The snow had not actually been falling for very long, but to the people standing beneath it, it already felt like an eternity, so long that they had become dazed and could no longer imagine where the end of this snowfall lay, or whether they would still make it home in time for dinner tonight.
Until the beautiful woman beneath the umbrella walked onto the drill ground—
The Spirit Sect Leader was famous throughout the realm, yet very few people had truly seen her. But when the umbrella tilted slightly upward, scattered snowflakes drifting past that peerlessly beautiful face, while the hem of her robe lifted beyond the umbrella in the wind and every flake vanished before it could wet the fabric, they all felt a premonition: the recent turmoil in Southern Yu might finally come to an end amid this whirling snowfall.
The jianghu people on both banks of the “Chu River” stirred in small pockets.
Zhu Shou Xin was already striding quickly toward the beautiful woman.
When the sky fell, the tall ones were supposed to hold it up. Now that two tall ones had failed and been crushed to death beneath it, he sincerely hoped to find a third towering figure. It would be even better if that person were not his future mistress.
His feelings were extremely complicated. On one hand, he hoped Wu Xuan Yin could kill Pei Yuan Jin and Fu Xi Yan and avenge him indirectly. On the other, he feared she would follow in the Taoshan brothers’ footsteps and become a “Taoshan sister.” If that happened, even if he somehow escaped the drill ground alive, his luck would have run out anyway.
Zhu Shou Xin bowed to Wu Xuan Yin and was just about to report what had happened when she walked straight past him toward the row of corpses he had moved off to the side.
The Taoshan brothers. The Southern Ridge Sect Leader… Their bloodless faces had turned bluish and stiff in the ice and snow.
She lowered her eyes and let her gaze pass over each face, gentle and sorrowful, before saying softly, “I did not kill Boren, yet Boren died because of me.”
Elio’s Notes: Boren was the courtesy name of the Eastern Jin official Zhou Yi. The old line “I did not kill Boren, yet Boren died because of me” is used when someone did not personally kill another person but still bears indirect responsibility for the death.
If Fu Xi Yan had been awake to hear that, he probably would have let out a Zhuge Liang-style lament: “How can anyone beneath Heaven be so shameless?”
But he was not, and everyone else kept their commentary safely inside their heads, so the scene remained remarkably peaceful.
Standing behind her, Zhu Shou Xin said in a low voice, “Pei Yuan Jin killed all of them.”
For a Martial King to kill two peak Martial Kings was enough to show how terrifying Pei Yuan Jin’s combat ability was. Around him, the usual pattern of a Martial King duel ending with one dead and one wounded seemed almost never to apply. It had nearly happened today, but the Earth Mirror had barged in like a cheat code and let him escape unscathed yet again.
Zhu Shou Xin briefly explained how Pei Yuan Jin had killed the younger Taoshan brother, then exchanged attacks with the elder and still withdrawn intact.
“By Heaven’s grace.”
Someone seemed to murmur the words softly, but if one tried to trace the voice, no one could tell who had spoken.
Only Wu Xuan Yin knew that the voice had come from inside the sedan chair.
She said, “There won’t be a third time.”
The person inside the sedan fell silent.
Wu Xuan Yin slowly walked to the boundary of the Chu River. Her eyes carefully studied Fu Xi Yan’s face in Pei Yuan Jin’s arms before she sighed. “I knew back then that he was very good-looking.”
Pei Yuan Jin raised his head slightly and returned her gaze with razor-sharp eyes.
Wu Xuan Yin said, “I received your challenge letter, but you never wrote a time or place. Since that’s the case, there’s no better day than today.”
Pei Yuan Jin said coldly, “If the Taoshan brothers were still alive and you joined forces with them, you might have had a chance.”
Wu Xuan Yin countered, “And how do you know my chances aren’t good now?”
Pei Yuan Jin looked toward the black sedan chair and the monk standing before it. The monk had no hair, but the age in his features was obvious. He looked to have passed fifty.
The monk pressed his palms together in greeting.
Pei Yuan Jin withdrew his gaze. “All four of you together?”
Before Wu Xuan Yin could answer, the monk who had greeted him could no longer suppress his curiosity. “How did you know there were four?”
At that, the monk carrying the rear of the sedan also came forward. At first glance the two seemed similar because of their clothing, but their faces could not have been more different. The first had a square face and large eyes, while the second had a round face and small eyes.
Pei Yuan Jin seemed too lazy to answer such a childish, obvious question, until the person inside the sedan said, “I’m curious too. Why couldn’t they be carrying an empty sedan?”
The moment he spoke, He Si Yu looked over, unable to hide his shock. At his cultivation level, he had not even realized anyone was inside until the man opened his mouth.
Pei Yuan Jin said, “You spoke just now.”
He did not elaborate, but the person inside the sedan, Wu Xuan Yin, and the two monks all knew he meant the words, “By Heaven’s grace.”
The person in the sedan praised him. “The younger generation truly inspires awe.”
After a pause, he added, “Yin Yin, be careful.”
Wu Xuan Yin had already crossed the Chu River and Han Border. He Si Yu looked at Pei Yuan Jin as though waiting for him to entrust someone over. Fu Xi Yan was unconscious, and if Pei Yuan Jin wanted to fight at full strength, the best choice would be to hand him to He Si Yu.
Instead, Pei Yuan Jin stood, flicked his arms, and tossed Fu Xi Yan onto his back. He then tore his outer robe into strips, tied them together one by one, and bound Fu Xi Yan securely to himself.
Wu Xuan Yin smiled. “Does this count as you bullying me with superior numbers?”
Pei Yuan Jin asked, “Are we fighting or not?”
With a flick of her hand, a Dementor appeared in Wu Xuan Yin’s palm. “We’re fighting!”
The Crimson Dragon King in Pei Yuan Jin’s hand transformed into a fiery dragon and swept toward her.
She remained where she was, but her gaze rested on He Si Yu some distance away. Just as He Si Yu raised his guard, the Dementor in Wu Xuan Yin’s hand gave a hum. She vanished from where she stood and reappeared behind him.
Without even turning, He Si Yu swept the Moon-Soul Spear backward. At the same time, the Crimson Dragon King, like a true dragon, wheeled nimbly around after missing its first strike and joined the Moon-Soul Spear in attacking Wu Xuan Yin from both sides.
At last, a faint smile appeared on Wu Xuan Yin’s face.
No one else understood why she had waited until the Taoshan brothers were dead before making her move. Only she knew that she had to do this to keep her Dao heart from collapsing.
Her Dao was the Dao of overcoming the strong from a position of weakness.
The “weakness” here did not refer to an objective comparison of combat power, but to something she recognized inwardly.
It could be the situation. It could be the number of people.
That was why, when Ban Qing Yu pressed her relentlessly, she had yielded again and again until there was nowhere left to retreat, then struck back from desperation. That was why, when Qin Xiao Xun was captured, she had gone alone to rescue him. That was why she could not join forces with the Taoshan brothers. And that was why, even now, she had found Pei Yuan Jin a helper, forcing herself to fight two opponents alone.
He Si Yu, forcibly dragged into the fight, turned with difficulty, but before he could steady himself, Wu Xuan Yin struck him flying with her left palm. Whatever one thought of the Martial God Stage being some wrongly leveled-up version of the Martial King Stage, here at least, Martial God Wu Xuan Yin held absolute dominance over Martial King He Si Yu.
She discarded the Dementor after draining its true qi and immediately replaced it with another.
Pei Yuan Jin’s Crimson Dragon King was already slashing toward her face.
Her eyes sharpened as she unleashed Martial God pressure. The Dementor turned in her right hand while her left palm pushed out lightly, but a sword had more reach than a hand. Unaffected by the pressure, the Crimson Dragon King hacked down toward her forehead. Wu Xuan Yin drained the true qi from the Dementor and caught the blade between the fingers of her left hand when it was less than an inch from her brow.
A searing pain flared where her fingers touched the blade.
Wu Xuan Yin could even smell something scorching. Her expression immediately darkened. Beautiful women were always especially protective of their skin. A single pimple could feel like an emergency, much less a burn.
With a flick of her right hand, she produced another Dementor. The spiritual energy around the two of them seemed to be sucked dry in an instant. The red glow of the Crimson Dragon King dimmed. Wu Xuan Yin lightly flicked her fingers and knocked the sword several inches away. Such a tiny distance was enough for her to slip free of the blade’s pressure.
And at that exact moment, He Si Yu attacked!
Fu Xi Yan held the book in both hands, his emotions impossible to describe. He had thought that a book chosen from ten thousand would surely be some peerless cultivation scripture, the kind that would let him dominate the entire cultivation world the moment he mastered it and have everyone kneeling in worship. Then he opened to the first page and immediately began to doubt himself.
* * *
The first page read: Required Reading for Ghost Cultivators.
Fu Xi Yan closed the book. “I didn’t finish listing my requirements just now. Let me say it again: I need a secret manual that I can finish practicing very quickly, leave this place immediately after mastering, and then become invincible under Heaven as soon as I get out.”
The book slowly floated upward. Just when Fu Xi Yan thought it had finally developed some self-awareness and was preparing to leave voluntarily, it dropped heavily back down and smacked his palm hard.
The force seemed to say: It’s me! Me! There is no one else!
Fu Xi Yan muttered, “Do you have to become a ghost before you can cultivate as a ghost cultivator…? Wait. I’m not already dead, am I?” He suddenly grew anxious, getting more agitated the more he spoke. “I’m in the prime of my youth, healthy as an ox… and I’ve even got portable health insurance following me around. I can’t die this early! If I die, what happens to the Heaven-and-Earth Mirror’s quality guarantee? How am I supposed to find the next customer?”
The book impatiently flipped itself to the second page: The soul is the essence of a person. Upon reaching the Mahayana Stage, it may exist independently outside the body. It is often said that the mortal flesh burdens ascension, and that the difficulty of ascending lies in the body itself. What this book teaches is to cultivate and refine the soul before the Mahayana Stage. If one day the physical body becomes a burden, discarding it is no great loss!
Fu Xi Yan was instantly absorbed.
If he remembered correctly, during the battle at Luo City, Mo Xiao Ran and Shi Yi Ming had both allowed their souls to leave their bodies. And Mo Xiao Ran changed bodies as casually as changing clothes. Could he have learned that technique from this very book?
He closed the book and carefully read the title on its cover. “The Soul-Essence Art.”
The book in his hands violently flipped itself open to the third page. If it could speak, it would probably already be pointing at Fu Xi Yan’s nose and cursing him. Reading the cover instead of the contents was like eating the rice husk and throwing away the grain. There had to be something wrong with his brain.
Fu Xi Yan pulled his attention back and continued reading. “If the flesh of an arm is lost, what then? Flesh may regrow. If part of the soul is lost, what then? Once lost, it remains forever lacking; cultivate it and replenish it. Yet what is replenished is not the original soul and will ultimately carry flaws. Refine the soul, temper the spirit, and preserve both without loss. In time the soul shall move freely, unbound beneath Heaven and Earth.”
Whoever had written this book clearly had not done so in hopes of achieving literary immortality or providing exam material for future generations. The writing was straightforward, and as Fu Xi Yan read and thought, he actually understood it.
As he read farther, he found himself unconsciously beginning to practice along with the text…
More than a dozen Dementors were already rolling across the ground. If the situation had not been so tense, the spectators might have started wondering just how enormous Wu Xuan Yin’s sleeves were and how she could possibly have hidden so many balls inside them.
* * *
The duel had reached a fever pitch, and all three combatants were wounded. Pei Yuan Jin was injured on the arm, He Si Yu on the back, while Wu Xuan Yin had two injuries between her fingers and another on her cheek. The Crimson Dragon King’s sword qi had left her cheek swollen and the wound charred black, turning that breathtakingly beautiful face into something eerily terrifying.
Wu Xuan Yin had few Dementors left, and equally little patience.
By now, she had completely figured out Pei Yuan Jin’s swordsmanship.
Like his Dao, it followed a broad, forceful path that advanced without retreat. There was little technique to it, and little need for technique. He did not even care about Martial God pressure. He truly had the qualifications to be arrogant.
After she drained another Dementor’s true qi, Wu Xuan Yin swept her left hand gently as though trailing it through lake water. Yellow earth from the ground and white snow from the air suddenly whirled upward, while the spiritual energy around Pei Yuan Jin and He Si Yu was once again emptied. With both men continuously consuming the true qi inside their bodies and receiving no spiritual energy to replenish it, they were beginning to look like spent forces.
At that moment, the two monks who had been watching from behind the crowd, in front of the sedan chair, pressed their palms together. Each folded one leg while lightly pushing off with the other, soaring over the crowd and descending toward the battlefield.
“Benefactors, this poor monk has come to ferry you onward.”
They spoke in perfect unison, their voices ringing like evening drum and morning bell. The moment the words sounded, many people of lower cultivation involuntarily began to weep.
“I’ll stop them.”
The Moon-Soul Spear shot from He Si Yu’s hands. The square-faced monk extended one hand, apparently slowly, yet in a flash he had seized the shaft. At the same time, the round-faced monk hurled his entire body at He Si Yu.
He Si Yu showed no fear. His right hand clamped tightly around the spear shaft while his left arm bent slightly, elbow braced to meet the body charging into him.
At the instant of impact, what He Si Yu faced hardly felt like a man. It was a mountain, an immovable mountain!
He was blasted backward. If his right hand had not been gripping the spear while the other end remained trapped in the second monk’s hand, he might have flown straight out of the drill ground. Worse, in that split second he felt as though his soul had left his body, because he actually saw the back of his own head, only to snap back into himself the very next instant.
It happened so quickly it almost felt like an illusion, but he was certain it was not.
The monk was also startled to see that He Si Yu’s eyes remained bright and focused.
The square-faced monk said, “A fine spear.”
He Si Yu gave his hand a slight shake. The Moon-Soul Spear violently tore free of the monk’s grip and stabbed toward the round-faced monk’s throat. The instant the latter dodged, He Si Yu reversed the spearhead and thrust at the square-faced monk beside him.
Both monks retreated one step.
On the other side, Pei Yuan Jin was pursuing Wu Xuan Yin with slash after slash of sword qi from the Crimson Dragon King.
Wu Xuan Yin kept dodging, clearly exploiting the lack of spiritual energy around him in an attempt to exhaust his true qi. The situation obviously favored her, but what she could not understand was why Pei Yuan Jin was cooperating.
Only when she realized he had maneuvered her five or six zhang away from the main battlefield did Pei Yuan Jin suddenly stop.
Meanwhile, through repeated feints and misdirection, He Si Yu had opened a gap of roughly one spear’s length between the two monks. He suddenly swung the Moon-Soul Spear and lunged at the square-faced monk. The monk instinctively stepped back once and stopped, but this time He Si Yu did not feint as he had before. The thrust came in for real.
The round-faced monk behind them had been waiting for He Si Yu to stab at the square-faced monk and then turn back to attack him. When He Si Yu failed to turn around “as agreed,” he finally realized the other man had reversed the trick of making the false seem true and the true seem false. Realizing he had been duped, he immediately launched a flying kick.
He Si Yu heard the wind behind him but never turned. He simply allowed the leg to draw closer and closer while the Moon-Soul Spear in his hands inched steadily toward the square-faced monk’s throat.
The square-faced monk suddenly realized something. If He Si Yu were struck by that kick, the momentum would accelerate the spear in his hands and drive it straight through the monk’s neck!
He hurriedly shouted, “Wait!”
The round-faced monk waited. He Si Yu did not.
The result was that the Moon-Soul Spear finally tore open the square-faced monk’s skin, while Pei Yuan Jin arrived just in time to sever half of the round-faced monk’s kicking leg with a single slash!
A soft sigh sounded in the air.
The square-faced monk before He Si Yu suddenly dimmed in the eyes, then brightened again. The Moon-Soul Spear pierced straight through him. Extreme shock spread across his face, his mouth falling slightly open as though he wanted to say something, but with a spear lodged through his throat, he could only make faint clicking sounds before collapsing unwillingly to the ground.
At the same time—
The Southern Ridge Sect’s second disciple, who had been kneeling beside his Sect Leader and crying himself nearly unconscious, abruptly collapsed. Before the others could help him, he sat bolt upright, ignored the shocked looks of his junior brothers and sisters, strode quickly to the sedan chair, pressed his palms together in salute, and then stood respectfully before it.
Meanwhile, the round-faced monk whose leg Pei Yuan Jin had half severed curled into a roll and tumbled all the way toward the sedan chair.
The person inside the sedan muttered to himself, “I seem to have gotten the short end of this deal.”
Across the field, Wu Xuan Yin saw one monk dead and the other injured, and killing intent finally appeared in her eyes. She swept up every remaining Dementor and drained them all at once. An enormous volume of true qi flooded her body, yet a strange expression crossed her face.
There was no time to think about it. Pei Yuan Jin and He Si Yu were already attacking from front and rear.
Wu Xuan Yin swept her wide sleeves. The Dementors scattered across the ground spun into the air, buzzing endlessly like mosquitoes as they circled the two men without any apparent pattern.
Pei Yuan Jin said, “Be careful not to get pricked.”
When Dementors were first created, they had not been made to store true qi. They had been made to store human souls.
That forced both men to spend a great deal of effort dealing with the Dementors in the air.
Watching anxiously, He You You could not help saying, “Father, I’ll help you!”
He Si Yu shouted angrily, “Stay back!”
Wu Xuan Yin gave He You You a cold glance. He Si Yu immediately shifted his position and placed himself between Wu Xuan Yin and his daughter.
Wu Xuan Yin looked back at Pei Yuan Jin.
She was waiting, waiting until both men were truly at the end of their strength, and then… she would kill them in a single strike. Yet as she circulated her true qi, she could find nothing wrong with her true essence. So why did her entire body feel inexplicably unwell?
The Crimson Dragon King flashed with fire and split a string of Dementors in two before her eyes. She decided not to wait any longer!
Wu Xuan Yin flung up both sleeves. She vanished from where she stood and reappeared behind Pei Yuan Jin in the same instant.
She raised her palm as though about to strike. Pei Yuan Jin turned exactly as expected. The corner of Wu Xuan Yin’s mouth lifted slightly, tugging at the wound near her eye.
But Pei Yuan Jin had turned only to send the Crimson Dragon King, now shrunk to the size of a hairpin, stabbing toward Wu Xuan Yin.
Having already heard how the younger Taoshan brother had died, Wu Xuan Yin had been prepared for this move. She lifted her left hand and, just as she had at the beginning of their fight, caught the hairpin with perfect precision between her fingers while her right palm chopped toward Pei Yuan Jin’s forehead.
At that very moment!
Right then!
In less than the blink of an eye—
Fu Xi Yan, slumped against Pei Yuan Jin’s shoulder, opened his eyes.
His first thought had been to tell Pei Yuan Jin just how ridiculously amazing he had become this time and brag properly about it. Instead, the instant he opened his eyes, he was greeted by an enlarged view of Wu Xuan Yin’s disfigured face.
In an instant, ten million grass-mud horses stampeded across the great prairie of his heart, each carrying a giant “WHAT THE FUCK” over its head!
Without thinking, he shoved her away.
That instinctive push landed directly against Wu Xuan Yin’s right palm.
How should one describe the scene?
If someone had not watched the long battle leading up to this and saw only their current posture, they might have thought two old friends meeting after many years were about to say, “High five!”
The moment Fu Xi Yan’s palm pressed against hers, one sentence flew straight out of his mouth. “I’m dirty.”
The force in Wu Xuan Yin’s palm was the power of a Martial God. If a mountain stood before it, that palm could split the mountain; if a sea lay ahead, that palm could flatten the sea. When that strike landed on Fu Xi Yan, what he felt was every possible kind of soul-piercing agony… followed by instant repair. He only had time to hiss out the first half of a pained “hiss-ah” before the “ah” became unnecessary.
Pei Yuan Jin’s attention was clearly captured by the words Fu Xi Yan had blurted out.
His wife was dirty now? Absolutely unacceptable!
In an exceedingly rare move, Pei Yuan Jin released the Crimson Dragon King and drove a fist straight at Wu Xuan Yin’s true essence.
Wu Xuan Yin’s physical body was actually extremely weak. Like Ban Qing Yu, she had once advanced to the Martial God Stage through a method equivalent to pulling seedlings upward to force their growth, leaving her foundation unstable from the start. Later, when dealing with the Regent, she had no Dementors available and had been forced to fight with her own body, worsening her physical condition even further. Then, during her battle with Yi Jue, she had fought until every Dementor she carried was exhausted. One could say that she possessed the name of a Martial God while her body itself might not even compare with that of an ordinary person.
Pei Yuan Jin’s punch nearly severed her final thread of life.
Nearly.
She released the Crimson Dragon King and, clinging to her last breath, shot backward at incredible speed, almost the full speed a Martial God could display. She staggered to the black sedan chair and collapsed beside it.
The person inside sighed. “If you had come with me back then, how would you ever have ended up like this?”
Wu Xuan Yin clawed at the yellow earth and whispered, “Save me.”
The person in the sedan said, “I’ve already helped you. What about the thing you promised me?”
Wu Xuan Yin said, “Save me, and I’ll go with you.”
The person inside sighed. “I once told Hu Luo Luo that neither of your two disciples could compare with you. If they worked together, they might still carve out a place for themselves. If they appeared united while their hearts were divided, they could only struggle on. If they became irreconcilable enemies, then the Spirit Sect’s fate would be exhausted. I wanted to take you away only to leave the Spirit Sect one path of survival. There is no need for that anymore.”
Wu Xuan Yin slowly raised her head. “Kill… Pei Yuan Jin and Fu Xi Yan.”
The person in the sedan gave a soft laugh. “You truly are deeply devoted to that little emperor. Fine. I agree. But I have another condition. You only need to agree. Don’t ask what it is.”
“…Fine.”
Wu Xuan Yin’s vision had already blurred completely, while the strange discomfort in her body grew stronger and stronger. She reached toward Zhu Shou Xin.
Zhu Shou Xin dropped to his knees before her, terrified and despairing.
Wu Xuan Yin thought she was leaning sideways against the ground, but in truth she was already lying completely prone, with the ruined half of her face exposed. “Once those two are dead, return to the palace immediately and tell him…”
Zhu Shou Xin bent low and brought his ear closer.
At that moment, a hand extended from inside the sedan. With thumb, forefinger, and middle finger, it casually pinched at the air above Wu Xuan Yin’s body, then swiftly withdrew.