Chapter 93

When Cheng Qian awoke, he was already inside the Stone Seed.

The sun had not yet risen up into the sky. The Seed had become the same sort of tiny courtyard it had been back at Vermilion Bird Tower, with green shade covering up blood. It was like a momentary paradise.

A hand was placed upon his forehead.

Cheng Qian pulled the hand down, opened his eyes, and discovered that he was lying on the lap of his eldest senior.

Yan Zhengming’s palm held several fine new wounds, and upon a closer look, it also had calluses left from wielding a sword for a long time. It appeared to be covered with past hardships, while only the smooth-looking back of this hand now remained so, still posing itself as being without care.

Yan Zhengming allowed him to hold it, but wasn’t giving him a great expression. His brows raised, showing him the look of an impatient eldest child. “Since you’re awake, get up, quick. You’re making my legs numb.”

Cheng Qian was limp and powerless from head to toe, supporting himself on his lap as he stared dead at him.

Yan Zhengming was made uncomfortable from his open gaze. “Did you nearly get frozen into a hopping corpse? That’ll teach you to show off again next time…”

Cheng Qian wasn’t sure which of his muscles was misfiring, but all of a sudden, without a bit of warning, he put the other’s hand up to his mouth, then gently kissed the back of it.

Yan Zhengming was immediately unable to berate him anymore, sucking in a tiny, cold breath brimming with self-restraint, minutely trembling at the same exact time. Barely able to hold up his own unperturbed facade, he was tongue-tied for a moment, feeling himself to be a bit soft on the outside, burnt on the inside.

He grunted, then said in a low voice, “I can tell that you’re not seriously hurt, since you still have the mind to flirt with your Sect Leader.”

While Sect Leader Yan said this, he was expressionless, and so composed, he was a bit grave, as if he could immediately undertake the task of helping a departed soul find peace; yet, his voice was so tender, water could be wrung out of it, much restlessness showing through his deadly seriousness.

The implication of this was that he was absolutely eager to get flirted with again.

What a pity it was that Cheng Qian didn’t have a romantic bone in his body. His left hand carried his overflowing, sincere feelings, his right held up fancy yet trite and vapid words, and in the middle of them was an upright wooden stake that had become able to prop up both the Heavens and the Earth.

That stake did not continue this topic, instead turning over, hugging Yan Zhengming by the middle, and burying himself in his abdomen.

It was silent in the Stone Seed. The chaos outside turbulently flashed through Cheng Qian’s mind; stuff about the Ten-Party Pledge, Hear the Universe, the righteous path, the demonic path… a million inconveniences whistled past as they filed out of his heart. He was so unbearably exhausted by it, he swept it all away with a sleeve, thinking to himself, Forget all that. I’m going to take a nap first.

Yan Zhengming’s familiar scent had the aroma of bitter medicine mixed in it. Nestled in his embrace, Cheng Qian’s mind calmed to clearness, and he couldn’t help but remember that preposterous, late-morning dreamland in Fuyao Estate.

He had gotten this old, yet the only married couples he had ever seen with his own eyes were peasant men and village women partnering up to spend their lives together — those mortals had done chores and quarreled all day long, never having any particular affections gleaned off of them. In those years, when he hadn’t been cultivating, he had been in seclusion, or drifting along the world’s paths, and before he’d even had the time to learn in spite of his ignorance, he’d gotten a pot of worldly love splashed right into his face, like a duck forced to roost up high.

He could only rely on himself, feeling about randomly like a headless fly.

Yan Zhengming was caught off guard by such a hug, both of his arms immediately suspending in midair at his sides. He froze, with no strength whatsoever, for a short moment. Realizing that Cheng Qian had zero intention to let him go, he thus asked, with amusement and helplessness, “What are you doing?”

Cheng Qian slightly tilted his face, eyes half-open in his haze; there appeared to be something of a foggy, exhausted smile in them as he looked at him. “Senior…”

“…”

Half of Yan Zhengming’s soul had been hooked by that look, and he involuntarily held his breath and stared at him. After waiting for a good time, though, he could wait no longer for Cheng Qian to keep speaking; yet, when he looked at him again, he went silent all on his own.

He fell asleep?

Yan Zhengming then realized that he had gotten a little overly excited. Cautiously setting down his hands that had nowhere to rest, he placed one on Cheng Qian’s waist, while the other gathered up the hair that had scattered over his knees. “Calling for me, then not saying anything,” he mumbled to himself. “You’re really getting more and more impudent.”

As soon as he said that, Cheng Qian, who was supposed to have since fallen asleep, suddenly spoke up; very breezy, yet not ambiguous at all. “I don’t know how to treat you well, but no matter what, I won’t turn my back on you.”

“…”

The second he heard that, Yan Zhengming was as dumbstruck as a wooden chicken. “What did you say?” he asked, as if he was sleepwalking.

Important words being said just once was enough. Cheng Qian refused to speak again, arms tightly hugging him as he slightly tilted his head down; this time, he really was going to sleep.

Yan Zhengming, however, grabbed his shoulders and refused to let up, chattering on. “Copper Coin, what did you just say? Say it again!”

Getting forcibly shouted awake by him on repeat, Cheng Qian grew annoyed, thinking, You’re so damn noisy. Can’t you let a guy rest?

Yet, when those words arrived at his lips, he could not break them out of them, shocked to discover that there had come a day where he couldn’t bear to scold him.

He thus held up a finger to his mouth, eyes as closed as ever. The corners of his lips slightly upturned, revealing an unsound smile.

Yan Zhengming’s eyes shortly went a bit hot around the rims, and a breath got caught up in his chest. After a little while, he felt a slight ache arise.

He had always suspected that Cheng Qian had only acted how he had in the Valley of the Heart Demon due to witnessing his demon, and done so for the expedient maneuver of not having him be trapped by it; actions that he might not have been heartfelt about, or truly comprehensive of.

Even if he had been heartfelt, were his cultivation to be delayed because of this in the future, would he not have regrets?

Upon hearing these words, he suddenly felt that, even if Xiao Qian truly did get annoyed with or tired of him one day, cherishing these moments would be enough to support him all the way through the endless life of a cultivator.

Beyond that, Cheng Qian always kept his promises. There was no one in the world that was clearer on that than he.

The Ten-Party Array at the foot of Tai Yin finally turned into a farce.

Tang Zhen’s giant eight-trigram plate had been made from some kind of unknown deity, because it didn’t shatter until the Ten-Party Array had been broken, harmoniously falling down from the sky and landing upon the sea of blood and mountain of corpses.

The blood oath was still in place, so, according to the agreement, the current situation dictated that the demonic cultivators’ side had lost.

What a pity it was that no one really cared about winning or losing for right now.

The Third Prince had blown up and died, the Skeletonizing Array broken. The cultivators, having caught their breaths, had then flocked to bring down Xuan Huang, who had been in a gridlock with Tang Zhen for quite a long time.

After this was done and over with, the crowd filled with enmity exchanged looks, having pretty much no idea where the conversation should start from here.

It had been the Celestial Divination Bureau that had used the ancient Demon Elimination Seal to force the various major sects over here in a war with the demonic cultivators. Despite said war having a strong start, yet weak end, many experts had died within the Ten-Party Array, the Skeletonizing Array had been buried partway through the Bureau’s revolt, trap, and disturbance of the peace, and the Third Prince’s move of hiding spies in every sect had killed more than the Ten-Party Array had, which was another debt of blood that had nowhere to be paid.

Conversely… the one that had broken the Skeletonizing Array with his body, thus freeing everyone from it, had been that very Bureau member.

Love triangles were distressing enough, to say nothing of this hate triangle.

The foot of Tai Yin had desolation filling the eye, with corpses upon corpses being collected and wounds upon wounds being healed. The Nine Sages were dead, and most of the demonic crowd had suffered injuries, essentially leaderless. Out of the fear of suffering losses, they all departed in succession.

According to the agreement, Han Yuan ought to be going with the Bureau to the capital, but its members had massacred each other until not many remained; Wu Changtian was dead, Xuan Huang was getting hung up for mass criticism by all the sects, and You Liang had carried Wu Changtian’s clothes away dispiritedly. No one was around anymore, which left behind a bunch of small fry that were too afraid to provoke him, even with the blood oath’s suppression.

In result, the number one devil of the land was crouched boredly at the doorway of the Stone Seed, not entering, nor going too far away.

Li Yun came out from the Seed, then observed him with complicated emotions for a time. His raised hand hung in the air for a good amount of time, after which it sadly fell back down — he had been in a bit of a daze, but the one before him was no longer that kid that had followed after him to look for bird nests.

Han Yuan turned back to look at him upon hearing the noise, not making a sound.

“What are you planning on doing?” Li Yun asked.

Han Yuan tranquilly pondered this. “Will what I say matter?” he asked, slightly mocking.

Li Yun had nothing to say to that.

“Is Cheng Qian still alive?” Han Yuan asked again.

“…He’s just lacking in strength. His aura will harmonize after a minute.”

“Is that so? Your Sect Leader Yan looked so worried just now, it was like his wife was about to give birth.”

“…”

Han Yuan looked up at the tiny courtyard the Stone Seed had transformed into, then caught sight of Shui Keng sitting on the wall far away, looking at him, yet not coming over.

It could be that she didn’t have anything to say to him, or that she feared him.

Who had made him say that he was going to draw out her skeleton, really?

Han Yuan appeared to mock himself, then appeared to laugh cynically. Knowing that he was probably a bit of an eyesore here, he turned and went for the remnants of the Ten-Party Array.

After wavering for a while, Li Yun suddenly called out to stop him.

The other looked like he had back when he had admitted at the mountain cave pool that he had intentionally tricked Han Yuan into going to the back of the mountain, seeming like he had to drum up a great amount of courage to speak. “You are aware that Fuyao Mountain not opening to this day is because Master added a three-path lock of the Heavens, the Earth, and humanity inside of the Sect Leader Seal?”

Han Yuan raised a brow slightly as he looked at him coldly, as if saying, ‘This is an internal matter of your sect. What does it have to do with me?’

Li Yun gazed back at him steadily. “To open the lock of humanity, we’ll need the true essence of five people — five, including you.”

Hearing this, Han Yuan was surprised at first, following which his face spasmed slightly, as if he had been slapped by the person he was closest to, heart senselessly welling up with dejected grievances that he had nowhere to relay.

“Xiao Yuan,” Li Yun lightened his voice to ask, “was that really the Three-Lives Mystic Site that fell out of the Third Prince’s sleeve? What did you see inside?”

The other sneered. “I saw all of you dead. Happy?”

With those estranged-sounding, cold words, Li Yun said nothing for a moment, but his face held sorrow.

Right then, Shui Keng, as she was up on the wall of the Stone Seed, suddenly started to speak. “The Mystic Site is considered to be part of the path of heaven. Our Fuyao sect has only ever walked the path of humanity since ancient times. With those that are irrelevant, who trusts who… who… uh, that’s… that’s what…”

The final piece was clearly rather vulgar, as she was too afraid to say it, stammering out a mess.

Whether it was the words in front or the rude words in back, that hadn’t sounded much like her typical manner of speaking. Han Yuan lightly smiled. “Tell Sect Leader Yan to mind his own business for me, won’t you?”

With that, he walked a few steps away, then suddenly stopped, swapping owners again in the blink of an eye.

This Han Yuan even turned to smile at Li Yun, immediately after which he drew a palm-sized scale out from a pocket. “Second senior, go on and hand this over to our eldest.”

Li Yun reached out to catch the dragon scale that came flying right at him; it appeared to be stained with ink, faintly glimmering beneath the sunlight, and he could sense the gently-flowing true essence within it with his hand placed on its surface.

After he was done talking, Han Yuan took large strides up onto the tall platform of the remnant Ten-Party Array, then sat down cross-legged like no one else was around, as if he was provoking the entire world on purpose: I’m right here, but what can you even do to me?

Li Yun held the black dragon scale in hand as he observed it for a minute, then waved at Shui Keng. “Give it to the Sect Leader.”

“Why don’t you do it?” she inquired.

Not to be reasoned with, Li Yun stuffed the scale into her hands, face blank. “Go, now. Can my status as your senior still not make you move?”

She accepted the scale, understanding nothing, then flipped into the Stone Seed and barged right in.

Unexpectedly, the second she entered, she saw what she should not be seeing — Cheng Qian was currently laying on Yan Zhengming’s lap, no propriety. On him were dirt-stains where there weren’t blood-stains, and further areas that had been scorched, while their eldest, who would whine and holler for half the day whenever anyone else forgot to wash their hands one time, actually leaned over without reservation and kissed him on the brow.

One of her feet was stuck upon the threshold, neither entering, nor withdrawing. She held the scale up in a posture of pledging an oath, flabbergasted.

I’m going to grow sties… no, I’m going to be silenced! she thought.

Yan Zhengming looked like he had since received the greatest entrustment in the world. He looked up at Shui Keng with near-calm, his mannerisms unhurried as he hushed his voice to ask, “What is it?”

Meeting with his gaze, she shuddered harshly, then blurted out, “Wh… when I’m a ghost, I’m not going to let Li Yun off!”

“…”

After snapping out of it, she hurriedly set the black dragon scale down. “Uh, nevermind. Fourth brother told me to bring this to you.”

He nodded. “Did you say what I told you to tell him?”

“…I did. He told me to pass back to you that you should mind your own business.”

He huffed, cursing something out. Upon looking up and catching sight of Shui Keng still staring dead at them, he coughed dryly. “What are you looking at? Do you have anything else?”

That utterance appeared to frighten her fragile heart. She jolted, and then, without further ado, frantically fled… stumbling on the doorsill right before she left.

Han Yuan sat on the remnant array site for three days, and the crowd had still not talked over a statute. The demonic dragon was akin to a hot potato; when not captured, everyone hated that they couldn’t execute him at once, but when actually captured, nobody knew how they ought to deal with him.

He had gone from Nanjiang all the way up North, creating rivers of blood by the wayside and giving rise to a catastrophe. That could be described as heinous, a crime worthy of execution.

If he had died in the Ten-Party Array, that would have been the best ending. Yet, not only had he refused to die, he had lived with not a piece of him missing, nor a decrease in his cultivation.

This was quite troublesome.

The Fuyao Sect was now avoiding suspicion and refusing to speak out. The Bureau had caused this mess, so it didn’t have the face to speak out. The remaining two superpowers of the Four Sages had never shown up, merely sending sect members whose words forever weighed very little, and had further been gravely injured by the Bureau’s treachery, thus having no spare time to care.

Tang Zhen had been tending to wounds all this time. The other sects either didn’t have enough weight, or refused to offend Fuyao over this. No one dared to stand up and say, ‘We should kill this guy.’

The situation was in a deadlock.

When Fuyao’s few came out of the Stone Seed, they saw that Han Yuan, who should have been a prisoner, was sitting upright on the array platform and looking down upon the land.

Yan Zhengming waved his hand to stow the Seed away. Each of the sects immediately cast their gazes over at the same time, which ended with Liu Lang coming up and asking deferentially, “Senior Tang sent me to inquire; what destination will you be heading to, Sect Leader Yan?”

“We have been traveling abroad for many years, so it’s time we ought to return to the sect,” the other answered. “I intend to return and open Fuyao Mountain. If Brother Tang does not disdain it, there is no harm in him coming over to stay for a while.”

Those listening with their ears perked up promptly went to exchange whispers with those beside them. A few years back, the name ‘Fuyao’ had still been unknown; after the Immortal Binding Platform and the event at Tai Yin Mountain, there was likely nobody that didn’t know about it.

Even all the Nanjiang devils had heard widespread rumors of rare treasures being on Fuyao Mountain, so it naturally made everyone curious.

Unfortunately, none of them had the guts to pry.

Right then, Liu Lang asked the second question that everyone was concerned over. “Congratulations to you, then. Senior Tang also requested that I ask: what is your stance on the demonic dragon?”

Yan Zhengming shot a glance at the not-far-away Tang Zhen. Refusing to be the first to betray his intent, he said, “This matter should have been decided by the Bureau, but since their people aren’t here, I should let the impartial party of Brother Tang speak on this, yes?”

Tang Zhen clasped his fist from afar. “I wouldn’t dare to. Everyone here has suffered so much loss from the Skeletonizing Array, I believe it would be better for this matter to be postponed, so that everyone can report back to their sects after tidying up. Can we agree to meet here on the fifteenth of next month to discuss this again?”

Saying as much, he turned to Han Yuan, voice mild. “I believe that with your character, Zhenren Han, you’d certainly dislike suffering backlash from the blood oath by fleeing.”

Han Yuan snorted coldly, not even lifting his eyelids.

Ahead was a prodigious comparison to the Third Prince, who had claimed to be of the righteous path of the human world. If Han Yuan actually did abide by his promise by confining himself inside the remnant array for one month, he would look considerably principled.

Furthermore, Tai Yin was at Fuyao’s foot, meaning that the major sects might actually let him slip the net out of regards for Fuyao’s face. Yan Zhengming felt like clarity was in his heart; knowing that Tang Zhen was appearing to be impartial, yet intending to let Han Yuan free in actuality, his heart settled.

Yan Zhengming glanced at Han Yuan, thinking, His death wouldn’t even settle this. This dickbag deserves to suffer out in the wind and rain for a month.

Thus, he said with decisiveness, “Let’s go.”

Below Tai Yin, the crowd of cultivators gradually scattered. Tang Zhen accepted the invitation to go with everyone to Fuyao Mountain.

The three locks were fully open. Standing at the base of the mountain, Yan Zhengming took in a deep, soundless breath. Where no one could see, Cheng Qian lightly placed his hand on his waist.

The stardust inside the Sect Leader Seal converted, the spiritual consciousnesses of generations past overlapping together to conform with that distant mountain.

In their early years of wandering the land, they had dared not mention this old place out of fear that others would covet it, but now, it could finally reappear into the world with honor; no one dared to invite themselves in, and no one dared to humiliate and despise them.

Over this past century, Yan Zhengming had been helpless in the presence of this mountain-sealing order — its three paths seeming to be forever locked — countless times, despaired countless times, and complained about their Master countless times. Only now did he understand the deep meaning therein.

Had he not undergone polishing, how would he have been able to bear such a heavy ancestral estate?

With an enormous bang, Fuyao Mountain opened.

A hundred years had passed in the human world. The scenery was the same as ever, with cranes perched on the tips of branches coming and going excitedly between the peaks.

On the mountain’s waist was the shaded, bombastic calligraphy of its plaque, and at its base, the thatched Hall of Ignorance their Master had used, ever inharmonious with its surroundings, could vaguely be seen.

Time had stopped here for these hundred years. Not a thing appeared to have changed. The Daolings that they hadn’t taken with them back in the day were still standing by on either side of the mountain gates, stretching, looking like they had only just awoken from a brief nap. They all looked at the few that had left home when young in shock, nearly too afraid to recognize them.

The mountain-sealing order dissipated with the wind, and that frozen time finally became as thawing water, gurgling as it flowed once again.

Far away, Han Yuan sat alone inside the Ten-Party Array. When he quietly lifted his head, he was already dripping with tears.