Chang Sanbao brought back an astonishing piece of news, and Xia Yunzhao was so excited he did not even bother eating before running down to the main hall to make a round of inquiries.
No one knew how he managed it, but in just thirty minutes he had already made three “good brothers” and gotten the whole story out of them.
Shang Shuangze watched from upstairs. When Xia Yunzhao finally took his leave, those three good brothers were even inviting him to go ice fishing with them the next day…
Terrifying social skills.
Xiao Xia scampered back into the room, gently closed the door, scooped up Xianchan as the little cat happened to run past his feet, and rubbed it twice. “Apparently, Xuanshuang City has found a way to open the small secret realm. Three days from now, they’re inviting all cultivators in the north to enter. There’s also a restriction: only cultivators no older than fifty and below the Golden Core stage are allowed inside.”
He covered Xianchan’s two little ears and lowered his voice further. “There’s another rumor saying the secret realm didn’t just open recently. It’s actually been open for a while, but none of the cultivators who went in ever came back, so Xuanshuang City used unaffiliated cultivators to test it first. Xuanshuang City isn’t hiding that part either. They say the people who secretly entered before were all unaffiliated cultivators, and precisely because none of them returned, Xuanshuang City never sent its own people in. Now they’ve found a safe way to enter and leave.”
“Xuanshuang City is going all out this time. They’ve opened the entire secret realm to everyone.”
After saying that, he released Xianchan, bumped Shang Shuangze’s shoulder with his own, and asked, “What do you think?”
Shang Shuangze shook his head. “I’ve never entered this kind of secret realm. I don’t know.”
Xia Yunzhao looked regretful. “Me neither. Forget it. We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it!”
Xia Yunzhao had a good temper and an easygoing personality, but his best trait was that he never worried about things that had not happened yet. He did not consume himself worrying, and he did not drain other people either. In his own words, if he had time to worry in advance, he might as well spend it preparing.
So he scooped up Xiao Qing, who was squatting in the pile of spirit items, and his tone turned cheerful again. “Little Pot, ready? Time to eat!”
Xiao Qing bounced twice with great spirit: Hello, your Little Pot is ready at any time!
Xia Yunzhao laughed and grabbed a handful of spirit items to stuff into its belly.
A faint white light lit inside Xiao Qing’s belly, instantly melting the damaged magical treasure that had been shoved in. Xia Yunzhao’s eyes lit up. “Hey, your digestion’s improved!” As he spoke, he called Shang Shuangze over, and the two of them began feeding Xiao Qing together.
After stuffing things in for a while, Xia Yunzhao’s smile disappeared. “…Xiao Qing, why do I feel like we’ve already fed you quite a lot? Why hasn’t the progress bar shown up yet?”
Xiao Qing stayed perfectly still and focused only on eating. It was merely an innocent glutton. How could it possibly know anything else?
They kept feeding it for a while longer before the progress bar finally popped up and began creeping upward at a turtle’s pace.
Xia Yunzhao: …
After watching carefully for a moment, he suddenly realized something. “Wait. You didn’t sleep after eating last time, so how did you still level up?!”
He narrowed his eyes at the progress bar, calculated for a while, and exclaimed in shock, “It takes five thousand spirit pearls to fill one progress bar now?! Your appetite jumped tenfold all at once??”
Little Pot remained serene. Little Pot did not understand. Little Pot merely wanted to eat until it was full.
Xia Yunzhao: …
He took a deep breath and looked at the pile of spirit items on the floor. Besides the junk they had picked up from Cold Crow Stronghold, it also contained things they had accumulated along the way but never used, all of which contained spiritual power.
The pile looked like a random mess, but its spiritual energy content was anything but low. Converted into spirit pearls, it was probably worth around fifteen to twenty thousand.
Xia Yunzhao had been delighted before, thinking he could squeeze in a twenty-pull before entering the secret realm and give himself another layer of protection. Even drawing the recipe for a Snow-Spirit Pill would have been fine. Snow-Spirit Pills were the most commonly used pills among northern cultivators and could replenish ice-attribute spiritual energy, essentially making them a lower-end version of Snow-Soul Crystals. If he could refine that kind of pill, he could make a lot of money in the north.
Well, great. His twenty-pull had instantly turned into a three-pull…
Xia Yunzhao looked ready to cry. “When did the child grow up? Why didn’t it even tell its old father?”
Shang Shuangze felt bad seeing him like that. After thinking about how to comfort him, he finally said, “How about feeding it spirit pearls directly?”
Xia Yunzhao: “…Three pulls it is. We’re lucky. Even single pulls can produce miracles!”
Shang Shuangze: …
Xia Yunzhao continued working hard to feed the child. After a little under an hour, he finally managed to stuff the entire pile of spirit items, which had been almost as high as the roof beam, into Xiao Qing.
The inscriptions on Xiao Qing’s belly seemed slightly clearer again, though they still could not make out what was written. It hopped twice in place, its lid suddenly snapped open and shut, and whoosh, whoosh, whoosh! Three bundles of paper shot out like throwing knives. They lost momentum halfway through and began fluttering all over the room like scattered petals.
A ball of spiritual power gathered the pages together and delivered them into Xia Yunzhao’s hands.
He lowered his head and glanced over them. The first set alone made him jump: Record of Spoils from the Demon-Slaying Campaign, Volume One!
Demon-slaying? Spoils?
He immediately opened it. The first page recorded that in a certain year, Wentian Sect led seven major sects and five great cultivation clans into battle against twelve demonic-cultivator sects at Wangjin Sea. In the end, all twelve demonic sects were annihilated, and the Demon Venerable died from exhaustion. Afterward, demonic cultivators disappeared from the world.
This dossier recorded the resources the major sects had seized from that battle.
Xia Yunzhao calculated the dates. If the dossier was accurate… that war against the demonic path had taken place more than ten thousand years ago. He asked, “Does Wentian Sect still exist?”
Shang Shuangze gave a slight nod. “Wentian Sect is the foremost sect of the present age.”
“The cultivation world has such a long history!” Xia Yunzhao exclaimed. He flipped through several more pages, which listed demonic cultivators’ magical artifacts and various materials. At a glance, the pages were filled with things like human bones and resentful souls, which made him uncomfortable.
Uncomfortable or not, he still needed to read it. Xia Yunzhao set the material aside separately, together with the treasure map he had drawn before. Both were things he could not use for now but that were still very useful. He could not use the treasure map because he had never found the terrain depicted on it, while this Record of Spoils from the Demon-Slaying Campaign… well, it would be best if he never had to use it.
He looked at the next item. The first thing he saw was the word “pill,” which made him click his tongue. Don’t tell me it really is a Snow-Spirit Pill? I can’t even use that pill myself. Sure, I could sell it, but it only commands a high price in the north. Once I’m back in Qingxi City, who knows…
He looked more carefully and relaxed. It was not a Snow-Spirit Pill but a Spirit-Gathering Pill. The Spirit-Gathering Pill was a Level-Two pill, essentially an advanced version of the Qi-Replenishing Pill, used by Foundation Establishment cultivators to replenish spiritual power.
This kind of pill was both practical and easy to sell. Xiao Xia happily put away the recipe and decided to refine a batch that very night.
As for the final bundle of paper: 【A Letter from a Certain Cultivator to a Friend】.
The paper really was inside an envelope. The letter had already yellowed with age and consisted of a cultivator sharing his recent experiences with a friend.
That cultivator was probably a formation master because the entire letter concerned formations, and Xia Yunzhao found it somewhat difficult to follow. After reading it carefully several times, he gathered that the cultivator had recently been studying time formations, had failed repeatedly, and had wasted many formation materials. The letter carefully listed all the ways he had failed and asked his fellow Daoist how he should correct them.
Xia Yunzhao had not drawn the reply that came after it, so he had no idea whether that cultivator ultimately learned the time formation. He probably did. The letter explained the failures so clearly that the man’s friend would surely have replied.
Over the next two days, Xia Yunzhao learned how to refine Spirit-Gathering Pills. From then on, the two Foundation Establishment cultivators would no longer need Qi-Replenishing Pills to replenish spiritual energy and could take Spirit-Gathering Pills directly instead.
He also went ice fishing with his new friends once more. After that, the tailor shop across the street came to tell them that their spirit garments were finished.
Xia Yunzhao dragged Shang Shuangze over to take a look and was thoroughly shocked at first sight.
What the garment cultivators had made was not a single garment but an entire set. Underneath was a tight-fitting suit made from Fire-Rat hide. The fur had been completely shaved away, leaving only the exceptionally tough skin, still filled with Fire-Rat spiritual power. Worn close to the body, it clung tightly to the skin so not even a trace of heat could escape.
The outer set consisted of a fur-lined jacket, trousers, and a cloak. No one knew how the Fire Rat King pelts had been treated, but the fur had become soft and smooth, comfortable and attractive to wear, while also blocking the wind extremely well.
There were also leather boots, a hat, and earmuffs.
The whole outfit was both beautiful and comfortable, without even a single visible joining seam. It truly deserved to be called seamless.
Elio’s Notes: The Chinese phrase here is tianyi wufeng, literally “heavenly garments have no seams,” an idiom for something flawlessly made. Here the clothing makes the idiom delightfully literal.
Xia Yunzhao tried it on for a while and felt as though his whole body had been wrapped in dense fire-attribute spiritual power. In moments, he was sweating from the heat.
The tailor shop had not received such a large commission in a long time, so all four garment cultivators gathered around to look, smiling as they said, “Senior, wearing this outfit, you could even climb Ice-Soul Mountain without a problem!”
Xia Yunzhao’s cheeks were flushed from the heat. “Right? I think so too. It’s way too warm.”
Now that the spirit garments were finished, the two of them did not waste any more time. They said goodbye to the friends they had just made and immediately headed for Xuanshuang City.
They encountered many cultivators along the way, quite a few of whom had traveled from far away. Clearly, news from Xuanshuang City was spreading farther and farther.
The Green Bamboo Carriage was not slow. Even though they had lost two days waiting for the spirit garments, they still reached Xuanshuang City the day before the secret realm opened.
As the second-largest city on the icefield, Xuanshuang City was enormous. Xia Yunzhao had already thought Beiliang City’s walls were tall enough, but Xuanshuang City’s were more than twice as high. A height like that was beyond ordinary human capability and must have involved cultivators.
Using cultivators to build city walls was extravagance on an impressive scale.
The carriage went clop-clop-clop through the city gate. Xia Yunzhao did not even need to ask around because everyone on the streets was talking about the secret realm opening soon.
Even a random waiter could explain the matter from beginning to end.
The two casually found an inn, settled in, and waited for the secret realm to open.
Then someone knocked on the door.
Xia Yunzhao opened it. The inn waiter stood outside with an ingratiating smile, accompanied by three strangers.
His eyebrow immediately rose. Those three had fairly high cultivation! He could only identify one of them as being at early Foundation Establishment like himself. The other two were at least at mid Foundation Establishment.
The man in front wore a businesslike expression and cupped his hands. “Are you Fellow Daoist Xia and Fellow Daoist Shang?”
Shang Shuangze rose and stood behind Xia Yunzhao. Xia Yunzhao nodded and asked with a smile, “How should we address the three of you?”
The man said, “We are guards of the lord of Xuanshuang City. The city lord invites the two of you to visit his residence.”
Xia Yunzhao’s brow lifted almost imperceptibly as his gaze swept over the three men. “I wonder what I’ve done to catch the city lord’s eye?”
The other man replied, “We heard the two of you rid the north of the scourge that was Cold Crow Stronghold. I expect it concerns that.”
Xia Yunzhao said, “I see. Please wait a moment. The two of us will tidy up and go with you.”
The moment the door closed, Shang Shuangze cupped Xia Yunzhao’s face and copied the way he shaped words silently: Not trustworthy.
Xia Yunzhao snorted and mouthed back, Of course not. Cold Crow Stronghold had barely thirty Foundation Establishment cultivators altogether. Compared with Xuanshuang City, that was nothing. If the city lord cared so much, why had he never eliminated them before? And if this was just to thank them, was there any need to send three Foundation Establishment cultivators?
Besides, there was still that puppet… He had not forgotten that someone else stood behind Cold Crow Stronghold.
Xia Yunzhao thought for a moment, lifted the window, and looked outside. Sure enough, five more Foundation Establishment cultivators were waiting out there. Those were only the ones in plain sight. Who knew whether anyone was hidden nearby?
He met Shang Shuangze’s eyes. Run, or stay?
Running carried serious risk, but staying was hardly safe either. In the end, they decided to go with them. Since Xuanshuang City had spread the news about the secret realm, that at least meant they allowed, or even wanted, outsiders to enter. And Xia Yunzhao and Shang Shuangze had come precisely for that secret realm.
Xia Yunzhao put Xiao Qing and Xianchan inside the Green Bamboo Carriage. Nothing else mattered much, but those two little ones absolutely could not be allowed to get hurt. Then he followed the guards out.
The guards brought them to the city lord’s residence. A servant came out from inside and led them farther in.
The moment he stepped through the gate, Xia Yunzhao felt a strange pressure. The circulation of his spiritual power became sluggish. He ran his cultivation method through several cycles before the obstruction gradually faded.
His hand suddenly felt cool. Shang Shuangze had taken it. A thread of faintly cool spiritual power entered his meridians gently and circled once around his spiritual platform.
The slight dizziness in Xia Yunzhao’s head also cleared. Shang Shuangze motioned for him to look at the stone pillars on either side.
Xia Yunzhao looked up. Hollow bells were embedded in both rows of stone pillars, silently releasing wisps of white smoke. The smoke carried a faint fragrance, but breathing too much of it made spiritual power sluggish and difficult to circulate.
He endured it, then endured it again, and finally could not resist rolling his eyes. He took out a Detoxification Pill and a Clearheart Pill and divided them between himself and Shang Shuangze.
The servant leading them glanced back and saw what they were doing. He looked as though he wanted to say something but stopped himself.
Xia Yunzhao swallowed his pills and looked at him. “Want some too?”
The servant hurriedly waved both hands. “No, no…” He hesitated and finally said, “You two absolutely must not let the city lord realize you weren’t poisoned!”
Xia Yunzhao breathed out lightly, his breath fragrant. “That depends on whether he’s blind.”
The servant: “…” He gave a dry laugh. “Our city lord is naturally very discerning. Ha… ha…”
He no longer dared speak to the two of them and hurried his pace, quickly delivering them to their destination.
Xia Yunzhao and Shang Shuangze followed the servant into the banquet hall. Apparently, the city lord had invited far more people than just them. Several dozen cultivators were already inside.
The servant reported softly, “City Lord, Lords Xia and Shang have arrived.”
The city lord seated in the place of honor opened his eyes. His smile did not reach them. “Is that so? Quickly, invite the two fellow Daoists to sit. The banquet began some time ago.”
Xia Yunzhao looked at him as well. The man appeared to be around forty, a middle-aged man with a smile so fake it looked pasted on. None of that mattered. What mattered was this: why could Xia Yunzhao not sense his cultivation at all?! In his perception, the city lord seemed completely ordinary.
He instinctively looked toward Shang Shuangze, only to find Shang Shuangze wearing an expression more solemn than Xia Yunzhao had ever seen.
Noticing his gaze, Shang Shuangze turned his head and slowly shook it at him.
Xia Yunzhao paused, then cupped his hands toward the seat of honor. “Thank you for the hospitality, City Lord.” He then pulled Shang Shuangze along and followed the servant to their seats.
As he sat, he casually swept his gaze around the room. There were more than fifty cultivators present, every one of them with considerable cultivation. The lowest among them was actually Xia Yunzhao himself at early Foundation Establishment.
Moreover, those cultivators all looked unwell. Many were sitting cross-legged and regulating their breath. Even from this distance, Xia Yunzhao could sense serious problems with the circulation of their spiritual power.
He was puzzled. Was that fragrant smoke really affecting the other cultivators this badly?
Several cultivators glared at the city lord with resentment, then seemed to remember something and lowered their heads warily. A trace of blood scent that was nearly gone still lingered in the air, and the atmosphere among the crowd was distinctly strange.
Xia Yunzhao understood. Something must have happened before they arrived.
After a moment’s thought, he shifted his attention to the only two tables where the occupants’ spiritual power seemed unaffected.
One table was right beside theirs, on the right. Only one person sat there. He wore extravagant red robes and was fairly good-looking, but his expression was foul, as though everyone in the world owed him money.
Xia Yunzhao sensed his cultivation and nodded. Not bad. With that temperament, the man really did need higher cultivation, or someone would beat him to death the moment he stepped outside.
He looked to the other side. There sat a male cultivator who, besides Xia Yunzhao, was the only other person at early Foundation Establishment. He appeared to have only just broken through, and his realm was still unstable. His features were passable, but he had dark circles under both eyes and a lecherous gaze, as though drink and sex had hollowed him out.
Two beautiful women in palace dress sat on either side of him. One fed him wine while the other massaged his legs. Behind him stood four pretty young women fanning him.
Xia Yunzhao’s gaze swept over the two women in palace dress without letting them notice.
After looking around, he turned back toward Shang Shuangze. Their eyes met, and both understood what the other was thinking: wait and see.
Over the next while, more than ten people arrived one after another, all showing the same instability in their spiritual power.
Two severed heads were also delivered. Judging by the spiritual-power fluctuations lingering on the corpses, both men had probably been at late Foundation Establishment when alive.
According to the guards’ report, those two had been unwilling to attend the city lord’s banquet, and that was why they had lost their lives.
The city lord smiled and told the guards to go collect their rewards.
At that moment, a cultivator who had arrived not long before could no longer hold back. He stood and cursed angrily, “Bullshit city lord! Using poison, such rotten, filthy, despicable tricks, you’re even more shameless than demonic cultivators! I don’t care what you want. I’m telling you, your grandpa today will…” Before he could finish, his head rolled off.
It went rumble-rumble a long way before the neck stump began spraying blood. Blood splashed across the faces of the cultivators nearby, yet no one dared make a sound.
Coldness settled in Xia Yunzhao’s heart. He had not sensed any fluctuation of spiritual power at all!
He turned toward Shang Shuangze, and Shang Shuangze silently mouthed a few words.
Xia Yunzhao took a deep breath and did not act rashly.
Servants around them efficiently came forward to clear away the corpse and blood. Before long, everything was clean, and the smell of blood slowly dissipated.
The city lord said with a smile, “Every fellow Daoist here is a dragon or phoenix among men. I’ve heard many stories of your heroic deeds. I invited all of you today precisely because of the icefield’s small secret realm that is about to open.”
Everyone tensed. Here it comes.
The city lord looked faintly embarrassed. “This matter is somewhat difficult to say. As everyone knows, that small secret realm only allows Foundation Establishment cultivators to enter. I am ashamed to say that I am already at the Golden Core stage and cannot enter myself, so I can only ask all of you for help.” He smiled. “There is a spirit medicine inside called the Nine-Heart Snow-Soul Lotus. Whoever brings it to me will be richly rewarded.”
One cultivator trembled as he said, “City Lord, forgive me. Our spiritual power is so sluggish right now that we can barely run. How are we supposed to enter that secret realm?”
The city lord said calmly, “Rest assured. Once you enter the secret realm, the medicinal effect will naturally be removed.”
Just then, a bell suddenly rang outside. Xia Yunzhao, Shang Shuangze, and the red-robed cultivator all looked out at the same time.
An invisible ripple moved through the air like a slow wave on water.
The city lord rose and shoved both palms outward. An irresistible surge of spiritual power swept over them like a violent storm and flung everyone out. “The small secret realm has opened. Fellow Daoists, be on your way!”
Xia Yunzhao’s heart tightened. This was peak Golden Core!
Yes. The words Shang Shuangze had mouthed to him earlier were precisely: peak Golden Core.
Xia Yunzhao instinctively tried to resist, but Shang Shuangze wrapped an arm around him and lightly patted his back. Xia Yunzhao understood immediately and pulled every trace of spiritual power inward, allowing none to leak out. Like two overlapping leaves, they were swept away together by the gale.
A sensation of weightlessness struck, and the temperature abruptly plunged.
Colder than the north, colder than Xuanshuang City. It was the kind of cold that could strip all warmth from a person in an instant and freeze the living into ice sculptures.
While still in midair, Xia Yunzhao pulled out his Fire-Rat spirit garments. By the time he landed, they were already wrapped tightly around his body.
Shang Shuangze had done the same beside him.
The two of them stood there in warm, blazing red, like two enormous flames.
Still uneasy, Xia Yunzhao took out Cold-Dispelling Origin-Transforming Pills and swallowed one together with Shang Shuangze. Once the pill entered his stomach, he could not feel the cold at all. It was as though a furnace were burning inside his chest and abdomen, wonderfully warm and comfortable.
Xia Yunzhao had only just relaxed when a voice nearby said, “Not a bad pill.”
That voice sounded familiar.
After thinking for a moment, Xia Yunzhao knew who it was.
He turned and saw the red-robed cultivator standing nearby, arms folded, looking the two of them up and down.
The man still wore those flashy, impractical red robes but seemed completely unaffected by the cold.
Xia Yunzhao greeted him with a smile. “What a coincidence. We meet again. May I ask this fellow Daoist’s surname?”
“Pei Guansheng.” The red-robed cultivator turned away coldly, leaving only one sentence behind. “I am determined to obtain the Nine-Heart Snow-Soul Lotus. I hope you two are not my enemies.”
Xia Yunzhao watched his retreating back. The man’s cultivation method was unusual. When he circulated it, golden-red light radiated from his body and the temperature around him soared, melting the snow underfoot and leaving steaming puddles behind.
“Even a tiny secret realm like this is full of hidden dragons and crouching tigers,” Xia Yunzhao sighed. “Good thing we only want the Innate Snow Essence.”
He turned back and asked Shang Shuangze, “What’s going on with that city lord? Is he difficult to deal with?”
Shang Shuangze said, “If we find the Innate Snow Essence, he won’t be difficult to deal with.” Then he added, “He wants the Nine-Heart Snow-Soul Lotus so he can advance to the Nascent Soul stage.”
It took Xia Yunzhao a moment to process that before he slowly drew in a sharp breath. Nascent Soul… that was already the realm of great powers who could overturn rivers and seas, people who could go outside and be addressed as Ancestor.
No wonder the city lord was willing to poison people just to obtain the Nine-Heart Snow-Soul Lotus inside the secret realm.
Still, whether he could actually get it remained uncertain. Thinking of Pei Guansheng, who had just left, Xia Yunzhao had a strong feeling that the man would not be easy to handle. The city lord might have schemed so carefully only to end up doing all the work for someone else.
Xia Yunzhao had no time to worry about the rest. They still needed to find Innate Snow Essence.
How? Naturally, with the Spirit-Seeking Compass!
The Spirit-Seeking Compass could locate Level-One and Level-Two spirit items, while Innate Snow Essence was Level Three. Fortunately, the Snow-Soul Lotus that nurtured it was only Level Two.
Xia Yunzhao adjusted the Spirit-Seeking Compass to Level Two, and scattered points of starlight immediately appeared on its surface. As before, the two of them headed toward the nearest one.
The secret realm was a world of ice and snow. Snow that had accumulated for who knew how many years swallowed a person to the waist with every step. Fortunately, Xia Yunzhao had the Lightness Technique, so traveling was still fairly easy.
Shang Shuangze walked slowly behind him, constantly watching their surroundings.
As they continued onward, they soon came across a fresh corpse.
The dead cultivator was pitiful. He looked eighty or ninety years old and still had a freshly picked stalk of Coldsmoke Grass clenched in his hand, yet for some unknown reason, he had simply collapsed and died.
Xia Yunzhao shook his head. The north was bitterly cold, and even cultivators that old still had to come out personally to search for resources.
He had not seen this cultivator at the city lord’s residence, so there were probably other entrances to the secret realm besides the one there.
That made sense. Xuanshuang City had said that anyone who met the conditions could enter the secret realm.
He and Shang Shuangze had simply been especially unlucky, dragged to the city lord’s residence, poisoned, and then handed an assignment on top of it.
They continued on and found two more corpses, both similarly white-haired and elderly in appearance.
Xia Yunzhao gradually stopped. Something was wrong. He had not sensed any danger at all, so how had these cultivators died?
Wait…
In the icy wilderness, sweat appeared on Xia Yunzhao’s forehead. One of the secret realm’s rules was that cultivators entering it could not be over fifty years old.
He turned. “Shang Shuangze…”
For one instant, he saw Shang Shuangze with snow-white hair and a face lined with wrinkles. When he blinked again, Shang Shuangze was back to normal.
Shang Shuangze was also watching him, waiting for him to continue. Suddenly, Shang Shuangze frowned and strode toward him.
As he drew closer, Xia Yunzhao saw the ends of his hair turn white, the color creeping upward strand by strand. “Don’t move!” he shouted.
Shang Shuangze immediately stopped.
Xia Yunzhao took a deep breath and slowly lowered his head. It was a formation. There was a time formation inside the secret realm!