Where Immortals Once Walked

“Well...” The mirror thought it over, then found itself unable to explain for a moment.

Clearly, both sides had finished what they needed to do, yet it did not seem right to say they would be complete strangers from now on, either.

At last, it gave an “oh” of understanding and asked, “Are you worried he’ll kill you to silence you?”

“It isn’t that simple.” He Lingchuan’s voice was as faint as a mosquito’s hum, almost audible only to the mirror. “He laid plans for years and finally used Xi Yunhe to achieve his goal. So why is Xi Yunhe still alive? Why hasn’t he been silenced? Killing Xi Yunhe would clearly be the best way to sever all ties, far more effective than killing me. Heh, what trouble could I possibly cause him?”

The mirror grew even more confused and pressed him for an answer.

But He Lingchuan only said, “Because Xi Yunhe is useful.” After that, he explained no further, leaving the mirror itching with unbearable curiosity.

Xi Yunhe was still alive because he truly had ability, because he truly could get things done for State Preceptor Shuang Ye. To State Preceptor Shuang Ye, Xi Yunhe was far more useful alive than dead.

Xi Yunhe himself understood that very clearly, so he was not worried that his leader would suddenly develop murderous thoughts.

“Besides, when it comes to cleaning up afterward, there are superior, middling, and inferior methods. Killing someone to silence them is the worst of the worst. A figure like State Preceptor Shuang Ye would not easily choose an inferior method.”

State Preceptor Shuang Ye and State Preceptor Qing Yang had contested one another for more than a century. Had they been competing in cultivation or martial techniques? Of course not. What they fought over was influence.

Influence meant power.

Influence was not only a resource. It also meant having a great many people whose interests were deeply bound to yours, people willing to be used by you.

If State Preceptor Shuang Ye killed every person after using them, discarding them like dirty rags, he would be destroying his own influence with his own hands.

Those below served those above, and those above bestowed favor on those below. That was the normal way this system operated.

Killing to silence people? That was too crude. Unless there was truly no other choice, who would do such a thing?

Just now, while Li Qingge and Nian Zanli were making their deal inside State Preceptor Shuang Ye’s tent, He Lingchuan had been thinking through many things.

Back at Baishajue, he had already cooperated once in secret with Mai Xuewen, or rather Xi Yunhe. Together, they had killed Lingxu City’s Touring Commissioner Zhongsun Mou.

From that moment on, he had already intersected with State Preceptor Shuang Ye’s faction.

After arriving in Lingxu City, he had made a deal with State Preceptor Shuang Ye in order to repay Li Qingge’s favor. Through this exchange, they had invisibly cooperated once again.

As the saying goes, unfamiliar the first time, familiar the second.

When he saw Li Qingge walk out earlier in such high spirits, He Lingchuan suddenly realized that not only were he and State Preceptor Shuang Ye not even, their entanglement had only deepened.

Without realizing it, he had been drawn deeply into the struggle between the Autumn Palace and the Spring Palace.

He knew State Preceptor Shuang Ye’s secret, and State Preceptor Shuang Ye also knew that he had not sold Xi Yunhe out to Bai Ziqi. Yet after seeing State Preceptor Shuang Ye for the first time today, He Lingchuan was no longer worried that the man would kill him to silence him.

The way State Preceptor Shuang Ye had looked at him had been kind and approving, as though saying, “Well done, young man.”

Then, seeing how the state preceptor had borrowed troops for Li Qingge and arranged everything with such careful thoroughness, He Lingchuan had sensed sincerity rather than perfunctory official business.

Thus, it all came down to one sentence:

State Preceptor Shuang Ye very likely already regarded him as one of his own.

He had never personally spoken with He Lingchuan, and he had not even had Xi Yunhe hint at recruitment. Yet, the entanglement between them was already deep enough. As long as He Lingchuan remained in Beijia, he would faintly be categorized as part of State Preceptor Shuang Ye’s faction. Given the latter’s terrifying status and network, He Lingchuan did not even need to nod and admit it for this relationship to be confirmed.

If he wanted to deny that mark, he would have to betray or sell out State Preceptor Shuang Ye through some drastic means.

He Lingchuan believed that no normal person would dare do so.

As for him, he did not want to either.

By comparison, that foolish Fushan Yue only knew how to keep tossing olive branches at him. His sincerity was real, but his methods simply could not be mentioned in the same breath as an old political fox like State Preceptor Shuang Ye.

He Lingchuan cut through the crowd and strode back to the Crown Prince of Chiyan’s carriage. Meeting Fushan Yue’s expectant gaze, he said, “The handoff went smoothly.”

Fushan Yue slapped the table and laughed. “Excellent! This is a sudden turn toward hope after all our gloom. Come, a toast to you!”

If not for He Xiao’s meticulous attention to detail, if he had not seized upon such a nearly invisible flaw, Kong Jiaxiang would certainly have slipped through the net. Now that the elixir of youth case had made new progress, this was wonderful news for the State of Chiyan.

The two raised their cups and were just about to down them when the wine inside condensed into beads and trembled upward into the sky.

This time, the droplets rose much faster than before.

“The Gate of the Grass Sea is about to open yet again.”

Sure enough, the clear, ringing sound of a jade chime came from ahead. It seemed distant, yet close, echoing beside every person’s ear.

Those whispering to one another and those prostrated before the Heavenly Palace tents all lifted their heads together.

At some point, the sunlight had vanished, and the sky had become filled with dark clouds.

Now, the clouds were pressing lower and lower, spinning tighter and tighter, until they actually formed a gigantic spiral!

It looked like the swirling cone of an ice cream, with the pointed tip facing downward.

He Lingchuan hissed softly.

What an enormous vortex.

It nearly covered the entire sky above the Grass Sea, stretching across dozens of kilometers.

In his original world, such a phenomenon was called a supercell. Some people called them rotating thunderstorms.

But here, this was definitely not mere severe convective weather.

The thunderstorm first appeared over the waters of the Grass Sea, churning up countless strands of aquatic plants like a long whale drinking from the sea. Then, it slowly moved toward the sandbar.

Its might was unmatched, like the end of the world drawing near.

It was as though that line of poetry, “black clouds loom heavy over the city, and the city on the verge of caving in,[1]” had come to life.

If that thing caught them squarely, the tens of thousands of people here would probably all be swept into the sky.

Its size was far greater than the Wind Demon at the Ethereal Sect half a year ago.

Yet in the face of this kind of super-intense convection, the people of Lingxu City did not scatter and flee. They stood where they were, craned their necks, and pointed at the storm, offering comments and criticism.

Some said it was smaller than the one two years ago.

Others said it was slower than the one two years ago.

They paid no mind at all to this seemingly murderous storm.

If the storm had possessed human feeling, it would certainly have wanted to show these ants a thing or two.

Of course, the people of Lingxu City had reason to be so calm. After all, this kind of storm appeared once every two years. Lingxu City had experienced it for more than five hundred years, and they had become so familiar with it that they would not mistake it even with their eyes closed.

He Lingchuan noticed two people appearing on stage at that moment.

State Preceptor Qing Yang and State Preceptor Shuang Ye.

Fushan Yue said to him, “The Storm Gate of Fu Realm opens once every 680 days. The state preceptors take turns in pairs, wielding the staffs to delimit the storm entrance.”

Beijia had four state preceptors. Last time, the state preceptors of the Summer and Winter Palaces had wielded the staffs, so this time it was the turn of the Spring and Autumn Palaces.

He Lingchuan had already seen State Preceptor Shuang Ye just now. As for State Preceptor Qing Yang, today she wore a magnificent sky-blue robe sprinkled with gold. Her bearing was as graceful and composed as ever, but her cheekbones protruded slightly. He Lingchuan somehow felt she had grown thinner again compared to a few days ago.

She and State Preceptor Shuang Ye walked side by side, appearing to be in conversation.

Truly, enemies are bound to meet. He Lingchuan knew full well that State Preceptor Shuang Ye had expended great effort trying to bring her down.

Would State Preceptor Qing Yang really be unaware of State Preceptor Shuang Ye’s schemes?

Yet both state preceptors walked forward smiling amid the people’s cheers, showing not the slightest displeasure.

To those who knew the inside story, the situation was extraordinarily delicate.

Together, the two of them were nearly four hundred years old, and both their depths were unfathomable.

After they exchanged a few brief words, State Preceptor Shuang Ye continued forward, heading to the opposite side of the storm.

This storm was ultimately a round, plump funnel, wide at the top and narrow at the bottom. The relatively narrow tip at its base was about 267 meters across, so it was not really narrow, just narrower than the top. State Preceptor Shuang Ye strolled along the edge of the storm as leisurely as if he were walking through a courtyard, soon reaching the opposite side.

Before the storm, State Preceptor Qing Yang lifted a hand to brush back the hair by her temple. That single motion was probably enough to captivate thousands upon thousands of men.

But from observing Sun Fuling, He Lingchuan had once reached a conclusion: when women made this gesture, most of the time they were hiding something on their minds or an emotion in their hearts.

The elixir of youth case pointed openly and secretly toward the Spring Palace. In court and among the public, countless people were criticizing it. State Preceptor Qing Yang was trapped in the whirlpool of public opinion. Even if she were innocent, she would still be bearing tremendous pressure.

All the more so when He Lingchuan knew she was, in fact, the true instigator.

Her true inner state was surely not as calm as she appeared.

Fushan Yue also let out a breath, his voice almost drowned out by the storm, “Could this be State Preceptor Qing Yang’s last time wielding the staff?”

“Perhaps.” If the elixir of youth case ultimately traced back to her, the shock it would cause in Beijia would probably be no smaller than today’s storm.

At that moment, both state preceptors had taken their positions, standing opposite each other across the storm. Then, almost at the same time, they raised their long staffs and brought them down heavily against the ground.

The heads of both staffs were carved into strange beasts whose origins could not be discerned.

When the staffs struck the ground, the two beast heads each spat out a beam of light, one gold and one silver. The two lights rapidly circled the mouth of the storm in exactly opposite directions.

Very quickly, they fused into a ring of light.

The golden light was within, spinning clockwise, while the silver light was without, spinning counterclockwise.

Fushan Yue explained to He Lingchuan, “These two Wind-Stabilizing Staffs were crafted by the gods specifically for the Grass Sea’s Storm Gate, and the state preceptors use them by directing origin energy. The ring of light they release can stabilize the gate. The golden light fixes its position, and the silver light controls the wind speed. That’s what prevents disaster.”

As if to confirm his words, after being bound by the ring of light, the originally untamed storm gate basically stopped moving. The wind speed also slowed considerably, making its presence seem less terrifying.

So those two lights are used to stabilize the wind gate?

He Lingchuan looked at the two staffs. “Has no one ever tried to sabotage this?” If those two staffs were taken away, would the Storm Gate go running all over the place?

As soon as the words left his mouth, the two state preceptors pulled their staffs free, turned around, and left without looking back.

They had performed this sequence dozens upon dozens of times, and there was no hesitation or wasted motion at all.

The two lights did not vanish. They still tightly bound the Storm Gate.

“How could there not have been? Beijia has stood for centuries. What bizarre thing hasn’t happened?” Fushan Yue laughed. “But this is a miracle of the gods! In the past, people did come to cause trouble, but no one ever succeeded.”

Well, I guess that’s to be expected. He Lingchuan could not think of any way to break those two lights at all.

And for some reason, he felt they looked a little familiar. After thinking about it for a long while, he finally realized that they bore a certain similarity to the restraining rings bound around the forelimbs of Mount Xu’s guardian spirit, Juju.

He wondered which god had made them. Why did that one enjoy making restraints so much?

Then again, the only thing capable of contending with natural phenomena and the forces of the two realms was Beijia’s origin energy, which was as vast as the ocean.

At the sight of such mighty power and such a grand feat, the devout believers prostrated themselves yet again and began to pray.

After being bound by the ring of light, the ring of wind grew increasingly stable. Its center slowly widened, finally revealing the so-called Storm Gate.

1. This line is from The Grand Administrator of Yanmen Walks (雁门太守行) by Tang dynasty poet Li He (李贺). ☜