Where Immortals Once Walked

After soaking in a hot bath until they were warm all over, then taking a few sips of sweet wine, tearing into a whole roasted rabbit with skin just slightly charred, and stuffing a few pieces of stewed, tender, fragrant braised meat—seven parts fat, three parts lean—into a white, plump, freshly warmed fine-flour bun, one could bite down and fill one’s mouth with rich, oily satisfaction.

Dong Rui had truly been starving. In two or three bites, he could finish one meat bun, then reach for the pickled cabbage and zucchinis. They cut through the grease and whetted the appetite, crunching crisply with every bite.

He ate until he tipped his head back and sighed. “Now this is living!”

Those bitter months before had merely been survival.

Zhu Daniang did not like human food. To her, it was overprocessed. She only liked things in their original, authentic flavor.

Simpler, then simpler still, eaten raw.

She said to the two men, “That seventy-year cicada this afternoon tasted wrong.”

Dong Rui was in the middle of gnawing on his third bun, so his words came out muffled. “It’s a mutated breed. Of course it tasted wrong.”

“No, the freshness of seventy-year cicadas is first-rate among insects. In the Ancient Era, we never missed the feast that came once every seventeen years.” Zhu Daniang was drinking wine. She had to slow herself down, or she could suck an entire jar dry in a few breaths. “How do you humans put it again? The taste of time.”

A flavor brewed over seventy years.

He Lingchuan nodded. “Yes, yes.”

He liked eating cicadas too, whether roasted or baked.

“But the seventy-year cicadas we encountered at dusk were disgusting.”

He Lingchuan gave her a sidelong glance. Spiders are creatures that specialize in sucking up liquefied juices, yet even she found them disgusting? Just how horrible did that cicada taste?

“I’m in the middle of a meal.” Dong Rui waved his rabbit leg in dissatisfaction. “Can you not talk about that right now?”

He Lingchuan looked at him. What’s he acting all delicate for? When he performs experiments, he does all sorts of revolting things! He Lingchuan had even seen Dong Rui eat without washing his hands after finishing an experiment.

Still, He Lingchuan changed the subject, “Why was your ghost ape here?”

The ghost ape was eating to the side as well, with fruit and pumpkin in addition to meat.

Dong Rui glanced at it before saying, “After you injured it last time, I didn’t take it to the Han River frontline. Instead, I left it in a mountain village to recover. I thought I’d be back in a month or so, but who knew I’d be gone for more than half a year?” At this point, he could not help but feel aggrieved. If not for He Lingchuan, this jinx, how would he have ended up wandering outside for so long?

“In the end, this fellow couldn’t endure the loneliness and slipped away on its own. It wanted to go home and wait for me, but it ran into quite a few incidents in Wan’ge Swamp. That was how Dao Quan’s subordinates brought it back...”

Before he could finish, He Lingchuan interrupted him. “Wan’ge Swamp?”

There can’t be that much of a coincidence, could it?

Is it the same Wan’ge Swamp I’d asked Li Qingge’s people to visit with the Dragon Punishment Pillar?

“Is there a Wan’ge Forest beside it?”

Dong Rui did not suspect anything and honestly answered, “Yes, within the State of Jū. You know it?”

“Not long after I arrived in Lingxu, I heard that strange things were happening in Wan’ge Swamp, and quite a few people had died there.” That was why he had sent the Dragon Punishment Pillar to Wan’ge Swamp. That way, the people the Heavenly Palace sent there would have phenomena and intelligence to investigate.

He had even found them something to do.

Then he asked Dong Rui, “Your home is in Wan’ge Swamp?”

Dong Rui’s lips twitched. He did not want to answer that question. Being entangled by He Lingchuan was never a good thing.

He Lingchuan nudged him with an elbow. “We’re grasshoppers on the same rope now.”

Dong Rui simply changed the subject. “Aren’t you going back to Yuan? Why did you run to Rongshan?”

After they left Beijia territory, continuing southwest would have brought them to Yuan. But He Lingchuan had insisted on making a detour, saying he needed to find people first.

He Lingchuan snatched a few berries from the ghost ape and ate them, ignoring its furious glare. “I can’t just go straight back.”

“You want to drag along a whole crowd of people, beating gongs and drums?” Dong Rui did not understand. “What would happen if you went straight back?”

He Lingchuan thought for a moment before answering, “I’d probably die a terrible death?”

He said it so lightly that Dong Rui was left stunned.

This kid moved with ease even under the layers of danger in Lingxu City. Why would he die a terrible death once he returns to his own homeland?

“And you’re still going back?”

“There are some truths I need to uncover,” said He Lingchuan mildly. “Otherwise, I won’t be able to sleep or eat in peace.”

When he had been put on trial in the Heavenly Palace, the gods had revealed that the owner of the mark in his mind was Naluotian.

This was not only a heavenly god, but a true god with boundless magical energy!

Since He Lingchuan had come to this world, aside from Mitian, he had never had dealings with any other heavenly god. Therefore, this mark should have been planted during the time of the original owner of the body.

And the former He Lingchuan had always been firmly controlled by his father.

In other words, Naluotian’s divine seal mark in his sea of consciousness was, with ninety percent certainty, inseparable from He Chunhua.

What good intentions could a heavenly god have in planting a mark inside a human’s mind? Ever since seeing Lu Shishi’s wretched end after God Baizhantian descended into him, He Lingchuan had felt uneasy.

He would constantly wonder when the mark would be activated.

If he did not want to follow in Lu Shishi’s footsteps, he had to eliminate this enormous hidden danger!

Since both the heavenly god and He Chunhua might harbor ill intentions toward him, he could not just swagger back empty-handed, foolishly making no preparations at all.

“Coming to the Rongshan Sect to borrow people is a good method,” Zhu Daniang said. “Daoist sects send their disciples out every few years.”

Rongshan Sect is a relatively pure Daoist sect.

By “pure,” she meant that it matched He Lingchuan’s former imaginings of an “immortal sect.” Its encampment was set on mist-laden mountains, its disciples studied diligently and trained hard, and it kept far away from the smoke and fire of the mortal realm.

By comparison, Daoist sects like Songyang Mansion were far too deeply embedded in the secular world. After all, Li Qingge herself even held a noble title.

Rongshan belonged to no state. It had its own territory, its own borders, and the respect of the surrounding states. Whenever its disciples completed their studies, they would descend the mountain and enter the world, tempering themselves in the dust of the mortal realm.

This was a very traditional practice. The immortal sects that preceded Daoist sects had been exactly like this. The difference was that, in the past, disciples of immortal sects descended the mountain and came and went on flying swords, either slaying monsters and eliminating demons, or establishing their own cave abodes. That could truly be called living freely in the mortal realm. Nowadays, before descending the mountain, they had to consider which power to join, whether it had good prospects, and even the specific salary on offer.

When He Chunhua had first taken up his new post, Xia Province’s local Daoist sect, Cloud-Piercing Pavilion, immediately sent Elder Liang to visit and recommend disciples to the new Governor-General of Xia Province.

In plain terms, cultivators had to find jobs.

The Rongshan Sect’s name stood far above Cloud-Piercing Pavilion’s. Many of its members served as generals and officials in various states. Among the officials He Lingchuan had dealt with in Lingxu City and in Baishajue of Chiyan, there had been disciples of the Rongshan Sect.

When a sect produced able people again and again, its status naturally became noble.

By contrast, Yuan was trapped by internal strife and growing weaker by the day. The Rongshan Sect did not even bother to sit with it as an equal.

That was why Zhu Daniang said He Lingchuan had come to the right place. In any case, Rongshan disciples would sooner or later descend the mountain to sell themselves—no, descend the mountain to enter official service. If Sect Leader Xue assigned a few favored disciples to follow He Lingchuan, would that not be a perfect match, with everyone delighted?

Moreover, He Lingchuan had come bearing Fang Canran’s token. The manpower Rongshan assigned to him would have to be chosen from among the best of the best. They could not afford to slight him.