Chapter 53

Atop the ruined city walls, hidden in darkness, someone watched in silence as the group of young cultivators moved steadily below.
“Boss, why are we just standing here spying?”
“Shouldn’t we just swoop down right now, snatch her up, and take her home? I swear, I just see Master Mu and I feel this urge to hang out with her all day, like last time, when she scratched my head.”
The little puppet clung to Cen Qianshan’s shoulder, chattering away without pause.
Cen Qianshan calmly pressed a finger against its endlessly flapping mouth.
“Mmmmph!” Qianji tried to pry off his finger,
“Why can’t I talk? You dragged me out here, made that useless little dummy stay home, weren’t you planning on letting me keep you company during dramatic moments like this?”
The cultivators from the Immortal Spirit Realm had no idea their every move was under watchful eyes.
This time, the Guiyuan Sect had sent Lou Xuelin, a Golden Core elder from Qingjing Peak, to lead the group.
Steady and upright by nature, Lou Xuelin was admired by the sect leader Danyang and had led many expeditions to the Demon Spirit Realm, a reliable veteran.
The rookie cultivators, here for their first taste of another world, followed in his wake, marveling at all they saw.
Beneath the star-splashed sky, the silent ruins, the lurking dangers, and the surging spiritual energy, all of it was as thrilling as it was deadly.
Peril and opportunity went hand in hand, setting the blood of young cultivators racing in their veins.
“Xiao Xue, check this out.” Ding Lanlan was standing in front of a house, half-collapsed by time.
Inside, a decaying cradle and a rusted, four-wheeled toy car peeked through the shadows.
The lady of the house’s old vanity mirror had gone cloudy with age, but even so, you could still imagine that, centuries ago, this was once a warm and loving home.
“Guys, come look! There’s actually an old candy shop here!” Xiao Changge’s voice rang from outside.
With a flick of his hand, he swept away the creepers blanketing the little two-story building’s entrance, revealing rows of deep brown glass jars and the fossilized lumps of candy collected in the bottoms.
“So life in the Demon Spirit Realm isn’t all that different from ours after all.” Lin Yin craned her neck for a better look, sighing. “I always heard Master talk about this place, figured everyone here must be some kind of cave-dwelling monster... Turns out it’s nothing like I imagined!”
Their master, Kong Ji, carried a lifelong grudge against the Demon Spirit Realm. As his disciples, they’d always believed this place was just a lawless land of fiends, with no normal humans anywhere.
“How does a city as grand as this end up abandoned?” That question came from Cheng Yan, the big guy from Tiezhu Peak.
Back in the finals, Mu Xue had tied Cheng Yan up with the Immortal Binding Rope and tossed him off the stage. Even now, he felt awkward around her, hanging back, unwilling to mix with the senior and junior sisters, sticking close to the supervising elder for advice instead.
Lou Xuelin explained, “The Demon Spirit Realm is overflowing with spiritual energy, which makes it perfect for cultivation. But that also means it breeds all kinds of demon beasts and dark creatures. When those monsters gather and attack human settlements in large numbers, we call it a beast tide.”
“Throughout history, many once-great cities were wiped out in those catastrophes. Even Fuwang City, the stronghold it is today, was once completely destroyed by a beast tide. The current city was rebuilt right here amid the ruins.”
“So does that mean there are no ordinary people living here anymore? How could they possibly survive in a place like this?” another disciple asked.
“My Master always said, without a foundation of mortals, we can’t recruit new disciples. That would mean losing our roots, cutting off the next generation. No sect could last long that way.”
Lou Xuelin shook his head. “There are mortals in the Demon Spirit Realm. They live side by side with demonic cultivators inside the city walls, protected by thick ramparts. They’ve gotten used to monster attacks. Even ordinary children know how to use charms and magic tools, they can just barely hold their own when demons show up, then pack up and relocate when things get too dangerous.”
After a pause, he added, “Still, every major beast tide leaves a trail of death behind. Life here really isn’t as easy as ours.”
“That’s awful... Even kids have to fight monsters?” Ding Lanlan looked at the abandoned furniture and toys left behind by families fleeing in a hurry, her voice tinged with worry.
“People are tougher than we think.” Mu Xue nudged a toy car that lay motionless in the dust. “No matter how hard things get, if there’s a chance of survival, someone will hang on.”
Ding Lanlan slipped her arm through Mu Xue’s. “Xiao Xue, you’re younger than me, but sometimes you really do see things more clearly.”
She gave Mu Xue’s nose a playful pinch. “Most of the time, though, you’re still kind of a dork.”
At the front of the group, normally quiet Zhuo Yu suddenly shot up his hand, a warning.
From somewhere in the ruins nearby, a spell formation flared to life.
“Don’t worry, probably just another group arriving,” Lou Xuelin gestured for everyone to stop and wait for now.
Setting up a Demon-Taming Transport Array took massive effort and teamwork, multiple sects would pool their strength to pick a safe site, open the portal, and send their disciples through in waves.
For safety, each transportation site was slightly offset, so you didn’t risk dropping everyone straight into danger and wiping out a whole batch at once.
Sure enough, they soon saw a squad of cultivators step out of a nearby alley: all men, matching uniforms, every one with a headscarf and sword at their side, their faces impassive as stone.
A few cast quick glances their way but made no move to greet them, they left on their own, cold as ice.
“That’s the Kunlun Sect.” Ding Lanlan muttered in Mu Xue’s ear. “Those guys are way too proud. Let’s just ignore them.”
Far above, on a rooftop, Qianji bounced impatiently up and down on Cen Qianshan’s shoulder.
“Who’s that girl? How is she so chummy with Master Mu? Jealous, I’m getting jealous!”
“And that guy, why does he get to stand around bossing Mu Xue? And the girl holding her arm? Nope, I can’t take it!”
“Master, let me go down there and squash those ants flat.”
Cen Qianshan gave it a troubled look.
Qianji and its master locked eyes for a moment, its steel eyelids blinking.
For hundreds of years, they’d all but lived as one; Qianji’s body and core had been honed by its master’s spiritual power time and time again, fighting side by side, sharing each other’s will.
Sometimes, Qianji felt like its mechanical heart was synced with Cen Qianshan’s, picking up even his most well-hidden feelings in an instant.
“Oh, I get it now.” Qianji raised a spindly arm. “You want to wait and see if Master Mu comes looking for us, to find out if she came here just for you.”
Cen Qianshan, now irritated, flicked Qianji off his shoulder.
Qianji landed in a tree, clinging to a branch as the leaves trembled. Tiny spirit sprites, hidden in the foliage, flashed faint blue and scattered into the moonlight.
The commotion drew several searching glances from inside the ruins. Cen Qianshan slipped deeper into the shadows to avoid attention.
Determined not to be left behind, little Qianji clambered up his pants leg and settled back on Cen Qianshan’s shoulder.
“Master, this is not the way.” It whispered with that signature mechanical whine. “Mu Xue looks so happy down there. What if she likes the Immortal Spirit Realm and ditches us?”
“As long as she’s happy, we don’t matter? Don’t tell me you’re going to say something that stupid, Master?” Qianji’s tiny mouth twisted up in a wicked triangle.
Amidst the shadows, Cen Qianshan’s gaze glimmered, fixed and clinging to that flash of red among the crowd.
She laughed, brushing a hand over her nose, looping her arm through the person beside her, leaning in close, as if that closeness was the easiest thing in the world.
“Master belongs to me.” Hidden away in the shadows, the man bit down on his own finger. “She promised. She said she’d always be with me.”
His gaze turned icy, dangerously cold. “I’ll never let anyone else have her. Never.”
“That’s the spirit!” Qianji hyped him up, eager as ever. “Let’s get down there, kidnap Master Mu, bring her home, pamper her like she’s made of glass, and never, ever let her go back to the Immortal Spirit Realm again.”
What made Qianji almost want to stamp his non-existent feet was that his master, usually the boldest, fastest person in the room, suddenly lost his nerve at the worst possible moment, paralyzed and indecisive.
Mu Xue and her companions moved forward with caution, weaving through the ruins of an ancient city.
This city, once called Joyful City, was filled with statues of demonic gods, always in pairs.
The twin statues were of a man and a woman, both gorgeous, their forms graceful and inviting. The man was draped in shimmering robes, the woman adorned with jade bangles on her arms, their poses just this side of improper,
The righteous disciples, raised to be upright since childhood, couldn’t help but blush. The shy ones muttered, “Demonic cultivators really have no shame, do they? Who puts indecent statues like this right out in the open?”
But Uncle Lou, their elder, simply shrugged, unfazed. “This place was originally called the Hall of Bliss. Hundreds of years ago, the demonic clans here worshipped the God of Pleasure, cultivating some secret dual cultivation arts. Back then, this city was overflowing with talent, far more prosperous than anything you see today. That’s why there are so many of these statues left behind.”
The youngest disciples, faces burning, pressed further: “So… isn’t this ‘Bliss Technique’ basically just like those sleazy Joy Sects? All evil, right?”
Lou Xuelin just laughed. “There’s nothing shameful about any of this. Even we of the righteous path have our own secret room arts, thirty-three styles of dragon-tiger dual cultivation, all sorts of ancient secret techniques. At their core, they’re just like the Bliss Arts here, meant to let cultivation partners deepen their bond and achieve enlightenment through passion. It’s great wisdom. The only tragedy is that most of those righteous methods are now lost. What you see in sects like Joy Sect or the Liu family in the Demon Spirit Realm? That’s the watered-down, corrupt version, just vulgar tricks passing themselves off as cultivation.”
The young ones shot each other furtive glances. No matter how straight-laced you acted, who wasn’t at least a little curious? So, one braved the embarrassment: “But why did those real methods die out?”
In Lou Xuelin’s mind, better to lay things out in the open than keep dodging around. Young people will always be curious, and now that they’re here in Joyful City, what’s the point in hiding it?
“True dual cultivation demands you trust your partner with your life and soul, absolute honesty, mutual support, growth. Not just greed, not treating each other as tools to be used and thrown away.”
He glanced at the toppled, dirt-streaked statues scattered in the dust and shook his head slightly. “Cultivation is already impossibly hard, one in ten thousand might glimpse the path. Finding someone whose strength and spirit matches yours, who can walk beside you for centuries, heart unchanged, loyal as the day you met? That is a rare and precious fate.”
He shook his head, sighing. “Some things, all the wishing in the world won’t make them yours.”