In the boundless, murky void, bickering broke out from time to time.
"Didn't you say it wasn't far?"
"It isn't far! Isn't it right there? You can already see it."
Wei Yuan focused his gaze. Sure enough, amid the dark void ahead shone a patch of gentle light. According to Ronglong, that was their native realm.
Yet how was he supposed to get across?
Wei Yuan swept his divine sense over himself, only to find nothing there. His current state was exceedingly bizarre: he knew he existed, yet he could neither see nor feel himself, let alone figure out how to move.
The native realm lay right before his eyes, but unless he deciphered his present state, he could forget about ever returning. In the past, whenever Wei Yuan traversed the void, a flash of light would pass before his eyes, and he would arrive in a new world. This time, however, it felt as if he were stuck right at that very flash of light.
Wei Yuan settled his mind, visualized himself as a single point, and pushed forward with his divine sense. He seemed to have shifted a fraction, yet the distance between him and the native realm appeared completely unchanged.
Ronglong's voice echoed in his consciousness: "That won't work. Cast a Daoist art first to test the waters—the Golden Light Technique will do."
With a thought from Wei Yuan, a beam of golden light manifested in the void. The Daoist art had actually worked! Overjoyed, Wei Yuan hastily initiated void traversal and flew toward the native realm. At this distance, it would likely take only a few days of flight to reach it.
Yet after flying for a short while, Wei Yuan noticed something was amiss. The distance between him and the native realm fluctuated unpredictably, drifting closer one moment and farther the next, devoid of any pattern whatsoever.
Startled, Wei Yuan asked, "What is going on?"
Ronglong, who had been silent for some time, now said faintly, "Did you only just realize something was wrong? That's what you get for rushing around! Now you can't stop, can you?"
Sure enough, Wei Yuan found that even after ceasing the void-traversal art, he continued to drift forward erratically, his distance to the native realm still shifting nearer and farther. He tried to halt himself, but without success; his efforts exerted either too much force or too little, or pushed at an off-angle. After all his fumbling, he only ended up moving faster.
Panicking, Wei Yuan made meticulous adjustments until he finally managed to slow himself down, then hurriedly consulted Ronglong: "What in the world is happening?"
Ronglong said, "It's quite simple. Your divine sense has always remained within heaven and earth, shaped by the rules inside a world. Naturally, it cannot adapt when thrown outside the heavens into the void. For instance, what you believe to be a straight line isn't necessarily one. Well, let's put it this way: it is definitely not a straight line."
Following Ronglong's guidance, Wei Yuan looked at the beam of golden light he had released earlier. By now, it had morphed into a shimmering fish, swimming about at random.
A chill ran through Wei Yuan's heart, though he found comfort remembering Ronglong was with him. Once one attained Scenery Command, one had to venture beyond the heavens frequently, so Ronglong was bound to be familiar with the void.
Seeing Wei Yuan asking so earnestly, Ronglong generously offered his guidance: "First off, to move through the void, you must truly and verifiably know whether you've moved and what trajectory you followed. Out here, you cannot trust your eyes, nor your divine sense; you can only trust the rules of the void. Mm, that thing you mentioned before called 'coordinates' is quite useful. So now, we first need to establish a coordinate system, with at least three coordinate axes—
"To establish coordinates, you can designate two distinct points, then fire a beam of light from one point toward the other and observe its trajectory. Then fire another beam, and observe that trajectory...
"Calculate the parameters based on the different trajectories, then use them to adjust your divine sense. If your math is right, you'll be able to see a straight line and plot coordinates along it..."
Dizzy and cross-eyed from all the calculations, Wei Yuan called a halt: "Is this how you did it back in your day?"
"When I first entered the void, I just looked real hard and tried everything out. After about an hour or so of trial and error, I learned how to walk in the void."
"How did you test it?"
"Just tried at random. After a few hundred thousand attempts, it naturally worked. I didn't know mathematics back then—how would I know the world had so many fancy tricks?"
Wei Yuan froze, then surged with fury. "You succeeded just by blindly trying, and now you make me do math problems?! Is this any way to treat a person?!"
"I am a shaman. Treating people like people isn't my job."
Wei Yuan was struck speechless. No matter how he prodded him afterward, Ronglong refused to say another word. Left with no choice, Wei Yuan had to keep experimenting repeatedly, recording data, analyzing patterns, and building models.
In the darkness, beams of light continually appeared, darting in all directions like cheerful little fish swimming through a dark ocean. Or perhaps like the arrival of spring, with mountain flowers bursting into bloom everywhere.
Only, occasional angry roars and curses broke out, spoiling the scenery considerably.
***
While Qingming remained tranquil, its surroundings were anything but.
In the Cui family's New City, the original urban area was now sparsely populated. The occasional passerby tread with extreme caution. Most of the people around were fully armed soldiers with loaded weapons, combing through ruin after ruin in search of something.
A squad of seven or eight soldiers formed a line. Their captain pointed at an area dozens of yards across and said, "Today's task is to clear this area. Once we finish, we can wrap up, head back to camp, and eat. Stay sharp, everyone—this is work where you're staking your lives!"
The soldiers acknowledged the order and marched into the designated zone, searching the ground meticulously.
While searching, a new recruit cursed under his breath, "Those horse bandits are absolute scoundrels! How did they come up with such a wicked trick?"
The captain immediately snapped, "Pay attention! Don't go looking to die!"
Startled, the recruit shifted his foot to the side. Suddenly, with a loud boom, a cloud of bluish smoke puffed up. The recruit's calf was blown into a mangled pulp of flesh and blood, and most of his foot flew into the air!
The recruit collapsed, shrieking incessantly as he rolled on the ground in agony.
"Don't move!" the captain shouted.
Yet his warning came a moment too late. Beneath the recruit, two more explosions erupted, and a severed arm flew into the sky. This time, the recruit passed out cold, finally ceasing his thrashing.
Leaping up, the captain landed cautiously beside the recruit, scooped him up, and flew toward the military camp, calling back over his shoulder, "Keep searching, everyone!"
Another recruit, face deathly pale, wiped away specks of blood that had splattered onto his face and asked, "Will Erdan be alright? I heard there are master healers in the army who can regrow severed hands and feet."
A veteran beside him snorted. "Keep dreaming! Do you have any idea how much it costs to regenerate limbs? Ordinary grunts like us don't get that kind of treatment. Erdan will be lucky to keep his life; he's definitely going to be crippled."
Helpless, the recruit could only curse, "Those damned horse bandits! Next time I see them, I'll—"
The veteran cut him off. "You're new here and haven't actually fought these horse bandits. Let me tell you, the bandits in these parts are different. If you really run into them, you'd better run as fast as you can. Even if all of us in this squad ganged up together, we might not beat a single ordinary bandit."
The recruit was dumbfounded. "They're that formidable?!"
"They really are! The higher-ups just forbid talking about it, but anyone who went through those battles knows."
Convinced at last, the recruit grumbled, "Just how many of these things did they dump into the city? Tens of thousands?"
"Who knows! Maybe even more. We just have to clear them slowly; otherwise, no one can live here in peace. Didn't you see all the masters have moved over to the new district?"
The recruit mumbled under his breath, "Even if we finish clearing them, what happens if the bandits come and drop another batch?"
This time, everyone fell silent.
Over a month ago, the horse bandits had breached the city and occupied the castellan's manor. Not only did they loot everything of value, but they also scattered countless devices known as dark mines throughout the urban districts. Each dark mine was the size of a finger, planted a foot underground using Daoist power. The moment anyone passed by, it would leap out and detonate.
The explosion of a dark mine wasn't particularly powerful; it couldn't kill a soldier who had achieved Body Casting, only blow off limbs. However, limb regeneration was exorbitantly expensive, affordable only to Dao Foundation officers. For ordinary Body Casting soldiers, an explosion meant being crippled for life.
Dark mines were exceptionally well concealed and hard to detect. A cultivator's divine sense could not detect them at all, forcing them to rely on the clumsy manual method of searching plot by plot; otherwise, the city would be completely uninhabitable. Even so, nearly a thousand people had been blown up over the past month, most of them permanently crippled.
Inside the castellan's manor, Cui Chengxiao stood leaning against the window frame. Just then, a faint sound of explosion drifted from afar. He frowned slightly and let out a sigh.
A beautiful woman in palace attire approached, worry etched across her face.
Cui Chengxiao asked, "Is Lian'er doing any better?"
"Still the same. She only eats a few bites every couple of days." The woman dabbed at her tear-stained cheeks and said, "I'm returning to the State of Song tomorrow to seek an immortal artifact. Should I leave Lian'er here, or take her with me?"
Cui Chengxiao glanced at the desolate New City and said, "The mortal fortune here has bolstered Lian'er's foundation. If she leaves now, all previous efforts will be wasted."
"Very well. I will leave first, but you must pay close attention to her."
"Naturally."
"And that He Zhiyou! Fleeing on his own at the critical moment and causing Lian'er to suffer! When I return, I will definitely strip him of his eldership and throw him into prison to answer for his crimes!" The woman gnashed her teeth in fury.
Cui Chengxiao nodded, though inwardly he did not entirely agree. When He Zhiyou fled that day, the woman had declared him the chief culprit, vowing to kill him to avenge Lian'er. He Zhiyou was also at Scenery Command; naturally catching wind of this, he had not shown himself since.
Just at that moment, an aura suddenly surged into the sky in the distance, followed by a rising pillar of smoke, faintly revealing the presence of martial qi.
The woman's complexion changed, her eyes blazing with rage. "Those horse bandits again! I'll stake my life against them!"
Cui Chengxiao hurriedly stopped her and urged, "Securing the immortal artifact is what matters! Let a few petty horse bandits be."
Gritting her teeth, the woman conceded he was right and finally ceased making a fuss.
Yet Cui Chengxiao knew well in his heart that the bandits were fierce, brutal, insidious, and cunning. There was no telling which attack concealed an ambush. If he went himself, it would be fine, but if she fell into an ambush, she would certainly suffer a terrible fate.
Over the past several months, the more Cui Chengxiao dealt with Zhang Sheng, the more he understood her treachery. That woman had no shame whatsoever. Back then, she had merely stated that the decisive battle would take place three months later, but she never agreed to a truce during those three months! As a result, caught off guard, Cui Chengxiao's army had been ambushed by the horse bandits, suffering heavy casualties.
Nor did it stop there. Afterward, the Qingming troops and the horse bandits attacked in tandem, harassing them day and night. If they could win, they fought; if they couldn't, they switched to somewhere they could win. Whenever Cui Chengxiao dared to step outside the city, they dared to slip inside and scatter another batch of dark mines over areas that had already been cleared. Furthermore, that Scenery Command cultivator skilled in stealth constantly prowled nearby, leaving Cui Chengxiao utterly unable to commit to a strike.
At this juncture, He Zhiyou's importance became glaringly apparent. Had he been present to guard his flanks, Cui Chengxiao could have struck with full force.
Although he had his criticisms of the woman in palace attire, he believed that if she were to fall into Zhang Sheng's hands, Zhang Sheng would surely beat her within an inch of her life before proceeding to the scheduled duel.
War raged around Qingming as armies mobilized in turns. The Song-Cui New City was merely a minor target; the farthest-reaching Qingming detachment had already campaigned ten thousand li away, penetrating deep into the mountain tribes' territory and competing with Li Zhi for spoils.
The mortal world was engulfed in turmoil, and within the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World, peace was nowhere to be found.
Chapter 933