“His Majesty’s footwork once thrashed eight hundred warriors and toppled the White Rhinoceros King. I wager this human will lose within three moves!”
“Nonsense,” the crow demon said. “Light as feathers, swift as shadows, slipping through clouds. This human’s movement has a hint of the Great Southern Peacock King about it. Hardly a pushover.”
“Bet or not?”
“Bet!”
The little demons clamoured, banging their weapons till the noise shook the sky, cheering for their king.
“Your Majesty! Fight, fight, fight!”
“Human, don’t be scared! You may be a bit sparsely furred, but we demons don’t discriminate between hairy and hairless. Equal treatment for all!”
“You speak nonsense! How could His Majesty possibly lose?”
“Keep it down. I’m using reverse psychology! And even if His Majesty did lose, the human’s barely got any fur. Giving him a lick wouldn’t even be tiring!”
“Our king has never been beaten. His first ceremonial lick hasn’t even been bestowed yet. If he ends up licking a human, wouldn’t that make our demon clan look utterly useless?”
“If things get dire, I’ll step up and take His Majesty’s place!”
“Me too! Me too!”
“Shut up, you lust-stricken fur-less ones! Your minds are impure. Stop embarrassing us demons!”
The two stood upon the mast, meeting each other’s gaze.
Yin Feixue suddenly said, “Is wandering the world truly better than living in my Tiandu City?”
Xue Cuo, badly injured, his pink robe torn to shreds. If anything, he looked more delicate than his clothing with his exposed skin pale as snow. The silver chain was still there, hidden at his waist.
Yin Feixue found it such a waste. Xue Cuo was a remarkably capable cultivator. His talisman craft unheard of, and Yin Feixue had never been able to discern his depths.
Xue Cuo was powerful, yet always insisted on doing thankless things.
A few strands of black hair fluttered; a faint smile barely tugged at Xue Cuo’s lips. His expression still cold. He had worn this very look when he had drawn that line between them, disappointing Yin Feixue for a long time.
“My path is not the king’s path,” Xue Cuo said. “Why force it?”
What difference? Yin Feixue thought. His words were infuriating… yet he persisted. He folded his arms, saying evenly, “My Tiandu City has little Xianghuo and few cultivators. What’s wrong with that?”
Xue Cuo paused, genuinely surprised. His hand tightened slightly around the mast, but he still shook his head.
He had been furious at first. Anyone would be, injured, recovering, and poked fun at. But as the fight dragged on, the little demons began chattering, and Xue Cuo had to forcibly keep himself from laughing.
Seizing the sail, he feigned an opening, then used the momentum to kick straight at Yin Feixue’s jaw. Yin Feixue reacted instantly, dodging aside: “Your legwork’s not bad!”
Xue Cuo smirked faintly. “Mind yourself, Your Majesty. Your little demons are waiting to see you lick my fur.”
Yin Feixue looked him up and down, then burst into laughter. “You’ve barely a dozen eyebrow hairs between you. Such big talk.”
Xue Cuo didn’t reply. He caught Yin Feixue’s incoming punch instead. It was a blow of tremendous force, like a thousand mountains crashing down, drawn from the Lake-and-Sea Heaven-Turning Seal. Xue Cuo staggered back several steps, dispersing the force.
This tiger’s physical technique truly was impressive.
Drawing a breath, Xue Cuo’s fighting spirit flared. He flicked his sleeve. “Again!”
“Gladly,” Yin Feixue said.
He hunched his shoulders, gathered strength, and lunged. Xue Cuo leapt aside, but the movement tugged at his hidden injury. His spiritual domain throbbed, his vision darkened, and he tipped backwards.
“Xue Yinbing!”
A large hand caught his, hauling him back from the brink. Then he was lifted clean off his feet and slung over a shoulder.
Yin Feixue was enormous, demon physiques being monstrously strong. In his grasp, Xue Cuo was small, easily held by one hand at the waist.
A furry tiger paw pressed against Xue Cuo’s pulse. Xue Cuo, dizzy, couldn’t even question it before Yin Feixue punched the mast hard enough to make it shudder, wood splintering. “You. Honestly! Your spiritual domain is practically hollow. Why on earth are you still fighting me?!”
The little demons hadn’t understood any of this. They only saw the human faltering mid-fight, then being caught and hoisted by the king.
“Did His Majesty win?” one shouted, craning his neck.
Yin Feixue lifted Xue Cuo effortlessly. “Of course not. He’s injured. Better to stop than fight again. Go and prepare hot water.”
“Where shall we send him to?” the little demons asked.
Yin Feixue scratched his chin. His boat wasn’t large, and the little demons occupied every corner.
“Send it to my quarters. And call Snow Rabbit over.”
“Yes!”
Half-conscious, Xue Cuo felt a sudden jolt. Xuan Zhao’s voice rang sharply: “Boy! Don’t you dare fall asleep. Your chastity won’t survive it!”
Xue Cuo jerked awake. The first thing he saw was the cabin. He lay on a massive stone bed. His bones ached from the hardness.
“Master Xuan… where is this?” Xue Cuo groaned.
Xuan Zhao sounded far too delighted. “The den of that white-furred tiger! Sleep any longer and you’d be sharing his bed!”
“But that’s not so bad. That white tiger looks well-off, with treasures everywhere, I bet. Lick his fur, stroke his paws, and you’ll profit handsomely without paying a single coin in betrothal gifts!”
“Let me tell you. There was a great god in ancient times that played using this soft angle, rose straight to Golden Immortal, then kicked his benefactor aside! Fame and fortune both!”
“Who was it?” Xue Cuo asked.
Xuan Zhao fell silent, choked. “I swore never to say.”
Resting his chin on his hand, Xue Cuo whispered, “Master Xuan, you’ve lived seven thousand years. Surely you know the Goddess of the Great Loch. Tell me, Her Ladyship—”
Xuan Zhao spat twice. “Stop poking about! Don’t think I don’t know. You’re the inheritor of that one’s lineage! Don’t try to fish for secrets!”
“Master Xuan, you mean… you don’t know?”
“How dare you! My body in the Divine River, my heart in the Great Heaven. There’s nothing I don’t know. Back then, Your Ladyship.”
The voice abruptly cut off.
Xue Cuo waited, then pulled out the tortoise shell. “Master Xuan?”
It lay motionless.
Xue Cuo sighed dramatically. “Aiya… this time Master Xuan’s prospects seem grim indeed.”
He changed clothes, meditated briefly, and noticed healing pills on the table that had been left by Yin Feixue. After considering, he used them.
Two days of recuperation restored his spiritual domain to near normal. Then Xue Cuo began reviewing the events in Qianyun City.
The [Ren] Temple had collapsed, yet Ren Shu-gege hadn’t perished. Still, this trip seemed doomed to fail.
The one who held the Flame of Rebirth, the crow who hadn’t acted… Without the Xuan Tortoise these past days, Xue Cuo would have died ten times over. And within that city lurked something more terrifying than the four evil gods themselves.
For now, he could only plan carefully.
Lost in thought, brooding for a long time, feeling stifled, he rose and opened the window.
A bright moon hung outside.
Silver waves shimmered across the endless sea.
Heaven and earth, vast and boundless.
Human life were mere specks of dust brushed away by time.
Where had he come from? Where was he going? Fate came and went as it pleased. He understood these truths… yet what use was understanding?
Hands clasped behind his back, Xue Cuo murmured, “My Ladyship… I left home young. Twelve years have gone in an instant. I wonder when I shall meet my old friends again.”
No reply came.
Instead, a golden lotus appeared out of nowhere, drifting onto the sea. Fish leapt playfully, scattering droplets into countless points of starlight, spreading across the waters in breath-taking splendour.
Those points of light formed a painting.
Mist heavy, water vapour rising. Beneath a maple tree, a few blurred figures. There were some sitting, some leaning, some plucking strings or singing or raising cups together.
The clink of cups shifted the scene.
The mountains’ mist was gone, the waters dried, the maple tree cleaved in half, the stone table overturned. Only a solitary, silent figure remained, with a few empty cups.
He drank alone, setting the cup heavily upon the stone table.
The golden lights scattered, the image dissolved.
Xue Cuo stared, stunned. He leaned out of the window, nearly climbing onto the sill.
“Your Ladyship! I didn’t even see who was who. Show it to me again!”
The surface of the water was quiet for a moment; suddenly, a golden fish leapt out, flinging up a tail of spray that drenched Xue Cuo’s face.
Xue Cuo spat twice, utterly aggrieved, and said with heartfelt misery, “I really didn’t see clearly.”
A pity no one answered him this time.
Two scenes, two endings?
This was the Great Dao, this was also the Great Calamity.
Heaven and earth’s immortal road was about to open; seven-tenths of living beings would die or be wounded. Could it be that Xiao Gu-gege, Kong Xiao-Yun, all of them, would fall in this calamity?
What was it, exactly, that the Goddess had shown him? Though the Goddess disliked divination, the fates She revealed were all matters within reach.
Just as before he became Her disciple, when She had shown him four destinies. Those were not illusions, but futures that could be steered.
Xue Cuo’s thoughts grew heavier still. He sat gloomily on the edge of the bed, spirit listless. Better not to look at all; looking only made his heart more tangled.
From outside the window suddenly drifted string-music, and the bold sound of singing.
Xue Cuo lifted his eyes.
Under the silver moon, the deck swarmed with demonic shadows; the demons gathered in revelry, singing to the moon.
They surrounded a throne; upon the chair sat a white-furred tiger clad in black soft armour.
He drank alone from a wine-jar, his gaze smiling as he tossed prizes to the victors in the contest. The little demons were jubilant, singing and dancing.
Except.
Except that every one of those demons bore a human head. Regardless of whether the rest of their form could transform, even if their magic was insufficient, they insisted on producing a human head… though most of their bodies remained wholly demonic.
A chill crept over Xue Cuo’s skin. Strange, grotesque… yet it washed away much of his heavy brooding.
“Xue Yinbing!”
Yin Feixue had noticed him at some point, standing on the throne with a wine-jar in his arms, golden eyes gleaming. “Come out and drink!”
“Your Majesty, drink him under the table!”
“Aiya! Humans are useless, and besides, our king can drink a thousand cups without falling. No one in Tiandu City can outdrink him.”
“I’ve drunk down a good hundred or eighty humans,” one demon boasted, thumping his chest, his words dripping with contempt.
Others muttered, “Look at him. He’s probably a cultivator. These immortal cultivators, so stuffy and pedantic; he won’t agree.”
“Sounds right.”
“He’s surely afraid of losing, of losing face, of being mocked by the other bald-headed folk, mm???”
“He’s coming down!”
The little demons couldn’t help but lift their heads.
And then.
It was the breeze with the bright moon, the sea-moon chasing after silver waves.
Song high and wine fierce.
Atop the hundred-foot mast, the fluttering azure hem of that figure was like clear waves; as if standing upon clouds, as if falling upon the wind.
Yin Feixue twitched an ear, curved his lips, raised his jar in invitation: “Dare you drink?”
Xue Cuo landed beside him, picked up the jar, and tossed it lightly. “You and I, competing in drink?”
“Don’t dare?”
“Aaa.” Xue Cuo cradled the jar, sniffed it first, then lifted it and drank an elegant, dainty sip like a cat before smacking his lips. “Bring the wine.”
Yin Feixue’s eyes lit up. “Good.”
The little demons clamoured, bustling about as they brought out tables, chairs, benches, swiftly clearing the space.
A long table was hauled up with much huffing and puffing; then came more than a dozen jars of good wine. The moment the mud seals were knocked loose, a pure fragrance surged forth.
The little demons clashed weapons, shouting to the heavens.
Xue Cuo stood at one end of the wine-table; Yin Feixue placed one foot upon the tabletop. “Please!”
Xue Cuo laughed softly, raised the jar, and downed it in one go, not spilling a drop. He wiped his mouth. “Your turn.”
Yin Feixue cracked open the seal and did the same. One long draught, not a drop spilled.
Xue Cuo’s eyes flickered. That move, the [Crossing Silver Hook], looked simple yet was fiendishly difficult. This tiger learned quickly.
Unwilling to lose, he raised another jar, meeting Yin Feixue’s gaze with open challenge.
Yin Feixue glanced at those ink-painted eyes and smiled, refusing to yield. The two drank faster and faster.
The little demons swiftly changed sides, cheering Xue Cuo on.
For the last jar, the two fought across the tabletop; but as they scuffled, the crow demon found it increasingly odd.
“Like. It’s truly like.”
“Like what?”
“A cat. A cat chasing a butterfly.”
A little demon clamped a hand over his mouth. “Do shut up.”
No matter how quick Yin Feixue’s movements, they were not true Supreme Freedom Technique. Xue Cuo perched on the mast, triumphantly hooking the final jar and holding it close, cheeks rosy, eyes bright. “Mine.”
Yin Feixue, seeing him guard it like food, couldn’t help but smile; his golden eyes narrowed, feigning a sigh. “Yes, yours. You’ve won.”
“Haha.” Xue Cuo took a small gulp; all his vexation scattered. He swung his legs. “Rare moon tonight. It dispels all grief.”
Yin Feixue nearly choked with laughter. “How many brows have you? Where did you pick up so many griefs?”
Graceful as jade… smiling or frowning, still a beauty. Xue Cuo sighed. “You don’t understand.”
Yin Feixue rubbed his chin. “Say it, then.”
Xue Cuo looked toward the sea, drank a sip. “Tell me, can a man pierce the sky?”
Yin Feixue thought for a moment, then sat beside him, one leg propped up. “Sword Immortal of Eastern Lands, Jun Wuwei. Did he not pierce the firmament by his strength alone? So I’d say it’s the easiest thing.”
Xue Cuo was silent for a while, then took a gloomy sip. “I think so too.”
“To pierce Him… not hard.”
“To pierce Him, and then shape what kind of sky, what kind of path… that is hardest.”
He waited long; hearing no reply, Xue Cuo turned his head. Yin Feixue held out his hand. “Give me a sip, or I won’t keep chatting.”
Xue Cuo swore twice and tossed him the jar. Yin Feixue thought, if he guards it so tightly, how did it reach my mouth? He caught it, took a sip. There was the faint fragrance of lotus.
Yin Feixue blinked, rubbed his ears, rubbed his nose, coughed twice, inexplicably embarrassed. He returned the jar. Xue Cuo said, “Go on.”
Yin Feixue spread his hands. “Didn’t I say? Tiandu City sets no Xianghuo altars, no immortal palaces. Humans and demons together, there’s only the law.”
Xue Cuo asked, “In a great calamity, under absolute power, how do you keep yourself?”
Yin Feixue replied, “Break them. My city walks only by my rules.”
He sat tall upon the mast, calmly looking over the sea; his gaze was deep and steady, glinting with wisdom.
There was pride and ambition, and beneath that calm, a cunning mind.
“Eastern and Western Lands, thirty-five thousand li. I guard only one city.”
“And one day, in this city, I will prove my own Dao.”
Xue Cuo smiled, suddenly unburdened. He said, “The Great Dao is solitary; one walks it alone. I share these words with you.”
Yin Feixue, pleased, grasped his hand. “Shared, then.”
Xue Cuo: “…” Let go of my hand!
Notice from PurpleLy (the translator) 16 Feb 2026:
Tomorrow’s Chinese New Year, thus chapter updates for all ongoing translations will resume on 19 Feb. 恭喜发财 (Gong Xi Fa Cai) and 新年快乐 (Xin Nian Kuai Le) to those celebrating🧧 Thanks for reading!
