Chapter 45

The “Niu’s Eatery” in Fuwang City had been around for over a hundred years, a classic old joint.
It wasn’t huge nor tiny, and regulars made up most of the crowd. Lunch rush was long over, so only a few folks lingered. The owner, Niu Dashuai, lounged behind the counter with a storybook in one hand and sunflower seeds in the other, letting out the occasional amused “Heh heh.” Someone wearing a cloak lifted the curtain and slipped inside, settling in a shadowy corner by the wall.
Niu Dashuai reluctantly tore himself away from the story, grabbed a teapot, and ambled over to greet the newcomer.
“Hey there, what can I get you?”
The man at the table didn’t answer, he simply pulled off his hood.
“What the-!” Niu Dashuai all but jumped out of his chair, stumbling over his words in shock. “Cen Qianshan! Master Cen! What brings you here?”
In the little eatery’s nook, with a few plates of side dishes and a steaming basket of buns on the table, Niu Dashuai and Cen Qianshan sat face-to-face.
“Man, how long’s it been? Didn’t think I’d ever see you again.” Niu Dashuai grinned ear to ear, filling Cen Qianshan’s cup to the brim. “How’ve you been these past years?”
He wanted to ask more, but didn’t dare. Back in the day, all their old neighbors from Ten Marvels Street had moved to the fancy new district. Cen Qianshan alone remained, guarding the ruins.
More than a hundred years had passed. Niu’s own cultivation had stalled, he’d inherited his mother’s eatery and scraped by. Rumors about Cen Qianshan surfaced now and then, but hardly anyone ever set eyes on him anymore.
Growing up, Cen Qianshan was always beating him up; after that incident, his whole personality changed. Every time he’d come home, he’d be covered in blood and radiating bone-deep gloom, no one dared get close. Sharing even a word seemed impossible, let alone a drink. Yet now, somehow, he’d come back, if only for a cup of wine together.
In a dusty little corner lost to the years, the two men, once just wild boys, clinked their cups softly together.
“A few days ago, I went to the Dongyue Temple.” Cen Qianshan said. “Oh, now that’s a place you don’t want to mess with! Layers and layers of illusions, plenty have gone in and never come out,” Niu Dashuai crowed, three cups in, already a lively drunk. “But for you, pfft, that’s nothing; you were always Ten Marvels Street’s toughest.”
“Inside those illusions, I saw you. And Auntie Niu.” Cen Qianshan turned his cup as he spoke, his reflection wavering in the clear wine. “I realized I never did thank you.”
“Ah, come off it.” Niu Dashuai was red-faced with wine. “I didn’t do much worth thanking. Master Mu once saved my life back then.”
When Cen Qianshan was about to leave, Niu Dashuai finally blurted, “So… after all these years, any news?”
The strongest man from Ten Marvels Street turned his face aside, and barely, almost imperceptibly, nodded.
Leaving Niu’s Eatery, Cen Qianshan, cloak and all, walked along the gaudy, neon-lit streets until he reached Uncle Nian’s healer’s clinic,
“Back already, eh? Must’ve been a good haul this trip.” Uncle Nian peered over his old single-lens glasses from behind the counter. “Word is all around, heard you got the Yan family the Deep Lotus of Nine Cycles from the shrine’s depths. Yan’s are offering an artifact and a hundred thousand spirit stones as thanks.”
Cen Qianshan just unshouldered his pack in silence and laid out the spirit herbs he’d picked from the shrine.
Uncle Nian’s eyes went wide at the stash. “Yellow Sprout Grass, nice! Infant Heaven Grass, oh, this is the good stuff! Wait, what’s this? My god, Purple Heart Grass, thought that was just a legend!”
Cen Qianshan leaned with folded arms on the counter and asked, “Uncle Nian, people say you've met cultivators from the Immortal Spirit Realm?”
Uncle Nian was so entranced by the rare herbs he hardly looked up. “Yeah, ran into a few, hypocritical phonies, all of them. Why do you ask?”
“So, do you know, ” A glimmer appeared in Cen Qianshan’s eyes beneath the shadow of his hood. “How did they get here?”
“Not many spiritual resources left in the Immortal Spirit Realm. Naturally, some of ‘em got the bright idea to sneak into our Demon Spirit Realm.” Uncle Nian’s mood soured at the memory. “Supposedly, there’s sects who specialize in arrays, spent generations refining ancient spell formations, and finally opened up a Trans-Demon Array to get over here. They’re always slipping in to hunt monsters and plunder resources. As if that wasn’t enough, they swagger around claiming they’re ‘cleansing evil for the Dao’.” He snorted. “Let them come, but don’t let me see their smug faces again.”
On Xuandan Peak of Guiyuan Sect, Kong Ji watched as that little disciple from Xiaoyao Peak was the first to open her alchemy furnace. She carefully took out a few shining, swirling pills, and instantly the whole room was filled with their fragrance.
Kong Ji grumbled inwardly: "This Zhang Er Ya really should have ended up as my disciple on Xuandan Peak. How did I miss her? Of course that sly fox Su Xingtin snatched her away."
He put on his sternest face and said, "If you have a talent for alchemy, you ought to come learn from Xuandan Peak more often. Girls running around swinging swords, hammering metal, making weapons all day, really, is that how a young lady should behave?"
Just then, a couple female disciples from Biyou Peak, whose main job was hammering metal, turned their heads as one to glare at him.
He huffed and rolled his eyes. "There are countless paths to the Dao, but alchemy has always been the heart of the righteous method. Why do we call our cultivation 'The Way of the Elixir'? Because we use our own bodies as the cauldron, gather energies of heaven and earth, draw that ‘dragon and tiger’ essence, and refine the golden core in our Spirit Chamber. That is the art of internal alchemy. Refining external pills and practicing inner alchemy, these are intertwined, each supports the other. So no matter which peak you're from, you all ought to take alchemy seriously and learn it well!"
Apparently, in every sect uncle’s mind, whatever they practice is the one true Dao. You’ve got to admire the confidence.
Mu Xue struggled not to laugh, cradling her pills while she went to consult Kong Ji, and casually asked,
"Uncle, I saw some demonic cultivators in the Dongyue Temple, too. Their alchemy’s different from ours, but honestly, they seem to have some tricks of their own. Senior Brother Fu even took some healing medicine from the Demon Spirit Realm, his injuries vanished instantly."
Kong Ji looked annoyed. "Is that so? What exactly did they use?"
"I heard some names, Rejuvenation Pill, Detox Powder, and Regeneration Balm, I think."
Kong Ji’s face turned ugly. "Hmph. That old bastard Nian Zaitao, can’t believe he’s still alive."
So Kong Ji really had been to the Demon Spirit Realm, and it sounded like he and Uncle Nian had history. Mu Xue tucked that away in her mind.
After lessons, Ding Lanlan walked alongside Mu Xue. "You’re not coming up to Biyou Peak with me? My aunt won’t stop nagging me about you, she says you learn better than any of her actual disciples, so you’d better visit again soon."
Mu Xue grinned. "Last time I was there, I left one of the puppets Master set up in the Divine Path by mistake. Once I repair it, I’ll take it to show Master."
"Oh, and you went to the Dongyue Temple without even telling me! Did you meet him?" Ding Lanlan’s eyes sparkled, elbowing Mu Xue excitedly. "Was he really as handsome as the rumors say? Was he terrifying? They say demonic cultivators are all stone-cold and ruthless."
Mu Xue thought of what happened in that shrine,
Handsome, like the stories?
If we're talking about looks, Xiao Shan could definitely claim the title.
Was he scary?
That sweet kid be scary? Not a chance, he's just about the gentlest soul she knows.
"Ugh, I wish I could meet him just once," Ding Lanlan gushed with both hands pressed to her cheeks.
"Hey, I heard Uncle Kong Ji went to the Demon Spirit Realm? How did he even manage that?" Mu Xue asked.
"He went when they activated the Demonic Path Array, right?" Ding Lanlan replied, she always knew every family rumor and tidbit. "That stuff’s got nothing to do with us. They only open that array every decade or so, when all the sects join resources. Only top disciples get to go. Us? We're miles away from that."
So there actually was a way into the Demon Spirit Realm, rare as it was. At least there would always be a chance to meet again. Since leaving the shrine, Mu Xue felt a little knot in her chest finally start to unravel.
Ding Lanlan shivered. "I just hope I never get chosen for that array-opening. I don’t want to step foot in the Demon Spirit Realm! I hear it’s all darkness and dread, crawling with monsters and ghosts."
Mu Xue burst out laughing, "Didn’t you just say you wanted to see what Cen Qianshan looked like?"
"That was just for fun! You have no idea how creepy the real demonic cultivators are." Lanlan tried to spook Mu Xue, "Some of them practice arts that require eating children, seriously, snatching up little boys and girls to sacrifice. You scared? And then there are some matriarchal clans that supposedly practice Heaven’s Joy Arts, seducing all the pretty young men. Those Xiaoyao Peak senior brothers of yours should keep an eye out if they ever go, might get eaten alive."
There’s no such thing as eating kids for cultivation, Mu Xue thought. It’s true, some do snatch up mortal children as disciples or ‘adoptive sons,’ working them half to death, and very few survive, it happened to her own Master, and Cen Qianshan’s adoptive father, too. But by the time those rumors made it here, it’d somehow turned into “demonic cultivators eat kids” for power.
And the Yan family really is matriarchal, taking male in-laws; and the Liu family does practice the Heaven’s Joy Arts, but most of that is just voluntary business, not kidnappings and forced marriages as the rumors claim.
Rumors really do twist things up beyond recognition.
Within Guiyuan Sect, the main peaks stood far apart. Senior inner disciples, after years of training, would summon their flying artifacts and soar through the skies, a delicate fan, a swirling ribbon, a glinting sword, and all those fluttering robes and whistling sleeves made a breathtaking sight as they streaked over the mountains.
"So jealous, I wish I could get my own flying artifact and just take to the air," Ding Lanlan sighed dreamily.
"No rush," Mu Xue replied. "Master says even walking and sitting is part of our cultivation, so a little extra hiking won’t hurt us."
A handful of brand-new inner disciples joined hands, climbing carefully down the steep mountain path.
Suddenly, a tiger’s roar echoed through the woods. An impressive white tiger leaped down right in front of them, carrying a dashing, cloud-like figure on its back. He looked at Mu Xue and said coolly, "Hop on. Master sent me to pick you up after class."
The tiger’s roar faded into the distance, and the white tiger vanished at the summit.
"Ugh, I’m dying of jealousy! So much for ‘walking is cultivation,’ huh?"
"How come Xiaoyao Peak kids get all the perks? When it wasn’t Senior Brother Ye flying her around on leaves, and now he’s hurt, you’d think she’d at least walk with us for a couple days. Nope, this time she gets Senior Brother Fu and his magical white tiger."
"Wuwuwu, I just want to ride Senior Brother Fu’s white tiger once in my life. Once, and I could die happy."
But Mu Xue barely heard her friends’ envious chatter. Riding atop the white tiger, she landed smoothly in Xiaoyao Peak’s courtyard.
Ye Hangzhou sat wrapped in a blanket on the veranda, Miao Hong’er standing beside him, both watching as their master, Su Xingtin, demonstrated the Six Lines Divination Technique.
“Xiao Xue, done with class? How’d it go today?” Seeing Mu Xue hop down from the White Tiger, Su Xingtin greeted her with a smile.
“I was the first one to form a pill! Didn’t get smacked on the hand even once, Uncle Kong Ji actually praised me a couple times.” Mu Xue puffed out her chest with pride.
“Very good, very good,” Su Xingtin reached out and patted her head. “Any questions about the new Embryonic Breathing Art I just taught you?”
Mu Xue flopped down casually beside her senior brothers and sisters, forming a hand seal as she sat.
She didn’t just plop down any old way, the posture she held was the Confucian Heart Method. By tucking her heart away in her vital acupoint, the sights and sounds of the world passed her by without disturbing her inner quiet. Her breaths soon faded into nearly nothing, each inhale soft and endless, gentle as a newborn’s. Her inner breath retreated, welcoming the outside breath in an unbroken stream; the usual rhythm of lungs and nose forgotten as, deep within the Spirit Chamber, the breath of heaven cycled on and on. This was the embryonic breathing, drawing in innate essence, gathering spirit and energy.
Since she wasn’t practicing Dragon-Tiger techniques for now, her master had bestowed this new art, one she could practice anywhere: walking, standing, sitting, lying down, all became cultivation.
When walking, heart and breath united, inner vision on her qi points. Standing, heels rooted, her breath reached out into the heavens, drawing celestial energy down. Even at rest, she sealed her “furnace,” recycled her energy, and let her mind roam free.
Day after day, year after year, though she didn’t do the usual dual cultivation or alchemy, her vital energy quietly pooled, her spirit stabilized, and her body grew strong and mind peaceful. This, too, was progress in cultivation.
Su Xingtin saw at a glance that Mu Xue had mastered the essence of the Embryonic Breathing Art, naturally entering the state without forcing, neither actively guarding nor seeking, reaching the ideal spontaneous flow. He was thoroughly pleased with his young disciple, nodding his approval.
Ye Hangzhou said, “Xiao Xue’s at this stage already? Then you’ll be manipulating artifacts smoothly in no time. Shouldn’t you start thinking about a flying artifact? Is there any kind you like?”
Miao Hong’er summoned her flying artifact, a round, gleaming, flashy iron pot. She boasted, “Everyone’s artifacts look boring compared to mine. It’s fast, it’s defensive, and super handy on the road. Xiao Xue, you should do what I did, refine a black iron bowl for your artifact! That way, when we head out together, our pot and bowl will make a perfect set!”
Mu Xue shook her head so hard it looked like her neck might snap. “No way, no way!”
Fu Yun offered, “If you like my mount, I can catch a white tiger for you from Ji Earth Forest. Once it’s tamed, it’d be super convenient to ride every day.”
Mu Xue’s face changed immediately at the word “tiger”, all she could think of was that one in her Spirit Chamber. And “riding every day”? No, thank you! She shook her head frantically, politely refusing.
Ye Hangzhou followed up, “Is there something you’d really like? Just say it. Once I’m healed up in a few days, I’ll make it for you.”
Mu Xue said, “It’s fine, really! Don’t worry about me. I don’t need anything special yet.” Artifact flight had already lost its novelty for her; taking peaceful walks in the mountains and following her cultivation method each day suited her just fine.
But Su Xingtin didn’t see it that way. Every young disciple who climbed the mountain dreamed of flying their own artifact among the clouds. Hong’er, Fu Yun, Hangzhou, they’d all practically drooled for that day when they first joined.
Xiao Xue, on the other hand, was almost too considerate, never making demands, never wanting to trouble her elders. She’d been on the mountain all these years, so well-behaved it made his heart ache a little.
Thinking this, he grew even more fond of his youngest disciple. He reached into his storage pouch and brought out an item.
It was a pure white mass, light as cotton, shimmering like piled-up snow, a real cloud, hovering gently in the air.
“This is a Reflecting Sky Cloud. I picked it up atop Wushan after the rain, a cloud soft and pure as the heavens.” He lifted his sleeve and let the cloud drift to Mu Xue. “This was the artifact I used as a young man, no use for it now. You’ve always been diligent, respectful, and kind to your peers since entering my tutelage. I never gifted you an artifact before; let this one be yours.”
“Quick, Xiao Xue, grab it!” Miao Hong’er grinned, patting her on the back. “Reflecting Sky Cloud’s amazing, especially at shielding divine sense. If you hide inside, flying up in the sky, nobody can spot you if you don’t want to show yourself. Do whatever you please in there and no one will ever know. When I was little, I begged Master to lend it to me for hide-and-seek, but he never allowed it.”
Mu Xue was overjoyed, offered her thanks, and leapt up onto the cloud. Her spirit controlled it, and she shot off with the wind.
“Now that’s what a child should look like.” Su Xingtin nodded in satisfaction.
From then on, among the Nine-Link Mountains, above Xiaoyao Peak, drifting clouds and snow, reflected in bright curious eyes, many times did they look like visiting immortals.
In the mountains, time flowed without notice; years had quietly slipped by.