Lacking a Few Mounts

On a highway in Qingming, an old-fashioned carriage ambled slowly along. It traveled on a paved dirt road marked by several wheel ruts. The carriage curtain was lifted aside to reveal a sweet young face looking out. Suddenly she cried out in surprise, and two more young faces immediately popped up at the window, all peering outside together. In the distance appeared an enormous flying boat. Strangely enough, it hovered merely a few feet above the ground. Measuring several dozen zhang in length, this floating craft traveled exclusively along a predetermined highway at tremendous speed. With a loud whoosh, it swept past the three young faces and vanished over the opposite horizon in moments. As the flying boat whizzed by, the gale it whipped up rocked the carriage. But the two old horses pulling it had long grown used to such sights; they plodded steadily forward step by step, neither slacking off nor putting forth an ounce of extra effort—the very picture of seasoned old horses. "What was that?" A benevolent voice sounded from within the carriage: "Qingming has a sort of landbound flying boat that can only travel along designated routes. That was likely one of them." The young girl said indignantly, "Why does it get to travel on such a fine road while we're stuck grinding along this dirt track? If you ask me, even if we sneak onto it for a stretch, no one would ever know..." Before her voice had even faded, the earth trembled. Another colossal flying boat roared into view and whistled past. The girl fell silent, but another youth refused to let her off the hook, saying, "If we had gone up there just now, that flying boat would have crushed us to pulp!" The girl muttered under her breath, "Why can't flying boats stay properly in the sky? What are they doing dashing around on the ground..." The elderly man inside the carriage remarked, "The carrying capacity of these landbound flying boats is far greater than those that fly in the sky. Though it appears to float, its entire weight bears down on the road via spell formations. A dirt road like ours would have been crushed to pieces long ago." The girl stuck out her tongue. "Qingming really has so many strange things!" The old man chuckled. "Don't just look at what others have. The formidable things left behind by our own ancestors are by no means few. In the end, these contraptions in Qingming are made for mortals and low-level cultivators; they cannot hold a candle to genuine grandeur. Here, let me show you some real treasures!" The boys and girls cheered and withdrew into the carriage, gazing eagerly at the old man. The girl, being the boldest, piped up, "Immortal Ancestor, no lying now! It really has to be something good!" "Naturally!" the old man said proudly. Then, retrieving a box from who knew where, he opened it with great care. The boys and girls craned their necks to look. Inside rested four fair, adorable little porcelain dolls. Seeing the lid open, the porcelain dolls glanced at one another and actually crawled out of the box on their own, just like living creatures. The youngsters found it utterly novel. Reaching out one after another, they each cradled one in their hands to inspect it closely. Only the youngest among them looked at the four porcelain dolls with a pale face, shrinking back until he bumped against the carriage wall. When the old man looked at that youth, his eyes held a touch of approval. The girl suddenly exclaimed, "There are names written on their backs!" The porcelain dolls resisted stubbornly, but the playful youngsters forcefully flipped them over nonetheless. The girl read aloud, "Bao Yun? Is that its name? Why does it sound so familiar?" "Zhang Sheng!" "Mine says Zhang Sheng too!" "What's written on the last one? Bring it over and let's see... Hey, it's trying to run away... Ji Liuli? Is that a person's name? Why would someone have such a wretched name?" The novelty soon wore off for the youngsters. The girl wheedled, "Immortal Ancestor, these things are pretty fun to play with, but they don't seem like that big of a deal?" Stroking his beard, the old man laughed. "That's because your discernment is lacking. You cannot see through illusions, which is why you dare touch them. Look at Xiao Wu—hasn't he stayed far away?" The girl was puzzled. "They're so cute, why can't we touch them?" The old man gave a faint smile and blew a breath. "The Four Great Asura Wisdom Kings are cute? Look again!" An invisible breeze swept past. In an instant, the four fair, adorable dolls turned into small monsters with blue skin and red hair, drenched in trickling bloody water. Gaping their mouths lined with razor-sharp teeth, they gnawed relentlessly at the youths. Yet each time they bit down, a faint golden light shimmered across the youngsters' bodies, rebounding the creatures. Suddenly confronted with such monsters, the girl shrieked in terror and recoiled. The old man laughed heartily. "Fret not. With this Immortal Ancestor here, these four fellows cannot cause trouble. You are not their targets." One boy had a sudden flash of insight: "Is it the people written on their backs?" The old man nodded approvingly. "A child worth teaching!" Pointing a finger, he commanded, "Go!" The four hideous beasts revealed their forms and vanished in the blink of an eye. The four porcelain dolls then became true porcelain dolls, motionless. The old man closed his eyes slightly and reopened them after several breaths, looking somewhat pleased with himself. "They have already located the threads of karma and set out to hunt. Though mere moments have passed, they are already several hundred li away." The girl froze for a moment before asking, "So Immortal Ancestor brought us here to kill people?" The old man said placidly, "Our lineage primarily does the dirty work that others cannot bring to the light of day. Bringing you out this time is first for tempering, and second to broaden your horizons. Now that you've watched the show, put some effort into your cultivation!" With that, the old man slowly shut his eyes, his spirit wandering in meditation. Still young, the boys and girls could hardly sit still. Spurred on by the others, the girl had no choice but to gently shake the old man and ask, "How long do we have to stay cooped up like this?" Without opening his eyes, the old man said calmly, "With such an unsettled temperament, how do you expect to cultivate immortality? Our Hanjiang Heavenly Secret lineage values most... Oh, whatever. You little ones are in luck. The Wisdom Kings have already found their targets; you only need to wait patiently... Hiss!!" The old man's eyes suddenly snapped wide open. He gasped in cold air, nearly leaping up from the daybed! A thousand li away, on either side of a desolate road on the outskirts of a city, grew waist-high thickets of grass. At that moment, the blades of grass parted to reveal a narrow, eerie eye watching a figure walking along the path. She wore plain, unadorned robes, her long hair tied up simply, and carried a long sword across her back. Her eyes were cast downward in a gaze that seemed to look yet not look, yet all worldly phenomena fell within her peripheral vision. She strolled forward at an unhurried pace; as the mountain wind blew gently, the sleeves of her robes fluttered, and the aura swirling around her was like a freezing moon over a deep abyss—chilling to the extreme. Her walk seemed slow but was remarkably fast; in the blink of an eye she had passed down the road, leaving behind only her departing back to the eerie eye. That seemingly painted eye suddenly twisted with murderous intent. It then crawled out from the grass—revealing itself to be a porcelain doll covered in fine fractures, blood constantly trickling from every fissure! Yet just as it prepared to unleash its power, it realized there was no longer any shadow of a person on the highway. Whirling around abruptly, it was shocked to find the woman standing right behind it. Her expression was indifferent, and her eyes were filled entirely with disappointment. "Just a thing like this, not even having attained immortality, dares to disturb my quiet cultivation?" She shook her head. The porcelain doll had originally been exceedingly ferocious, but when it saw her point into the sky, conjuring out of nowhere the manifestation of a young Daoist surrounded by four floating immortal swords, its gaze abruptly turned to sheer terror, and it spun around to flee! Yet the woman pointed a finger, and all four swords descended simultaneously. One struck dead center into the crown of the porcelain doll's head, while the other three plunged into the void, vanishing without a trace. The porcelain doll let out a shrill, mournful wail. Blood gushed ceaselessly from the body pierced by the immortal sword, as though an entire sea of blood were stored within it. In a flash, the immortal sword dissolved into boundless sword qi, refining all the bloody water into nothingness! This woman was none other than Zhang Sheng. She frowned slightly and murmured to herself, "Are there four of these things in total? Fortunately..." Seeing the sea of blood vanish, Zhang Sheng took a step forward, and her silhouette disappeared from where she stood. Inside the carriage, the four previously motionless porcelain dolls suddenly detonated simultaneously, a streak of sword qi surging from within each of their bodies! Then the sword qi multiplied from one to two, two to four, four to tens of thousands. In an instant, the entire carriage was filled with blinding sword qi! The sword qi turned into a hundred-zhang storm, sweeping through everything in the vicinity and shredding the carriage into nothingness! The four figures felt themselves seized into the air by a colossal force and violently torn by countless hands. All disguises were stripped bare and ripped to shreds. Amidst the crackling flashes of lightning and flint-sparks, four agonized young faces were illuminated! The four boys and girls tumbled from the air, crashing heavily onto the ground. They looked at one another and suddenly screamed in unison—their clothes, magical implements, accessories, and every inanimate object had been reduced to nothingness within the sword qi storm, and not even their hair had been spared. Several zhang away stood the two bare horses, completely bald without a single hair left. Only then did the youngsters realize that the old man was nowhere to be found. Right at that moment, a woman abruptly appeared in their field of vision; none of them knew how she had arrived. Where the old man had originally sat lay only the torn corner of an immortal robe, while several droplets of blood shimmering with a three-colored halo hovered in the air. Zhang Sheng frowned slightly and remarked, "He certainly runs fast, but he really can't take a beating. I wonder if the ones the Patriarch hunted down back then while in the Scenery Command realm were also such shoddy, third-rate immortals?" The boys and girls stood dazed, not daring even to breathe loudly. Never in their wildest dreams could they have imagined that their sect's Immortal Ancestor, whom they usually revered like a deity, had been struck and wounded from afar by a single sword strike, and had fled leaving them all behind! Zhang Sheng finally withdrew her gaze and looked toward the four boys and girls, who looked just like porcelain dolls. She said indifferently, "Following such scoundrels, though you are young, while capital punishment may be spared, punishment cannot be avoided. As it happens, my immortal cave is lacking a few mounts. You lot, come with me."