In the dead of night, Wei Yuan sat at the edge of the main peak, looking out over the entire domain. Map in hand, he was deep in thought.
Along the path the Shamans had to take lay a pass only one li wide. Pitching camp and garrisoning troops there could delay the Shaman army, but it would take five more days for the domain to expand that far.
To the south was a small lake teeming with life. Once the domain covered it, who knew how many living things in the lake would survive?
To the east was a mortal town of several thousand people. There seemed to be no need to relocate them; letting them continue their lives there would suffice.
One problem after another surfaced—some solvable, others left to whatever circumstances dictated when the time came.
Wei Yuan looked up toward the west. The sky there hung dark and heavy, as though some immense danger were stirring slowly within. An unsettling premonition grew stronger in his heart, more distinct with each passing day.
Only five days had passed since Qingming was established, yet two Great Shamans had already been slain. Still, not a single Perfected Person from the Palace of Grand Beginning had appeared. Eldest Senior Sister could break through to the dharma idol realm at any moment, yet for some unknown reason, she continued to suppress her cultivation.
His master, Zhang Sheng, had reached the requisite cultivation long ago, but he clearly still lacked the necessary nurturing work; only when his fourth immortal sword reached great accomplishment could he possibly achieve a breakthrough. Judging from the last bestowal of heaven and earth, two more would likely be enough, though it remained uncertain whether other conditions were required.
Both Bao Yun and Xiaoyu had reached the Revival stage. Xiaoyu was progressing slightly faster; after all, the Immortal Sword Great Sun was relatively singular in nature, allowing rapid advancement. Bao Yun's Seven Marvels Treasure Tree had its own nurturing demands—she had to nourish its seven branches one by one, a matter of painstaking, slow-grinding effort.
There were other cultivators within the domain as well, such as Yun Feifei and her three fellow disciples. Wei Yuan had not yet decided what to do with the three, so he could only keep them confined for now. That Xu Jingfeng possessed value; at a critical juncture, he might be traded to the Xu family for something. It was just not yet clear how much he was truly worth, a matter that still needed figuring out.
In five days, the domain would expand to a hundred li, which was currently Qingming's limit. This was a vast territory. The map in Wei Yuan's hands was already the most detailed available, yet vast blanks remained upon it, waiting to be surveyed and filled in.
Everything awaited rebuilding. Countless tasks lay ahead, large and small, and every one of them demanded attention.
It was a new day.
While the sky remained dark, Wei Yuan arrived at Yun Feifei's quarters. She currently lived in a simple wooden cabin containing nothing but a bed. When Wei Yuan knocked, Yun Feifei's voice came from within. "Enter."
Wei Yuan pushed the door open. The room was pitch-black, but a sweep of divine sense made everything as clear as day. Yun Feifei was seated cross-legged on the bed, having just emerged from meditation.
"Go to Quliu Town today and see if you can recruit some people back. Be sure to watch out for the Xu family," Wei Yuan instructed.
"What?" Yun Feifei seemed distracted, having failed to hear him clearly.
Wei Yuan stepped closer and began to repeat himself, but the moment he opened his mouth, Yun Feifei suddenly threw her arms around his neck and yanked downward with all her might. Wei Yuan did not budge in the slightest.
Even putting all the strength she could muster into the pull, Yun Feifei could not shift him a fraction of an inch. Changing tactics, she hooked her arms around his neck while two fair legs shot out like pythons, wrapping tightly around his waist. Even with Wei Yuan's sharp senses, he could not fathom how she had slipped those legs free of her dress.
Yun Feifei tightened her waist and abdomen, twisting with full force, but Wei Yuan remained completely stationary. She heaved again, trying to fling him onto the bed, yet he still did not budge.
Yun Feifei felt as though she were grappling a mountain peak, trying to hip-toss an entire mountain.
Wei Yuan naturally could not allow her to fool around like this; if someone's divine sense swept over this place, things would become awkward. He delivered a sharp slap across her rear, producing a crisp, loud crack. "Behave yourself..."
How could Yun Feifei behave now? She suddenly lunged forward to bite at his mouth.
Wei Yuan leaned back slightly, evading her teeth by a hair's breadth. To his surprise, Yun Feifei parted her lips and shot her tongue out like a white snake, darting lightning-fast against his lips in a fleeting touch!
Before Wei Yuan could react, Yun Feifei dropped down on her own, smoothing her dress in the blink of an eye—so swift that even Wei Yuan could barely follow the movement. Her dress seemed to possess a spiritual nature of its own, slipping on and off at a single thought.
"I'm off to work!" Knowing when to stop, Yun Feifei fled in triumph.
Accumulating small victories led to a great triumph. Yun Feifei believed that so long as she made a little progress every day, she might well take a bite out of Wei Yuan despite being surrounded by powerful rivals.
Wei Yuan walked to another small cabin not far away—Xu Wan'er's quarters. The moment he stepped inside, she lunged at him as well. Wei Yuan's hand darted out like lightning, pressing against her forehead and freezing her mid-air.
"Interrogate Xu Jingfeng today and see if you can pry anything out of him. I want to know what price the Xu family is willing to pay to keep him alive. I need the truth."
"What are the bounds?"
Wei Yuan did not understand. "What do you mean?"
"To what degree may I employ torture?"
Wei Yuan understood now. "No permanent disability. Oh, minor injuries and slight maiming are fine."
"Understood. But my injuries haven't healed yet..."
Wei Yuan was not about to believe that. His medical skills had improved; she had surely made a full recovery last time. Seeing that excuse fail, Xu Wan'er immediately said, "Then hit me once, just like you hit Yun Feifei."
Wei Yuan felt an immediate prick of guilt. "When did I ever hit her?"
"I heard that slap all the way from here. It couldn't have been on her face, could it?" Xu Wan'er's eyes gleamed with an alarming intensity, so bright that Wei Yuan could barely meet her gaze.
"This..." Wei Yuan found himself at a loss for words, while also feeling bewildered. Across such a distance and through two walls, how had she heard that?
Xu Wan'er turned around, arched her back, tilted her head up, and pushed out her hips. "Hurry up, I need to get to work!"
From the distance, a thread of divine sense drifted slowly over, descending like a heavenly net from which nothing could escape.
Pressed by the urgency of the moment, Wei Yuan had to end the standoff at once and send Xu Wan'er off to work.
The divine sense swept over the cabin and continued forward, seemingly noticing nothing out of the ordinary.
Visiting both wooden cabins had taken less than the time to drink a cup of tea. Though the sky was still dark, Wei Yuan felt thoroughly drained in both body and mind, lamenting inwardly that coaxing people to do some work was truly difficult nowadays. He wondered whether the lords and city governors in Xu Wenwu's world had an easier time of it.
In that world, arriving even one minute late resulted in silver being docked from one's pay. If such regulations could actually be enforced, mortals there were surely quite obedient, right?
Returning from the two women's quarters, Wei Yuan realized in hindsight that the sensation of touching Xu Wan'er and Yun Feifei was entirely different—especially the lingering resonance still left on his hand from Yun Feifei. It had been an expedient measure, so he had not thought about it at the time, but now he realized something was off. When he struck Yun Feifei, all he remembered was smooth, springy flesh; it felt as though his hand had touched no cloth at all.
***
On the other side of the peak, a solitary lamp flared to life, illuminating the rugged path.
Xu Wenwu walked with the lamp held high, resembling a solitary prophet. It was as though only the light in his hand remained in this world, while all others lived in darkness, waiting for him to bring fire down to mankind.
Xu Wenwu stepped into the stone hut and saw Bao Yun inside, setting a cup of water and a plate of pastries on the table.
Xu Wenwu was startled. All his airs of a secluded prophet vanished into the nine heavens, and his speech faltered. "Y-You, what are you doing here?"
"You wrote well these past two days, so I prepared some food and drink for you." With that, Bao Yun left the stone hut.
Xu Wenwu stood dazed for a long while before recovering his wits. Picking up a pastry, he thought to himself, *So an immortal maiden would make pastries for me with her own hands, too.*
He suddenly felt that coming to this world was not such a bad thing after all. At least in his previous world, whenever he tried inviting a girl out for a snack, not a single one ever agreed.
Naturally, if it had been a girl like Bao Yun, let alone asking her out for a meal, Xu Wenwu would not even have dared to make eye contact. The ones he had invited were those he thought were within his league, though they had clearly disagreed.
He gingerly took a bite of the pastry, savoring it carefully, only to find that it was not as delicious as Wei Yuan's congee.
There was no particular reason—it simply fell short of that bowl of congee, though he could not tell what was missing.
Xu Wenwu did not understand his own mindset. By all rights, shouldn't even a plain steamed bun taste like an immortal delicacy under these circumstances?
Sitting before the desk, he pushed all wandering thoughts aside, took up the brush, and prepared to write something, only to find his mind completely blank. In the blink of an eye, a quarter of an hour slipped by, and the paper remained pristine.
That day, Xu Wenwu wrote deep into the night, even recycling several thousand words he had written ahead the day before just to scrape together thirty thousand.
When a new day arrived, Bao Yun prepared food, water, and pastries as usual. Yet Xu Wenwu still found himself yearning for that bowl of congee, unable to drive it from his mind.
On this day, Xu Wenwu finally tasted the agony of writing. Over the course of the day, he ate pastries thirty-four times—though later on, he was merely picking up leftover crumbs. He drank water more than ninety times, paced hundreds of laps around the room, and managed to write only two thousand words during the entire day.
Xu Wenwu had never imagined a day would come when he could not even make things up.
As night fell and the prospect of losing his sleep loomed, Xu Wenwu panicked. He began scribbling furiously, not even knowing what he was writing.
***
Under the cover of night, a figure stumbled forward through a dense forest.
Standing water pooled everywhere among the trees. He trudged along with uneven steps, moving at an excruciatingly slow pace. Suddenly, he let out a muffled grunt and lifted his leg, only to find several finger-sized fish latched onto his calf. They had bitten straight through his trousers and were sucking his blood.
A look of disgust and terror crossed his face, but he remained composed enough to retrieve a handful of white powder and smear it over the small fish. One after another, the fish dropped into the water and darted off in panic.
He leaned against a tree, panting for a moment. Wiping his face with a hand, he came away with a palm full of insects, crushed into a paste. His face had grown slightly numb, gradually losing sensation.
It was an extraordinarily handsome face, but now it was etched with exhaustion. An open wound ran across his cheek, the flesh turning pale white without the slightest sign of healing.
Despite water surrounding him on all sides, his lips were cracked with dryness. None of the water here was drinkable; only by peeling away tree bark and gathering the oozing sap could he quench his thirst. Yet doing so would leave traces for the pursuers behind him.
Struggling to his feet, he continued on.
Faint sounds of wind tearing through the air came from above; someone was searching from overhead. But they flew high and passed quickly, none of them noticing the young cultivator wading through the dense forest below.
As dawn broke, he finally reached the edge of the forest. From here, a distant peak could be seen in the distance, and the surrounding environment was no longer so stifling and humid. The young cultivator's spirits lifted—that was the final destination of his journey.
Above the canopy, several black-robed men grew increasingly anxious, sweeping their divine sense through the undergrowth below. The young cultivator threw his head back and swallowed a pill. Dao power suddenly erupted through his body like a volcano. Leaping into the air, he flew toward the distant peak at full speed!
Caught off guard, the black-robed men saw that the young cultivator had already fled a great distance. Startled and furious, they gave chase in haste, gradually closing the gap.
Right at that moment, an invisible power descended from the heavens. The black-robed men's movements slowed, while the young man's speed surged abruptly, widening the distance between them in an instant.
The black-robed men came to a sudden halt. Ahead of them stood Wei Yuan, spear held crosswise, blocking their path.
One of the black-robed men barked, "This matter has nothing to do with you, sir! You had best not poke your nose into other people's business, lest you bring calamity upon yourself!"
Wei Yuan flicked his spear and said coldly, "Do you know who I am? I am..."
The black-robed men listened intently, waiting for his name, when they suddenly sensed an anomaly overhead. Looking up, they saw more than a dozen flaming golden cauldrons descending from the sky, already bearing down upon their heads!
The black-robed men were horrified and scrambled desperately to dodge, but two were struck square by the flaming cauldrons, coughing up blood on the spot. Like a ghost, Wei Yuan darted forward, his spear instantly skewering the two men through.
Seeing that the situation had turned dire, the remaining black-robed men turned and fled at once. Their leader, possessing the highest cultivation, ran the fastest. Glancing back from a distance, he shouted, "Li Zhi! Just you wait—don't think I can't recognize you just because you're holding a spear!"
Wei Yuan lowered his spear. He reflected that he had only used that alias for a few days; this black-robed leader was most likely an old acquaintance from Quliu Town.
Chapter 144