Chapter 88

Yan Zhengming sighed. He turned to look back, seeing through the Stone Seed, and caught sight of bird-Shui Keng perched on Cheng Qian’s shoulder out of curiosity. The two were in the middle of taking the Bureau scrolls, having no intention of returning for right now.

He lowered his head, slightly closed his eyes, and pinched the bridge of his nose, as if extremely fatigued.

His features had been delicate since childhood, and made him look like he had walked out of a painting. Yet, with this shut of the eyes, he no longer did; he just looked like a stone statue.

A stream amongst the mountains trickled down in spring. The flora’s perfume on either shore of it all practically turned into mist.

Coming to autumn, the water level lowered, and traces of rocks were exposed to the surface.

“What did Xiao Qian say to you in the Valley of the Heart Demon?” Li Yun asked.

Yan Zhengming’s expression lightly drifted away.

“Ahh.” The other understood at once, using a vulgar and blatant gaze to immorally look Yan Zhengming up and down. “Ah, Sect Leader, you don’t need to keep playing innocent when you’ve gotten what you want. You’ve really never come across good luck in your lifetime, only getting your wishes fulfilled every once in while. I can tell that you’re pleased…”

He paused there, pondered for a short while, then quickly thought up a figure of speech that he believed to be most accurate. “…and pissing yourself in fear.”

“…”

As someone obsessed with cleanliness, Yan Zhengming could put up with Li Yun being all sorts of worthless, but he absolutely could not tolerate the tramp associating such indecent vocabulary with him. For a second, he felt that his own tongue would be dirtied by this guy’s speech, so he went straight to violence.

“Hold it!” Li Yun raised a hand to cover his head with, dodged to the left and the right as he folded up the slip of paper that was stained by fresh ink, then carefully stowed it away in his lapels. Once done, he took in a deep breath and pat himself on the chest in full contentment, looking like he had received a life-saving talisman.

“Trying to hit me?” he huffed. “You need to think carefully about what you do, Sect Leader. I’ve now got a handle on you. You’ll have to remember from now on to always be a little nicer to me, else if you’re not careful, you’ll scare my weak heart, and — oops! This slip might just get shown to Xiao Qian!”

What was the use of keeping a junior like this around?

I might as well fatten him up a little, then kill him for the meat on New Year’s, Yan Zhengming evilly thought.

Cheng Qian knew not a thing of the violent undercurrents surging between those two. He had accepted the scrolls from Zhe Shi, who was pretending that they had never met before, and was momentarily conflicted.

Zhe Shi had learned via various channels that Cheng Qian had come back from the dead, but this was the first time he had seen him in person in so very long.

He offered up two scrolls with both hands. After looking at Cheng Qian for a short moment, his eyes suddenly went red while his back was turned to the others. Soon after, he took a step back, then cupped his hands and bent his waist in a deep bow. When he raised his head once more, he had resumed his tranquil blankness.

Owing to Yan Zhengming having been exceptionally difficult to serve when young, Zhe Shi had been exceptionally meticulous amongst the many Daolings. Cheng Qian recalled that the other hadn’t spoken much, nor had he been as personable as Xue Qing, doing all his tasks in an orderly manner and having little presence. His looks hadn’t even changed all that much over the years. It seemed like only yesterday that he had been following their most senior brother, pouring tea and polishing seats, but now… he was already a different person.

Cheng Qian collectedly stowed one scroll Zhe Shi had stuffed into his hands into his sleeve. Maintaining his persistently unreasonable look, he unfurled the other scroll — its surface was empty as air, with only a sizable Demon Elimination Seal upon it.

The Bureau had sent over two scrolls, which was saying that Fuyao was to send out two people.

Cheng Qian showcased a cold sneer with difficulty. “Your faction’s Sir Wu really doesn’t skimp out on the slightest detail when it comes to tallying people up. He won’t let even one fish slip the net.”

At that moment, an urgent burst of drums was heard coming from not too far away. At the foot of Tai Yin, a human-made barrier suddenly rose up, resembling a mountain that had been drawn out of nowhere.

The Ten-Party Array!

“My fellow Daoists that have received the Demon Elimination Seal,” Wu Changtian’s raised voice came, “please take a temporary rest and join the array in the night, at the time of the Rat!(11p-1a) Over here, please, Mr. Tang.”

By the time Cheng Qian and Shui Keng returned to the Stone Seed, Yan Zhengming and Li Yun had each put on unruffled faces.

As soon as he saw that Cheng Qian was back, Yan Zhengming took the initiative in greeting him. “Xiao Qian, come here.”

Cheng Qian looked at him in suspicion, wondering if the other had done something disgraceful. Why else would that recent coaxing have not gone smoothly, yet he was now being friendly on his own accord?

Fortunately, it was currently not the time to fret over trivial stuff, so Cheng Qian didn’t go after him.

Zhe Shi had passed him two thumbrings. Li Yun took them, then felt along their edges, soon finding the hidden mechanism on one of them. Gently breaking it open, the ring split from the middle.

The object had been designed elaborately. After it was flipped over, the inner wall was seen to be inlaid with a small mirror.

Li Yun exhaled, soon swiping it with his hand. The mirror gave off its own light, shadows appearing to flash past inside it, so he quickly found a piece of xuan paper and allowed the mirror’s light to fall right onto its white surface. A column of handwriting came into being amidst the rays. “Someone’s done something…”

The words on the surface blinked successive columns in and out of existence. Linking them up, it went: Someone’s done something. When I made inventory of the array’s spiritual stones, I found that they weren’t in line with the regular consumption of a Ten-Party Array, but mysteriously less. I couldn’t find out who did it, and there’s no signs of other arrays in the area. The one that did the tampering likely didn’t do it just for those worthless stones; they’ve either secretly modified the array, or have made further arrays nearby, but my cultivation base is too low to detect them. This person’s secret methods are the type seen only once in a lifetime. Additionally, Wu Changtian has someone amongst the Nine Sages of the Nightmare Travelers. I don’t know who it is. Open the hidden mirror on the thumbring after entering the array, and you’ll be able to see the environs outside upon it. This is a hasty warning, and I’ve omitted a lot of details. Take caution, by all means.

The Ten-Party Array had been laid out by both sides, and it would have never been possible for the Bureau to bribe every single demonic cultivator, with the two keeping watch on each other. Tang Zhen, the impartial party, had even verified it after the fact. There had not been much leeway for tampering with the array.

“An array outside of the array is the most likely probability, then…” Li Yun furrowed his brow. “But, this is weird. If the righteous path gets the ultimate win, wouldn’t the outer array be useless? If the demonic cultivators win, then the instant that array strikes against them, the Bureau will have violated the blood oath, and violators suffer tenfold backlash. Wouldn’t that just be injuring a thousand enemies, only to lose eight hundred yourself? Unless… the outer array isn’t meant to go after the demonic cultivators at all.”

If it wasn’t meant for them, then it was obviously meant for some other party.

Yan Zhengming used his ancient fan to lightly tap against the white sheet. “Toss a bunch of cultivators whose eyes are red with murder into an array, let them fight out who lives and who dies, and the one that wins in the end will come out, only to get hit in the face with being bound to the inside of the outer array. I feel like this scenario sounds familiar.”

“How so?” Shui Keng asked.

“It’s like gu-raising.”

She immediately shuddered. She was a bird, yet feared bugs — a truly unique quality. She rubbed at the goosebumps that were showing up on her skin. “But isn’t Wu Changtian going in it, too? Do they not care about him?”

“The Divination Bureau’s internal factions fight like black-eyed chickens. They might not be from the same side of power.” Cheng Qian crossed his arms in front of his chest. “That means preparations need to be made to break another array… I only have superficial knowledge of the array’s making. It’s too complicated for me to understand clearly.”

“Don’t look at me,” Yan Zhengming said. “I don’t understand it, either.”

Li Yun forcefully grabbed his own hair. “I could actually… ugh, but I’d be outside the array. There’s no way I could help.”

“That’s easy to deal with. Do you still have any Toad Liquid? If you take a bowl of it yourself, I could bring you with by hiding you in my sleeve.”

After saying that, though, Yan Zhengming appeared to imagine a scene where he was carrying around a toad, and suddenly changed his mind. “Nevermind. Xiao Qian could bring you with.”

Li Yun grinned nastily and beat his own chest.

“…” Yan Zhengming threatened him with his eyes, face unchanging, then egged him on. “Fine. If you really don’t want to, think up some other way.”

The other got serious. “Even though I can’t go in, there’s someone who can.”

The second he said that, there was no need to make a clarifying statement; everyone else knew that that someone who would be in the array, and was also knowledgeable of its making, could only be Han Yuan.

Cheng Qian went quiet for a minute. “That seems to not be… impossible, but we likely won’t be able to meet up with him.”

Han Yuan might not be willing to collaborate, but, in everyone’s hearts, he was still trustworthy. Even if he wasn’t affiliated with the same team, he was still one of them.

Yan Zhengming lightly sighed. “Take everything you all have out.”

Potent talismans, medicines, night pearls, directional insects, and other such things, as well as the True Dragon Flag, were quickly heaped into a heap all at once.

Yan Zhengming took inventory, explained in detail how to use a few of the rare items to Cheng Qian, and then became a bit fretful; this event might not cost them a home-breaking fortune, but it would still be a good deal of blood paid. They likely wouldn’t be able to make the Bureau compensate them, either.

“If we lose this much in property again, we’ll have nothing,” he speculated. “Once this is done and over with, let’s use the chaos to reap profits.”

He was a proper sword cultivator, yet was preoccupied with money from morning ’til night. It left an uncannily bitter taste in the mouth.

In a wink, the time of the Rat arrived.

Heavily exposed to the deep of night, the Ten-Party Array looked even more mystical.

Han Yuan was the first to stand. An enraged black dragon was seen to flash behind him, leaving its long, serpentine shadow upon the ground. In an instant, all of the fires surrounding him were thoroughly extinguished, which terrified the cultivators. Half of his face was immersed in shadow, and he tilted his head with an arrogant smile, unspeakably untamed.

The Nine Sages followed him. The group of demonic cultivators, united in appearance yet divided in minds, entered the array.

People on the outside could not see the inside of the Ten-Party Array, only the two rows of candles at its entrance, which summed up to twenty from both sides.

In the wake of them going in, one side of ten candles abruptly lit up. Their heavy metal bases were instantly inundated with black qi, reflecting upon the lifelike, carved panlongs on their bodies, looking extremely malicious. The black qi rushed right up to the Heavens.

Winds were strong in mountains at night, yet the candles’ flames only appeared to grow. Disregarding any gust, they didn’t move a bit, somehow generating a slight feeling of eeriness.

The righteous cultivators with scrolls then walked out. This bunch had divided minds, but no appearance of unity, each one indifferent-looking. Not glancing at Wu Changtian, who was keeping watch before the array, they walked in by themselves in a single file line.

As they went inside, one after the other, the other row of candles also successively lit up. This side was comparatively simpler, appearing as ordinary white candles standing crookedly in a line, the spitting image of funerary condolences being giving to someone.

Right as Cheng Qian was about to step in, Yan Zhengming suddenly caught him. “Wait.”

After that, he raised his hand, pulled the old hair ribbon off of Cheng Qian’s head, and drew a new one out of his sleeve. After that, in the same way an ordinary mortal would, he held the ribbon in his teeth, combed his fingers through the other’s hair, gathered it together, and tied it up. Not a trace of the puppet charm’s aura showed through.

Yan Zhengming looked at him for a minute. The impulse to hug him was bubbling up in his heart, but since this was a public area, he was forced to quietly take his hands back. “As I see it, the internal doorway of the array might not go to just one place. After we enter, there’s a possibility that no one will be able to find anyone. Be a little bit more careful… what are you looking at? Do you even know how well I’m treating you right now? How about you anger me a couple times less from now on?”

As he watched him, Cheng Qian was purely thinking that he was a nag, and knew that if he kept going on like this, Queen Mother Yan was soon going to turn into just Mother Yan.

…But, for the sake of not further infuriating their most senior brother, he very smartly said nothing.

When they both passed Wu Changtian by without even a side glance, the latter called out to Yan Zhengming. “Please wait a moment, Sect Leader Yan.”

Yan Zhengming turned his head to him, raising one eyebrow. His bamboo fan whirled around in his hand. “What advice do you have?” he asked, smiling falsely.

“My junior brother, You Liang, has been studying hard without rest ever since the day he started down the path of the sword. He has never dared to slack off for a single moment, nor has he ever encountered messy affairs such as these before, and is still youthful in nature… if you find his aptitude to be acceptable, Sect Leader Yan, when this Wu is martyred, could I trouble you with the thankless task of instructing him on my behalf?”

Yan Zhengming actually did have something of a good impression towards that young, brainless sword cultivator, as ones with primordial spirits for said cultivation path were uncommon, after all. Sans his own brand of bizarreness, most of them were staunchly wise and rarely had distracting thoughts.

Even so, he did not display that tiny spot of favor, simply answering coldly. “When did the Fuyao Sect become a trash collector? Besides, our tiny, run-down settlement would never dare to dip its fingers into your Bureau’s brilliant disciples. Isn’t Gu Yanxue’s end not a lesson from our forebears?”

Saying so, he looked at Wu Changtian no longer, tugging at Cheng Qian. “Let’s go.”

The latter couldn’t resist looking further at Wu Changtian, though. Cultivators would label the end of their lives as ‘falling’, or, similar to mortals, with terms like ‘death’, ‘no longer being of the mortal world’, and so on. The word ‘martyred’ was not heard much.

He felt it rather unusual.

Cheng Qian had clearly been following right behind Yan Zhengming, but after entering the Ten-Party Array, they were nowhere to be seen to each other. As the latter had anticipated, its internal entryway did not open up to just one area.

It was so quiet inside the array, he could hear his own pulse. Its layout resembled a coffin with one large end and one small end; ghastly, with all of its walls bare. A long, narrow path led through to somewhere unknown, the space before him black and cavernous.

He secured Shuang Ren, advancing onward.

All of sudden, there was a glint in the darkness. He stopped in his tracks, seeing what appeared to be a humanoid figure standing there in silence.

Was a demonic cultivator already waiting here?

Frowning, he held his fist before his chest, politely cupping his hands. The person didn’t make a peep, cupping their hands at him in the same motion. He calmly swept his spiritual consciousness outward — no one was there.

Cautiously, he took a few steps forward, yet the entire walkway echoed with his steps alone, making one’s scalp automatically go numb. He made a hand sign, and then a cluster of cold flames hovered about a cun above his fingers, quickly illuminating his surroundings.

He saw a mirror in the other corner.

It was unclear what it was made of, but it was completely different from typical bronze ones. That human figure was almost wholly manifested therein. Cheng Qian had rarely peered into mirrors, let alone ever gotten such a detailed look at himself.

The mirror-person held a cluster of flames in hand, as well. The mirror’s surface did not distribute light like a normal bronze one; the features of the mirror-person were familiar upon first glance, yet also slightly not, upon detailed analysis.

But why was there a mirror here?

In the middle of his confusion, the mirror-person suddenly moved on their own!

‘He’ slowly lifted his head, smiling at Cheng Qian. The corners of ‘his’ slightly sharp and thin lips raised upwards, looking quite ill-intentioned, while there were no smile lines at the edges of ‘his’ gently upturned eyes, gaze like a secluded pond.

“…”

This was the first time he was learning that he could be so creepy.

Despite his alarm, he drew Shuang Ren without delay, and slashed at the mirror.

The mirror-person suddenly jumped out from its surface. ‘His’ height, outfit… and even that small wound the Demon Extermination Array had left on his neck were all exactly the same as his own!

What was even worse was that ‘he’ was holding a matching Shuang Ren!

The next instant, two swords that were no different from each other collided in midair, producing a screeching sound that made one’s teeth ache. Even their styles looked like the same master had taught them!

Still, with this exchange, Cheng Qian was calm at heart. He had calculated the depths of the one before him via the blow, and they were inferior to him; his style had been only superficially imitated, and their swordwills weren’t at all the same kind, which illustrated that the odd mirror really was a demonic cultivator’s trick. This person had only appropriated a layer of his skin.

Following the mirror-person getting knocked back by the strike, they staggered for a moment, then collapsed to the ground. Coldly looking askance at him, they appeared as a very distorted Cheng Qian due to the black qi lingering about their refined appearance. He intended to rush in and finish this to get the matter completely done with, but his environment suddenly started lighting up.

Surrounding him on all sides were several neatly-arranged rows of frameworks that were covered by black cloths. Immediately after this, all the cloths simultaneously fell down, revealing the frameworks to actually be around a dozen full-body mirrors that were reflecting each other. This was far from good — countless reflections of Cheng Qian were being made within them!

He felt a tingling on his scalp, then heard a gurgling noise, as if something was coming out of water. A huge group of people that were identical to him, and carrying swords in the mirrors, shortly walked out of those mirrors, and they kept coming out, instantly weaving up a sea of people around him.

“…”

This demonic cultivator should have gone up against Yan Zhengming! Maybe this would have cured him of his terrible condition of loving nothing other than embracing his own reflection in the mirror!