That scene naturally wasn’t an illusion. The Hundred-Refinement Landscape Scroll had brought them into an unfamiliar mountain forest.
Something stirred in his arms, and Xiao Qing flew out. It looked around in confusion, as if it couldn’t make sense of what it was seeing.
Xia Yunzhao asked, “What’s wrong?”
Xiao Qing’s lid opened and closed twice before it flew back into his arms. It wasn’t sure either. Something had seemed to attract it just now, but the feeling was gone.
Seeing that it was fine, Xia Yunzhao let it nestle there and surveyed their surroundings. “Hey, look at that tree. That’s the one I saw from outside. It really is huge!”
Shang Shuangze looked up as well and, sure enough, saw an enormous tree stretching between heaven and earth.
From outside the scroll, they had only been able to tell that it stood much taller than the other trees. Now that they were here in person, they realized it was far more than merely tall. It was even larger than the mountains beside it, its crown hanging overhead like a cloud from the heavens and blotting out the sky and sun.
“I wonder what kind of tree that is. Half of it is actually black.” Xia Yunzhao stared up at it for a long time, itching to investigate. “Should we go closer? Maybe we can pick up a leaf?”
A tree capable of growing that enormous had to be some kind of spirit item. He wondered if it could be used in alchemy.
Shang Shuangze would have been perfectly willing to accompany him on his leaf hunt, but there was something more important at the moment. He swept a glance toward the nearby woods and said quietly, “Someone’s coming.”
Xia Yunzhao heard the footsteps too. When he turned around, seven or eight people emerged from the trees, watching them warily.
The group was dressed rather strangely, somewhat like hunters, with ropes tied around their bodies.
Seeing their wariness, Xia Yunzhao smiled and was just about to say something when his gaze suddenly stopped. One of them had a colorful ribbon hanging from his body. It looked oddly familiar…
The people opposite them didn’t notice where he was looking. One of them spoke first. “*&%&*￥”
Xia Yunzhao put a hand to his forehead. Great. He couldn’t understand a word!
Then Shang Shuangze said, “He’s asking whether we’re people from outside the mountains.”
Xia Yunzhao froze. “You can understand them?” Then it clicked. “Right, you could understand Grandma too!”
Shang Shuangze smiled, apparently remembering the first time he had translated for Xia Yunzhao, when Grandma had said Xia Yunzhao did nothing but eat and sleep like a little pig.
He turned and said something to the group.
The hunter-like people relaxed slightly. “&%*￥…”
Shang Shuangze explained, “I told them we came to gather medicinal herbs. They said herbs can’t be gathered in the mountains today, but we can do it tomorrow.”
Xia Yunzhao looked at the sky. It seemed close to nightfall. Was the mountain dangerous after dark? Too curious to let it go, he took out his own ribbon and put it on, then whispered, “Can you ask what their connection is to Grandma?”
But before Shang Shuangze could speak, the expressions of the people opposite them changed the instant they saw the ribbon. The man at their head gave a few instructions, and a young man immediately turned and ran off.
Xia Yunzhao understood at once. He had gone to fetch someone.
Sure enough, it wasn’t long before the crowd parted and another group came out of the forest.
At their head was a woman in her sixties. Although she looked nothing like Grandma, her bearing was remarkably similar, except this grandmotherly figure was somewhat more imposing.
Her clothes were also different from everyone else’s, formal and solemn. She was probably a leader or perhaps some sort of priestess.
His guess was right. The elderly woman was indeed the priestess. She came up to Xia Yunzhao, glanced at the ribbon on him, and asked in stiff Common Tongue, “Spirit cultivator?”
Xia Yunzhao thought it over. Was “spirit cultivator” simply what these people called cultivators? He nodded.
The priestess asked again, “Ribbon. From where?”
Xia Yunzhao quickly removed the colorful ribbon and handed it to her. “An elder in my family gave it to me. It’s meant to keep me safe.”
The elderly woman examined it carefully, handed it back, then turned around. “Follow me.”
Xia Yunzhao and Shang Shuangze exchanged a look and followed.
Xia Yunzhao noticed that the group’s attitude toward him had changed considerably. Although they couldn’t speak to one another, the original wariness in their eyes had become curiosity, mixed with what seemed to be a touch of affection.
The group passed through the woods. They clearly hadn’t walked very far, yet by the time they emerged from the trees, the sky was already dark.
Every so often, the others glanced back to make sure the two of them were still following. Only after seeing them keeping up without trouble would they relax.
After walking for more than an hour, Xia Yunzhao finally saw a village nestled among the mountains and forest.
Had these people actually brought them to their own home?
The villagers seemed curious at the sight of strangers. Xia Yunzhao had no idea what the two sides said to each other, but several elderly people soon crowded around him, tugging him this way and that to get a better look, touching the colorful ribbon, and muttering nonstop.
Xia Yunzhao hurriedly looked at Shang Shuangze. Shang Shuangze shook his head regretfully. He couldn’t understand these particular words either.
Luckily, Xia Yunzhao was practically a professional at dealing with elderly people. He talked and gestured for a while. It didn’t matter that no one understood anything, because the elders soon began nodding in satisfaction anyway.
The priestess at their head said something else, and only then did everyone disperse. Xia Yunzhao and Shang Shuangze followed her into the largest wooden house at the center of the village.
The houses here were unusual too. They looked like little raised pavilions. Perhaps because the climate was relatively humid, the lower level was left open and people lived only upstairs.
Once inside, Xia Yunzhao tugged Shang Shuangze down to sit obediently beside him and asked with a smile, “Is there something you’d like to ask me?”
The priestess looked at him and said stiffly, “This place. Dongshan clan.”
Xia Yunzhao understood. Right, he had heard before that Grandma was a member of the Dongshan clan. He felt a little regretful now that he had never asked Grandma’s name. Otherwise, he might even have been able to help her find her relatives.
Priestess Grandma seemed to have taken him for a descendant of one of their clanspeople and began telling him the history of the Dongshan clan. “A thousand years ago, Mountain God spoke…”
Her Common Tongue wasn’t fluent, but she spoke very simply, so Xia Yunzhao quickly pieced together the story. Many years ago, something had gone wrong in the mountains. Seeking a way to survive, some members of the Dongshan clan left while the rest remained behind to guard their ancestral land.
The colorful ribbons were woven from a spirit herb called Peacegrass and had originally been meant as a wish for a safe journey. The clanspeople who remained tied the ribbons onto those leaving the mountains and watched them depart. Once they left, countless years passed.
After that, the meaning of the ribbon changed. To the clanspeople who had gone beyond the mountains, it still represented safety and peace. But to those who stayed behind, it came to embody their longing for distant family.
Xia Yunzhao understood. Grandma must be a descendant of the group that had left the mountains.
When Priestess Grandma finished, she looked at him and asked solemnly, “Outside the mountains, they… are well?”
Xia Yunzhao smiled. “They’re doing great. They found a little town where they could settle down, and I think they even have a caravan now.”
A trace of tenderness flashed through Priestess Grandma’s eyes, and she murmured something. This sentence didn’t need translating. Xia Yunzhao felt he understood it anyway: That’s good.
But the tenderness lasted only an instant. The next moment, the priestess turned stern again and pointed toward the room next door. “Go sleep. Children. Sleep more.”
Xia Yunzhao didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “I’m already in my twenties. I’m not little anymore.” He actually still had quite a few questions, such as what had happened to the Dongshan clan back then, and whether the problem had ever been resolved.
Priestess Grandma was insistent, however. Once it was dark, children ought to sleep. Whatever questions he had could wait until after he woke up.
There was nothing Xia Yunzhao could do, so he went into the room with Shang Shuangze. It had been tidied spotlessly and contained a wooden cabinet and a wooden sleeping platform covered with a bamboo mat. There was also a thin quilt. He couldn’t tell what it was made of, but it was very soft and carried a clean, plant-like fragrance.
Xia Yunzhao sniffed. “This scent has a calming effect and helps with sleep.” He glanced outside again. The village was already dark, and apart from the occasional birdcall blown by the sentries, everything around them was silent.
Listening to those familiar birdcalls, Xia Yunzhao smiled. It really did feel as though he had returned to the lakeside camp. He took Xiao Qing out, set it beside the pillow, and beckoned to Shang Shuangze. “Let’s sleep first.”
Shang Shuangze smiled too. Both of them remembered the first night they had spent together at the lakeside camp. The camp had just been surrounded by Sharp-Claw Wolves, and the two of them had slaughtered more than a hundred of them together. Xia Yunzhao had been so exhausted he could barely lift an arm, so he had squeezed in with Shang Shuangze for the night.
Thinking back, that should have been the first time the two of them had shared a bed… The difference was that their hearts had both been perfectly innocent back then. Now, however…
Xia Yunzhao extinguished the oil lamp on the wall, then leaned over in the dark and bit Shang Shuangze lightly on the chin. In a whisper, he declared, “Now I’ve got a beauty in my arms!”
Shang Shuangze gave a soft laugh. The vibration of that low chuckle traveled through his chest to Xia Yunzhao’s ear. His hands slid lower and pressed suggestively against Xia Yunzhao’s waist, as though asking: Who exactly has whom in his arms?
Xia Yunzhao immediately behaved himself and said with a straight face, “Don’t fool around. Priestess Grandma is listening.”
Faced with such blatant turning of the tables, what else could Shang Shuangze do? He could only hold the “beauty” in his arms and go peacefully to sleep.
* * *
He slept exceptionally well. The only strange thing was that when he opened his eyes, everything before him was still pitch-black, even darker than it had been before he fell asleep.
For a moment, Xia Yunzhao was completely disoriented. Did I sleep right through the day? From the middle of one night all the way to the middle of the next?
Two warm hands were covering his ears. The moment Shang Shuangze felt him stir, he took them away and asked, “Awake?”
Sounds immediately poured in: voices, the chopping of firewood, children laughing and playing… Xia Yunzhao rubbed the corner of his forehead as he sat up. “Why is it so noisy in the middle of the night?”
“It isn’t the middle of the night. It’s morning.” Shang Shuangze rubbed his temples for him, cool spiritual power flowing through his fingertips in fine threads. The dull ache there vanished almost instantly.
Xia Yunzhao hurriedly asked, “If it’s morning, why is it still so dark?” He immediately remembered what Priestess Grandma had said yesterday: something had happened to the Dongshan clan. Could this be that “something”?
The two of them quickly got up and washed. With a turn of his hand, Xia Yunzhao took out the Level-Two lamp magical treasure and used it as a light source.
The moment he stepped outside, the feeling of familiarity became even stronger. It looked exactly like a morning at the lakeside camp: bonfires blazed, some people processed game, others prepared breakfast, while the elderly and children sorted through the day’s gathered harvests…
As he watched, Xia Yunzhao suddenly sighed softly. “I miss Grandma and the others. Once we get back, let’s go visit them.”
Shang Shuangze naturally agreed at once.
Thanks to that sense of familiarity, Xia Yunzhao fit into the village like a fish in water. Even the language barrier didn’t matter, and he quickly became a familiar face to everyone.
Watching from the side, Shang Shuangze found the whole thing remarkable. He felt a little sorry that he hadn’t known Xia Yunzhao as a child. Just how had he developed the ability to make friends wherever he went?
It wasn’t until after breakfast that a man of around thirty came to find them. In Common Tongue every bit as stiff as Priestess Grandma’s, he said, “Didn’t you say, gather herbs? Today can. I take you.”
Xia Yunzhao remembered the rare spirit herbs in the forest and immediately perked up, hurrying after him.
Besides the man, several other able-bodied men and women set out with them, though none of them could speak Common Tongue.
The group had barely left the village when Xia Yunzhao asked enthusiastically, “Big Brother, how should I address you?”
Shang Shuangze silently edged a little farther away.
The man gestured as he answered, “Fuliu. A kind of tree. Very good for building houses.”
Xia Yunzhao mulled it over. The sounds fu and liu definitely weren’t the characters he was thinking of, but there was no way to guess what the actual name was, so he would just call the man that for now. “Brother Fuliu, why couldn’t we gather herbs yesterday but can today? And why is there no sunlight today? How long will this darkness last?”
Fuliu opened his mouth. His Common Tongue was poor to begin with, and Xia Yunzhao had thrown so many questions at him in one breath that he couldn’t figure out how to answer.
Xia Yunzhao hurriedly said, “It’s fine, it’s fine. No rush, take your time!” He pulled out some snacks he had bought in Qingxi City and passed them around. “I brought these from home. Everyone, have a taste.”
The Dongshan clanspeople had rather interesting personalities. Xia Yunzhao and Shang Shuangze had suddenly appeared in their mountains, yet no one asked how the two of them had gotten there. They simply treated them as juniors of the clan, as though there were no real distinction between cultivators and mortals.
Now, seeing Xia Yunzhao handing out tasty food, they didn’t stand on ceremony either. They took the snacks and popped them straight into their mouths… One young woman took a bite, then immediately gestured in surprise. The meaning was obvious: Delicious!
Xia Yunzhao burst out laughing at her reaction, took out a few more, and gave them to her to eat at her leisure.
Whether it was the power of snacks or the power of Social Butterfly Xiao Xia, the group grew familiar with one another in no time.
They had nothing else to do while walking anyway, so everyone ate snacks while explaining things to Xia Yunzhao.
“Darkness, because Mountain God is sick,” Fuliu said. “Sick Mountain God can’t protect us. In daytime Mountain God weak. Can’t gather herbs. Evil spirits cling to you. Night is fine. At night Mountain God watches us.”
Xia Yunzhao listened in silence and exchanged a glance with Shang Shuangze. When they had first arrived yesterday, they hadn’t sensed any “evil spirits” at all, only dense spiritual energy. Of course, it was also possible that these “evil spirits” were simply some kind of metaphor.
The Dongshan people had lived in these mountains generation after generation. The experience they had accumulated absolutely could not be dismissed.
Perhaps there truly was some kind of “evil spirit” in these woods that the two of them simply couldn’t perceive.
The Dongshan clanspeople were accustomed to traveling in darkness and never lost their way. Before long, they brought the two of them back to the place where they had appeared yesterday.
Fuliu looked around and told them, “We hunt. You gather herbs. Four hours. Meet here.”
Xia Yunzhao nodded. Seeing that he still looked like he wanted to say something, Xia Yunzhao smiled. “Don’t worry. We’re cultivators, after all. Nothing will happen to us.”
Fuliu grinned and gave him a thumbs-up. “Spirit cultivators. Impressive.” Reassured, he finally left.
Xia Yunzhao took out the lamp magical treasure again and simply let it float in midair to illuminate the surrounding area.
It wasn’t his first time seeing this place, but he was still stunned by the sheer number and high levels of the spirit herbs here. “This is even more impressive than our spirit-herb garden!”
Shang Shuangze knew perfectly well that once Xia Yunzhao saw spirit herbs, he would be rooted to the spot. He took out several empty Hundred-Compartment Pouches and prepared them for use. They were the same pouches Yun Yi had used to hold spirit herbs for them during their previous seclusion.
The spirit herbs inside had all been used up by now, refined by Xia Yunzhao into all sorts of pills. They kept the high-grade ones for themselves, and whatever remained could be used as wages for the guard. As for the mid-grade pills, those had all been sent to Qingming Pavilion.
During those few days, Qingming Pavilion had put more than a hundred varieties of pills on sale. The cultivators in the city had reportedly caused quite a stir for a while, but after living in Qingxi City for so long, they all knew its rules. Excited or not, no one dared disturb the mortals.
Being thrown out would be no laughing matter. It wouldn’t be easy to find another place where buying pills was this convenient.
The moment Xia Yunzhao saw the Hundred-Compartment Pouches in Shang Shuangze’s hands, he immediately decided to go all out. “Let me see what goodies we’ve got here…”
Spirit herbs of Level Three or above generally did not grow in large wild patches except under special circumstances. When Xia Yunzhao said there were many herbs here, he only meant that there were many within ten li. To a Golden Core cultivator, that distance was practically arm’s reach.
The first thing Xia Yunzhao found was a Thousand-Knot Vine Leaf. It was a Level-Three spirit herb that could be used to refine the Thousand-Knot Pill, which deepened the connection between a cultivator and their lifebound magical treasure. Xia Yunzhao’s own lifebound magical treasure was rather unusual, however. Even before Xiao Qing had recognized him as its master, man and jar had already shared a very close connection. After recognizing him, Xiao Qing could even transmit vague impressions to him, so he probably had no use for this pill.
The same was true for Shang Shuangze.
They might not need it themselves, but they could sell it for money!
Next he found a Fleeting-Light Flower, which could be refined into a Fleeting-Shadow Pill that increased a Golden Core cultivator’s speed. Xia Yunzhao wouldn’t sell this kind of pill even when it came out mid-grade or low-grade; he kept them all at the City Lord’s Residence as wages. After all, his Fleeting-Shadow Pills were much more effective than the speed-enhancing pills normally found on the market.
Then he found an Ironspine Dragon-Scale Grass, which could temper the physical strength of a Golden Core cultivator… There was also Thunderclap Grass, which contained the power of thunder and could assist the cultivation of lightning-attributed cultivation methods…
With a magical treasure lighting the way above him and his partner standing guard at his side, Xia Yunzhao gathered herbs with complete focus and enormous enthusiasm. “Found another one! Let me see… Whoa, Tianling Ginseng! Why is there Tianling… Wait!” Xia Yunzhao suddenly realized something and smacked his forehead. “This is the Tianling Mountain Range!”
Shang Shuangze rubbed his forehead for him. How had Xia Yunzhao developed this habit of smacking himself in the head whenever he got excited? “The Tianling Mountain Range?”
Xia Yunzhao nodded. “I read about it in the notes from the spirit-herb garden. Tianling Ginseng is a rare medicinal herb and the main ingredient for refining Nine-Turn Jade Nectar. Taken together with Nine-Turn Golden Core Liquid, it can not only strengthen a Golden Core, but also repair one’s innate vital essence! But Tianling Ginseng only grows in the Tianling Mountain Range!”
He pointed at the ground. The meaning was obvious: Tianling Ginseng grew here, so this had to be the Tianling Mountain Range.
“The Tianling Mountain Range…” Shang Shuangze frowned slightly. “I’ve seen records saying that after the Battle of Wangjin Sea, the demonic qi in many spirit mountains could not be purged and had to be sealed away. The Tianling Mountain Range was one of them.”
“That’s exactly why I’m surprised!” Xia Yunzhao leaned closer. “The notes also said the Tianling Mountain Range had been almost completely corroded by demonic qi. Tianling Ginseng disappeared after that, and no one ever saw Nine-Turn Jade Nectar again. Only Nine-Turn Golden Core Liquid remained.”
He lowered his voice. “But seeing is believing. We’re standing inside the Tianling Mountain Range right now!”
Shang Shuangze thought for a moment. “Perhaps the records were wrong. Or perhaps, after a thousand years, the demonic qi here dissipated?”
Xia Yunzhao looked up at the pitch-black sky and lowered his voice even further. “Then what do you think that ‘Mountain God’ is?”
Darkness blanketed everything, so thick they couldn’t see their hands before their faces. There wasn’t even a thread of wind in the forest, and the silence made it feel almost unreal. There were no roars from slaughter beasts, not even the chirp of a bird or insect. It was as though the Dongshan clanspeople were the only living creatures in the entire place.
Xia Yunzhao suddenly realized something. If there weren’t even any birds here, then what exactly had those Dongshan people gone out to hunt?
Shang Shuangze asked, “Still gathering spirit herbs?”
Xia Yunzhao nodded at once. “Of course! The spirit herbs haven’t done anything wrong!” He had already checked them and found nothing wrong with the herbs themselves. Besides, they had the Hundred-Refinement Landscape Scroll, so of course they ought to gather as many as possible. This was Tianling Ginseng! Who knew how long it had been since an alchemist had gotten their hands on a living specimen?
Sure enough, Xia Yunzhao soon found several more Tianling Ginseng plants. This time, he not only harvested the ginseng but also used a spell to collect some of its seeds.
As a Level-Three spirit herb, Tianling Ginseng had a very low seed-harvesting success rate, only ten to thirty percent. Fortunately, there was plenty of Tianling Ginseng here, so Xia Yunzhao still managed to gather some seeds.
Then Shang Shuangze suddenly said, “Over here.”
Shang Shuangze rarely interrupted Xia Yunzhao while he was busy unless there was danger or something especially worthwhile nearby… His tone was calm rather than urgent, so Xiao Xia immediately hurried over with great enthusiasm. “What is it? What is it?!”
Amused, Shang Shuangze steadied his head and directed his gaze forward.
Xia Yunzhao looked ahead, and his eyes immediately went wide. “…I take back what I just said!”
Who said Level-Three spirit herbs couldn’t grow in great patches? That only proved he hadn’t seen enough of the world! Look, wasn’t there an entire patch right in front of him now?
On a sunken stretch of flat ground ahead grew an enormous patch of Tianling Ginseng. A rough count put it at a full seventy or eighty plants!
Tianling Ginseng, extinct in the outside world! Tianling Ginseng, capable of stabilizing the foundation of a Golden Core cultivator! And here it was growing right in front of him, looking almost cheaper than Lingwei Grass!
How could Xiao Xia possibly hold himself back? The fact that he didn’t scream was already a great display of restraint. His eyes shining, he grabbed Shang Shuangze and rushed over. “Quick, quick! Help me harvest them!”
Shang Shuangze loved seeing that expression on his face most of all and smilingly joined him in harvesting the plants.
The most important part of Tianling Ginseng was its root, so not even the finest rootlet could be allowed to break. The more complete the root system, the stronger the medicinal efficacy. And the older the Tianling Ginseng, the deeper its roots grew.
The two of them first harvested the younger plants. The few left afterward were all quite old. Even the youngest among them was at least six hundred years old, while the oldest had already passed a thousand.
Tianling Ginseng leaves bore tiny silver spots. They began with only three, and another appeared every hundred years, which made their age easy to determine.
A Tianling Ginseng more than a thousand years old was bound to have roots extending deep underground. Xia Yunzhao rubbed his hands together. He wanted to dig up these remaining plants himself.
Spiritual power seeped underground along the Tianling Ginseng’s roots and gently parted the soil bit by bit, allowing him to peel the entire root system free intact.
Xia Yunzhao quickly dug up several. When he reached the final plant, he repeated the same method and was just about to pull out the largest Tianling Ginseng when he felt an unexpected weight. Its roots seemed to have wrapped around something.
He tilted his head in confusion. A rock, perhaps?
His spiritual power spread downward and the Earthwalking Art activated. Xia Yunzhao himself did not move. Instead, he used earth-attributed spiritual power to turn over the surrounding soil so that he could extract the ginseng roots whole.
Rustle, rustle— The surrounding earth rolled away as expected, exposing a large pit. Xia Yunzhao looked down. “…”
The Tianling Ginseng’s roots were wrapped around a skull!
Looking more closely, it was an entire corpse, only now reduced to a skeleton. The place where it had been buried was precisely where these dozens of Tianling Ginseng plants had grown. Even the shape of the patch roughly matched the outline of the body!
No wonder the Tianling Ginseng had grown in a whole patch. So this senior had been feeding them all along…