It was late autumn in October, and sunlight bathed the beautiful Buqun Mountain Range.
The range stretched for miles and miles, its mountains brimming with spiritual energy and rare treasures. Dangerous creatures roamed throughout, but that didn’t stop disciples from the great sects from flocking there. It was one of their favorite places to train.
Where there were people, there was bound to be trouble.
Wunian Sect had never gotten along with the disciples of Lingxiao Sect. Things had only grown worse lately, as Lingxiao Sect’s disciples kept running up tabs, eating without paying in towns under Wunian Sect’s control, and bullying the locals. The two sects had clashed more than once.
Both groups had come to train in the mountains, and by sheer bad luck, they ran into each other in a clearing.
Among the Lingxiao Sect disciples was Meng Haisheng, a habitual deadbeat who often ran up tabs in Wunian Sect’s territory. He owed an enormous amount in spiritual stones, and Wunian Sect’s disciples had tried to collect several times without success.
Worse, Meng Haisheng was arrogant and domineering because his father was an elder of Lingxiao Sect. Rumor had it that he had preyed on quite a few beautiful rogue cultivators who had no one to protect them.
“Of all the people we could’ve run into,” one Wunian Sect disciple muttered. “Just our luck.”
“Quiet.”
Huo Xun tried to rein in his junior brothers and sisters’ growing indignation. His own expression had darkened as he glanced at a young man in Lingxiao Sect’s dark blue robes.
Meng Haisheng wore a vicious sneer as he ground his foot into the hand of another disciple, who lay prone on the ground, and cursed him with a string of obscenities.
One of the Wunian Sect disciples recalled what had happened a few days earlier and muttered, “He’s gone too far. Our Seventh Junior Brother went to collect the debt the other day, and came back with his hands and feet crippled. Who knows how long he’ll be in pain?”
At the mention of it, the Wunian Sect disciples burned with anger.
Meng Haisheng had owed Wunian Sect’s Beast Gate money for almost three years. Recently, the Beast Gate had needed to buy timber and couldn’t wait any longer, so it sent three disciples to collect. They came back empty-handed.
That would have been bad enough. But the next day, two of the disciples who had gone to collect the debt had their hands and feet crippled, while the third was left unconscious and near death.
It was obvious who had ordered it.
It had only happened three days ago. The whole sect was still seething. The moment it came up, the Wunian Sect disciples grew angrier. Seeing Meng Haisheng hurt someone in front of them was too much, and one of them couldn’t hold back a scathing remark.
“What a shameless bastard!”
As luck would have it, Meng Haisheng heard him.
He looked toward the Wunian Sect group, spotted Huo Xun, and scowled even harder.
Meng Haisheng sneered and pointed at the Wunian Sect disciples. Then he barked an order to the men behind him. “Get them! Beat those bastards to death!”
He dispensed with even the pretense of courtesy between sects and attacked without a word.
Huo Xun wasn’t about to sit back and take it. He drew his sword and joined the Wunian Sect disciples in fighting back.
The two sides fought for the better part of an hour.
Just as Wunian Sect began to gain the upper hand, Meng Haisheng saw things turning against him and whistled. A masked Nascent Soul cultivator in black appeared out of nowhere. In only two moves, he sent the Wunian Sect disciples reeling and nearly seized one of them by the throat.
“Meng Haisheng, you’ve gone too far!”
Fury surged through Huo Xun. He shielded his junior brothers and sisters and pointed his sword at Meng Haisheng. “It wasn’t enough that you refused to pay your debt. Why cripple three of our disciples? And now you’re trying to kill us! What’s your problem?”
“Huo Xun, you’ve got a death wish! Instead of running with your tail between your legs, you actually dare to question me?” Meng Haisheng’s face twisted with malice. “Your Sect Leader can’t even make a peep when he sees my father, and here you are, walking straight to your death.”
He gave a scornful laugh. “I crippled your disciples, and today I’m going to make sure not one of you leaves this place alive!”
Seeing that Meng Haisheng meant to kill them, Huo Xun glanced warily at the masked cultivator in black. The man was a powerful sword cultivator. He wouldn’t be easy to beat.
Without hesitation, Huo Xun rapidly formed a hand seal and raised a barrier around his junior brothers and sisters.
“Senior Brother!” his juniors cried out in alarm behind him.
A bunch of useless trash.
A vicious gleam flashed in Meng Haisheng’s eyes. He gave the masked cultivator a look. “Kill them all. Leave no one alive.” The two sides had been at odds for a long time. If he had the chance to eliminate them, he wasn’t about to let it pass.
The masked cultivator understood. He drew his sword, murder in his eyes beneath the mask.
Huo Xun was also at the Nascent Soul stage, but Wunian Sect cultivated the Dao of effortless freedom. His spiritual energy wasn’t as rich as a sword cultivator’s, and his sword strikes couldn’t match the man’s force. He could only fight under constant pressure.
“Don’t panic,” Huo Xun said, warding off the masked cultivator’s sword intent. “I’ve already sent word to our Sect Leader. Just hold on a little longer…”
But before he could finish, he coughed up blood. The Wunian Sect disciples behind him all had red-rimmed eyes.
“Senior Brother, drop the barrier! We’ll fight together. If we die, we die together!”
Seeing this, Meng Haisheng grew even more arrogant. “Huo Xun, next time around, make sure you know who you can afford to offend—”
He hadn’t finished speaking when two leaves darted out of nowhere.
They sliced past his cheek, sending a gust of air through his hair. A strand fluttered away on the breeze.
Meng Haisheng’s smile froze. Two thin lines of blood appeared on his cheek.
“Who’s there?” The masked Nascent Soul cultivator immediately moved to shield Meng Haisheng. He warily scanned the surroundings, but his divine sense detected no one.
A cold voice rang through Buqun Mountain Range, as if it had come from some empty valley.
“Quiet.”
Meng Haisheng touched the blood on his cheek and stared at it in disbelief. “He dared to hurt me? My own father has never laid a hand on me…” He seized the masked cultivator’s sleeve and shrieked in fury. “Find him! I’ll tear him to pieces!!!”
His shrill voice echoed through the empty mountains.
A surge of sword intent swept out from the forest in response. Even before the wind reached them, its chilling edge could be felt. Its power seemed capable of bringing the heavens and earth to ruin.
The masked cultivator’s pupils contracted. He stood in front of Meng Haisheng and threw himself into a desperate block. The sword intent he couldn’t stop sheared away half his mask.
That same voice spoke, cold and stern.
“Get lost.”
Meng Haisheng stumbled back several steps, fear flickering in his eyes. The masked cultivator couldn’t bear to watch him panic, so he leaned down and whispered a few words in his ear.
Meng Haisheng stood there in a daze. Only then did he understand that those two leaves could have sliced his throat open. Fear seized him.
Still, he couldn’t leave with his tail between his legs. He glared at Huo Xun and lowered his voice to spit out a threat. “Just wait, Huo Xun. Sooner or later, I’ll settle this score with you…”
A breeze stirred nearby. Meng Haisheng jumped at the slightest movement, then took a moment to collect himself. He waved to the Lingxiao Sect disciples, trembling. “We’re leaving!”
Only after every Lingxiao Sect disciple had gone did Huo Xun finally let his strength give out. He collapsed, and his junior brothers and sisters hurried to catch him.
…They were saved.
Buqun Mountain Range brimmed with spiritual energy, and plenty of senior cultivators stayed there to practice. Anyone who could drive off a Nascent Soul cultivator so easily had to be extraordinarily powerful.
Huo Xun had received a great kindness. Once he had regained some strength, he called into the empty air, “Thank you for saving us, Senior.”
The breeze stirred, but no one answered.
His junior brothers and sisters cautiously looked around, afraid of offending the senior just as Meng Haisheng had. One of them urged, “Eldest Senior Brother, why don’t we leave too?”
“But…” Huo Xun hesitated.
Just then, the forest ahead rustled. He fixed his gaze on the shaking grass.
“Wait!” he called to the others.
After a few moments of rustling, a six-sided palace lantern, no bigger than his palm, shot out of the grass.
The lantern was exquisitely made. Its flame burned a muted blue-gray behind a thin screen of rice paper. Small, delicate jade ornaments dangled from the corners, each no bigger than a fingernail, swaying as it moved like the tassels of a woman’s hairpin.
One of the disciples whispered in awe, “What a beautiful Guiding Lantern.”
The lantern floated in the air, swayed gently, then drifted off in a certain direction. It moved neither too quickly nor too slowly, just fast enough for the Wunian Sect disciples to follow.
Huo Xun hesitated. He didn’t dare bring the others along, so he told his junior brothers and sisters to wait where they were while he followed the lantern.
The deeper he went into Buqun Mountain Range, the taller the grass grew. At first, it had been only a few inches high beneath his feet. Now it nearly reached his waist, and the spiritual energy grew ever richer.
The grass was long and fine, layered over itself. Through the gaps in the green, Huo Xun could just make out a vague shape lying farther in.
He stepped closer and carefully parted the waist-high grass.
The moment he saw what lay within, he couldn’t look away.
A man in white lay on the soft grass, a cascade of raven-black hair spread around him. His robes were whiter than snow, and the fine patterns on his sleeves glimmered faintly silver in the dappled sunlight.
His hands, emerging from his long sleeves, rested neatly at his waist as if out of habit. The sleeves pooled on the ground. A short scarlet cord circled his flawless pale wrist, its long end dangling a tiny silver bell. Apart from that, there was no color at all. He was simple to the point of austerity.
His face was pale, his features touched with a faint sickliness. A delicate, cold line ran from head to toe, and an ethereal aloofness surrounded him. He looked like an exiled immortal asleep deep in the mountains.
…
Huo Xun froze. He didn’t dare move closer. He couldn’t.
At some point, a barrier had risen between them. It glowed with a faint, cold light, like ice forming in winter, and radiated a chill that warned Huo Xun he might be pierced if he made one wrong move.
This was no ordinary barrier.
The palm-sized Guiding Lantern drifted over the man’s head, then stopped and went completely still, as if playing dead.
Holding his breath, Huo Xun bowed respectfully. “Thank you for saving us, Senior. I’m Huo Xun of Wunian Sect. I’m sorry to have disturbed your rest.”
Before he had finished speaking, the white-robed man’s long lashes trembled. He suddenly opened his eyes.
Beneath those lashes was a pair of dull, listless eyes. They gazed into empty space, calm as a still pond and just as devoid of light.
The instant Huo Xun met his gaze, his heart lurched. He immediately bowed his head even lower.
A moment later, he heard a soft laugh, as lovely as jade beads tumbling together.
When the laughter faded, the man in white said quietly, “Sorry. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen another person… Could you help me up?”
The voice was nothing like the cold, indifferent one that had addressed Meng Haisheng. Its tone was naturally cool, but beneath the even delivery lay a trace of warmth.
Huo Xun stared up in a daze. The man had somehow gotten to his feet and was standing beside a tree, the Guiding Lantern hovering by his ear as though it were attached to him.
Tall and slender, he leaned against the tree trunk and looked back at Huo Xun. A faint smile softened the aloofness around him, though he still seemed frail and ill.
“I… I can.” Huo Xun felt as though he were meeting a senior from some great sect. His heart raced, and he couldn’t bring himself to meet the man’s eyes. His answer came out haltingly.
Shen Yueshan lifted a hand and drew a line through the air with his long fingers. The barrier vanished. Huo Xun hurried over to support him, and they started back the way he had come.
But Shen Yueshan’s body was in no condition to walk. He had to stop and rest after only a few steps, relying on Huo Xun to support most of his weight.
I wonder how long I can survive in this ruined body.
“Senior, are you so weak because you were badly injured?” Huo Xun asked cautiously.
Shen Yueshan considered it. “Something like that.”
A man who should have died after sacrificing himself to Heaven had somehow returned to life. He had lost most of his cultivation. His soul was like a sheet of rice paper, torn to pieces and glued back together, full of holes and falling apart. It was also tangled with the icy Ghost Qi left behind by evil ghosts…
He couldn’t imagine a worse injury.
But after he answered, Huo Xun grew awkward. He watched Shen Yueshan carefully, his lips pressed tight, as though he regretted asking something he shouldn’t have. His nervousness reminded Shen Yueshan of the young disciples at Gengchen Immortal Sect who wanted to ask him for guidance but were too timid to speak.
“It’s nothing serious,” Shen Yueshan said mildly, trying to reassure him. “You get used to it.”
Huo Xun looked at Shen Yueshan’s frail, sickly appearance. The man could barely walk a few steps without running out of breath and needing a rest.
“…”
And this doesn’t count as serious?
