Chapter 29: Chang’an Part 1

The road to Chang’an swept south with howling winds carrying a blizzard, as an unseasonal cold snap struck, even chillier than the depths of winter before the New Year festivities.

Xiang Xian got off the cart to check the road, then returned to the carriage rubbing his hands nonstop. A Huang kept the inside of the cart warm and cozy, like eternal spring. Meanwhile, the coachman and Wu Yingzong, who sat outside, had snow covering their eyebrows and eyelashes.

Chaosheng lay on one side, wrapped in a blanket, sleeping soundly.

“This spring is colder than in past years,” Xiang Xian said.

Xiao Kun was reading a book and replied without looking up, “Many people say the Jin Kingdom can’t survive in Saibei due to the freezing cold and is invading south into Great Liao. Meanwhile, drought and famine rage inside the passes—it’s the third year now.”

Recalling the fall of the Liao Kingdom and Sa Luan’s disappearance, Xiao Kun sighed inwardly. Over the past few days, he had kept clutching his pitch-black Dragon Soaring Jade. The golden dragon had been corrupted by Demonic Qi and hidden itself within the jade.

Xiang Xian held out his hand to Xiao Kun, who glanced at it and placed the jade pendant in his palm.

But Xiang Xian did not examine it closely and simply pocketed it casually.

Xiao Kun: “?”

“Confiscated,” Xiang Xian said. “I’ll return it once we find the Heart Lamp. That way, you won’t keep getting distracted.”

Xiao Kun did not insist on taking it back, knowing this was Xiang Xian’s way of showing concern for him.

“It was the only token my father left for my mother. I was only six when I got it,” Xiao Kun said, “about the same age as you were when you met A Huang. Do you remember the day Master taught me to release it from the jade? It looked at me for a long time. It couldn’t speak, but I felt we had become friends.”

Xiang Xian found the Dragon Soaring Jade quite extraordinary. “I’ve never heard of this treasure.”

“The world is so vast,” Xiao Kun said. “There are plenty of things you haven’t heard of. Is that so strange?”

Xiang Xian replied, “Have you forgotten what kind of person my master was?”

“Even Grand Demon-Exorcist Shen Kuo,” Xiao Kun said, “didn’t know everything. That’s normal.”

Xiang Xian pulled out a yellowed, tattered book and said, “If we were to grade the Dragon Soaring Jade, it’d probably be a Heaven Character Yi-grade treasure.”

“What book is that?” Xiao Kun’s curiosity piqued. “Let me see?”

The book Xiang Xian held was the Divine Artifact Catalogue compiled by Shen Kuo during his lifetime.

Shen Kuo had been a world-renowned Magic Treasure Master, devoting his life to studying magic treasures and mechanisms. Drawing from his own knowledge and the Exorcism Division’s historical records, he had left behind this work. Of course, the Divine Artifact Catalogue was not yet complete; he had entrusted it to his direct disciple Xiang Xian to fill in the gaps.

Xiao Kun opened the first page. Most of it was blank, with no illustrations or treasure names, but there was a note at the bottom:

Connected to the fate of Shenzhou, it reverses cause and effect, turns back time.

“I suspect some of these are things he couldn’t figure out and just made up himself,” Xiang Xian said.

“Who talks about their master like that?” Xiao Kun said with a mix of laughter and exasperation. “You think he’s like you?”

The second page featured the Wisdom Sword, its tip piercing a heart—like a demon heart—with small script noting: Shanhai, guardian of Shenzhou, supreme divine weapon, protector of the mortal world, slayer of Heavenly Demons born in the cycle of reincarnation.

The third page showed a radiant flame, with the note: Time is boundless, but the Heart Lamp shines like day, eternal through the ages.

The fourth page was blank.

The fifth page depicted a small bottle-shaped object labeled “Qingyu Golden Chalice,” with the note: One grain of sand holds three thousand worlds, crossing fissures, connecting endless miles, infinite and boundless.

The first five pages were all Ungraded, signifying existences that transcended the heavens and numerous magic treasures and divine artifacts.

“Did he leave the fourth page for you to fill?” Xiao Kun flipped past it and asked.

“I don’t know,” Xiang Xian said. “Maybe his imagination ran out.”

“Don’t talk about your master like that!” Xiao Kun could not stand it anymore. He had always held Le Wan Shuang in high esteem since childhood, strictly following disciple etiquette and often getting beaten for it. He had never shared the kind of relationship Xiang Xian had with Shen Kuo.

As a youth, Xiang Xian often asked his master, “Master, what nonsense are you making up now?” Shen Kuo would just smile without responding, and even when scolding his disciple, he would say, “Useless boy, when will you ever refine a great magic treasure?”

Turning another page brought them to Heaven Character Grade A treasures. The first was none other than Chaosheng’s Mountains and Rivers Sheji Map, which could cover mountains and rivers, traverse hills and plains, turn seas into mulberry fields. The note read: Nüwa’s creation artifact, lost to the mortal world after the Battle of Luye, later taken by the Immortal Palace.

“It was recovered from the White Jade Palace,” Xiao Kun said, recalling Chaosheng’s introduction. “The Queen Mother of the West used it to loosen the soil.”

The next was Xiao Kun’s Senluo Wanxiang! Xiao Kun had not thought his saber was that famous. It depicted two Tang Dao: Senluo Wanxiang, forged from the branch of Ancient God Jumang, dual wood-earth attributes.