Weixu.
Diecui Valley, Wangyou Palace.
Nalan Du opened his eyes. After this period of recuperation, his cultivation and strength had grown even greater than before.
Back in the demonic realm, he had crossed paths with Xu Ying, only to be grievously wounded and captured by him. When the Ninth Immortal King manifested an avatar through the Immortal Dao Jade Pool to rescue him, Xu Ying had seized Nalan Du by the throat as a hostage, using him to threaten the Ninth Immortal King.
It was a humiliating disgrace.
The mere thought of it ignited a scorching fire in Nalan Du's chest, leaving him desperate for another battle against Xu Ying!
Just then, the voice of a youth called from outside. "Senior Brother Nalan, Master requests your presence."
Nalan Du rose from the Jade Pool and stepped across the surface of the water as he walked out. Over these past days, he had bathed continuously within the pool, absorbing the immortal qi of the Immortal Dao Jade Pool and tempering his physical body and Primordial Spirit with the resonance of the Immortal Dao. Only through this had his progress been so astonishingly swift.
In Tianyang Hall, Nalan Du paid his respects to the Ninth Immortal King and stood respectfully at attention.
Seeing his wounds fully healed and his cultivation superior to before, the Ninth Immortal King could not help feeling pleased. He smiled and said, "Du'er, your defeat at Xu Ying's hands last time was not because you were inferior to him. Rather, he had mastered four Nuo ancestor cave-heavens, while you were burdened with injuries, leading to an inadvertent defeat. Now that your cultivation has reached greater heights, you may contend with him once more."
His fighting spirit surging, Nalan Du bowed. "Master, I too wish to measure myself against him. However, he has gone to the Penglai Immortal Realm, and Penglai drifts without a fixed location. I fear I will be unable to find him."
The Ninth Immortal King chuckled. "Penglai and the demonic realm are sworn rivals of long standing. Since Penglai has revealed itself this time, it will certainly strike against the demonic realm. The young lady of the Hua family has already set out for the demonic realm; if you go there as well, you will surely find Penglai."
He smiled faintly and added, "You may continue to wield my Immortal Dao Jade Pool. Xu Ying relied on his Nuo ancestor cave-heavens to ascend to the ranks of the formidable, but the Immortal Dao Jade Pool happens to be the natural rival of the Nuo ancestor cave-heavens. A single Jade Pool will have no trouble suppressing four Nuo ancestor cave-heavens."
Brimming with confidence, Nalan Du bowed and voiced his agreement.
The Ninth Immortal King continued, "If you encounter the Hua family's daughter, do not underestimate her. The Hua family obtained the Yellow Court cave-heaven, endowing them with formidable divine consciousness, and she possesses the Twelve-Storyed Mansions in hand, making her exceedingly dangerous. Although we all dwell within Weixu, the Hua family also has their eyes on our treasures. We must remain on guard."
Hearing this, Nalan Du felt an eager itch to test himself, clearly harboring little regard for Hua Cuoying.
"Go," the Ninth Immortal King said.
Nalan Du turned and walked out of Tianyang Hall, leaped into the air, and left Wangyou Palace, flying beyond Diecui Valley toward the outer reaches.
Behind him, Diecui Valley was enveloped in drifting immortal qi, vibrant with blossoming flowers and singing birds.
Outside the valley, the heavens and earth bore the tainted hue of the heterodox Dao. Skeletons large and small littered the wilderness, their original forms unrecognizable.
Amidst the bones, mounds of flesh clung to the skeletal frames like massive pythons, writhing in slow motion.
Foul, reeking blood flowed through the rivers, churning with eerie, inexplicable bubbles. Whenever one burst, a twisted remnant soul would drift into the air.
It was a realm of grim, chilling horrors.
***
The Yuanchu Great World.
The Penglai multistoried ship finally tracked the Penglai Immortal Mountain to the Yuanchu continent. Upon reaching the shore, the ship came to a halt, unable to travel over land.
Lin Tianhua said with embarrassment, "The ship crafted by our founding patriarch cannot sail on land; it can only navigate the sea."
Yuan Qi slithered off the vessel and gazed out across the Yuanchu continent. Vast, hazy mountain ranges stretched into the boundless distance. Locating an immortal mountain here would be no simple feat.
This land was colossal—far vaster even than the Yuanshou world.
"If it can't sail on land, can it fly?" the big bell asked.
"It can't fly either," Pavilion Master Lin admitted.
The big bell fumed, "It can't travel on land, and it can't fly in the sky—it really is just a boat!"
Pavilion Master Lin defended his patriarch, saying, "Even if it can't fly, it floats on water, which proves it still has its uses."
While they were bickering, a vast river materialized out of thin air, lifting the Penglai multistoried ship aloft. The surging current flowed through the sky, and the ship gradually accelerated as it rode the waters.
Only then did Yuan Qi, Pavilion Master Lin, and the others cease their arguing. The multistoried ship sailed through midair, pressing on in pursuit of the Penglai Immortal Mountain.
This river was the Xiang River. Chu Xiangxiang had cast her arts, extending the airborne river continuously forward along the ship's path at a remarkable speed.
"Did you notice?" Chu Xiangxiang suddenly said. "The Great Dao of this world is rather abnormal."
Yuan Qi and the others also sensed the strangeness in the Great Dao of heaven and earth. In addition to the normal Heavenly Dao, this world contained alien Daos that existed entirely outside the Heavenly Dao!
"Have the Heavenly Dao and the heterodox Dao merged into a mixed flow?" Pavilion Master Lin asked.
With a grave expression, Chu Xiangxiang shook her head. "It isn't a mixed flow. It looks more like an invasion."
A mixed flow meant two different Great Daos had fused into one, but the Heavenly Dao of the Yuanchu Great World remained unblended, strictly separated like the waters of the Jing and Wei Rivers.
Clearly, this was an invasion!
"Everyone, stay on your guard," Chu Xiangxiang cautioned with a somber face.
"The destination of the Penglai Immortal Mountain might be perilous in the extreme!"
***
Up on the Penglai Immortal Mountain, Fairy Gushe peeled open Xu Ying's fingers. Finding no trace of the black lotus curse, she sighed softly.
Now she found herself caught in an agonizing dilemma—unable to flee, yet unable to stay.
Xu Ying smiled. "There are hundreds of immortals on this mountain. Could the Immortal Master really kill you in broad daylight?"
Fairy Gushe's eyes brightened. "You mean he wouldn't dare strike me down in front of everyone?"
Xu Ying said, "He could still assassinate you in secret. Or he could send you on a mission where you end up surrounded, heroically martyred by an arrow to the back, or something along those lines."
Fairy Gushe grew completely dejected.
Not wanting to frighten her further, Xu Ying smiled and said, "Still, he shouldn't make a move just yet. If you run away now, you would only be giving him the perfect opportunity."
Hearing that, Fairy Gushe had no choice but to abandon her plan to flee. "Right, there is one more thing. When I was sorting through your karma, I discovered that your parents are still alive in this world."
A roar went off in Xu Ying's mind.
Fairy Gushe recounted her discovery in full detail, concluding, "Whomever I found—whether your father or your mother—was overwhelmingly powerful. A blinding expanse of pure white filled my sight, preventing me from making out their features before my divine consciousness was thrown back to where it began."
Xu Ying stood frozen in place. After a long silence, two streams of clear tears traced down his cheeks.
"I thought... I had no kin left in this world..." His voice was thick and choked. An overwhelming surge of joy welled up inside him, only to pour out as uncontrollable tears.
Only after a good while did Xu Ying steady his emotions. "You mean... you couldn't see my parents' faces either?"
Fairy Gushe nodded. "Your parents are immensely powerful and perceptive. The moment I traced the karmic threads to them, they noticed, instantly rebounding my divine consciousness."
Xu Ying suddenly recalled an incident from long ago.
That was many years past, back when Zhou Qiyun was still among the living. To repay Xu Ying's kindness, Feng Xian'er had used her Seven-Colored Divine Light to forge a mirror, seeking to trace his parents' whereabouts.
As Xu Ying had cast his mind back, the figures of a peasant couple had materialized within the mirror, raising their heads to look straight out at them.
Yet as Feng Xian'er probed deeper, the faces of that peasant couple shifted incessantly, superimposing the features of Xu Ying's parents from lifetime after lifetime to conceal their true visages!
In the mirror, Xujiaping crumbled continuously, the landscape shifting and heaving in turmoil.
The faces of Xu Ying's parents kept changing without ever revealing their true likenesses. Toward the end, the peasant couple had seemed on the verge of breaking through the mirror to invade the mortal world!
Fortunately, Feng Xian'er had acted swiftly and shattered the Seven-Colored Divine Mirror, preventing the bizarre, terrifying peasant couple from successfully breaching reality.
Reflecting on it later, Xu Ying had believed that the terrifyingly potent peasant couple was likely a component of his seal.
Now, however, he was no longer so certain.
After all, when he looked upon Kunlun's Xujiaping from the Wangxiang Platform, he had similarly been unable to recall the faces of his parents.
And now, Fairy Gushe claimed she could not perceive his parents' faces either. A thought couldn't help rising in Xu Ying's mind: was it his enemies who had imposed the seal to keep him from recognizing his parents' faces, or had his parents placed the seal themselves?
Xu Ying even suspected that the peasant couple illuminated by Feng Xian'er's Seven-Colored Divine Mirror had been his actual parents—that the ones attempting to breach the mortal realm and intimidate Feng Xian'er had been his own parents.
Perhaps even upon the Wangxiang Platform, every time he forgot his parents' faces, it was because they had planted a seal within his mind to deliberately wipe away those specific memories.
Yet why would they seal his memories of them?
"Young Master Xu." Fairy Gushe waved her hand before his eyes. She had originally addressed him as "Fellow Daoist," but over the course of investigating his karma, she had unconsciously altered her form of address.
Snapping back to his senses, Xu Ying smiled. "Fairy, you may simply call me Ah Ying. I still have matters to attend to, so I will not disturb your quiet cultivation any longer."
Fairy Gushe felt conflicted. She wanted him to stay to bolster her courage, yet remembering how many formidable foes he had provoked, keeping him around would likely fail to grant her any courage and only speed up her death instead.
Xu Ying stepped out of the dwelling, then paused. "Fairy, what kind of person is the Divine Mother?"
Fairy Gushe shook her head. "All mantic arts under heaven cannot escape the laws of cause and effect. How could anyone divine the past and future out of thin air? I saw no Immortal Dao runes used in the Divine Mother's divinations; evidently, her arts are little more than supernatural trickery."
Seeing her deep prejudice against the Divine Mother, Xu Ying thought, *Mister Yuan is currently studying divination under the Divine Mother. It might be better to seek an introduction through him.*
The moment he stepped outside, he saw seven three-inch-tall figures standing side by side in front of the pigeon-coop-like house atop the three-foot-square miniature immortal mountain. The one in the lead was none other than Patriarch Yan Yu of Penglai Pavilion.
The other six, presumably, were the pavilion masters across Penglai Pavilion's successive generations who had ascended!
"Young Master Xu!" Patriarch Yan Yu waved enthusiastically at him with a laugh. "We all hail from the Yuanshou world—why not come sit for a spell at our Penglai Pavilion?"
"Indeed!" The former pavilion masters burst into hearty laughter, chiming in, "We have fine wine here, as well as beauties!"
A female pavilion master smiled and said, "I am that very beauty! I shall trim your lamp wick, pour your wine, and make merry with you for three days and three nights—no leaving until we're thoroughly drunk!"
They were so warm and hospitable with their invitations that Xu Ying felt rather embarrassed. "Fellow Daoists, the Immortal Master has asked me to mend Penglai's Heavenly Dao, so I must hurry over. By the way, the current master of Penglai Pavilion, Lin Tianhua, is also on his way and should arrive shortly."
Patriarch Yan Yu looked astonished. "What is that brat coming here for? He bears the duty of revitalizing Penglai Pavilion. Is he trying to shirk his responsibilities and ascend to Penglai? The rascal!"
The six former pavilion masters joined in the scolding. The female pavilion master barked, "What an unworthy descendant! Wanting to run over and enjoy his ease at such a young age! Our patriarch is useless enough, unable to earn a large immortal mountain and leaving us crammed together on this tiny mound. If he comes too, we won't even have room to squeeze in!"
An elderly pavilion master glared with bristling whiskers. "Patriarch Yan Yu is inept—what can we do about it? He drags us along to feed on the northwest wind, and now there's going to be another mouth to feed!"
"We hoped our patriarch would achieve great things so we wouldn't have to stay crammed in this tiny pigeon coop, but he's terrified of dying! Patriarch, when we go out to vanquish demons and defend the Dao in the Yuanchu Great World this time, you should just become a heroic martyr!"
"Precisely! Patriarch can earn some face for the Lin boy and win us a large immortal mountain so we can build bigger houses!"
"Bastards! When we fight demons tomorrow, every single one of you ungrateful scoundrels is going to die heroically!"
While they were bickering, Xu Ying seized the opportunity to slip away, musing, *Once Pavilion Master Lin arrives, it's going to be even livelier.*
He returned to his quarters, only to find the Immortal Master of Penglai already waiting outside the door. Upon seeing him, the old man chuckled. "Might Fellow Daoist Xu have just come from Fairy Gushe's place?"
Xu Ying admitted it frankly. "Fairy Gushe is proficient in the laws of cause and effect, so I asked her to help examine my karma. To be honest, I did not come to Penglai to achieve immortality. While others yearn to become immortals, whether I become one or not makes no difference to me."
The Immortal Master of Penglai nodded with a smile. "The Ageless Immortal was an immortal from the start. May I ask if Fairy Gushe uncovered anything?"
Xu Ying replied, "I have no idea what she saw, but it terrified her so much that she began packing her bags to flee Penglai. I told her that Penglai is the safest place of all, and that staying here means the Immortal Master can protect her, whereas out there, she wouldn't even know how she died."
The Immortal Master of Penglai laughed heartily, then shook his head. "I originally promised to protect Ye Chui, yet I still failed to save his life. It seems that as the Immortal Master, I am far from omnipotent."
Xu Ying smiled and said, "Still, the Immortal Master can surely protect Fairy Gushe. If any misfortune befalls her, I will be the first to turn against you."
The Immortal Master of Penglai gave him a searching look, seemingly trying to gauge whether Xu Ying truly knew something. He smiled and said, "To tell you the truth, I very much hope Fellow Daoist Xu can recover your memories. Regardless of whether you choose to become an immortal of Penglai, I wish to assist you. Beyond Fairy Gushe, who is well-versed in the laws of karma, our Penglai Immortal Realm also has the Divine Mother. She is profoundly skilled in divination and astrology, and she may very well be able to help you recover some of your memories."
Xu Ying murmured in surprise, "Can this Divine Mother unravel the seal on my memories?"
The Immortal Master of Penglai laughed. "The Divine Mother's calculations are uncanny; she foresaw that you would encounter peril at a certain location and dispatched us to your rescue. Helping you unravel your seal should be well within her power. Fellow Daoist Xu, please follow me."
Unable to conceal his excitement, Xu Ying followed after him.
The true objective of his journey had been to meet this very Divine Mother, and now his wish was finally coming to fruition.
The two departed Baiyun Palace and made their way toward Mituo Temple.
Along the path, Xu Ying paused, examining a huabiao pillar erected by the roadside.
A Heavenly Dao aura emanated from the pillar, upon which Heavenly Dao runes were inscribed.
Xu Ying scanned it and discovered to his astonishment that every Heavenly Dao rune on the pillar was completely correct!
"Fellow Daoist Xu, have you seen this huabiao pillar before?" the Immortal Master of Penglai asked with a smile.
Xu Ying shook his head. "This is my first time seeing it."
The Immortal Master of Penglai laughed heartily. "It is your second time. When you came to this place in the past, you saw it once before."
Xu Ying grew thoughtful. *He is probing to see how much of my memory has been unsealed!*
They continued forward. More huabiao pillars lined the path, each inscribed with different Heavenly Dao runes representing distinct Heavenly Daos.
Most crucially, not a single Heavenly Dao rune upon them was flawed!
Xu Ying's heart stirred. He recognized every single one of the Heavenly Dao runes on these huabiao pillars!
A thought could not help surfacing in his mind: *Could I have been the one who erected these pillars?*
A storm of realization flashed through his thoughts. If the Immortal Master of Penglai had erected them, his understanding of the Heavenly Dao would inevitably have contained errors.
This was because many of the Heavenly Dao runes here originated from the Queen Mother of the West!
The Immortal Master of Penglai had no means of obtaining the runes from the Queen Mother of the West; whatever he wrote would have been flawed.
Yet Xu Ying had received direct teachings from the Queen Mother of the West.
Xu Ying's brow twitched as a quiet thought echoed in his mind: *If the Heavenly Dao of the Penglai Immortal Mountain was established by me, doesn't that mean I can dictate Penglai's Heavenly Dao? In that case, when the immortals of Penglai crossed their tribulations to achieve immortality... whose immortals were they becoming?*
Chapter 322