After the Great Dao Died

Meanwhile, in the West Courtyard Menial Quarters, Chen Lingxi sank into his Divine Chamber and unleashed the Vision Wander divine ability.

After reaching the Qi Circulation 3rd Floor, his Divine Chamber had expanded to two thousand zhang across. It was no longer confined to the Baosu Marquis Residence and its adjacent streets.

Carried on a wisp of smoke, his consciousness drifted over the estate’s high walls, skimmed the densely packed roofs and eaves, and crossed the west-side ferry docks and long streets to descend straight toward the surface of Yuanjiang.

It was late spring. The river waters had just begun to swell, rolling vast and shrouded in mist.

Traffic on the water was heavy. Cargo-laden merchant ships sat deep in the current, black-awning ferries rocked gently as they carried passengers, and several gilded pleasure boats lay moored by the banks, drifting faint sounds of strings and bamboo flutes.

Chen Lingxi’s perspective, however, stopped on a single vessel.

Slightly larger than a typical pleasure boat, its hull was lacquered a deep, subdued crimson. The cabin doors were shut tight. Bronze bells hung from its four corners, yet they made no sound when the river wind swept past.

Only one person stood on the bow deck.

Lin Suri.

He stood by the railing with his hands behind his back, a black brocade robe fluttering slightly in the wind.His exceptionally pale face was devoid of emotion. Beneath gracefully arched brows, his deep, well-like eyes gazed out over the misty expanse of the river, his thoughts unreadable.

Borrowing Lin Suri’s vantage point, Chen Lingxi took in the surrounding river scenery.

The water shimmered with a blue-gray light in the twilight. The distant mountains on the opposite shore were a dark, painted green, the lingering snow on their peaks blending into the evening clouds.

A few white egrets startled into the air from the shallows, kicking up a trail of fine spray as they skimmed the surface.

Just then, a small boat approached from down the river.

It was an entirely unremarkable craft with a half-worn black awning. A boatman squatted at the bow, working a punting pole with slow, sluggish movements, looking like any ordinary ferryman.

The skiff pulled up alongside Lin Suri’s vessel. The cabin curtain lifted, and a figure stepped out.

Slender and draped in a long cloak, the person wore a bamboo hat with the brim pulled exceedingly low, entirely obscuring their face.

The cloak’s material looked completely ordinary—a dusty gray, like coarse cloth washed countless times—yet it seemed to carry a strange quality of its own.

The figure stepped onto the boarding ladder, climbed aboard the larger ship, and halted a few paces in front of Lin Suri.

First she removed the bamboo hat, revealing an oval face and peach-blossom eyes brimming with seductive charm.

Then she untied the long cloak, exposing a crisp black martial outfit that hugged her exquisite curves.

It was Wang Chu, the head steward of the southern courtyard.

Chen Lingxi was surprised.

Over the past two years, he had seen Wang Chu many times. Within the residence, she always carried the grand air of a head steward, swaying gracefully as she walked—the dream lover of countless servants.

Yet just moments ago, wearing that bamboo hat and cloak, she had seemed like an entirely different person.

Her aura had been withdrawn to the point of nonexistence, and her posture and gait were completely altered. She was like a civet cat that had retracted its claws and vanished into a pack of strays, leaving no flaws to be found.

Wang Chu curtsied to Lin Suri and said, ”The two Mohe Envoys are on Cuojin Mountain.”

Mohe Envoys?

Chen Lingxi listened closely.

As she spoke, Wang Chu drew an object from the inner pocket of her cloak and presented it with both hands.

It was a wooden box.

Barely the size of a palm, it was carved from dark, unadorned wood, set with only a small bronze clasp at the seam.

It looked completely unremarkable, like an old wooden case an ordinary family might use for odds and ends.

Lin Suri accepted the box and lightly flicked the bronze clasp. The lid sprang open.

Chen Lingxi’s pupils abruptly contracted.

Through Lin Suri’s perspective, he clearly saw two medicinal pills resting inside.

Roughly the size of longans, they were perfectly round like pearls. Their flawlessly smooth surfaces radiated a faint cyan glow in the twilight.

What shocked him more was the heavy spiritual qi swirling from them. It looked like two clusters of cyan flame burning quietly on the pills, bathing the small space inside the box in an emerald light.

The spiritual qi was incredibly rich. Compared to these, the Dragon-Drawing Powder he had previously obtained from Zhao Yong was far too thin!

Chen Lingxi held his breath, his attention locked onto the pills. These two pills are enough to push me to the Qi Circulation 4th Floor!

Lin Suri had always been a man of few words, rarely cracking a smile.

In all the time Chen Lingxi had tracked him with Vision Wander, he had rarely seen a ripple of emotion on that face.

But at this moment, as the eldest young master of the estate looked at the two pills in his hands, a glint flashed through his deep eyes, and the corners of his mouth curled into an involuntary smile.

”Wu Mohe’s pill-refining cauldron vessel is becoming ever more extraordinary,” he praised.

Chen Lingxi’s heart skipped a beat.

Wu Mohe, a pill-refining cauldron vessel.

Chen Lingxi repeated the words in his mind.

His curiosity surged.

Meanwhile, Wang Chu kept her head bowed, as if she hadn’t heard Lin Suri at all.

She stood to the side with her arms lowered, her posture respectful. Her peach-blossom eyes were locked onto the deck boards beneath her feet, never lifting.

Lin Suri closed the wooden box and slipped it into his sleeve. He turned, walked over to a rosewood desk in the center of the cabin, swept his robe aside, and sat down.

Brushes, ink, paper, and an inkstone rested on the desk. Black ink had already been ground to the perfect consistency within a Duan inkstone. A golden brush sat on a brush rest, its shaft engraved with cloud patterns that gave off a faint, dark sheen in the twilight.

He picked up the gold brush and spread out a plain white sheet of letter paper. He saturated the brush tip with ink, hovered it over the paper for a moment, and began to write.

Chen Lingxi saw it clearly.

”Imperial Consort Chun will soon visit Yuanjiang Prefecture. It must be for the Ancestral Mountain Maternal Qi; the cauldron vessel fragment in her possession will surely accompany her.

If we can obtain the precious mirror, it will greatly aid in our search for the complete cauldron vessel.”

The few short lines were written with enough force to pierce the back of the paper.

The ink left incredibly fine, blurry edges on the plain white paper, as if every character had taken root.

Chen Lingxi took in these lines, and his heart sank.

Imperial Consort Chun.

That name was a thorn to him, bringing a sharp ache to his heart.

His parents had been tied up on the execution grounds and beheaded entirely because of a single phrase this woman had gathered through mirror divination.

And now, this woman was actually coming to Yuanjiang Prefecture. What’s more, she also held a cauldron vessel fragment—one known as a mirror.

Finished with the letter, Lin Suri returned the gold brush to its rest, picked up the paper, and blew on it gently until the ink was dry.

Wang Chu stepped forward and accepted the letter with both hands.

She put her bamboo hat back on and draped the dusty gray cloak over her shoulders once more.

The hat was pulled low, hiding the immense charm of her oval face.

The cloak wrapped around her, concealing her exquisite figure.

In an instant, the seductive head steward had vanished without a trace, replaced by a hunched, ordinary passerby with a murky aura. Thrown into a crowd, absolutely no one would spare her a second glance.

Wang Chu gave Lin Suri another bow, turned, descended the boarding ladder, and returned to the small black-awning boat.

The boatman pushed off with his bamboo pole. The small boat leisurely swayed away from the larger vessel, slowly sailing toward the opposite bank. Before long, it vanished into the boundless twilight and river mist, nowhere to be seen.

Lin Suri rose from the desk, walked back to the railing, and stood with his hands behind his back once again.

Twilight had settled heavily over the river. The night swallowed the last remnants of sunset on the horizon, and the water shifted from blue-gray to a deep, inky black. The distant mountains were reduced to a blurry silhouette, as if someone had painted a heavy stroke of dark ink across the skyline.

A few fishing lanterns flickered on and off on the opposite shore, their cold, eerie light dragging long reflections across the water before being broken into scattered gold by the ripples.

He just stood there, motionless, gazing at the vast, misty Yuanjiang. His thoughts were unreadable.

The Vision Wander shattered.

Chen Lingxi’s eyes snapped open.

He was still sitting cross-legged on the hard wooden bed in the West Courtyard Menial Quarters. The moonlight outside the window was bright, and the peony in the corner of the wall swayed gently in the night breeze.

The moonlight fell upon his face, and the light in his eyes was much brighter than before.

Did Lin Suri also get in touch with Wu Mohe through Zhao Yong? he thought to himself, his brows knitting slightly.

He pondered for a moment before turning his thoughts back to those two pills.

Rumor has it that Wu Mohe can bring the dead back to life and regrow flesh on bare bones. Is it because of the pill-refining cauldron vessel fragment Lin Suri mentioned?

Is this Wu Mohe also an otherworldly immortal?

Chen Lingxi fell into deep thought.

Lin Suri was an outsider, Crown Prince Ying Chi was an outsider, and that cultivator surnamed Chao was also an outsider.

Now, it seemed that this Human Immortal Wu Mohe, who had raised the banner of a rebel king, was nine times out of ten an outsider as well.

Otherwise, there was no explaining why he possessed a pill-refining cauldron vessel, or how he could refine pills with such an astonishingly rich amount of spiritual qi.

Pills... Chen Lingxi’s gaze grew fervent as he suddenly remembered what Wang Chu had just said.

The two Mohe Envoys are on Cuojin Mountain.

Cuojin Mountain.

He had been to that mountain. He had picked up the Purple True Precious Qi Fragment there, and it was also where he had witnessed Crown Prince Ying Chi use the Treasure Bottle to drive off the assassins.

Chen Lingxi took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and repeatedly sorted through these clues in his mind.

A long while later, another image suddenly flashed through his mind.

—Inside the eastern hall of the Beast-Fighting Palace, he had stood with his hands clasped behind his back, a calm look on his face as he spouted utter nonsense to Crown Prince Ying Chi.

”I once met a young man. He wore a long saber at his waist, possessed astonishing vitality, and was incredibly extraordinary. He called himself General Zhiling.”

At the time, he had only been trying to keep up appearances in front of the crown prince, casually fabricating that name on the spot.

General Zhiling. There was absolutely no such person in this world; it was nothing more than an impromptu lie.

But now, a sudden thought struck him.

Ying Chi’s cultivation base is extraordinary. I’m afraid he’s not much weaker than Lin Suri.

Furthermore, he holds a treasure like the Purple True Treasure Vase in his hands. In Lin Suri’s eyes, even a fragment of purple qi is considered a great stroke of fortune.

He stood up, light glinting in his eyes. Under the Concealed Edge Method, even he couldn’t see through my cultivation.

Since that’s the case... Chen Lingxi’s gaze flickered.

That young man with the long saber at his waist, astonishing vitality, and who called himself General Zhiling...

Such a person didn’t exist in the past, but what about the future?

He reached into his robes. With a thought, his Cosmos Bag quietly emerged from the void of his Divine Chamber and appeared in his palm.

The Gold-Slaughtering Precious Saber materialized in his grasp.

The pale gold patterns on the precious saber gleamed with a cold, eerie light under the moon. The blade was aggressively sharp, carrying a bone-chilling aura.

The power of sparks and thunder lay dormant within the steel, waiting only for him to channel his spiritual qi to erupt with a thunderous boom.

Chen Lingxi gripped the saber and looked down at his own calm eyes reflected on the blade.

Why don’t I play the part of this non-existent General Zhiling, then?