Dude, your house seems to be on fire
Right now, at Nine Heavens Sect, Tianzhu Peak.
In the main hall surrounded by a sea of blossoms, there is a quaint, simply furnished guest room. Inside, a clear-featured young man with a cinnabar mark on his forehead, and a middle-aged scholar with a pale face and long beard, are sitting across from each other with a chessboard between them.
If one looks closely at the latter, they will notice that even though his hair and beard are jet black, there are faint fine lines on his forehead and at the corners of his eyes — a sign that a high-ranking cultivator's cultivation has hit a bottleneck, and the Tribulation of Heavenly End is creeping up on him.
The young man holds a white chess piece, sets it down on the board unhurriedly, looks up and smiles, saying, "Martial Uncle Huai Gu, your move."
"This..."
The middle-aged scholar frowns with a grave look, deep in thought. His hand holding the black piece rises and falls repeatedly, his face dark as the bottom of a pot. Finally, he simply flings the piece away, throwing a childish tantrum like a grumpy kid. "No more, no more! What's the point of playing chess, it's no fun at all. Master Qiu, you are way too obsessed with winning, you won't even let an old man like me win a single round."
The young man: "..."
Who is the one obsessed with winning here, really.
This fair, delicate-looking young man may seem very youthful, but his inner self is already thoroughly weathered. He is none other than the head of the Nine Heavens Sect — Master Zhiyuan, whose given name is "Qiu Xin", which literally means "autumn heart", a heart weighed down by endless worries piling up day and night.
As for the middle-aged man across from him, putting on the airs of a senior but looking nothing like a dignified elder, that is naturally Master Huaigu, the peak master with the highest seniority in the entire Nine Heavens Sect.
Long before Master Qiu took over as the sect head, Master Huaigu had already been the lord of his own peak. He is also the main supplier of all the sect's pills and artifacts, holding the core production techniques firmly in his hands. His position is as stable as an old dog sitting firmly on its favorite mat. Among his peers from the older generation of cultivators, some have ascended to immortality, some have fallen in battle, leaving only this one remaining living fossil behind. Back in the old days, he was the little junior brother of the group, but now he is the big shot everyone has to defer to.
Everyone respects his seniority and long experience, so they always give in to him on every little thing. No one expected that all this deference would spoil him into a full-blown arrogant old coot who leans on his seniority to throw his weight around, even more overbearing than the most tyrannical old master of the house.
Granduncle Huai may not be the sharpest tool in the shed, and is riddled with flaws like vanity, conceit, and blatant favoritism, but fortunately his resolve to slay demons and defend the righteous path is still solid. It just occasionally goes a little too far, leading him to treat every demon and monster with equal suspicion, which accidentally slips into the weird territory of racial discrimination against all non-human cultivators.
"Martial Uncle, you are still in the prime of your life, how could you be considered old?" As a junior and also his superior, Master Qiu has always been very tolerant of this old relic of the sect — as long as he doesn't throw unreasonable tantrums like he did during the new disciples' entry trial. He doesn't get mad at all even when the old man leans on his seniority to act up, just quietly lowers his head to tidy up the scattered chess pieces. "Besides, if you can cultivate all the way to the Nascent Soul stage, your lifespan will be extended by another thousand years, and you'll be a young man again."
— That is, of course, on the premise that you focus properly on your cultivation, instead of messing around with all sorts of useless trivial things every day.
"Good, good, good, you are the only one who knows how to talk nicely." Huai Gu is so pleased by this string of flattering words that his gloomy mood clears right up. He doesn't even care if the sect head is just brushing him off or hiding some hidden meaning behind the words, and his previously slightly hunched back straightens up proudly again. "The new batch of disciples that have joined the sect in the past two years, each one more stubborn and arrogant than the last. Relying on their little bit of natural talent, they don't even bother to show proper respect to their elders."
"Hahaha..." Master Qiu replies with a completely emotionless dry laugh. "No way, how could that be. All the young disciples are very sensible and respectful."
At the same time, he quietly wipes a sweat drop in his heart, silently complaining to himself: I can tell you are talking about Shu Fu.
If Shu Fu and Jiang Xuesheng overhear this, there will be another huge, messy fight causing chaos all over the sect the very next day.
Fortunately, over the years, Master Huaigu has been put in his place so many times that he has learned his lesson, and no longer dares to speak his mind casually in front of the disciples of the Yaoguang Peak.
Huai Gu paused for a moment, then stroked his long beard and said slowly, "Speaking of reaching the Deity Transformation stage... Alas, for years I have felt my realm loosening, yet I always fall just short of that final step. I've been thinking the problem lies with my state of mind."
"Your state of mind?"
"Exactly." Master Huaigu shook his head and sighed, his gaze resting on the chessboard, yet it seemed to drift far away into distant memories. "I don't know if it's because I'm getting on in years, but these days I keep thinking about things from Fang Bailu's past."
Bailu.
Fairy Fang, Fang Bailu.
Master Qiu turned the name over in his mind, and already had a pretty good idea of what this was about. "Martial Uncle, even now you cannot let go of the regret of Fairy Fang's passing all those years ago?"
It was said that in his early years, Master Huaigu had traveled across the realm, and fell head over heels the moment he laid eyes on the eldest daughter of the Fang clan back then. He was so captivated by her dignified, elegant, pure and saintly demeanor as a young lady of good family that he launched a fiery, all-out pursuit that was like an old house catching fire, and finally won her heart.
The Fang clan had risen from humble origins, and Miss Fang had gone through a lot of hardships when she was little. After the family grew wealthy, she developed a passion for collecting rare and precious treasures, especially admiring and playing with jewelry and jade. To outsiders, this might have seemed a little overly materialistic.
But to a lover's eyes, beauty shines through. In the eyes of her old admirer Huai Gu, Miss Fang's fondness for nice things was no big deal at all. In fact, he thought it was rather cute, a little endearing quirk of a soft, sweet young woman.
In his eyes, he and Miss Fang shared nothing less than a once-in-an-age, undying love that two hearts had wholeheartedly pledged to each other.
The kind where he would transfer a hundred thousand dollars to her every month.
And this Miss Fang, after seven years of receiving Huai Gu's loving financial support, plus a precious tourmaline he gave her as a token of their engagement, finally agreed to his eighteenth marriage proposal.
However, on the eve of their wedding, Miss Fang suddenly failed her tribulation crossing, fell into demonic cultivation due to misdirected spiritual energy, and ultimately perished amid the heavenly thunder tribulation, leaving nothing but a handful of fine ash scattered by the thunder.
Master Huaigu would never forget the last words she said to him:
"Dalang, I want the most beautiful red coral from the East China Sea to decorate our wedding ceremony."
Back then, Huai Gu did not go by the name "Huaigu" yet. Because he was the eldest among his brothers in his hometown, he had that... seemingly ordinary nickname that felt a little oddly intimate once you thought about it.
And for hundreds of years, what the name "Huai Gu" (which literally means "cherishing the past") he cherishes half refers to the ancient ethos of the sages of old, and the other half refers to this love story that was cut short before it could ever fully blossom.
For her sake, not only did he send money to the Fang clan without fail for a hundred years, he also shielded them from harm at every turn and bent the rules in their favor, allowing the Fang to grow smoothly into a powerful local clan that eventually raised such a remarkable oddity as Fang Wanqing.
But there was one thing he never found out.
All the money he had sent to Miss Fang all those years ago vanished along with her, never to be seen again.
As for Master Qiu, just like everyone else in the Nine Heavens Sect, he had only heard this deep, romantic tale filtered through Master Huaigu's ten layers of rose-tinted nostalgia, and knew none of the finer details. What's more, he was a total blank slate when it came to romance, as innocent and unworldly as his gentle appearance suggested. For a moment, he had no idea how to comfort the older man.
Just as the sect leader was hesitating, a burst of flames suddenly shot up outside the window, dyeing a small patch of the emerald sky in the distance a vivid crimson, so bright and glaring it looked like a sea of falling sunset clouds.
The sect leader's expression changed. "What on earth is happening?"
Huai Gu was still lost in his fond memories, and said dismissively, "It's nothing. Most likely some alchemy furnace on a nearby mountain peak blew up. These younger generation folks, they're always messing around with swords and staffs, and are so careless when they tend their alchemy furnaces that something goes wrong every other day. Back in my day, when I forged a magic artifact for Bailu..."
But before he could even get to the good part of his grand "your granduncle has seen it all" speech, the sect leader slowly turned back from the window, his face glowing red in the light of distant flames.
"Martial Uncle, the one that's on fire... seems to be your Tianquan Peak."
"What?!"
Before Huai Gu could even process the shock, the communication jade tablet hanging at his waist suddenly lit up, and a disciple's tearful voice came through.
"Master, please come back quickly! Fang Wanqing, Fang Wanqing she..."
Huai Gu slammed his hand on the table and snapped, "What did she do now?!"
"She saw Junior Brother Qi chatting with another junior sister for a couple extra words, got paranoid that he'd fallen out of love with her, and then threw that Vermillion Phoenix Feather he risked his life to fetch back from the secret realm... right into your alchemy furnace! That thing is brimming with the most intense yang fire energy under heaven, it's supposed to be kept sealed under a thousand-year-old black ice for months to be handled safely. Now that she tossed it in, the whole furnace blew up, and your alchemy chamber collapsed on itself!!!"
Huai Gu: "............"
Master Qiu: "............"
After all this mess is sorted out, I really should persuade Martial Uncle Huai Gu to leave all this chaos and noise at Tianquan Peak behind, and go find a quiet place to unwind, Master Qiu thought numbly to himself.
Oh right, the Central State Flower Festival would be perfect. I can't make it myself, but it sounds like exactly the kind of lively fun that could wash all his troubles away for Martial Uncle.
...
...
At this very moment, Master Qiu has no idea about the unexpected chaos already brewing in Central State. He certainly has no clue that the property Master Huaigu lost to the explosion was far more than just a single alchemy chamber.
Deep in a lightless underground palace, Shu Fu held up a lit lantern to light the way as she walked down a narrow, long tunnel that looked exactly like the passageway in an ancient tomb.
Compared to the dungeon that once held Third Master Qi, this place was far darker, colder, and reeked of such thick, suffocating demonic energy that even ordinary cultivators would struggle to stay here for long.
No way this is a place any normal person would want to hang around in.
"Hey, Water Dio."
The chubby little water mink was tied up with a red string by Shu Fu, with the white snake coiled on its back. It was pitifully scuttling ahead to scout the path, and had to put up with her mean little nicknames every now and then. "Dio, are you sure this escape route of yours is reliable? I swear it feels like you're leading us straight into a trap."
"That's a stupid name! I'm a water mink, not some Dio!" The water mink's eyes welled up with tears as it protested. "How would I know! I only found this random hole that leads somewhere else, I never even tried to escape through it before!"
"Fine then." Shu Fu waved her hand generously. "No worries. You go crawl up front, and if there really is a trap, your little mink head will fall in first. I'll make sure to clean up your fur properly and put it to good use, don't you worry."
"And... what if I refuse to scout ahead..."
"Shut up and keep crawling." The white snake coiled on its back said coldly. "If you so much as try anything funny, you'll be nothing but a pelt right now."
Shu Fu nodded in complete agreement. "You knew exactly how evil Ninglu was and still wagged your tail for her, trying to leech off a rich powerful lady to get ahead in life. You should've seen this coming, right?"
"I-I-I'll never do it again! Once we get out of here, I'll work hard to make an honest living, I'll be a good, independent mink!"
The mink was so frightened by them that it broke out in a cold sweat, its fur soaked through as if it had just been fished out of water.
All it ever wanted was to be a lazy, good-for-nothing kept man, leaning on a big tree to enjoy the shade, and run away with a bundle of gold and silver valuables as soon as things went south. It never imagined it would end up in this situation.
A rich woman's support is never reliable. A man has to stand on his own two feet.
Meanwhile, Ye Shusheng followed closely behind Shu Fu, gradually regaining a bit of his energy, and briefly told her the story of how he had fallen into such a straitened circumstance.
Then he went on to say that a few days earlier, under the guidance of a fox demon disciple from Yaoguang Peak, he had traveled alone to Qingqiu.
However, after going through untold hardships to break through the mountain-protecting formation, he was turned away by the generals guarding the mountain gate—who were said to be the new Heavenly Demon King's retinue of close relatives. They declared, "That fox girl you knew back then is long dead. Now you should address her as 'Your Majesty.'"
Ye Shusheng could not make sense of their words, and only thought they were making fun of him. He left there dejectedly, having gained nothing at all.
"Maybe she thinks I am good for nothing and has no wish to meet me. That's why I planned to make a stunning splash at the Flower Festival before coming to find her again, but I never expected to fall victim to Demon Lord Ninglu's underhanded plot."
Shu Fu: "..."
I have a bold guess, I wonder if it's even right to say it out loud, and whether Brother Shusheng can even take it.
In the end, she decided to wait until they were out of danger to bring the matter up. If she took care of Xiao Hanyi herself, she might even be able to do Ye Shusheng a favor in front of the Heavenly Demon King.
Then it was Shu Fu's turn to share the intelligence. When Ye Shusheng heard about the Flower Children incident in the cities of Yao and Wei from her, his jaw dropped wide open, half in disbelief and half in burning indignation.
"Are you saying you suspect that the people of Yao and Wei a thousand years ago... executed those Flower Children right here?"
"To be precise, they weren't Flower Children back then. They were considered 'demon cultivators reincarnated'," Shu Fu corrected calmly. "It's only a guess on my part after all. When it comes to 'exorcising demons', one of the most likely methods is to drive the 'demon' back to the place it originally came from."
According to Shu Fu's speculation, during the chaos of the demonic upheaval a thousand years ago, the demon cultivators worked day and night to build this underground palace near Wei City.
Later, as the demonic disaster came to an end, the dragons and phoenixes vanished, and the demon cultivators scattered like fallen leaves when the tree fell. They abandoned the city and fled, retreating all the way to the "Demon Realm" located in the northeast corner of the Five Continents, leaving behind nothing but an empty underground palace, much like the haunted mansions often told of in urban legends.
If the people of Yao and Wei back then knew about this underground palace, and suspected that the two brothers of the Hua family were reincarnated demon cultivators...
"Then perhaps they imprisoned the two children right here in this underground palace."
"This place is thick with demonic qi and thin with spiritual qi. The two children were extremely sensitive to spiritual energy, so they would soon suffocate to death down here. Little junior sister, your guess is absolutely spot on."
The first half of the sentence came from Shu Fu.
The second half drifted out from the pitch-black darkness ahead, followed by a long, soft sigh, like the whisper of a ghost from the depths of the netherworld.
"Waaaah—?!"
The mink let out a sharp, disjointed shriek, twisted a full 180 degrees on the spot, and lunged straight for Shu Fu's face.
But before it could get anywhere near, a fair, slender hand reached out to catch it, lifting it up by the tail.
"Ruyi, is that you?"
Jiang Xuesheng, with a mink in one hand, called out loudly toward the depths of the tunnel, his voice clear and resonant like some kind of polished musical instrument, carrying far through the space.
"It's me, sir."
Liu Ruyi's voice drifted, faint and distant, also projected out with spiritual energy. It seemed close yet far, like an echo bouncing through a mountain valley.
"You and your junior sister both be careful. There's a formation here, and it's been laid out so deviously that I can't find a way out for the moment. This is the only way I can talk to you two."
"A formation?" Shu Fu asked, confused. "If the people of Yao and Wei really wanted to trap the Flower Child here, they could just block the tunnel entrance. Why go through the trouble of setting up a formation?"
No wonder Demon Lord Ninglu didn't chase after them.
"This isn't a human cultivator's formation. With their skills, they'd never be able to give me such a headache."
There was a hint of exasperation in Liu Ruyi's tone, followed by a helpless, bitter laugh. "I found a scroll of records in the formation, looks like some sort of diary left by the person who set it up. It seems someone got here before us."
"'Got here before you'?"
Shu Fu froze abruptly—this was something she had never expected. "You mean other people entered this underground palace earlier, and found out about the Flower Child?"
"Exactly. And that person has answered a number of very important questions."
Even as Liu Ruyi said this, the helplessness and sorrow in her voice grew thicker. "This diary says that the owner of the journal traveled around after the end of the Calamity of the Demons, and accidentally learned that something strange had happened in the Yao and Wei region. So he made his way all the way to this underground palace, just like us, to investigate. When he was about to leave, to keep other people from stumbling in by mistake, he 'arranged a tiny little formation'."
But that so-called "tiny little formation" was more than enough to cause massive headaches, and even Liu Ruyi had paid a painful price, leaving a whole mess of shed feathers behind.
"I'll read the specific contents to you two now."
"Alright, go ahead."
The truth they had been chasing all this time was so close at hand, Shu Fu couldn't help but sit up straight, quietly waiting for the revelations that were about to come.
Liu Ruyi began to read in a flat, emotionless tone.
"July 15th, sunny. The sun is blazing hot."
"It's been three full years since Lord Yinglong vanished. I don't miss him at all. Life without him is so peaceful, no one is yelling at me all the time."
"But even if Lord Yinglong has a sharp tongue, he's not a bad dragon. So I decided to do something good to commemorate him. Right now there's a severe drought in Yao and Wei, and I heard that the locals, desperate for any solution, have locked two children up in this underground palace thinking they're demon cultivators. Those kids could suffocate to death down there. I'm going to head over and see if I can save at least one of them."
"If I can't save them, I'll give those two kids a proper burial. Then I'll kill the people who did this to them to avenge them, and make all those brainless fools who cheered for it build a shrine for them, so their descendants can come and worship to atone for their sins for generations, to help those poor wronged souls find peace. If those people refuse to do as I say, well... I'll just put my sword to their necks and force them to build it."
"That's such a brilliant idea, only I could come up with it!"
"Lord Yinglong treated me terribly, yelling at me every day, and even plucking my feathers in all sorts of new ways. But I'm the bigger person, I'm not holding grudges against him. I'm solving a huge problem for his territory. When he wakes up, he's definitely going to look at me in a whole new light."
Shu Fu: "......"
Jiang Xuesheng: "......"
Wait, it doesn't seem like anything was properly solved at all.
The mink yelps, "Owwww, it hurts! It hurts like crazy! You darn white snake spirit, why on earth did you go and squeeze my tail?! Ahhh, it's breaking! My tail, my tail is about to snap clean off!!!"
