Li Xiangping sat quietly by the fire pit. The crimson glow bathed his face in golden-red. His leather coat was tattered beyond belief, his expression worn with fatigue, and the hairs on his legs were singed into slight curls by the heat, yet his gaze remained fixed intently on the taro roasting in the fire pit.
Over these past days, he had fled east and scuttled west, narrowly escaping death at the hands of Qi Refinement cultivators several times. He had witnessed countless partings of life and death, slain innumerable Shanyue commanders, and stirred those people up to assault Dajueting.
Li Xiangping’s countenance no longer bore the leisurely ease of an expansive manor; instead, it had regained a rustic, earthy roughness. The blood and fire of recent days had forged an iron-blooded aura into him, making him resemble Jianixi more and more.
"Great King!"
Ahui La still hadn't corrected his form of address. In fact, he had led a host of Shanyue warriors to pull Li Qiuyang and Chen Donghe along with him, howling and hollering "Great King" at Li Xiangping.
"That Mu Jiaoman went to Mount Wu, and who knows what he’s scheming!"
A section of the leather armor on Chen Donghe’s arm was severed, exposing a deep red wound. Covered in dirt and dark blood, he held a map in his hand and pondered, tracing the routes and markings with his finger before speaking gravely, "Great King, you must be extremely cautious!"
"Well said!"
Li Xiangping chuckled softly, quietly tightening his grip on the translucent pearl at his waist as he thought to himself, *He’s most likely going to invite a Foundation Establishment cultivator. We can’t delay any longer; I must get this thing back home as quickly as possible.*
Li Xiangping had fought all the way to the far west. When he spotted this transparent treasure pearl on the altar of a great tribe, the Xuanzhu talisman seed in his Qihai acupoint gave an inexplicable leap. He instantly understood that this item was almost certainly tied to his family’s magical mirror, so he took the pearl and kept it on him at all times.
Looking at the solemn Chen Donghe, Li Xiangping felt an urge to tease him. He looked up with a mischievous glint in his eye and chuckled, "Hey, He'er, have you taken a fancy to my Jingtian? Shall I go propose a marriage for you?"
Chen Donghe’s handsome face flushed bright red in an instant. He looked down at his toes without a word. Beside him, Li Qiuyang clutched his stomach and roared with laughter. Flustered and annoyed, Chen Donghe kicked him, not daring to look at Li Xiangping.
Li Xiangping chuckled and shook his head, smiling. "If Tian'er is willing, I naturally have no objections! But my Tian'er must be the primary wife!"
Hearing this, Chen Donghe felt his face burn even hotter. His hands and feet felt utterly out of place as he stammered, "I... I... definitely... won't let... Tian'er down..."
The crowd naturally burst into uproarious laughter, making Chen Donghe wish he could crawl into a hole in the ground. Ahui La laughed until he coughed, cursing jovially, "When we Shanyue take a liking to a woman, we just snatch her back to be our wife. We don't give a damn about the rules of you lowlanders!"
"Care to try that?"
Li Xiangping raised an eyebrow with a grin, frightening Ahui La into crying out for mercy. Chen Donghe smiled softly, finally breaking free of his embarrassment.
The fragrant aroma of roasted taro had already wafted through the air. Li Xiangping ate meticulously, as if reminiscing about the days when he was twelve or thirteen, secretly roasting taro by a pit with his eldest brother, Li Changhu. Back then, he was still young, and Li Changhu was always figuring out ways to get him food.
Beside him, Li Qiuyang cautiously looked around, on guard against the eagle eyes in the sky. When he looked down at Li Xiangping, his eyes were filled with profound reverence.
Li Xiangping had led them out of far too many desperate straits, bringing about unbelievable victories. Just as the Shanyue believed Jianixi was the Child of Destiny, the clan soldiers following Li Xiangping similarly believed their clan head was invincible.
All eyes were focused on Li Xiangping, but suddenly, he set down the taro in his hand and froze in a daze.
The "Ward Off Death and Prolong Life" talisman qi—which had revealed the direction of crisis and danger in his mind countless times before—suddenly burst into brilliant radiance. An overwhelming sense of peril surged forth. Through a haze, Li Xiangping saw himself kneeling on the ground, coughing up blood, surrounded by frantic cries for help and weeping.
"I am going to die. There is no death to ward off, no life to prolong."
A bone-chilling cold rushed up his spine to the crown of his head. Li Xiangping murmured under his breath, snatched the map from Chen Donghe's hands, picked up a piece of charcoal that was still scalding hot from the pit, closed his eyes in contemplation for a breath, and began rapidly drawing on the map.
"Great King!"
Chen Donghe was startled into total disarray, hurriedly dropping to his knees and looking at him with deep concern.
Finished drawing, Li Xiangping shoved the translucent treasure pearl into Chen Donghe’s chest, his voice low, urgent, and swift. "After I die, Mu Jiaoman will definitely return to relieve his forces. You all follow this path east and return home!"
Before Chen Donghe could speak, Li Xiangping gritted his teeth and hissed in a low voice, "No matter what, you must deliver this pearl into Li Tongya's hands!"
"Everyone!"
Li Xiangping rose to his feet, paying no heed to Chen Donghe who was still frozen on the ground below, and proclaimed in a clear, resonant voice:
"After I die, all of you must follow Donghe east to return home. Do not linger here..."
Li Qiuyang and the others were at a loss. But Li Xiangping's voice grew fainter and fainter, and he sank limply to the ground. In panic, they cried:
"Great King!"
"Clan Head!"
Li Xiangping lifted his eyes to look at the blazing sun in the sky. All manner of hallucinations surged before his vision: a piece seemed to break off gently from the sun, plunging toward him like a shooting star.
That missing fragment crackled and hissed with sparks, plunging squarely into his chest. It scalded him until his mouth twisted and his vision failed. Once, he had roasted a porcine Shanyue chieftain alive with fire; now, that very same torment was impartially visited upon his own body.
"Great King!"
The world in Li Xiangping's eyes had gone completely dark. He could see nothing, only feeling someone throw themselves onto his body, followed by scalding tears dripping onto his face. The corners of his mouth curled slightly, and using the last dregs of his strength, he let out a low laugh:
"What petty, cheap tricks!"
Li Xiangping's long hair fell loose, revealing sparse strands of white. He had lived to an age where ordinary peasants would be bouncing grandchildren on their knees, and in his life, he had suffered no great humiliation or grievance. Now, the only thing he could not let go of was the Li family, struggling to survive in the cracks between multiple factions.
Dense black qi emerged from the void, melting his grayish-black eyes and withering his body. Li Xiangping spewed a mouthful of black blood from his throat and rasped hoarsely,
"In this life, I've already made a damn good profit!"
Images flashed through his mind like sparks of flint, finally settling slowly on a winding river: a young boy, having just caught a black carp, puzzledly held up a battered, greenish-gray mirror, the morning sun shining upon his face, his smile radiant.
The black qi came swiftly and vanished just as fast. Having shriveled Li Xiangping’s body, it was just about to escape back into the void when a gray light suddenly emerged from Li Xiangping’s Shengyang Mansion.
The black qi paused, then surged into Li Xiangping’s Shengyang Mansion like starving ghosts finding a feast, plunging into that talisman qi before vanishing entirely.
Only Li Xiangping’s withered corpse was left kneeling upon the ground. A faint white beam of light emerged from his Qihai acupoint and softly vanished into the void. Below him, the crowd broke into a chorus of weeping and wailing, and Ahui La roared, his eyes nearly tearing at the corners:
"A curse! It's a killing curse! Mu Jiaoman, you wretched coward!"
"Clan Head!"
Chen Donghe knelt before Li Xiangping, tears streaming down his face. He bowed his head and wept for a time, his clenched fists digging into his palms until blood dripped. Sobbing filled his ears. Li Qiuyang’s eyes were bloodshot as he staggered forward.
*Bzzz...*
Suddenly, a chaotic buzzing of fluttering wings rang out. Chen Donghe froze, swallowed his sobs, and, carrying a look of grief, shifted forward on his knees a few steps to press his ear against Li Xiangping’s body and listen.
"Quiet, all of you!"
Chen Donghe furrowed his brow and shouted. The noise from the crowd instantly died down. They watched as he listened against Li Xiangping’s corpse for a moment, then carefully laid him flat.
Chen Donghe's trembling fingers slowly reached the pale, grayish corner of Li Xiangping's mouth. Pursing his lips, he gently pried it open. Instantly, the clamor of beating wings grew louder. Flanking him, Ahui La and Li Qiuyang stiffened and knelt down to inspect as well.
*Bzzzt...*
As Chen Donghe applied force, a grayish-black locust suddenly leaped out of Li Xiangping’s mouth. Covered in barbs, its translucent wings bore leaf-like venation. It hopped about on Chen Donghe's hand for a moment before flapping its wings and flying off.
"This..."
"Locusts! So many locusts!"
The men below shouted. Before anyone could react, hundreds and thousands of grayish-black locusts emerged from beneath Li Xiangping’s corpse, buzzing into the sky like a rising black tempest. They slammed about haphazardly, striking the men with stinging pain and forcing them to retreat again and again.
"Donghe... this..."
Ahui La stammered in a daze. Chen Donghe retreated a few paces, tear tracks still wet upon his face. He slung Li Xiangping’s Qingwu Bow across his back and glanced at the corpse, which had completely vanished.
As the locusts in the sky slowly rose higher, Chen Donghe gritted his teeth and barked,
"Move! We can't let them catch us!"
————
Mount Lijing.
"Sigh."
A brilliant, gleaming white orb suddenly emerged from the void and plunged into the greenish-gray mirror resting on the stone platform, stirring up a ripple of pale-white moon essence. A faint sigh echoed across the courtyard.
"Li Xiangping, it has been twenty-five or twenty-six years since you picked me up..."
The memory of that boy catching fish was still vivid in his mind, yet Li Xiangping in the west had already fallen. Lu Jiangxian’s emotions were tangled. Words rose to his lips, but he didn't know what to say.
Lu Jiangxian felt his divine sense and magical power swelling continuously as the information recorded within the Xuanzhu talisman seed flowed slowly into the mirror. Li Xiangping had died of a curse with a cultivation at the peak of Embryonic Breathing, yet the magical power erupting from the Xuanzhu talisman seed far exceeded Lu Jiangxian’s expectations.
*The feedback from the Xuanzhu talisman seed does not seem to depend solely on cultivation; it also involves ethereal, intangible things like fortune and incense. He seized Jianixi's fortune and stole the Shanyue's incense.*
Colors and light flowed across Lu Jiangxian’s mirror face, and the Taiyin Mysterious Light roamed along the body of the mirror. Its power was now sufficient to obliterate a peak Qi Refinement cultivator. The increase in his maximum magical power allowed him to unleash five consecutive beams of Taiyin Mysterious Light; even if he encountered a Foundation Establishment cultivator, he could hold them off for a moment, though it would take three days to recover afterward.
*The black qi of that curse was originally a spell transformed from talisman qi. It was swallowed whole by the talisman qi inside Li Xiangping, and who knows what mutation has occurred.*
For the past few days, Lu Jiangxian had been studying the structure of that curse in the courtyard with little progress. Fortunately, he neither ate nor slept, nor had any physical needs; he could easily spend a decade or two studying it without rushing, taking his time to grind away.
*Then there is that treasure pearl.*
Lu Jiangxian swallowed an imaginary mouthful of saliva. Ever since becoming an artifact spirit, his desires had dwindled significantly, and he usually had to force himself to watch the worldly life down the mountain just to maintain some emotional fluctuation. Yet the treasure pearl Li Xiangping had obtained stirred a deep, visceral longing from the very core of his being.
Outside the courtyard.
Li Tongya was explaining swordsmanship to Li Xuanling in the yard when his heart suddenly jolted, bringing him to an abrupt halt.
"Father, what is it?"
Li Tongya frowned, feeling a vague restlessness. He waved his hand and said softly, "It's nothing."
Yet inwardly, he thought:
*The grand array on Mount Lijing must be set up sooner. Perhaps without an array to shelter us, my heart always feels hollow and uneasy.*
*Clang!*
A sharp collision suddenly cracked against the window frame, drawing Li Tongya and Li Xuanling to look back.
Li Xuanling walked over cautiously and opened the window. He saw that an emaciated grayish-black locust had crashed to its death against it, its upper body smashed to a pulp and clinging barely to the wooden frame. Puzzled, he picked it off and turned back toward his father.
Li Tongya’s spiritual sense had already perceived it with total clarity. An inexplicable sadness arose in his heart. Taking the locust, he examined it closely.
"Eh?"
Under the scan and analysis of Li Tongya’s spiritual sense, the locust bore not a trace of monster qi; instead, it carried an imperceptibly faint sense of familiarity.
*Tomorrow I'll head into the mountains again to inquire about Xiangping's whereabouts.*
Shaking his head, he cast the thought aside. Li Tongya flicked his hand to toss the bug out the window and said softly, "Do not be distracted. Read this *Mystic Water Sword Art* carefully."
Just then, a commotion arose, and Li Xuanxuan entered cheerfully carrying a swaddled infant, calling softly:
"Second Uncle!"
Li Tongya raised an eyebrow, a hint of delight appearing on his face as he asked, "The child was born? A boy or a girl?"
Two years ago, Li Xuanxuan had married a woman from another clan who possessed a spirit aperture. Her talent was modest, and even now she was only at the first layer of Embryonic Breathing, the Xuanjing Wheel. Li Xiangping had also assigned several good-looking mortal women to be his concubines. This was now the very first descendant born of the direct lineage.
"It's a boy!"
Li Xuanxuan could not hide the beaming smile on his face as he held the baby closer. Li Tongya smiled and said:
"This is the very first third-generation descendant of our Li family. Have you thought of a name?"
"According to the generational naming poem, his character should be *Yuan*!"
Li Xuanxuan chuckled, cooed softly to the baby for a moment, and answered, "Let us name him Li Yuanxiu."
"Li Yuanxiu..."
Li Tongya nodded with a smile, looking at the child, and murmured, "Good, very good."
"How many children have your concubines borne?"
Surprised by Li Tongya’s sudden question, Li Xuanxuan looked up and answered, "A son and a daughter, but they are only three to five years old."
Li Tongya grew thoughtful and said gravely, "From now on, in the direct line of our Li clan's main branch, concubine-born sons without spirit apertures shall be demoted to a lesser branch upon family division. Those possessing spirit apertures shall be classified under the main branch alongside legitimate sons. If a lesser branch produces no spirit apertures for three generations, it shall be demoted to a collateral branch; if someone with a spirit aperture appears, they shall be recognized back into the ancestral lineage as part of the main branch."
Li Xuanxuan blinked in surprise, then nodded, though he asked with some confusion, "The Ye clan now numbers over two thousand people as well. If someone among them possesses a spirit aperture and is elevated into a collateral branch, how shall they be treated?"
"Capped at a lesser branch," Li Tongya replied after contemplating for a few breaths.
Li Qiuyang currently belonged to the Li clan’s collateral branch. If he fathered a legitimate son who possessed a spirit aperture, that son could be elevated back to a lesser branch. But even if that son went on to father a legitimate grandson with a spirit aperture, he could not be elevated back to the main branch.
*This way, it ensures that everyone in the main branch belongs solely to Grandfather’s lineage...*
Li Xuanxuan nodded. Seeing the look of unease on Li Tongya’s face, he asked, "Second Uncle, what troubles you?"
Li Tongya parted his lips, looking somewhat weary. In a low, heavy voice, he said:
"I am still worried about Xiangping. I'll make a trip west tonight under cover of darkness. Keep a close watch on the house."
Chapter 100