped carry water—would one day become a powerful vassal king in the second-largest dynasty of Haoran and the Hidden Official of the Sword Qi Great Wall.

Song Jixin couldn't help but look up at the sky, wondering if the sunlight and moonlight that once fell upon Nipin Alley back in those days would feel that their long journey through the human world had been worthwhile.

Song Jixin walked slowly, taking his leave of Chen Ping'an without a word. He was originally like a weed growing in a rice paddy, something passersby wouldn't spare a second glance. But because of their neighborly relationship, roughly ten years of dealing with each other, all his childhood and youth had been spent in that house and that narrow alley. Song Jixin had grown thoroughly sick of it. Now, today, "from deep grass since childhood, gradually emerging from the weeds." What did it have to do with him?

Unexpectedly, after Chen Ping'an finished his deep bow, he called out to stop Song Jixin. Song Jixin turned his head and asked, "Something on your mind?"

Chen Ping'an walked over to him. "At the River Du Shrine, is there any lodging for pilgrims? If there is, help me get a room."

He had traveled fast; Jiang Shangzhen's cloud boat probably wouldn't reach the immortal ferry at the Spring Breeze Ferry near the auxiliary capital until at least noon tomorrow.

Song Jixin nodded. "For the sake of a certain brand-new booklet in the Old Dragon City palace, I'll help you make this request."

The battlefield at Old Dragon City had suffered unexpectedly heavy casualties due to a group of strange yao cultivators. The civil secretaries of the Great Li palace had combed through countless classified files from the Great Li archives but couldn't identify the enemy's origins. In the end, it was a booklet with no recorded source that allowed them to quickly identify the identities of the "Nightmares" and "Face-Stealers," turning the tide of battle. Otherwise, the loss of Great Li cultivators would have been enormous. Later, Prince Song Mu ordered the booklet to be printed in thousands of copies in Old Dragon City that very day, and it became widely circulated. Almost every mountain cultivator who had participated in the Old Dragon City battle had a copy.

Later, relying on this booklet, which detailed over a hundred types of aberrant cultivators from the yao side, many cunning yao lurking in the mountains and wilds were uncovered across the various continents. This nameless booklet was later hailed by later generations of cultivators as the "Searching the Mountains Record." Of course, it couldn't compare to the earlier "Searching the Mountains Diagram," but it could at least fill in the latter's gaps.

Chen Ping'an acted as if he didn't know anything about any booklet.

Song Jixin looked at this expressionless former neighbor. Probably because this look reminded him too much of their childhood, he couldn't help but feel irritated and habitually had to say a few more biting words. Clicking his tongue, he said with a laugh, "Seems like every time I talk to you, you're this expressionless, with dead fish eyes, a silent gourd—can't squeeze a fart out of you with a stick..."

Perhaps sensing the other's limit of tolerance, Song Jixin changed the topic, his smile becoming a bit more sincere. "But you've got pretty good luck. According to the old folks in the nearby alleys, your temper takes after your father, and your looks after your mother. Also, about the matter of the Falling Star Mountain God, before the shrine moved, Lord Wei didn't make things too difficult for him and even gave him Chess Mound Mountain as a prime location to rebuild the shrine. Consider this another favor I owe you. Whether Chen Ping'an acknowledges it or not, or whether he wants to collect later, that's your business. Anyway, Song Mu is very grateful."

Chen Ping'an said, "If you'd learned to behave this way earlier, you wouldn't have gotten that beating."

Song Jixin subconsciously reached up to rub his neck. "Don't make it sound so trivial. You almost strangled me, you know? That matter, I really did act improperly. Let me apologize to you now. I know you hold grudges the most, so consider this old score settled between us."

Song Jixin had once made up some feng shui nonsense to trick Chen Ping'an into becoming an apprentice at the Dragon Kiln to earn a living, causing Chen Ping'an to break a vow. Later, when Chen Ping'an learned the truth, he nearly strangled Song Jixin to death right there in Nipin Alley. That dark, skinny youth, with a frame like a bamboo pole, had surprising strength. Song Jixin, who was used to a life of luxury like a young master, had a brush with death. For many years after that, he couldn't shake off the bad feeling. But looking back, even if Chen Ping'an had been dead set on killing him back then, he definitely wouldn't have died. The Great Li spy who was responsible for watching Nipin Alley had been secretly observing the scene. Before the Great Li's national power surged, before the imperial uncle Song Changjing took him to the covered bridge to offer incense, and in the earlier years when his name in the Imperial Clan Registry was first changed from "Song He" to "Song Mu" and then erased, Song Jixin absolutely could not have died.

Chen Ping'an nodded and said, "There was never any deep, irreconcilable enmity between us. Settling it cleanly is for the best."

Song Jixin hesitated for a moment, then asked, "What about you and Great Li?"

Chen Ping'an said, "Three feet above the head, there are spirits; every step beneath the feet, there is reason."

Song Jixin smiled dismissively and led Chen Ping'an to find the temple caretaker. He said that this cultivator friend of his needed a place to stay for the night. The caretaker naturally wouldn't dare say no to a vassal king. Even if the pilgrim lodgings were in short supply, he could always find a way to free up a few rooms.

The current caretaker of the Ji River Temple was a qi practitioner who had studied at the Great Li Mountain Cliff Academy in his early years. A hundred years old, he was still hale and hearty, a Dragon Gate realm cultivator. He was among the earliest batch of students at the Mountain Cliff Academy. The old man wasn't a native of Great Li, so his decision to travel to Great Li for study back then was quite unconventional. In those days, the northern Great Li was still universally regarded as a barbaric land on the continent. The great literary masters and scholars of the Great Li dynasty were notoriously humble at the time, considering it an honor to exchange poems and songs with the scholars of the Lu dynasty and Great Sui. They sent many letters but received few replies. Even with Cui Chan, the Embroidery Tiger, and Qi Jingchun, the academy's headmaster, on their side, they still refused to engage with those two in matters of literature. At that time, the literary world was rife with well-received sayings, such as, "The sunset over the Lu dynasty's mountains and rivers is unmatched in the northern continent," and "Great Sui's half-moon is still better than Great Li's full moon..."

Fortunately, the sound of Great Li's iron cavalry's hoofbeats was loud enough. These refined sayings, with the wind and sand at the border, were trampled under the hooves and scattered by the wind.

After getting a definite answer from the temple, Song Jixin turned to look at Chen Ping'an and asked with a smile, "So I won't bother with you anymore? If you really need something, say it now. If you want to find someone in the auxiliary capital palace later, you'll have to follow the rules of the mountain. What do you think, anything else to talk about?"

Chen Ping'an first bowed to the caretaker to thank him, then smiled at Song Jixin and said, "Since you've talked quite a bit about Nipin Alley, I have nothing more to say to you."

Song Jixin didn't mind that an outsider was present and might lose face. He teased Chen Ping'an, "Those few night banquets really took a toll on my private coffers. So I won't be attending your future celebration ceremony."

Chen Ping'an smiled and said, "Whether you come in person doesn't matter. But the gift from the auxiliary capital palace can't be missed."

Song Jixin shook his head. "Still a money-grubber."

Chen Ping'an replied, "Someone who's had coins jingling in his pocket since childhood doesn't get to say that to me."

The caretaker was greatly shocked. He really couldn't figure out who this unfamiliar-looking green-clad swordsman was, to be so familiar with Prince Song Mu and speak so freely without restraint. Could he be a "fellow townsman" from the Bead Abyss Heaven? For instance, Lin Shouyi, the previous caretaker of the Ji River Temple, had a certain private friendship with the prince as a former classmate, and their conversations weren't so official either. But even Lin Shouyi, no matter how casual he was, wasn't as unrestrained as this man.

Song Mu rarely came to the Great River Temple to burn incense—not even once every three years. And when he did, he preferred to travel incognito and disliked pomp. For this prince, second only to the emperor in the entire Bottle Continent, to personally ask for a room for someone today was nothing short of unprecedented.

These days, the situation in the Great Li court was delicate. The Emperor's various measures, both on and off the mountains, had won great popular support. The various vassal courts, busy revising official histories, unanimously hailed him as a "peerless emperor through the ages." But everyone knew deep down that Prince Song Mu, who had always been on the front lines of battle, had more connections with the mountain immortals. And more importantly, Song Mu's relationship with the Great Li Iron Cavalry was even better.

There was also a rumor that the Emperor Song He was a disciple of the Embroidery Tiger Cui Chan, while Prince Song Mu was a student of Qi Jingchun. However, the conduct of the two brothers seemed to be the exact opposite of their teachers'. The Emperor Song He made the continent feel like a spring breeze, while Prince Song Mu was decisive and ruthless in warfare. During his years in the auxiliary capital, he remained iron-fisted and resolute. When the Central Marchmount Lord Jin Qing once violated a taboo, a mere reprimand from the prince's residence was enough to make a great mountain lord come personally to the temple to apologize, giving rise to the saying "the mountain bows to the water."

The caretaker dared not linger. He told them the location of the room, handed over a key, and left.

Song Jixin said, "I'm off."

He didn't expect Chen Ping'an to see him off.

But unexpectedly, Chen Ping'an said, "I'll see you to the gate."

Song Jixin looked flattered. "Has the sun risen from the west?"

Chen Ping'an said, "For not letting Teacher Qi down."

Song Jixin rolled his eyes. "No, just let me owe you."

Chen Ping'an snapped, "If I don't see you off, you couldn't ask for it. If I want to, there's no stopping me."

Song Jixin shook his sleeves, then finally cupped his hands inside them and looked at this guy with a smile. "So sharp-tongued. That's not like you."

Chen Ping'an reached behind him and took off the long sword he was carrying.

It startled Song Jixin so much that he immediately cursed, "What the hell are you doing, Chen Ping'an? If you want to fight, don't bully the weak!"

Chen Ping'an glanced sideways at the Great Li prince, holding the sword in his hand and hanging it at his waist. After a moment's hesitation, instead of hanging it on the left, he changed its position to the right.

This seemingly superfluous action made Song Jixin's eyelids twitch. Damn it, Chen Ping'an was an inconspicuous lefty! Back then, even when he watched Chen Ping'an sitting at the door, shaping clay with both hands, Song Jixin would forget this fact.

Chen Ping'an said, "Ma Kuxuan is still by the Great River. I'm going to find him. Nothing to do with you."

Song Jixin immediately flicked a golden transmission talisman out of his sleeve, grinning mischievously. "Well then, you two have a nice chat, a nice reunion. Don't worry, with me here, the auxiliary capital won't interfere with your sparring."

Chen Ping'an said, "Don't be nervous. Just a greeting, not a fight. No need for you to deliberately remind that Daoist immortal on the city wall."

Song Jixin frowned. "So in that 'Viewing the Mountains and Rivers' technique, our conversation was heard?"

Chen Ping'an shook his head. "They saw, but didn't hear. The prince's face is big enough."

Song Jixin resumed his smile and put away the talisman.

They walked side by side.

Chen Ping'an said, "You're still the same as before. You like to turn your face away and deny people."

Song Jixin laughed angrily. "Chen Ping'an, that's enough. You've been saying all sorts of strange things today, and I've been holding back."

Chen Ping'an said, "I listened to your strange remarks for nearly ten years without feeling like I was holding back. But let me say one final, not-so-pleasant truth: You're just a bully at home. Your skill at arguing can only show off in front of me. You're no match for those experts."

Song Jixin wasn't angry at all; instead, he laughed heartily. He accidentally laughed a bit too loudly and got a jab in the ribs from Chen Ping'an's elbow, making him wince in pain.

Gu Can's mother from Nipin Alley, Li Huai's mother from the western part of town, the old woman from Apricot Flower Alley, and Huang Erniang, who sold wine in town.

These four grandmasters could probably be considered the epitome of the simple and honest folkways of their hometown. They were elders. Gu Can, Li Huai, Song Jixin, Ma Kuxuan, and Chen Ping'an could probably be considered juniors on this path...

When the younger generation of the Bead Abyss Heaven left their hometown, countless outsiders got a taste of the skill of these young people in this particular art.

Song Jixin rubbed his ribs and sighed, "I really miss it."

Chen Ping'an hesitated for a moment, then still said, "It's not yet time for recalling past hardships and savoring present sweetness. On the broad avenue, the fighting is just a matter of endurance and struggle. Die if you must, live if you can. The night road ahead will be harder the higher you go. Take care of yourself. In the capital, there's Liu Qingfeng ahead of you and Zhao Yao behind you. One is very formidable, the other knows you well. No matter what, remember to pave a retreat path for yourself first. Whether the retreat path leads upward or backward, just make sure it's a path."

Song Jixin hummed in acknowledgment, nodding slightly. Suddenly he turned his head and asked softly, "How about..."

Chen Ping'an shook his head. "Forget it. Once I'm out of the temple, I don't know you."

How about you, Chen Ping'an, become the new National Teacher of Great Li?

Forget it. I, Chen Ping'an, don't know any Prince Song Mu. Today, I'm just in the temple, speaking a few heartfelt words to one of Teacher Qi's disciples, an unpleasant neighbor named Song Jixin.

Having been neighbors for so many years, they understood each other's riddles perfectly.

But Song Jixin's eyes lit up. He grabbed Chen Ping'an's arm and lowered his voice, "No rush. I can wait!"

Chen Ping'an gently shook his arm, shaking off Song Jixin's grip. "That bad habit of being greedy for the big and complete—change it later."

At the temple gate, only one step away from crossing the threshold, Song Jixin suddenly said, "Remember to keep public and private separate. Don't give anyone an opportunity."

Chen Ping'an's right thumb had already gently pressed against the sword hilt. "Don't forget, it's the right hand for incense, and the left foot goes first."

Song Jixin smiled and stepped over the threshold with his left foot, walking out of the Ji River Temple and down the steps. He turned around to look at the couplet.

Chen Ping'an, in the same manner, once again stood shoulder to shoulder with Song Jixin.

Song Jixin asked, "And about that blank horizontal plaque? Do you have any thoughts? If you do, I can handle it quietly, without a trace."

Chen Ping'an remained silent.

Song Jixin said softly, "The peak figures on all continents actually know who the River Du Shrine enshrines. They also know that the main hall's statue is now just a decoration. I believe someone will soon suggest to Great Li that it be replaced with a more fitting statue of Zhigui, since she is the only true dragon in the world. And you know Zhigui's temper: she definitely won't refuse and will even think it's only natural. The key point is that Zhigui is also somewhat unwilling to let others meddle in the River Du Shrine, and she has the private motive of being at odds with Teacher Qi. I can't reason with her on this. When that time comes, I suspect the Emperor will refuse once or twice and then nod in agreement. By the way, it was a good decision to dissolve your contract with Zhigui early and forgo that water transport fortune. The benefits were great, but the consequences were also significant."

Chen Ping'an nodded. "From now on, as long as it's a method targeting our Literary Saint lineage, whether on or off stage, Chen Ping'an and Falling Star Mountain will accept the challenge. But don't you slack off either."

Song Jixin smiled faintly. "Unimaginable. That we two would one day stand side by side, fighting together."

Chen Ping'an hummed. "It is pretty nauseating."

Song Jixin was speechless.

Song Jixin was silent for a moment, then remembered something. His expression turned grave. "You need to be careful of a group of wandering qi practitioners from another continent. If you encounter them, it's best to take a detour. Apart from the two old men leading and protecting them, the rest are all quite young. Their identities are extremely special, and their actions are even more secretive. They don't seem to like flying and prefer to travel on foot over mountains and rivers. Some swordsmen from the Northern Ju Su Continent who stayed in Bottle Continent got a harsh lesson from them earlier. Their whereabouts are now unknown—they've vanished into thin air. Among them was a Jade Purity realm sword immortal. Moreover, regarding this matter, except for a very few people in Great Li, including myself, fewer than five people, both on and off the mountains, even have the right to know. The only reason I know this is because the other party 'greeted' our Great Li Song clan, showing some courtesy as a host, so that the loss of over a dozen swordsmen from the Northern Ju Su Continent wouldn't have us searching blindly. But the chances of you encountering them are slim."

Chen Ping'an thought for a moment, then nodded. "If I'm not mistaken, it should be led by the Central Earth Confucian Temple, together with qi practitioners from the Yin-Yang School and the Technical School. They are re-establishing the measurements of time and determining the standards for length, weight, and volume. This is the most important task in the Haoran world after the great war. They need to traverse the mountains and rivers of the nine continents before they can revise the standards of measurement established by Li Sage back in the day. Anyone who runs into them at a time like this is just asking for death. A few years of imprisonment in the Confucian Temple would already be considered very reasonable."

The current celestial time of the Haoran world is unstable. Apart from the influence of the entanglement with the Barren Wastes world, it is also related to a certain "deficiency" in the Celestial Way of the Haoran world itself. That's why Chen Ping'an could guess that the few heavy artifacts used to precisely determine the standards of measurement have already deviated slightly. And a slight deviation for them means complete invalidation. As for who could cause such damage to the Great Dao, there's no need to guess: it's the Great Ancestor of the Tuo Yue Mountain and Wen Hai, Zhou Mi. No other throne-level great demon could do it.

Moreover, this formless and profound impact of the Great Dao is more deeply felt by a peak qi practitioner of the Haoran world, the higher their realm.

Song Jixin clicked his tongue in amazement and laughed. "As expected of a Hidden Official. You can even guess this."

The two turned and walked slowly. Chen Ping'an asked, "Does no one care about Ma Kuxuan's reckless behavior?"

Sheyue, Chunqing, Xu Bai. One young and two candidates across several worlds.

Although Ma Kuxuan acted outrageously, he at least didn't speak big words. So those three must have suffered at Ma Kuxuan's hands. Sheyue didn't seem very good at fighting. As for Chunqing of the Bamboo Sea Cave Heaven and that young Jiang Ziya, Chen Ping'an hadn't had contact with them, so he couldn't say. But according to that landscape gazette that had even reached the city wall back then, the latter two were too young and didn't seem to be used to the martial world. It wasn't strange that they lost to Ma Kuxuan.

Song Jixin said, "He has too many military achievements to squander. Besides, Ma Kuxuan's skill at provoking others—you and I both know, don't we? When they spar on the mountain, it's among peers, and no one has died. Onlookers are too busy enjoying the show to stop them. Right now, Ma Kuxuan can do pretty much whatever he wants in Bottle Continent. The number of young cultivators who genuinely worship Ma Kuxuan is countless. Those who dislike his arrogant style wish that Ma Kuxuan would choke on a sip of cold water or sprain his ankle and fall in realm. Those who like Ma Kuxuan wish he'd become an immortal tomorrow and a Flying Ascension realm the day after."

Chen Ping'an smiled. "It's just that he hasn't met Cao Ci or Fei Ran. Otherwise, Ma Kuxuan would have to change his name soon."

Song Jixin said, "Ma Kuxuan is waiting for you over there?"

Chen Ping'an nodded. "He's already sent Yu Shiwu away."

Song Jixin asked doubtfully, "Why did you change your mind?"

Chen Ping'an said, "Because he still hasn't given up and didn't take 'three strikes and you're out' seriously. So he deliberately stayed by the Great River to wait for me. You know him best. When it comes to provoking people, Ma Kuxuan is really good at it. It's a good thing you have a good temper; otherwise, with so many years of glaring at each other, I wouldn't have been able to stand it."

Song Jixin felt a bit helpless. Scolding one scolds two. Fine, you two go fight.

Song Jixin walked toward an unassuming carriage in the distance. The driver was a top-level retainer of the Great Li auxiliary capital.

He turned his head and saw that guy still standing there, as if waiting for him to get into the carriage. Song Jixin smiled and waved goodbye, feeling a strange sensation in his heart. On second thought, he felt relieved. After all, they were neighbors for many years and... half-disciples of the same teacher. "Our Literary Saint lineage," right? Then he thought again, his expression turning odd. By seniority, didn't that make Chen Ping'an his little martial uncle?

How could such a person have become the Literary Saint's last closed-door disciple?

Song Jixin sat inside the carriage and began to ponder this question seriously.

Anyone who hadn't been Chen Ping'an's neighbor couldn't possibly imagine how wildly obsessed this mud-footed kid was with money. All day, every year, since he couldn't afford schooling or books, there were only two things: earning money and saving money. According to the mud-footed kid's own saying back then, "For the poor, saving money is earning money." Chen Ping'an said this, and then Zhigui was beating a quilt in the yard while Song Jixin sat on the wall, dangling a money pouch, asking Chen Ping'an if he needed to borrow money to buy Spring Festival couplets and door gods. Chen Ping'an said no.

This guy often went into the mountains to gather herbs and would only sell them to the Yang Family Shop at the lowest possible price. He never haggled.

If any fellow villager had something to do, as long as they called out, Chen Ping'an would help. Farm work, rushing to grab water in the middle of the night, weddings and funerals, whenever there was a vigil, he would definitely stay until dawn. Even when the family members themselves couldn't hold out and went to sleep, the boy would still sit there alone...

Every New Year, when he helped with the pig slaughter, the boy would do a lot of work. According to local custom, he would sit at the table, eat a big bowl of white rice, take one bite of meat, and then leave the table. If someone killed a chicken and had unwanted feathers, they would always call out to him first, and he would pick them up and take them home to make feather dusters and shuttlecocks.

When chopping wood and burning charcoal, because he was afraid of conflicts with the stronger adults, he would have to walk many more mountain roads to burn charcoal. Every year, there would be a surplus, and he would carry them out of the mountains in bags, carry them home, and then carry them from door to door, giving them to neighbors. He would also say that the wood was no good, the charcoal was poorly burned, and he couldn't sell it. If someone asked him to stay for a meal, or if some old folks returned some eggs or something, he wouldn't accept it and would just make up an excuse to run away.

He would look for bamboo groves to dig bamboo shoots and dry them into dried bamboo shoots. He would collect the waste porcelain clay from the Dragon Kiln bit by bit. Just by glimpsing a neighbor's study decorations, he would often take a little snot-nosed kid with him to search the old porcelain mountains, making his own wooden frames, picking out porcelain pieces with relatively complete and similar patterns, and piecing them together to make hanging screens. Chen Ping'an once asked Song Jixin if he wanted to buy one. At that time, Song Jixin was actually quite tempted by a hanging screen made of dragon-patterned porcelain shards, but the little snot-nosed kid was shouting at the top of his lungs, saying that one hanging screen was enough to buy ten Zhiguis for warming the bed, and if he didn't buy it, the coffin lid in his ancestral grave would be unable to hold him down... This annoyed Song Jixin. The little bastard was standing on a stool in the next yard, shouting while wiping his nose and flinging it into Song Jixin's yard. Song Jixin said that the thing was too crude, that no one would want it even if it was given away, and that trying to make money off of it would be taking advantage of one's conscience. After that, Chen Ping'an stopped going to the old porcelain mountains to pick up junk. The few hanging screens he had already made were given away: to Liu Xianyang, to Gu Can from Nipin Alley, and to some neighbors whose children were attending school.

Before he was fourteen, the kiln apprentice, who had grown up eating meals from a hundred families, seemed to have already paid off all the debts of gratitude he had incurred in his early years.

For some reason, the prince, who had begun to close his eyes and rest, just remembered that year when he had returned to Nipin Alley with his maidservant. He happened to see the straw-sandaled youth standing at his door. Before taking out the key to open the door, the mud-footed kid quickly glanced at the neighbor's door and wall. After opening the door, he couldn't help but take a few steps back and look again.

Song Jixin felt a small pang of regret. If only he had known, he would have spent a few copper coins to buy that porcelain hanging screen. He vaguely remembered that the craftsmanship was actually pretty good, and very meticulous too, with seasonal flowers, plants, and birds all represented.

He remembered when they were young. Occasionally, Song Jixin would shake off Zhigui and go for a walk alone. If he came home late, Song Jixin, who wasn't actually very brave and was afraid of ghosts, would run while shouting Chen Ping'an's name. The peer who never lit a lamp would always creak open his door and answer from afar.

After Chen Ping'an went to the Dragon Kiln to learn porcelain-making, Song Jixin grew older. He learned a few principles from books, like "the Master does not speak of spirits or strange things," so he stopped doing that. He also felt it was embarrassing, and he was afraid of disturbing Zhigui. Later, after that big fight, even if one was willing to shout, the other probably wouldn't answer. But the little snot-nosed kid at the other end of Nipin Alley took over the role of "carrying firewood." Gu Can, for some reason, whenever he went alone to the fields to fish for eels, he would always take the long way home, insisting on walking the entire length of Nipin Alley. The little snot-nosed kid would have a bamboo fish basket hanging at his waist, running while shouting Chen Ping'an's name at the top of his lungs. As long as Chen Ping'an was home, he would come out of the house and usually stand outside the courtyard gate to chat with Gu Can for a bit. Occasionally, Liu Xianyang would get annoyed and bellow a few curses, asking if they were calling a ghost. Gu Can would stop and shout back that he was calling his ancestor's name, and he'd better drag that lazybones Wang Zhu out of bed and burn some incense, begging for his ancestral grave to emit green smoke... Song Jixin actually knew very well that if it weren't for Chen Ping'an stopping the little snot-nosed kid and somehow persuading Gu Can, then his own family would have had to change the Spring Festival couplets and door gods every day. Song Jixin wasn't sorry for the silver, but who wouldn't be annoyed by that?

Gu Can, that little bastard, held grudges far more than Chen Ping'an. He would really grit his teeth and stay awake, working hard until the middle of the night, then come to Song Jixin's doorstep to throw pebbles at the windows. The most laughable yet terrifying part, the more Song Jixin thought about it, was that on rainy, snowy, and muddy days, the set of footprints left in the alley was that of an adult. And the two sets of slightly offset footprints only appeared on half the alley. This meant that Gu Can had braved the rain and snow, left his house, taken a detour to the other end of the alley, then walked toward Chen Ping'an and Song Jixin's side. After throwing the stones, he would run back along the same route. To this day, Song Jixin is very curious about whose adult shoes those were, who Gu Can had framed, from whose house had he stolen them, and how exactly the little snot-nosed kid had "walked the whole way."

Keep in mind, Gu Can was only four or five years old back then!

Now, Gu Can hasn't even reached thirty yet, but he's already become the closed-door disciple of the White Emperor City's city lord. In the Central Earth Divine Continent, he's already known as a "man of reason."

If little Chen Ping'an was just naturally unafraid of trouble because he had to deal with it, then Gu Can's good patience was truly innate.

Even today, meeting Chen Ping'an again, Song Jixin still felt that Gu Can was more of a pure cultivator than Chen Ping'an—a born wild cultivator, or rather, a born direct descendant of the White Emperor City.

Moreover, Song Jixin was certain that within the next hundred years, Gu Can would definitely be one of the most outstanding genius cultivators in the Central Earth Divine Continent, if not *the* most outstanding.

Thinking of this, Song Jixin laughed softly and said quietly, "Nipin Alley is a good place. I shouldn't have been afraid of ghosts when I was young."

By the Great River, Ma Kuxuan was alone. He stretched lazily, loosening his muscles and bones, then intertwined his fingers. He had been waiting patiently for a long-overdue bout of fist-fighting that was late in coming. It was making him wait long enough.

Now, perhaps it could be replaced by a sword duel instead.

Yu Shiwu, who was half a friend, had wisely left. This was the best thing about Yu Shiwu: he was willing to say unpleasant but good advice once or twice, but he wouldn't overdo it and become annoying.

A figure in green, with his back to the gate of the Ji River Temple, walked slowly. The naturally left-handed swordsman had his sword hanging on the right, his right thumb pressing against the hilt. He wasn't in a hurry to draw the sword.

This longsword was called "Night Travel."

Wielding the sword by night, the light outside the scabbard was bright as the moon. In the darkness of the human world, the swordsman raised his sword like holding a lamp or candle.

Ma Kuxuan asked from afar via voice transmission, "Do you want me to create a small world? Same old rules: draw a circle; whoever goes out loses."

Chen Ping'an bent slightly, grasped the "Night Travel" with his left hand, and drew the sword from its scabbard. He lunged forward.

Silently, Chen Ping'an, with his sword, took Ma Kuxuan from the Great River's bank and together they vanished from the world.

He had fought Ma Kuxuan twice before. In both cases, Chen Ping'an was silent as a mute, while Ma Kuxuan liked to chatter endlessly. After today, this bad habit of Ma Kuxuan's would surely change.

"Caged Sparrow." Ma Kuxuan found himself in a world filled with swirling sword energy. He squinted. At the edge of the sky, a single point of light suddenly appeared.

Between Ma Kuxuan, who remained still, and that point of sword-light at the edge of the sky, the world began to tremble. One by one, golden-bodied deities began to rise into being. Some were genuine golden-body dharma forms; others were creations of Ma Kuxuan's imagination. In total, there were twelve.

Twelve majestic deities stood in the void. Beneath their feet, they trod upon ancient stars, also imagined by Ma Kuxuan.

Ma Kuxuan himself shrank to the size of a mustard seed, like a qi practitioner's yin spirit traveling beyond the heavens. From afar, one could see the sun, moon, and stars.

In his own small world, he had created another small world.

A single sword strike came straight down. The originally straight line of sword-light bent eleven times, but it was still one strike that cut through the twelve golden bodies, both real and imagined.

Ma Kuxuan scoffed. His mustard-seed form dissolved directly into nothingness.

But after Ma Kuxuan's form dissolved, the sword qi world of "Caged Sparrow" began to expand on its own. An ancient relic emerged: a vast expanse of stars, a swirling vortex.

Faintly, four towering Heavenly Gates appeared, one in each direction, half-hidden within the brilliant starry river.

In the swirling star vortex, there was a particularly conspicuous golden thread.

To the east and west, the sun and moon hung high, each dragging a spiral, rainbow-colored path to the heavens.

Before the great war that swept across two worlds, there were two Ascension Platforms. One was the relatively intact "Crab Shop" of the Bead Abyss Heaven. The other was the broken path of the Tuo Yue Mountain in the Barren Wastes world. The Ascension Realm was that "Heavenly Court," which even the three religion's founders could not completely break the restrictions on. Because there, the "landscape restrictions" consisted of tens of millions of stars, each formed from the corpses of deities, intertwined with a river of time that manifested as a "certain truth."

In terms of formations, a single remnant of the Heavenly Court was the source of formations for several worlds.

During the great war back then, a considerable number of human cultivators, who did not immediately withdraw from the battlefield ruins and remained there for a long time, found themselves wasting away at a certain moment. Their bones withered, and they formed golden bodies. Eventually, driven by the formation, they automatically aligned with the Great Dao using a certain type of divinity within them, rapidly shedding their humanity and becoming brand-new deities... Some of these deities were then imprisoned in various military ancestral courts and sects. Some were slain on the spot by swordsmen. Even if their golden bodies were completely shattered, their dissipated souls were permanently trapped within the ruins, merging with the great formation.

It was said that the Buddhist Patriarch was the last to withdraw from this relic. But even he could not truly break the restriction. Because even if the difference was only a hair's breadth, it was a world of difference. The result was essentially the same: the seemingly ruined Heavenly Court would revert to the old "One." Once the deities returned to their positions, "filling the gaps," it would even restore the appearance it had before the great war.

Those who formed the protective formation for the Patriarch were stationed near the four broken Heavenly Gates, holding open the heavens and earth: the Supreme Sage, the Dao Ancestor, the Military Ancestor, and the "Young Swordsman" Chen Qingdu.

These old stories, old histories, destined never to be recorded in books, were told to Chen Ping'an by A Liang when he returned to the Sword Qi Great Wall.

And so, the suppression of extraheavenly demons by the Jade Capital, the suppression of ghosts by the Western Buddhist Kingdom, and Li Sage's seat beyond the heavens—these were largely to prevent any remnants from being used by ancient deities to strengthen themselves. For humans, ascending to the peak of cultivation was as difficult as reaching the sky. But whether it was extraheavenly demons, ghosts, or even certain "newcomers" beyond the heavens, if they were captured by the deities and thrown into the ruins, as long as their Dao aligned, they would instantly become brand-new deities with innate divine powers, re-emerging into the world. In the ensuing ten thousand years across several worlds, the reincarnation of certain high-ranking deities as humans was itself a form of "roadblock" in the struggle of the Great Dao. They strove to ensure that even in the unlikely event, newly risen deities within the ruins could not occupy certain key divine positions, especially the highest divine thrones.

And Li Sage, the sages of the Confucian Temple, a handful of Flying Ascension realm cultivators, and the ancestors of the Hundred Schools, each "united with their own Dao," would use various manifestations of the Dao, after Li Sage "opened the door," to slay those new deities. That was a new and old struggle of the Great Dao, mutual attrition of Daos. This was why the founding patriarchs of the Hundred Schools had almost all proven their Dao through knowledge but rarely showed themselves in the Haoran world. They needed to "eat their fill" in Haoran and then "observe propriety and follow precedent" to go beyond the heavens.

Therefore, back then on the Sword Qi Great Wall, both A Liang and Senior Brother Zuo You held great respect for Li Sage.

A Liang even said that there were four people in the world who were popular everywhere and genuinely respected by all.

One was Li Sage of our Haoran world, who was the most reasonable and at the same time the best fighter. The rules were heavy, the principles were profound, but they only weighed on all the peak experts and were light on the shoulders of common people.

Moreover, if anyone was dissatisfied, Li Sage, who rarely appeared even in the Central Earth Confucian Temple, would return from beyond the heavens to Haoran in person, go to the ancestral hall of some Hundred Schools, and reason with them.

A Liang said that there was once a patriarch of the Hundred Schools who was pushed to the brink and cursed Li Sage for using the name of inner sage to practice tyranny. In response, the silent Li Sage dragged him directly beyond the heavens and had a solid thirty-year conversation, a debate on the Dao. If it weren't for Li Sage helping to fill in a flaw in his school's doctrine and stopping at the right point, that patriarch would almost have switched to Confucianism to become a sage.

Another was the first disciple of the Dao Ancestor, the Great Palm Sect Leader of the Jade Capital. And another was that Bodhisattva of the Western Buddhist Kingdom who vowed "never to become a Buddha until the hells are emptied."

Chen Ping'an said that the fourth one didn't need to be mentioned.

A Liang, who had been laboriously building up the suspense, was caught off guard again. Finally, dejected, he said, "I never expected that our Great Sword Immortal doesn't have such a high standing in your eyes."

At the time, A Liang was walking on Taixiang Street, making a casual joke to Chen Ping'an—"When the sky falls, there are tall people to hold it up; that's no lie." At the same time, he gently kicked away a little brat who didn't even know him but was spitting at him to express admiration. He kicked the kid so hard that he lay spread-eagled on his own door like a door god. The kid fell to the ground and wailed loudly. Immediately, a woman ran out, laughing and cursing A Liang for having no conscience, asking how he could be so heartless to his own son...

At that time, A Liang glanced at the child sitting on the ground with a tear-streaked face and asked Chen Ping'an if he looked like him. Chen Ping'an said it was okay; the child probably took after his mother more.

The woman immediately gave the Hidden Official a thumbs up and said with a laugh that she was thinking of having her son acknowledge him as a godfather. Looking at those two bastards who were pretending to be deaf and mute as they quickly walked away, the woman laughed heartily.

Later, that child went to the Fifth World with the Flying Ascension City. The woman and her husband, because the husband was only an Infant Soul realm cultivator and she wasn't even an Earth Immortal, both stayed behind.

Now, Chen Ping'an stood sword in hand outside a Heavenly Gate and asked, "With your protector not around, you can't stretch your limbs?"

Ma Kuxuan's laughter echoed through the world. "Find me first. Let's see who runs out of spiritual energy first."

Chen Ping'an wasn't in a hurry to deliver a second strike. One hand behind his back, he grasped his sword with one hand and looked up at the towering, ornate Heavenly Gate.

Regarding the matter of the Heavenly Court relic, the Summer Villa had no secret records. Since A Liang had piqued his interest, Chen Ping'an had also asked a few questions of the Great Sword Immortal.

The Great Sword Immortal had given a vague answer that wasn't really an answer. He only said that the swordsmen back then were divided into two factions. One faction, led by him, felt that since there were no longer deities above them and they couldn't eat up this territory, they might as well seal it off completely. At least they could leave an opportunity for future generations. At the very least, on this matter, he, Chen Qingdu, along with Dragon Lord and Guan Zhao, stood on the same side as the three religion's founders. But the other faction of swordsmen, along with the Military Ancestor, felt it shouldn't be this way. One thought they had contributed the most, the other was ambitious. They thought that provoking a frantic counterattack from the fleeing remnants of the deities was nothing to fear; it would be better to bring it on and have a final, all-out battle that would end the trouble once and for all. What about the heavens and earth being shattered to pieces? What about the River of Time exploding? What about the world having no more spiritual energy and future generations being unable to cultivate? So what? At worst, they, this small handful of peak cultivators, would ignore the sentient beings of those nascent worlds. If they all died, so be it. They would just find another place to rest and recuperate for thousands or tens of thousands of years. Then, the pattern of humans being supreme would be the same. For the future generations of the world, cutting off the path of cultivation and ascension would save a lot of accidents in the Dao. The Heavenly Dao would be more orderly and stable. Heaven and earth would be separated; the celestial and the human would be divided. Even the problem that the Dao Ancestor worried about would be nipped in the bud.

Ma Kuxuan's voice rang out again, full of mockery. "Choosing to fight here means that to decide the victor, we'll have to truly decide life and death. And let me remind you, the time and place are on my side. I'll just waste some external possessions, but you'll be wasting your hard-earned cultivation base. You risked your life in a foreign land to barely gain the identity of a sword immortal. That wasn't easy to come by. After coming home for just a few steps, don't you know how to treasure it anymore?"

Ma Kuxuan clicked his tongue. "You've been poor since you were young, and now that you have money, you're showing off? Then you're no different from those mountain wastes who just tell me to put out more effort."

Chen Ping'an acted as if he hadn't heard. He simply took this opportunity to carefully examine the Heavenly Gate.

Because this world was merely a creation of Ma Kuxuan's imagination, many details differed greatly from what Chen Ping'an knew to be true. As for those stars and the River of Time, they were just façade decorations meant to frighten people.

Chen Ping'an sheathed his sword and placed it back on his back. He said, "Alright. Your entire imagined relic is you. What's the use of hiding? Do you really think I have no way to deal with you? Consider this third bout a draw. For the next one, we'll do things properly. If you want to decide life or death, I'll give you the opportunity."

The next moment, Chen Ping'an unleashed the "Moon in the Well" sword. Four awe-inspiring sword formations appeared out of thin air. Countless flying swords, like four snow-white rivers, surged out grandly toward the four Heavenly Gates.

The world was silent for a moment. Ma Kuxuan manifested a single grain of his mind and appeared beside Chen Ping'an. He asked, "Aren't you afraid I'll leak the roots of your two flying swords?"

Chen Ping'an said, "One thing is one thing. Let's set aside our personal grievances. You flaunt your power when you have the advantage and you're quick to fall out with people, but at least you're the type to swallow your teeth and blood together. To be honest, aside from finding you annoying, I don't find your actions particularly disgusting. Back on the Sword Qi Great Wall, I met a swordsman with a temper and disposition very similar to yours. Thanks to you, we got along quite well."

Ma Kuxuan laughed. "I've taken on a direct disciple. He's a pure martial artist with decent talent. Give him a chance to spar on Falling Star Mountain—three times. How about it?"

Chen Ping'an nodded. "Fine, on the condition that he can defeat my first disciple. And his bout with Pei Qian will also count within those three opportunities."

Ma Kuxuan said, "No problem."

Ma Kuxuan cradled the back of his head with both hands and said lazily, "To be honest, this world really sickens me."

Chen Ping'an said, "You've sickened plenty of others yourself. You're not qualified to say that."

Ma Kuxuan laughed heartily.

Chen Ping'an touched the ground with the tip of his toe and leaped backward. A grain of Ma Kuxuan's mind followed suit. They stood side by side, both gazing at the ancient relic hanging in the sky.

Chen Ping'an silently recited, "Boundless wind and moon, a world of Dao."

Ma Kuxuan scoffed. "Books are the least valuable."

Simultaneously, they both retracted their respective small worlds.

By the Great River, Ma Kuxuan transformed into a rainbow light and sped toward the auxiliary capital city.

Chen Ping'an, with his sword on his back, walked back to the Ji River Temple.

Taking lodging in a room, Chen Ping'an borrowed a few books of the sages from the temple—books that were no longer banned by the Confucian Temple. He lit an oil lamp on the table and stayed awake all night, slowly flipping through the pages. Occasionally, he would get up, push open the window to look outside, and let the cool breeze brush against his face.

After Chen Ping'an had taken a ferry from Tongye Continent across the sea and entered the boundaries of Bottle Continent, the sun and moon in his state of mind—those originally visible at the mountain gate of Taiping Mountain but which he had been unable to open—a pile of scrolls depicting scenes of time, twenty-four in total, seemed to have their landscape restrictions automatically unlocked. They could all be opened, and the scenes were all laid out in full view.

For instance, during the Grain Rain season, a group of rural tea pickers walked into the spring mountains. Among them was a slender young girl, who plucked tea with both hands, her movements deft. Suddenly, a gust of wind made her sway, like a willow branch stirred by the spring breeze. The girl abruptly looked up at a mountain peak. There was a giant snake coiled around the mountain, its eyes deep and dark, as large as two courtyards. It opened its mouth and inhaled. In an instant, all the tea pickers on the mountain, men, women, old, and young, turned into white bones that fell to the ground and shattered.

In autumn, a vast expanse of gold. A young official sat at the edge of a field, his boots badly worn, chatting and laughing with an old farmer. The next moment, a gust of wind blew, sending ears of wheat flying. Each grain was like a flying sword. All the villages in a county town were like a thin piece of paper soaked by a heavy rain, turned into a mushy mess. In a thatched-roof village school, the sound of reading suddenly ceased.

In the library of a great and wealthy family, the lamps were lit at night. Suddenly, the entire mansion turned bright red. A yao cultivator, with a ghastly pale face and bright red lips, walked slowly inside. Every time he snapped his fingers, a large splatter of blood exploded beside the lamps, on the walls, and on the windows.

On a mountain peak of an immortal sect, an old immortal master was building snowmen with a group of children. He was also scolding a young boy with delicate features and a very lively expression. The old man seemed to be talking about praying for rain at the foot of the mountain. The magistrate had burned paper dragons to pray for rain, and the boy had recklessly joined in, moving stream water as if he were a real river dragon king. This would incur karma, and he should never act so impulsively again... The boy was absentmindedly brushing off his master's words. The old man was scolding his disciple, but his eyes were full of pride... In an instant, streaks of sword light flashed by. Headless corpses lay everywhere—the old man, the boy.

There were emperors, generals, ministers, civil officials, military officers, martial artists of the martial world, mountain marsh wild cultivators, and registered immortal masters of small sects, all going to their deaths. They died valiantly and tragically, but they were destined to die in obscurity.

All of it was the scenery and human sentiment of Tongye Continent. All of it was the tragic situation of Tongye Continent in times of chaos.

All the "subtle" beauties and sacrifices had long been crushed by the overwhelming tide. The entire Tongye Continent had been written off and submerged in the river of history like a mud pit. And Chen Ping'an had once been part of that "world tide." His impression of Tongye Continent was even one of the worst among mountain cultivators.

Cui Chan clearly intended to make sure that Chen Ping'an could not find any peace of mind in Tongye Continent, not even a little. He wanted to leave this Hidden Official no room for self-deception. Twenty-four beautiful scrolls had been crushed, and there were certainly two hundred and forty ugly, filthy scrolls that were destined to be that way. But if you, Chen Ping'an, forgot, whether it was two hundred and forty or two thousand four hundred, you could never deny the existence of those twenty-four scrolls. And for a continent's mountains and rivers, were there only this many who "should not have died"?

Cui Chan wanted Chen Ping'an to personally witness the beautiful and the ugly, both large and small, on and off the mountains of Tongye Continent. The other eight continents of the entire Haoran world, along with the cultivators of Tongye Continent themselves, all thought Tongye Continent was a rotten, hopeless mess. But you, Chen Ping'an, alone could not bring yourself to think so. Choose Tongye Continent for the branch sect? Excellent. Then live well with the arrogant and domineering cultivators of Bottle Continent and Northern Ju Su Continent, one by one.

And these two continents: one was your hometown, which would have a thousand intertwined connections with your Falling Star Mountain; the other was the continent among the nine of Haoran where you held the most respect for the swordsmen there. Willing to reason? Like to reason? Now that you're the last closed-door disciple of the Literary Saint lineage, you've returned to your hometown and become the master of a sect with a branch sect. You're no longer just the Hidden Official of the Sword Qi Great Wall. So let you, Chen Ping'an, in Tongye Continent, where everyone could be unreasonable, go against the tide and play the hero. Let you alone, reason to your heart's content this once!

But you have to reason, because Chen Ping'an would be the most watched reader of the Literary Saint lineage.

The status of the Literary Saint lineage in the Confucian sect, in the Confucian Temple, and in the Haoran world, was raised higher and higher. As both the Hidden Official and the sect master, as the last closed-door disciple of the Literary Saint lineage and therefore inevitably a moral sage, Chen Ping'an would burst onto the scene. As the tide rose, his boat would rise. He would be gradually hung high in the sky. Countless praises—sincere ones, malicious ones, open praises, sneaky flattery—all of them would become the water that carries the boat.

So Chen Ping'an understood very well why his teacher had chosen to "hide" in the Forest of Merit and once again turn a deaf ear to the world outside.

Among all the time scrolls, Chen Ping'an had only one that he never finished watching. Every time he opened it, he quickly closed it again, not daring to look at it more.

Tonight was no exception.

It was a humble alley, about the same width as Nipin Alley. A remote and quiet place in Tongye Continent, its location unknown. In the little rainy alley, a young girl was holding a small oil-paper umbrella, hopping and skipping. Her umbrella went up and down with her movements, tilting this way and that. She was walking home with light steps.

Chen Ping'an abruptly withdrew his mind and once again closed the time scroll.

He pressed his two fingers tightly on a page of the book, took a deep breath, gently released his fingertips from the page, and simply closed the book.

Chen Ping'an got up and walked to the window. He lightly pressed his two joined fingers against the window frame and muttered to himself, "I know. This is our chess game. You, Embroidery Tiger, are skilled at chess. Because you're not even here anymore. All that's left on the chessboard of the three continents—Tongye, Bottle, and Northern Ju Su—is a dead-end game."

Chen Ping'an said softly, "Teacher Qi. This senior brother Cui Chan plays too unfairly. Little Senior Brother, won't you take care of it?"

The world was silent. The long night was soundless.

Chen Ping'an answered his own question, "I guarantee that this time, the senior brother will lose."

And this time, Cui Chan actually hoped that the senior brother would lose and the junior brother would win. He hoped it wouldn't be like the Shujian Lake inquiry game, where the Great Li National Teacher won without any flavor.

But to win against the Embroidery Tiger on a chessboard—the difficulty was obvious.

After experiencing the war on the Sword Qi Great Wall, Chen Ping'an could accept the deaths of more "strong" people. But he was unable to face the departure of the weak, countless versions of himself from Nipin Alley, his hometown's Liu Xianyang, and the little snot-nosed kid. Under the grand tide, the departure of countless "weak" ones was still wrong, still not allowed. So Chen Ping'an, even now, did not dare to look at the last scroll in the lake of his heart.

It was as if by not looking at the result, the little girl holding the umbrella would keep walking down the alley, keep living.

Perhaps she had already returned home, put away her little oil-paper umbrella. There might be a family sitting together, a warm and cozy lamp, a family reunited.

Even if we don't talk about human hearts, on Tongye Continent, certain actions that cut off people's livelihood, whether on or off the mountains, were mortal enemies. Involving the gain or loss of personal interests, it was possible that Chen Ping'an and the branch sect's choice would one day conflict with the Divine Talisman Peak of the Jade Gui Sect, with Wei Ying. This might force the old sect leader Jiang Shangzhen and the retainer Zhou Fei to make a choice that could never make everyone happy. This was also why Chen Ping'an had changed his mind on the spot, from the one-man decision that Cao Qinglang would be the branch sect master to the phrase uttered on Falling Star Mountain: "If there are objections, they can be discussed again." It wasn't that Chen Ping'an didn't trust Cao Qinglang, but Cao Qinglang was still too young. Some of the choices he would make would make his original heart too heavy to bear too early.

Chen Ping'an knew how bad that feeling was. And some suffering was truly just suffering, with no benefit at all. If you couldn't endure it, you simply couldn't.

So Chen Ping'an had made up his mind. The position of branch sect master could be left vacant for now. Let Cao Qinglang continue to cultivate his mind in that Lotus Root Paradise for another decade or two.

Having been an absentee boss for too many years, Chen Ping'an also wanted to make up for it, thinking it was just "what goes around comes around." Although the branch sect would temporarily have no sect master, he wouldn't show himself too much either. He would just let a certain deputy mountain lord come out from the start, adopting a fierce posture of "we're here in Tongye Continent just for harmonious business." For example... Cui Dongshan. After all, worrying for his teacher was also the duty of a student.

Unknowingly, it was already dawn.

Chen Ping'an squinted.

In the distance outside the window stood a young woman with a smiling face but sharp eyes.

True Dragon, Wang Zhu, Flying Ascension realm.

---

In the Combs and Water Kingdom, late at night. In a mountain god temple that had already closed its doors, a young girl wearing embroidered shoes listened to the words of her tall maidservant. She clasped her hands behind her back, paced slowly, and thought carefully for a moment. Then she nodded, punched her palm, and said solemnly, "Those bookworms have so many tricks up their sleeves. If I had read a few more books, I'm sure I would have thought of such a small method too. Pick a seed of learning, gather the majority of literary fortune, and complete the work in one fell swoop. Such a simple approach. Would I not have thought of it? As for intercepting halfway, putting a sack over someone's head—that's our old specialty. I could do it with my eyes closed."

A plump maidservant nodded vigorously and flattered her for a few sentences. After hearing the flattery, Mountain God Wei Wei Xian became angry. She punched the woman hard in the chest, sending her stumbling backward. The young girl cursed loudly, "You think only about your boobs, not your brains! Chen Ping'an paid a visit to your own shrine, and you dared not even show your face to greet a young sword immortal? You've got more airs than the heavens. Why don't you go be a mountain lord or a prefect? Are you too good for me here, huh?"

The plump maidservant was terrified, not daring to talk back. She just rubbed her chest.

Wei Wei was still furious. She tiptoed, grabbed the tall maidservant's ear, and yanked it hard, making the latter bow her head. She scolded, "You're an idiot too. You didn't even think to keep the most chivalrous Chen Ping'an as a guest. Do you know what a young sword immortal from the Great Li dynasty means for our Combs and Water Kingdom? It means that if your mistress here had just a little bit of his luck, a little bit of his sheen, and at most asked him to leave a piece of calligraphy or something, the three of us could drift around the Combs and Water Kingdom however we pleased from now on!"

After cursing and venting her anger, the girl in embroidered shoes sighed, released her fingers, and looked at the two fools who seemed respectful but were actually delighted. She said helplessly, "I do have some goodwill with the court of Combs and Water Kingdom. But do you think that sword immortal only helped us out?"

Seeing the two idiots who were all talk and no action look at each other blankly, she rolled her eyes slightly. She joined two fingers, pointed at her own eyes, then at the tall maidservant, and suddenly clenched her fist. She made a rumbling sound like thunder and said bitterly, "Think about it. How many times has Chen Ping'an, a sword immortal, come to our place?"

The tall maidservant said timidly, "Three times."

Wei Wei said angrily, "In less than thirty years, a young sword immortal has visited a small mountain peak three times. What does that mean? It means there will definitely be a fourth time! Do you think he asked about the placement of the temple statues as his first sentence for no reason? If you had answered wrong... if our mountain god temple had done wrong, do you think he would have left? I guarantee you, even if you tried to drive him away, he would have stayed to chat with me for a bit! He's a smiling tiger, hiding a knife in his sleeve, a ruthless man who can kill without warning... If I hadn't foreseen that he would definitely come this way and had carefully preserved those broken stones early on, do you think we three would still be able to talk right now?"

The tall woman said cautiously, "Could it be that the mistress is overthinking things? During his visit to our temple, he seemed quite amiable, without any airs of a sword immortal."

The green-clad sword immortal had been sitting on a stone stool in the cool shade of the pine tree outside the door. With a warm smile, he talked with her and even invited her to sit down and chat.

Wei Wei glanced sideways at her, and the tall maidservant immediately shut up.

Wei Wei flicked her sleeve, and the door opened. She sat on the threshold, propping her chin in her hands, and started thinking.

The mountain god's territory encompassed one and a half prefectures, roughly governing the mountains and waters of six counties. Wei Wei never liked to greet the deities of the Civil or Military Temples. Their official hats weren't big, but they were arrogant. At best, she would interact with the city gods, who were lower than her and more tactful.

Finally, Wei Wei said, "You two, go to the city god temples in those counties. Carefully go through all the merit records. Within our territory, all the seeds of learning, meaning those who have a chance of becoming scholars or recommended scholars, record them all. Do exactly what that sword immortal said: steady and long-term... And as for those so-called 'families of accumulated good deeds,' oh, it hurts, it really hurts. Give them a share of your yin virtue and spiritual light; hide it in the door gods they post. They can't do much big help; our foundation is too thin for now. Help them with small matters like dispelling evil qi and yin winds. When that future scholar earns his golden name and comes back to our temple to fulfill his vow, adding more literary fortune, we can make long-term plans. Chen Ping'an was right about one thing: these are not like the old days. You can't do a one-off deal. As long as we can make a good start, we have to think long term."

Beyond her fear of a sword immortal who had nothing better to do than visit frequently, the real reason Wei Wei was willing to "obey orders" like this was, of course, that it was profitable and the risk was minimal. Wei Wei felt that if she did this in the long run, as he said, there was indeed hope for a steady income. She could manage the mountains and waters of her territory well one day and live a life of ease. Becoming a mountain god, then thinking about opening a mansion, and then thinking about becoming the heir-apparent mountain god of the Five Marchmounts—that gave life some hope...

Otherwise, if Chen Ping'an had only been talking about righteousness and merit, she, Wei Wei, could have just muddled along. Next time she met him, she would just lie on the ground and play dead. Chen Ping'an wouldn't really cut off her head with his flying sword, would he?

But Wei Wei had to admit that she was truly afraid of him.

Over the years, deep in her heart, she had sometimes thought that it would be better if that young man died. Then he wouldn't come to scare her anymore. But on second thought, she felt it would be a pity if that young man died.

The plump maidservant was eager to try. She said softly, "Mountain Goddess, Sword Immortal Chen said we could first appear in the dream of that passing seed of learning."

Wei Wei turned her head and said disdainfully, "You? A goddess of a mountain god temple? If you were thrown among people, others would push with their hands, but you would shove with your big butt. If that scholar saw you, what would he think you were? If he was lucky, he'd think you were a mountain fox spirit. If he was unlucky, the scholar would dream of wandering in a temple and think he'd entered some kind of establishment. His first thought would probably be to check if there was enough silver in his money pouch!"

Wei Wei pointed at the tall woman. "You. Among the three of us, you're the only one who's read a few books. You can chat a bit more with the scholars..."

The maidservant looked a bit embarrassed. But she didn't dare say anything. She just silently recited a few words of advice to herself: "Advice, advice."

Wei Wei suddenly stood up, then beamed. "Oh my, Old Sword Immortal Song is here!"

An old man with white hair, his hands behind his back, walked slowly toward the mountain god temple. "Go on with your chat. I'm just revisiting old places, taking a stroll. I'm not checking the almanac tonight."

Wei Wei complained, "Since Old Song moved his estate away, the nearby mountains and waters have lost their martial fortune. It's not just my little temple here. All the city god lords, who lived lavishly, are now pinching pennies and living frugally."

Song Yushao glanced at the temple's plaque, then lowered his gaze to the three golden statues inside the hall. He smiled and said, "Must have cost a lot of silver."

Wei Wei covered her mouth and laughed. "Living a hard life, just making do. Fortunately, it's not celestial money. There's still some family fortune left."

Song Yushao sat on the bluestone bench and teased, "So have you found that being one of the Four Evils of Combs and Water Kingdom isn't so easy? You almost got carried off by some illicit temple mountain god to be his wife. And now, becoming a mountain goddess is even harder?"

Wei Wei shook her head gently. "It's very easy."

Song Yushao scoffed. The qi of the mountains and waters in this area—old veteran that he was, he could roughly gauge the amount. With this mountain god temple, it wouldn't last a hundred years before the mountain goddess's golden body would start crumbling from wind and rain.

Wei Wei clasped her hands behind her back, walked down the steps with light steps, and said with a grin, "Old Song, I was just playing dumb before, too lazy to move. Let me tell you my plan now."

Song Yushao nodded. "I'd like to hear it."

Listening to Wei Wei's plan, the old man was initially unimpressed. Especially the shortcut in the officialdom of mountains and waters—it was a risky move and certainly not a long-term strategy. But when Wei Wei suddenly came out with the phrase "rectifying the source," especially the line "The spirit of mountain and water deities lies in the sincerity of people's hearts," the old man was left speechless, completely unable to refute it. Song Yushao looked at this confident mountain goddess and was stunned for a long time. He asked doubtfully, "Wei Wei, how did you suddenly grow a brain?"

Wei Wei threw her head back and laughed heartily. She wiped her mouth and waved her hand. "A minor trick, not worth mentioning. I've only used about thirty or forty percent of my ability."

Song Yushao stood up and smiled. "That's for the best. I won't come wandering around here anymore."

When he was young, the landscape route that seemed like just a few steps now felt distant, now that he was old.

Wei Wei looked at the stooped old man with white hair. She sighed, dropped the smile, and said honestly, "To tell you the truth, this method was taught to me by Chen Ping'an. I could never have thought of it myself."

Song Yushao hummed in acknowledgment, nodded calmly, and said, "I guessed as much."

The old man turned and left.

The tall maidservant came to the mountain goddess's side and said with admiration, "Old Song really saw it coming."

Wei Wei laughed and cursed, "He guessed my ass! Didn't you see Song Yushao coming up the mountain all slow and sauntering, then running down the mountain like the wind?"

The old man didn't go straight back to his own mountain god temple. Instead, he went to the small town near his old estate and found that wine house. He sat in his old spot.

The shopkeeper had changed. Changed again. It was the grandson's generation running the business now. The hotpot ingredients were also a bit cut-rate. Even without putting them into the pot or using the chopsticks, Song Yushao knew they were no longer the same flavor as before. But he didn't say much. There was nothing worth saying. Instead, he hoped that this restaurant, where the hotpot wasn't as authentic anymore, would have better business in the future. Maybe one day, when they had earned enough money, they would become meticulous again.

The young shopkeeper recognized Song Yushao, the old Sword Saint of Combs and Water Kingdom who had been very close with his grandfather. But even though he had laid out a huge table full of hotpot ingredients and personally brought each dish to the table, he couldn't help but feel guilty. He didn't dare to chat up the old man or exchange pleasantries. After a few perfunctory words, he quickly left.

Song Yushao didn't ask for two sets of bowls and chopsticks. But he did ask for two wine cups. He placed one cup on the opposite side of the table, but didn't pour any wine. He took a sip of his own and cursed a few times. "You little brat, daring to hide from me. Drink the northwest wind, then! I'll make you envious to death."

But after a few cups, the old man still couldn't help but stand up, pour wine into the empty cup, and sit back down. He muttered something indistinct—it was unclear whether he was cursing or something else.

Song Yushao suddenly turned his head and smiled. "How did you two come?"

It was his grandson, Song Fengshan, and his grandson's wife, Liu Qian.

The two sat down. Song Fengshan smiled. "Wei Wei sent word. On the way, Liu Qian bet me that Grandpa would come here first. I didn't believe her, so I'll fine myself three cups."

Song Yushao said irritably, "If you want to drink, just say so."

Song Fengshan drank, and Liu Qian ate the hotpot. They didn't say anything.

The old man held back for a long time, then said angrily, "Tell me! Have you two already seen that kid?!"

Song Fengshan exchanged a smile with his wife. Then, using sound transmission, he spoke a few words to his grandfather.

Song Yushao listened carefully. He didn't drink or eat. After listening, the old man silently took a big bite, drained his wine, and looked at the empty seat across the table, at the full wine glass.

He put down his wine glass and chopsticks. He looked left and right at his very excellent grandson and his wife. He smiled. Then he slowly closed his eyes, and opened them again. Finally, he looked at the empty seat. His vision blurred slightly. He said softly, "I regret that I could not go to the Sword Qi Great Wall, and did not see the elegance of the Hidden Official Sword Immortal."

Song Yushao picked up his wine glass and chopsticks again and laughed heartily. "Hotpot with wine, the martial world remains!"

---

Southern Bodhisattva Continent. An ordinary mountain by the sea. It was barely a thatched hut, hardly a place for cultivation. Even a wild cultivator of the lower fifth realms wouldn't live in such a crude dwelling.

But three adjacent thatched huts were home to three Upper Fifth Realm cultivators. Two of them were even sword immortals.

Lu Zhi, the Spring Banners Studio Sword Immortal Shao Yunyan, and the Drunken Face Lady of the Plum Garden of the Inverted Mountain.

After someone had sacrificed a sword at Taiping Mountain on Tongye Continent, Lu Zhi had stood up and walked out of her thatched hut. She squinted and looked southeast.

After Shao Yunyan and the Drunken Face Lady came out of their huts, Lu Zhi said, "The Hidden Official has returned."

The Drunken Face Lady's expression stiffened.

Shao Yunyan laughed heartily.

The handsome old sword immortal Qi Tingji chose an unexpected location for establishing his sect. It was neither the Central Earth Divine Continent, the largest continent, nor the Aiai Continent, home of the wealthy Liu clan. Instead, it was the Southern Bodhisattva Continent, which no longer had any pure Confucians.

Qi Tingji often came here to chat with Lu Zhi. He wasn't secretive about it. He clearly hoped that Lu Zhi would become his sect's Chief Retainer, or at least a house guest.

Lu Zhi naturally didn't want to be a retainer. As for a guest elder with no obligation, it was a toss-up.

After all, they were both swordsmen from the Sword Qi Great Wall. Qi Tingji's sword strikes in the Haoran world had never disappointed either. Especially when Chen Chun'an left the Southern Bodhisattva Continent for the final leg of his journey to the sea. Qi Tingji had been the one to escort the Pure Confucian, guarding his path with his sword.

In the end, Chen Chun'an succeeded in keeping the Big Beard Sword Immortal Liu Cha in the Haoran world, preventing that throne-level great demon from returning to the Barren Wastes world.

But the Haoran world, especially the Central Earth Divine Continent, still had many negative opinions about this Pure Confucian, who had inexplicably survived and inexplicably died. They felt that with the situation already decided, Chen Chun'an had neither killed a Flying Ascension great demon nor shouldered the sun and moon as if they were mere decorations. He hadn't died when he should have, and he wouldn't live when he could. He wouldn't bring charcoal in the snow but insisted on adding flowers to the brocade. He had fear of death to an extreme and cherished his reputation to an extreme. In the entire war, aside from barely protecting the mountains and rivers of the Southern Bodhisattva Continent, he had accomplished nothing. Even if the Barren Wastes world gained an extra Liu Cha now, what did it matter?

If Qi Tingji hadn't delivered a sword strike in the Central Earth Divine Continent, the complaints would have been even louder.

The person who received Qi Tingji's sword strike was still very stubborn. He said that even if Liu Cha had gathered qi and entered the 14th realm in the Barren Wastes world, so what? Wasn't Xiao Xun also a 14th realm swordswoman? Wasn't she also driven by Zuo You to the battlefield beyond the heavens, still not returned, and unable to go to the Barren Wastes world? Even if one more Liu Cha appeared, so what? If Qi Tingji had real skill, he should have returned to the Sword Qi Great Wall and carved a big word on the city wall... So Qi Tingji, unwilling to waste more words, gave that cultivator another sword.

A Jade Purity realm cultivator, and Qi Tingji had to deliver two swords. He