Sunlight pierced through the clouds.
The ground was thick with mud, trees lay collapsed, and the shrubs were bleak and sodden. Ying Xiao had descended earlier and, sensing the ill atmosphere, beat his wings, stirring up a clean, cool breeze.
Countless mottled leaves of yellow, red, and green rose into the air, veiling the scars of the earth, drifting gently among the folds of the mountains.
Like falling blossoms dancing upon the peaks, it was breathtakingly beautiful.
The young monk in white, his brows streaked with blood, hefted his demon-subduing staff, resembling an Asura risen to destroy the world.
“It really is you.”
“Xue Cuo, Xue Cuo, I’ve found you.”
He sighed softly, then suddenly smiled, the delight and astonishment in his eyes too genuine to be feigned.
The child with the flower-bud bun, who was once lively and quick-witted, had become a young cultivator, handsome of brow and eye, his bearing bright and spirited. Xi Tao felt a surge of emotion, mingled with a tangle of feelings he could not name.
Even after falling into the mortal realm and losing his path to immortality, Xue Cuo had never given up. He was not someone who waited for others to save him.
Afraid he might have forgotten, Xi Tao raised his hand. “Look at this string of talisman beads.”
Lotus beads, stained with the blood of a young sword cultivator. He was the one who had once sent sword-qi roaring across the heavens, reddening the sky with blood, and died for a justice he could never attain.
“Zhu Xiaoyou,” Xue Cuo recognised it at once. “You’re Xi Tao?”
Xi Tao removed the severed head of the evil god from his pestle and smiled faintly. “Amithaba. This little monk has done his duty.”
When Wendao Palace rose in rebellion, he had been confined at home, unable to lend aid, forced to watch as Zhu Xiaoyou and Xue Cuo both vanished into the unknown.
In the depths of his despair, his nature changed entirely. He defected from his sect, sought the Dao alone, and entered the Western Buddhist order, taking the name Xin Pu.
A cold snort.
At the sound, Xue Cuo looked over at once to see a tall, slender figure in a hood. The man lifted a hand and removed it.
In that instant, the trees stilled, and even the wind halted.
Ying Xiao’s eyes bulged; he toppled backwards, colliding with the equally stupefied Xuan Zhao. Xuan Zhao swallowed hard, wholly stunned.
Xue Cuo was no less shocked. This peerless beauty… could it be—? He sucked in a breath, his voice trembling. “Are you… Kong Fei-niao?”
He discreetly swept his hand upwards… only to find the little bird was now taller than he was.
Kong Yun’s expression cracked. The ethereal Dao-appearance he had moments ago, radiant and jade-pure, had shattered. Xuan Zhao and Ying Xiao shivered, snapping back to themselves. One look, and the unimaginable happened: the feathers at the peacock’s temples stood bristling upright, his pupils tightened, his brows shot up. Then with a swish, he transformed fully into a peacock, beating his wings and bellowing, “What did you say?!”
The emerald plume at Xue Cuo’s waist flared with seven-coloured light and darted towards the peacock. Xue Cuo hurriedly pressed it down. “Xiao Yun, this leg feather’s been with me over ten years. I’ve grown attached to it. You can’t just reclaim it.”
Kong Yun: “Leg feather?!”
Xue Cuo, entirely unafraid of death, looked sincerely at him. “If you really want one, I’ll pluck one out in exchange.”
With a downward sweep of his wings, the peacock sent Xue Cuo skimming along the wind. Xue Cuo stepped onto the mountaintop, running the Supreme Freedom Technique to flee. The enraged peacock gave chase, relentless: “Showing off before your master! I’m the one who taught you light footwork!”
Xue Cuo retorted, “The pupil surpasses the master. Clearly, you’ve yet to understand.”
The two streaked across the sky. Xi Tao pressed his palms together, looking up. “Follow the heart; remain true to nature.”
Gu Ruhui carried two evil-god heads. Kong Yun, who was volatile and obsessively clean, had only managed to carry them as far as Gu Ruhui before dropping them, so Gu Ruhui shouldered the task. Together they approached Ren Shu. Gravely wounded, his face marked with blood-sigils, he looked horrifying, yet none of the three so much as flinched.
Ren Shu examined the three heads. His lips trembled; suddenly he broke into choking sobs, his clay-coloured face twisting in overwhelming grief. He punched the heads again and again until all three were smashed to pulp.
More than three hundred souls of the Ren Temple.
The entire Ren clan, top to bottom.
Even the spirit foetus… the sole vessel retaining consciousness, had perished under divine punishment.
When he had seized the crow’s body, he had heard, with his own ears, the voices of his kin from within the spirit foetus. Yet he could not release them, could not forgive.
The Four Gods and the spirit foetus prospered together and perished together.
And every member of the Ren Temple was already gone.
What he had heard was false.
Scarlet tears streamed from his eyes. Ren Shu lay on the ground, hands soaked in blood, his bleeding gaze turned to the heavens, silent.
Xi Tao settled beside him, sensing the depth of his sorrow. Removing his Buddhist beads, he sat upon the mountaintop and began to chant. His voice was airy yet solemn, like a breeze brushing through, bringing quiet and calm.
Gu Ruhui looked down the mountainside. The talisman-dragon breathed in the waters, and the survivors huddled together on the flooded hilltops, clinging to a sliver of peace.
But grief could not be quelled; sorrow could not be restrained.
Qiandu City lay drowned beneath the flood, erased from the world. No way home. No familiar faces.
Whether exalted cultivator or mortal with a life as fragile as grass, in this moment, their hearts were the same.
A heavy weight settled on Gu Ruhui. He sat beside Xi Tao and asked, “Do you cultivate Buddhism to deliver them?”
Xi Tao shook his head. “I only deliver the living. Their next life will find its own path. I cannot deliver them.”
Gu Ruhui frowned. “I don’t understand.”
Xi Tao remained serene. He stroked the blood-stained beads, his tone calm, stripped of all former allure or wickedness. “If it were Xue Cuo, he would surely understand.”
Gu Ruhui fell silent. He lifted his gaze. Suddenly, Xue Cuo, exhausted of divine power, wavered in the clouds. Just then, a white-furred tiger leapt from the treetops to catch him.
Kong Yun turned human again, frowning. “And you are?”
He scrutinised the white tiger: a human body with a beast’s head, golden eyes, silver markings, a black blade strapped to his back. This was no ordinary cultivation. “The Lord of Tiandu City?”
Yin Feixue supported Xue Cuo’s shoulders, her eyes steady, showing neither awe nor the joy of meeting one of her own kind. “Yin Feixue of Tiandu. You must be the Demon Clan’s Little Saint.”
Kong Yun’s voice was cold. He raised his feather fan slightly, hostility thinly veiled. “You intend to protect him?”
Yin Feixue arched a brow. A low-born demon by origin, he’d never crossed blades with a scion of the demon royal court. How could the honoured Little Saint be so petty?
Xue Cuo leaned against the warm fur, divine power surging chaotically, qi and blood churning. With effort, he said, “Take me down first. My spiritual domain aches terribly.”
Kong Yun’s face tightened; he pressed forward. “I told you to stop! You great oaf. Let me see.”
Yin Feixue held Xue Cuo easily. Normally open-hearted and unrestrained, he found himself strangely uneasy around the little peacock saint. The city lord commanded an entire domain; he might dislike scheming, but he was no fool. “He was already injured. Fighting you stirred his divine power. Of course it hurts. Let him rest.”
With a leap, he used his own half-mastered Supreme Freedom Technique. It was not taught by Xue Cuo, but gleaned by talent and intuition.
Kong Yun, the originator of the technique, bristled at once. But seeing Xue Cuo injured, and remembering the mischief he himself had caused, he swallowed his temper, silently stewing.
Yin Feixue asked gently, “Why fight him at all?”
Surely Xue Cuo knew how badly hurt he was.
Xue Cuo’s hair was tousled by the wind; a faint lotus fragrance drifted to Yin Feixue’s nose. He twitched slightly. The two were very close; Xue Cuo, exhausted, rested his cheek without a thought against the pristine snow-white fur. He whispered, “Brothers meeting again… it’s awkward at first. I was afraid we’d have nothing to say, so I thought we might as well start with a fight.”
Yin Feixue let out a helpless laugh. Xue Cuo, triumphant, held up his hand. “And I found out. His cultivation is only a fingernail stronger than mine.”
Embarrassing, considering Xue Cuo’s own state today.
Yin Feixue raised a brow. “What about Gu Ruhui?”
Xue Cuo considered, then held up a finger-joint… much larger than a fingernail. Yin Feixue found it amusing. “And the little monk?”
Xue Cuo’s finger-joint shrank back, then edged forward again, agonisingly undecided.
Seeing he couldn’t choose, Yin Feixue coughed lightly, ears perking as he pretended casualness. “And me?”
Xue Cuo looked genuinely troubled. His expression twisted and shifted, then with a sigh he held up half a little fingernail.
Yin Feixue’s face darkened; even his whiskers bristled. Xue Cuo, who had been somewhat downcast moments ago, now brightened completely.
Yin Feixue stared, jaw working, paws flexing, starting and stopping many times. He was like a poor tiger unjustly accused of being utterly useless in broad daylight.
Xue Cuo, in turn, hooked an arm about his shoulders, quite unaware that Yin Feixue’s ears had shot up like needles the moment he leaned in, his movements stuttering by a beat.
He boasted shamelessly, attempting to coax the great tiger into parting with his wine. “If you’re willing to let me have a few jars of your precious brew, I might… just might be persuaded to change my mind.”
His voice was so low and resonant that it seemed to scorch the fur of the tiger’s sensitive ears. Yin Feixue gritted his teeth. “Bah. You humans truly are despicable.”
“How can that possibly be called despicable?”
Yin Feixue caught Xue Cuo around the waist as they both landed. Kong Yun followed at their heels, arms folded. He cast Yin Feixue a sidelong glance and suddenly said, “With demons about, why aren’t you using your human form?”
The words of the young demon saint carried significant weight.
Yin Feixue arched a brow and murmured something under his breath. Kong Yun’s eyebrows immediately shot up.
Xue Cuo made his way over to Ren Shu. He glanced at the shredded flesh scattered on the ground, then crouched beside him, repairing the broken blood talisman and restoring clarity to his gaze.
“Ren Shu-gege, look down.”
Ren Shu had been lost in a stupefied haze, but at the sound of the youth’s low voice, he slowly rose. He looked down. Across the wilderness drifted faint voices and panicked cries. There were displaced mortals everywhere. The Ren Temple had been built brick by brick by these very people. When he had fled before the Four Gods, the city’s households had lit their lamps and left their doors unbarred, shielding him from pursuit and giving him a slim chance to live.
How had he fallen so low?
A thousand words condensed into a single sorrow. His thoughts barely put up a fight. He simply sighed.
“My power is meagre. That is a blessing, not a curse. Ren Temple is gone. These mortals should not offer incense to it. I cannot protect them. For over ten years I’ve endured the inevitable uprising, watching countless souls die in this city. I am not worthy of their faith. Xue Cuo, I know you walk the Xianghuo Divine Dao path. Can you send them on? Their souls are beneath the water.”
The mountaintop wind whispered softly; the distant chanting was serene.
Qianyun City, struck by divine wrath, had become a vast flooded marsh with demons lurking, vengeful spirits refusing to disperse, cultivators watching like wolves, temple gods hovering hungrily.
A perilous land.
Under heavenly punishment, perhaps still a land with no merit to be won.
Xue Cuo gazed out over the watery expanse, his eyes dark and tranquil, yet glimmering. “Then I’d like to build a temple to the goddess here.”
It would be an undertaking of immense scale.
The strands of cause and effect were veiled, unpredictable… success was uncertain. Ren Shu’s face lit with a trace of joy. “Good.”
Abruptly, he stiffened. A hand had found him. Xue Cuo had covered the bloody hollow beneath his brow with a piece of gossamer spun from lotus root fibres, tying it firmly behind his head. He patted his shoulder. “A thousand ships pass the wreck. Ren Shu-gege, our reunion is a blessing. Don’t cry.”
Gu Ruhui lifted his sword. “A happy occasion. We should drink.”
Xi Tao pressed his palms together. With a sweep of his hand he shaved a wooden stake flat into a stool; then he swung his demon-subduing staff, cleaving a chunk off a cliffside and shaping it into a stone table.
Kong Yun was now in a humanoid body with a bird’s head. He was trading blows with Yin Feixue in secret, their sparring growing fiercer by the moment. He was mildly startled, even impressed. The tiger’s footwork was quite decent, and worthy of the demon race. Seeing Xi Tao’s actions out of the corner of his eye, he dove into the waterfall, dropped into the deep pool below, and moments later burst from the water clutching a slab of green stone. His fingers danced; the stone became a set of wine cups.
Yin Feixue folded his arms, glancing left and right. Seeing no chance to display his strength, he reluctantly fetched several jars of fine wine from his mustard seed pouch.
