The barrier around Red Lotus Pavilion glowed and shimmered,
day and night, throughout the seasons. Those within remained in, and those
without were kept out.
Five years passed in the blink of an eye, the world turning like a
carousel lantern, changing every day, changing every moon. In teahouses, in
history books…those years became pieces of tales told, lines written in
stories.
This was what had happened—
In the first year of Chu Wanning's seclusion, his disciple Mo Ran
descended the mountain while Xue Meng and Shi Mei stayed at Sisheng
Peak to pursue cultivation on their own. That year, Mo Ran's handwriting
got a little neater, Xue Meng broke through to the ninth level of Nirvana
Blade, and Shi Mei left to study with the medicine sect Guyueye at the end
of the year, where he learned much.
During that time, Mo Ran paid a visit to the Chang family of salt
merchants in Yizhou, asking to see Chang-gongzi about a personal matter,
only to find that the man had passed unexpectedly a few days prior. Ever
since he had learned while in the underworld that Chang-gongzi had been in
cahoots with the fake Gouchen, Mo Ran had been hoping to pry some
information out of him. But his quarry was one step ahead of him and had
already silenced the witness—even the body had been burnt to ash. A dead
end.
In the second year of Chu Wanning's seclusion, the cultivation world
held the Spiritual Mountain Competition. Xue Meng won first place, Mei
Hanxue second, and Nangong Si third. Shi Mei tended to the sick and
injured across the lower cultivation realm, while Mo Ran roamed the land,
defeating evil fiends and doing good deeds wheresoever he went, before
retreating into the mountains to cultivate and disappearing without a trace.
The third year of Chu Wanning's seclusion fell on a ghost year,
teeming with yin energy. The barrier where they had fought that bloody
battle at Butterfly Town became weak, and ghosts and fiends swarmed into
the world of the living, terrorizing the people. The disciples of Sisheng
Peak, led by Xue Meng, fought to suppress the menace. Although the
situation was not so dire as it had been when evil ghosts had filled the skies,
it was nevertheless a disastrous year of misery and destitution.
The upper cultivation realm, being large and populous, barred its
doors in self-protection. Each of its nine major sects dispatched hundreds of
disciples to guard the border between the upper and lower cultivation
realms. They built an evil-repelling wall, preventing both fiends and
refugees from moving east. Impoverished fugitives from the lower
cultivation realms were rebuffed at the wall and abandoned to their fate; the
border defense kept out ghosts and humans alike. And so there was peace
and calm within the wall, while corpses littered the ground at its foot. Xue
Zhengyong tried many times to negotiate with the upper cultivation realm
to no avail. That year, all the blood spilt by the disciples of Sisheng Peak at
Butterfly Town flowed eastward.
At the end of the year, Mo Ran, who had been cultivating in seclusion
deep in the mountains, received a letter from his uncle. Learning that there
was trouble in Sichuan, he stepped back into the world.
It was the fourth year of Chu Wanning's seclusion. Mo Ran and
Xue Meng fought side by side, the two young masters of Sisheng Peak
leading the charge in the lower cultivation realm, driving demonic fiends
from the land. In the final battle, once again at Butterfly Town, Xue Ziming
felled ghosts and demons by the hundreds and thousands, while Mo Weiyu
repaired the Heavenly Rift, singlehandedly sealing away the evil.
In the following days, the upper cultivation realm reopened their
borders and once again allowed the people of the lower cultivation realm to
enter. Xue Meng and Mo Ran became famous the world over, the former for
being the son of the phoenix whose prestige was unmatched, the latter
becoming known as "Mo-zongshi" for repairing the Heavenly Rift with
barrier techniques almost identical to Chu Wanning's.
So time flowed, all things ever-changing.
Though Xue Meng had made a name for himself at the Spiritual
Mountain Competition, he did not let it get to his head and did not grow
complacent as he would have in his younger years. He went diligently to
the bamboo forest to cultivate and train at every opportunity, whether in
winter or summer, and even when sick.
He remembered his shizun's words: even without a holy weapon, the
darling of the heavens was still the darling of the heavens. But his natural
advantages were no longer sufficient to place him ahead of the curve; he
now had to work harder than ever to offset a disadvantage instead.
Sometimes, after completing a set of blade techniques, when he
landed lithely on the ground and turned his head, he seemed almost to catch
a glimpse of a small figure sitting on the rock as the sunlight streamed
through the bamboo, whistling through a leaf. He couldn't help but recall
that day when Chu Wanning, turned tiny, had watched him practice his
blade in the forest and guided his rhythm with a whistled tune. Glancing at
that rock, Xue Meng could almost hear the melody. He closed his eyes,
focusing his mind and letting his breath go still, before snapping them open
just as a withered bamboo leaf came drifting down.
Longcheng sang, and the flash of the blade reflected in his eyes. The
shadow of the blade extended and retracted with intent, its strike swift as
the surging tides and the flash of lightning, its withdrawal unhurried as the
flurrying of snow in the endless sky. When Longcheng fell still and he
stood straight once more, that withered leaf had already been sliced into a
million pieces, silently drifting to the ground by his feet.
With his head bowed, he could almost be mistaken for that foolhardy
young boy. But when he looked up, those straight brows and clear, steady
eyes were like the meeting of river and sea, a rapid stream surging into vast
openness, melding into unbound tranquility.
It had been five years.
Xue Meng raised his blade and wiped its frosty edge clean with a
square of white cloth. He was raising the blade to return it to its scabbard
when he was interrupted by hurried footsteps coming from a distance. A
disciple rushed in, hollering nonstop, "Young master! Young master!"
"What is it?" Xue Meng frowned. "Where's your composure? Pull
yourself together. What happened?"
"The Red Lotus Pavilion—" The disciple was red in the face and
gasping from how fast he'd run. "M-Master Huaizui left! Y-Yuheng Elder—
w-woke up!"
With a clang, Longcheng, the veteran of a hundred battles, tumbled
from its owner's hand to the ground. Xue Meng's fair and handsome face
drained of all color before immediately turning bright red, his mouth
opening and closing mutely. He dashed off toward the southern summit of
Sisheng Peak at breakneck speed, leaving even his own weapon behind,
forgotten in the grass. He nearly tripped over a rock on the way, stumbling
and staggering.
"Shizun! Shizun!"
Despite having just given a lecture on the need for composure, Xue
Ziming certainly wasted no time flinging his own to the ground.
He arrived at the Red Lotus Pavilion to see Xue Zhengyong striding
out. Before Xue Meng could set a foot inside, Xue Zhengyong, grinning
broadly, held out a hand to stop his son from charging in like his life
depended on it.
Xue Meng was beside himself. "Dad!"
"Yes, yes, I know you want to see Yuheng," Xue Zhengyong said
with a smile. "But he's tired from his recovery, and only spoke a few words
to me before falling back asleep. Surely you wouldn't disturb your shizun's
rest?"
"I mean, yeah, but…" Xue Meng faltered. But waiting out these five
years had been so awfully hard, and there was so much he wanted to tell his
shizun; he wanted so badly to run in right now to tell Shizun how he had
won first place at the Spiritual Mountain Competition, about all the ghosts
and demons he had put down, about his…
"Be sensible now."
The phrase be sensible was Xue Meng's weakness, always able to
stop him in his tracks and make him listen. He heaved a long sigh and
stopped trying to shuffle past, though he craned his neck around his brawny
father as if hoping to peek through the slightly ajar door and see the person
on the bed. Xue Meng pressed his lips together, not quite willing to give up.
"Can I just—just go in and take a quick look at Shizun. I won't make a
sound."
"You expect me to believe that, with the way you make a ruckus and
a half whenever you're happy?" Xue Zhengyong shot him a glare. "Don't
think I've forgotten how you won at the Spiritual Mountain Competition
and acted so suave in front of outsiders but hollered about it for four or five
days straight the minute you got home. You wouldn't stop telling people
how you kicked Nangong Si off his wolf; you told the story so many times
even Auntie Li at Mengpo Hall can recite it word for word. You? Not make
a sound? Hah!"
"Fine." Xue Meng relented, drooping where he stood. "Father is
right."
"Well of course. When has your dad ever been wrong?"
Xue Meng made a sour face, but he still had to know. "Dad, how's
Shizun doing?"
"Pretty good. Master Huaizui even managed to purge the remaining
poison from the Heart-Pluck Willow."
"Ah, so Shizun won't turn into little Xia-shidi anymore?"
"Ha ha, nope."
Xue Meng scratched his head, a little disappointed to hear he'd seen
the last of Xia Sini. "Then—then what about everything else? Is he feeling
okay?"
"Don't worry, he's fine. The only thing not fine was the look on his
face when he found out he'd been asleep for five years!" Xue Zhengyong
chuckled as he recalled Chu Wanning's expression. "Good thing he's still
tired, or else he'd be grilling me this very minute. Oh yeah, speaking of—"
Suddenly recalling something, he said, "Meng-er, do me a favor. Your
shizun missed quite a bit, out of the world as he was for so long. It'll be too
much for us to try to catch him up on everything ourselves, and it'd be
tiring for him to listen to us tell it, too. How about this: go ask your mom
for some money and make a trip down the mountain to buy some books in
Wuchang Town. Don't they have those chronicle-type books, the ones
where they record everything big and small? Get him a couple to read."
Xue Meng could practically smell his ulterior motives—his sly old
fox of a dad obviously thought his son was being a bother and was trying to
kick him off the mountain with the excuse of an errand. But then again, the
errand was for his shizun, so it was…not unacceptable. Chu Wanning was
asleep now anyway, and it was true that Xue Meng might not be able
contain himself if he were to enter the room right now. There was a chance
he'd end up running over and waking him.
So he sighed and mumbled reluctantly, "Fine, I'll go get the stinkin'
books."
"Get a couple different ones, for both the upper and lower cultivation
realms. Yuheng likes to read anyway."
"Okay, all right."
So it was that Xue Meng lumbered dejectedly down the mountain
alone. He wasn't much of a reader himself; when he finally arrived at the
bookseller's at Wuchang Town, he scanned the titles but couldn't figure out
what was what. He squatted down to ask the vendor: "Uncle, do you have
any books about recent events in the cultivation world? Can you pick me a
couple?"
The vendor, who was quite excited to see a disciple from Sisheng
Peak even if he didn't recognize the son of the phoenix, Xue Ziming
himself, responded with great enthusiasm, "Books about recent events? Of
course, of course! I've got both historical chronicles and fictional
adaptations, all kinds of biographies and annals, regional chronicles, demon
suppression records, even manuscripts from ten of the most famous
storytellers in the land. What would Xianjun like?"
All this babbling was giving Xue Meng a headache, so he waved a
hand and said, "Just—just gimme all of it; money's no issue."
The phrases most dear to a businessman are not I love you, I care
about you, or I want you, but I'll buy it, money's no issue, and one of each.
Thus the vendor immediately grinned from ear to ear, rubbing his hands
together as he turned to gather piles of books from the rack to fulfill
Xue Meng's order.
With nothing better to do, Xue Meng casually flipped through some of
the books on the stand. Soon he happened across a thin little booklet that
seemed rather interesting. The page he'd flipped open read:
CULTIVATION WORLD WEALTH RANKING
FIRST PLACE: Jiang Xi
Rainbell Isle Guyueye Sect Leader
SECOND PLACE: Nangong Liu
Linyi Rufeng Sect Leader
THIRD PLACE: Ma Yun
West Lake Taobao Estate Master
And so on and so forth, down the entire page covered in tiny writing.
Xue Meng at once got fired up, eager to discover his own rank. He scanned
the page four times, then five, then again until his eyes started to cross, yet
still couldn't find the name "Xue Meng." Somewhat crestfallen, then a little
mad, but mostly undeterred, he flipped the page to continue looking. But on
the next page, he only saw a few more names, followed by the line:
Due to time and resource constraints, rankings only go to one
hundred, and those after will not be listed.
Xue Meng flung the booklet to the ground in a fit of rage. "Am I that
fucking broke?!"
The vendor jumped, startled. Seeing the book Xue Meng had been
reading, he scooped it up and hurried to mollify him, saying, "Don't be
angry, Xianjun, these ranking booklets are just made up by folks willy-nilly,
and on top of that, each region has its own version in circulation. If you buy
one in Linyi, number one on the gentleman ranking is definitely gonna be
Sect Leader Nangong. It's just something people thumb through to pass the
time; don't be mad, don't be mad."
His words seemed reasonable enough. And Xue Meng was curious
about the remainder of the booklet's contents, so he huffed, took it back
from the vendor, and flipped through a few more pages at random.
This time, he saw an even more peculiar ranking:
YOUNG MASTER EGO RANKING