Chapter 103

It was absolutely unknown how deep this Site went. Yan Zhengming’s body-protecting sword qi was akin to a sand castle on the beach, getting rebuilt countless times, then broken down countless times.

Was this actually the Da Xue Mystic Site?

Where were they heading to?

Were they to keep falling down like this, would they eventually end up falling to the bottom of the Sea of Beiming?

He had thought that he had seen the Leaf giving off light, which would have meant, that they were in the heart of the Site, but only now did he realize that that golden light had a very strong penetrating power, spreading out all over the place while the Golden Lotus itself was still thousands and thousands of li away.

He got the misperception that the reason why all of Beiming was so dark was because all the light was focused in on that Golden Lotus.

His defending sword qi crumbled once again, and he couldn’t muster the strength to condense another one, forcing himself to withstand the astral wind as he tightly guarded Cheng Qian in his arms.

He remembered what Cheng Qian had told to him in the Valley of No Sorrow; legend told that in a place where there was no life nor death, their Master and martial grandfather would remain together forever in, nothing else around except for some minor ghosts that refused to stay for long.

Yan Zhengming had never told Cheng Qian about the indescribable bond between those two, but he was secretly gratified about that conclusion.

If one could reunite with the soul of their beloved, what was a death by a thousand cuts? What was a mangled body with crushed bones?

He gently rubbed the time of his nose against Cheng Qian’s neck, thinking to himself, You’ve made me so mad in this life, that you’ll have to be a beast of burden for me in the next one.

Right when he was fancifully preparing for them to die as love martyrs, a bizarre true essence suddenly came up beside him like a divine army descending from the Heavens, adding a layer of body-protecting true essence to the both of them.

“…”

Wait a minute. Why was there someone else in this hellscape?

Despite it saving him, Sect Leader Yan had just been sunken too deep into his fantasies, and was a tiny bit annoyed at getting disturbed.

Fortunately, this inopportune ailment of his was not one that attacked his vitals. He reacted quickly, taking this precious bit of breath-catching time to harmonize his own disordered true essence. At the same time, he didn’t neglect to cautiously probe this unexpected helping hand.

The body-protecting essence was divided into two layers inside. The inner layers closest to them was extraordinarily warm, like a quilt heated by the stove in winter, instantly penetrating his limbs and all his bones. The outer layer was extraordinarily cold, though, exactly as intense as the Site itself.

Who could have such extensive power?

Someone was heard to speak lightly into his ear. “Focus. You’re a bit impatient. Your swordwill’s aggressive nature is too strong and will incite the astral wind of this place; restrain it a little.”

He turned his head slightly. “Who…?”

The other didn’t answer, but a melody resounded from somewhere far away, getting closer.

The tune was elongated and relaxed, like weather turning warm without warning after a spring snow; the stagnant ice chunks inside a deteriorating lotus pond slowly melted, exposing a minute hint of the life hidden within the sludge, and the fish of the coming year brushed away the withered branches and dead leaves of the season prior, exposing glinting scales.

And so, millions of lotus leaves resembled the gently lifted skirt of a beauty slowly stretching out their body with grace, escorting a lotus flower washed with clean water…

He couldn’t tell what instrument that was, but felt his heart that had been unsettled because of Cheng Qian now settle a bit. The true essence of his whole body flowed steadily inside his inner sanctum for a few full laps. He took a deep breath, then became aware of his own mistake — he had been too concerned about Cheng Qian just then, and horribly provoked by the astral wind, that his swordwill had nearly dropped a realm.

He gradually gathered up his leaked-out sword qi, and the astral wind really did weaken by a lot in its wake. After not long, it cooled down again.

He lowered his head to adjust Cheng Qian’s position. “Thank you…” he said quietly, “My junior wasn’t doing too well. I might have had a moment of letting that hot-bloodedness get to my head.”

The music’s last lingering note dimmed, its ending tone now stopped. “It’s just a trifling curse,” the other said. “It can be resolved. No need to worry too much.”

Yan Zhengming gently pulled Cheng Qian’s face up. Looking over it carefully in total worry for a short minute, he discovered that the black qi and weird, ear-shaped mark that had been between his brows were both gone. Apart from the fact that his body was getting hotter and hotter, there was no other abnormality to be seen.

Odd, he thought to himself. Looking at it like this, it doesn’t seem like soul-painting.

“I wonder if your esteemed self could look and tell me what kind of curse is on him?” he tentatively asked.

“The Spring-Autumn Curse,” the voice answered mildly. “You cultivators seem to call it ‘soul-painting’, which sounds very mighty. It’s actually just a minor skill, though. Don’t put it to mind.”

Yan Zhengming raised a brow — what did they mean, ‘you cultivators’? “Dare I ask who your honor is—“

“I am no such ‘honor’,” the voice answered breezily. As if unaccustomed to the polite manners of speech of humans, there was some rigidity in that breeziness. “I am only a flower spirit born along with the Golden Lotus.”

As they spoke, a gray figure flashed before Yan Zhengming’s eyes. It was vague, its age and gender unclear, and resembled an unremarkable moth within the harsh Da Xue Mountain and increasingly dazzling golden light; with the slightest bit of inattention, they would have been overlooked.

He slightly narrowed his eyes, unsure of how this spirit planned on dealing with them, the two intruders.

The spirit appeared to be able to tell what he was thinking, and got straight to the point. “Don’t fret too much. The reason why I came out to protect you two was by order of the Lotus.”

Yan Zhengming was caught off guard. Even though he was frequently conceited in his own excellence, he wasn’t narcissistic enough to believe that flowers would bloom whenever they noticed him. Extreme vigilance arose within him. This stupid flower isn’t going to make us into fertilizer, right?

“Today’s Lotus Leaf bloomed because of you,” the spirit said. “You naturally have the privilege to take it. Follow me.”

“…”

The Lotus was inviting him to take its Leaf? It saw that he was about to get slapped to death by the Site, so it specially sent a spirit to protect them?

This was a daydream, right?

There was a saying: ‘chasing after the customer is not sound business.’ That wasn’t even mentioning how he was used to always being unlucky; he firmly refused to believe that such bullshit luck could land upon his head.

Frowning, he tentatively asked, “That… is staggeringly flattering to me, let alone anyone else, but it was that preceding demonic cultivator that opened a hole in Da Xue, and their base is likely higher than mine. How could I be worthy?”

“That ghost cultivator’s base is indeed higher, but he doesn’t have the qualifications — because he’s not a grandmaster of demons.”

“…Excuse me. Neither am I.”

“The great Lotus Leaf can wash off all sins of the human realm. It represents a rule in and of itself; it isn’t that whoever has the higher base is the one that gets acknowledged. The one that it acknowledges is no discussion of righteous versus nefarious or demonhood, but must be able to influence the situation and standards of one party. This is called ‘having influence’, and influence involves ‘power’. I can see that you’re a righteous cultivator. Perhaps you don’t have a particular area of excellence, yourself, but all the other great powers of your generation are dead, and that ‘power’ has fallen to you. That’s nothing shocking. Don’t be afraid.”

“…”

That sounded like he was a slightly better candidate picked out of a bunch of bad ones, but when he thought about it… it really seemed to be the case.

After Tong Ru’s death was the generation of the Four Sages. Now, with Shang Wan’nian’s passing and Bian Xu’s decline, the era of the Four had since gone. Within the demon-elimination move, both the Celestial Divination Bureau and Nightmare Travelers’ Nine Sages were defeated, and all the vital energies of the major sects had been hurt before the Ten-Party Array. This was truly an age where the mountain had no tigers, allowing him, a monkey, to be called king.

If nothing else, there was no way that them avoiding the death penalty for Han Yuan so easily had nothing to do with the rapid rise of the Fuyao Sect.

“That so-called Da Xue Mystic Site is actually just a protective barrier created by the Lotus itself in the Beiming Sea. Once it grows the Leaf, the Site falls apart in an incense stick’s worth of time, then waits once more for the next occasion of assembling beside the Lotus. You’d best move fast. Take the Leaf, then bring your junior away from here on your own. He’s only affected by minor soul-painting; with the Leaf, that can be broken with no more effort than it would take to blow away dust.”

Yan Zhengming got the general sense that this Leaf was a bit hard to believe in, so he had to ask, “Forgive my stupidity, but I need to ask more — what is meant by ‘washing by away all the sins of the world’? Let us say that someone has massacred the innocent, their sin heavy and deeds already done. Could it be that as long as they have this Leaf, those that have died can live again?”

The spirit was startled by this question, then smiled after a moment. “Most of the people I’ve seen in the Site were demonic cultivators. As expected, you righteous ones don’t think alike… the dead cannot be resurrected, of course. The ‘sin’ I spoke of is not the same as what you’re thinking of. Since you’ve entered the Sword Spirit Realm, you presumably have already sensed the thing mysteriously fastened to all cultivators…”

“The path of Heaven,” Yan Zhengming answered.

“The path of Heaven has clearness, muddiness, liveliness, stillness, longness, shortness, thickness, and thinness. What is rigid then breaks, what is sturdy then falls. The path of Heaven makes demonic cultivators’ bases progress rapidly, and also makes them fond of killing and blood, believing it to be a balance. For the demonic path to become sacred, it must have never been tainted with blood all their life. The path of Heaven wants balance. Cultivators… this alleged ‘sin’ is also a way it balances. It causes cultivators to consider consequences and restrict their own behaviors with their own fears, so as not to end with divine tribulations at the ends of good and evil.”

During this speech, Yan Zhengming’s feet touched real ground. It seemed like he was near the Site’s outback; those overbearing astral winds had vanished at some unknown time.

In the wake of his true essence’s circulation, the wounds of all sizes on his body began to mend. He firmly held Cheng Qian, and did not proceed any further, standing where he was. “What you mean is that the Leaf sounds almighty, but in plain words, it’s a red apricot escaping guilt before tribulations?”

“Stemming from mud, remove its filth and take its cleanliness — if you insist upon saying it like that, then you’re not wrong.”

Yan Zhengming felt an indescribable conflict, that fatal magnetism from the Leaf diluting.

The spirit stood ten steps away from him. “The path of Heaven is not benevolent, taking all life as straw dogs — what is the difference between the righteous and evil, to the Great Dao? And yet, you mortals can’t see through that.”

Yan Zhengming simply wanted to sneer at that. If that were the truth, what significance would Han Yuan’s five hundred years of whipping have? Just stick a lotus leaf onto his forehead, and he would turn into a pure and guiltless little lamb on the spot!

Right then, he heard the sound of a plant breaking through the soil, after which an exotic aroma that was hard to put into words came through. The spirit raised their head slightly. “The Golden Lotus is blooming, the Leaf that can cloud the eyes also unfurling…”

Yan Zhengming was startled, looking up in the direction the spirit was facing to see a gold lotus no more than two fists big floating above the ground. Very close to the flower, that bizarre golden light actually wasn’t that strong, unspeakably sanctified; and yet, its roots were buried deep into the pitch-black Beiming Sea’s waters, giving a strong contrast.

So that was it… this site could extinguish all lights, including the natural night pearls, because the ice here had been made from that extremely dark Beiming water!

For some reason, as soon as he saw it, a certain reverence grew within him.

The spirit sighed quietly. “This is the heart of Da Xue… since it unfurled for you, cultivator, it is yours.”

Yan Zhengming didn’t move, though.

The spirit glanced at Cheng Qian. “The Leaf is as a flower that blooms at night; once fully unfurled, there is only an incense’s worth of time it has before it withers, and the Site collapses in its wake. This is a worldly treasure that all humans bust their heads open wanting; what are you still mulling over?!”

There was some insuppressible anxiety and entreaty in the spirit’s tone. Yan Zhengming was almost inspired to rebel from their urgency, thinking, The Emperor isn’t in a rush, but the eunuch is. Where’s the reason in that?

Noticing his wavering expression, the spirit immediately prescribed the right medicine. “You might be able to wait on the Leaf, but your junior’s soul-painting likely won’t, soon!”

Those words stuck right into his mortal acupoint. While he continuously approached the lotus, Cheng Qian’s fate grew paler, and by the time they got over there, the hair on his temples were already completely soaked through with cold sweat, and his fingers were unconsciously spasming into fists. His entire body was shaking, as if he was enduring immense pain.

“Are you planning to watch him mutilate himself to death in your arms in order to not kill you?”

Yan Zhengming finally couldn’t resist anymore. He set Cheng Qian down to let him lean against him, then freed up one hand so that it could reach out for the Golden Lotus Leaf that made every demonic cultivator alive go wild.

And at this critical moment, Cheng Qian woke up.