Forced to Become My Amnesiac Arch-Rival’s Fake Dao Companion – heliotraipse (2024)

Chapter 7: Escape from Death in the Sea of Clouds, PartVII

In this period of time, Shen Yuying and the others had already caught up, and they saw the whole process of Bai Chunsheng crashing head-first into the arms of an unknown cultivator. Believing that the two were acquainted, they stopped by the riverbank warily, deciding to first inquire a thing or two.

Bai Chunsheng closed his eyes, and his head leaned onto Yan Yi’s shoulder, fainting at just the right moment.

He had absolutely no clue that he was being entirely cradled in Yan Yi’s arms. Yan Yi held the warm, fuzzy duck and thought the sensation extremely marvelous, unable to resist pinching Bai Chunsheng’s wings. Bai Chunsheng’s appearance looked like that of a frail little animal, and he was soft to the touch as well.

Shen Yuying walked forward several steps. She knew that at this place and time, the only cultivator who would show up here so bizarrely was probably Yan Yi. She hadn’t seen Yan Jingqiu in person before, only a painting of him, and she was astonished by how similar the two of them looked. She cupped her hands in greeting and bowed slightly. “I’ve heard rumors of sir being the Little Celestial Sage’s brother of the same blood and had originally thought the rumors false, but it looks like they weren’t completely groundless.”

Yan Yi ignored her, his entire attention focused on investigating the Bai Chunsheng who had unfortunately fallen into his hands.

Shen Yuying saw him lift Bai Chunsheng’s little duck foot and take a look. An exquisite silver band was looped around Bai Chunsheng’s left foot. Yan Yi took a few glances, put down Bai Chunsheng’s foot, then pet his velvety feathered back for a while.

Luckily, Bai Chunsheng was unconscious, or else with his temperament, he would probably have been angered into fainting a second time.

Shen Yuying was getting a bit impatient. Despite knowing the answer, she intentionally asked, “Sir Yan Yi, did you see a bird that looks like a white duck flying by just now? That was a fey cultivator named Bai Chunsheng who comes from the Myriad Fey Sect of the Central Regions.

“That person is a criminal that we’re tracking down,” Shen Yuying said.

“Oh?” Yan Yi said. “Earlier, I saw something I’ve never seen before floating very quickly over the water and thought it interesting, so I caught it.”

Shen Yuying hurried to say, “That’s him. Sir, please return that person to us.”

Yan Yi laughed. “He’s yours?”

“Right……” Shen Yuying hadn’t even finished speaking when a bloody light flooded their surroundings, and her skull was lifted up high. Shen Yuying saw her flesh body split in two, and the people behind her were sliced into pieces by a harsh sword intent.

She heard a low, faraway laugh from the black riverboat. “Wrong. Since he caught my eye, then he’s mine.”

This was more or less the last thing that Shen Yuying’s flesh body heard before it died.

The pain of having her physical body sliced apart and the terror of death hadn’t yet left her consciousness. She tumbled unendingly down a long, pitch-black tunnel, and in the next moment, the viscous, mud-like liquid surged toward Shen Yuying.

The light of the soul lamp flickered and swayed, and Shen Yuying’s consciousness suddenly opened its eyes in the main hall of the soul abyss on Myriad Fey Sect’s Eternal Spring Peak. With difficulty, she crawled out of the thick soul waters.

The soul lamp was the prized treasure of the dragon clan. After leaving one’s heart’s blood inside the soul lamp to burn before setting out on a journey, if one met with danger within seven days, they would be revived in the soul abyss that was linked to the soul lamp.

Shen Yuying was fortunate. A new divinity lotus had just sprouted in the soul abyss, and it couldn’t be more suitable for growing a new physical body for her, although the issue of her nascent soul was a little troublesome. Even for her, collecting all the treasures and materials for reforging her nascent soul would take no small amount of effort.

“How hateful!” Shen Yuying was incensed to the point of madness. No wonder the Clear Sky Sect and the Yuwen clan had sworn not to rest until Yan Yi was defeated.

He was an utter lunatic with an unpredictable temper.

The sound of splashing startled the guard defending the soul lamp. He knocked on the door from outside, asking softly, “Immortal Lady Suchen, is it you?”

No sound could be heard.

The guard’s scalp went numb. Everyone knew that Eternal Spring Peak’s Suchen Immortal, Shen Yuying, was the most difficult Immortal to converse with in the entire Myriad Fey Sect. Although her cultivation level wasn’t really too extraordinary, her bloodline was indeed very noble. Especially now that the dragon clan had taken control of the Myriad Fey Sect, and their venerated lord had disappeared, everyone had to show some respect for this substitute sect master.

Just when the guard had no idea what to do, the doors were suddenly flung open. Bright moonlight lit up the pitch-black pool water that covered the entire ground, and on the dais in the very center, a dark red lantern burned. There was also a beautiful woman in white robes that were thoroughly drenched standing in the pool water. Her eyes were closed languidly as she leaned against the stone dais, her damp hair still dripping water.

The late-stage Nascent Soul guard immediately lowered his head to the ground and knelt in a fluster. “Greetings, Immortal.”

After reconstructing her flesh body, Shen Yuying was already extremely displeased.

She recalled all of the things that had happened while pursuing Bai Chunsheng, and her rage grew even further. But the battle between her and Yan Yi had practically been a one-sided bloodbath at Yan Yi’s hands. She couldn’t do anything to him at all.

Shen Yuying opened her eyes and ordered, “Go to the side palace and see if the souls of the fellow Daoists who set out with me have awoken in the soul abyss. If they’ve awoken, have them well attended to for the time being…… But there’s one person, if there’s a male cultivator among them who’s missing a right arm, bring his soul directly to the punishment hall and make him suffer a fate worse than death.

“He was cowardly and weak in the face of the enemy, fleeing before the battle.

“If he had come from one of our subordinate sects…… that sect would have to pay tribute tenfold and be forbidden from ascending to the Central Regions for three generations.”

He had been far from the only one who’d been terrified by Bai Chunsheng’s tricks into fleeing from battle. At the moment, all of these people’s fates were in Shen Yuying’s hands, and she could give them all a punishment tens or thousands of times more severe, but she didn’t do so.

The law was meaningless when everyone was an offender. This just happened to be the start of the dragon clan’s grasp on power, and provoking the antipathy of the masses would be no good. Making an example out of one of them would do.

Shen Yuying knew that she’d only ascended to the Unified Dao stage a few days ago, and that what people respected her for wasn’t her cultivation or her ability, but her position in the dragon clan. Her strength was far below Bai Chunsheng, who was similarly at early-stage Unified Dao.

In the end, relying on external support was no good. Shen Yuying’s fist clenched tight around her white robes, her nails digging into her flesh. If there came a day where she achieved true power, she would see to Yan Yi’s death!

The guard, who hadn’t lifted his head from start to finish, repeated continuously, “Understood, understood.”

He felt as if he were being controlled, tumbling out the door.

The gates of the main palace of the soul abyss were then slammed shut by a sudden gust of wind.

As the gust flew by, in accordance with the season, a swirl of yellow leaves fell from the withered tree in front of the Star-Plucking Pavilion.

Chapter 6: Escape from Death in the Sea of Clouds, PartVI

Bai Chunsheng coughed a few times, jostling the wound on his abdomen. He was naturally more sensitive than the average person, and the pain made his face ghastly pale.

He looked at the Celestial Spirit book in his hands, feeling that matters had become unusual and difficult to predict.

If he had known earlier that Yan Yi had not only fought on equal footing across a major cultivation level but had even killed three Unified Dao cultivators, and not even the influential Yuwen clan of the Southern Region was able to do anything about him, Bai Chunsheng would have possessed some self-awareness much earlier and definitely wouldn’t have stepped outside the gates of the Myriad Fey Sect.

Although, if he hadn’t left the Myriad Fey Sect, he would certainly have fallen into the dragon clan’s hands already, suffering a fate worse than death without even this last gasp of a chance at escape. From that perspective, even if he’d been injured, even if igniting his blood vessels was causing his cultivation to fall continually, being able to live freely was already something to rejoice over.

Bai Chunsheng examined things closely, and after comparing the times, he discovered an extremely interesting fact.

Yan Yi had indeed returned to the Sea of Clouds, but according to the Celestial Spirit, he’d left the day of, returning to the great realm to head to the Southern Region’s Yuwen clan. The Celestial Spirit hadn’t described in detail what he’d done at the Yuwen clan, and it was only known that ever since, the Yuwen clan loathed him to the bone.

The day that Yan Yi had gone to the Yuwen clan had been precisely the day that Bai Chunsheng had entered the Sea of Clouds.

After Bai Chunsheng, the Yuwen clan had followed close behind, but they had suffered substantial losses at Yan Yi’s hand and hadn’t dared to enter. Very soon, traces of Yan Yi’s whereabouts had disappeared again.

Bai Chunsheng hadn’t been the only one who’d suspected that Yan Yi might have been born in the Sea of Clouds. The Yuwen clan hated Yan Yi to death, and even though they’d only harbored suspicions that Yan Yi might be inside the Sea of Clouds, they’d still extremely tyrannically severed the little realm’s flow of time and sealed all information from it, declaring that they were going to teach this bastard a lesson. If they couldn’t land a hit on Yan Yi, landing a hit on his relatives was fine too. Cowardly rubbish pretending to be tough.

After leaving the little realm, Bai Chunsheng had naturally known that, forget Yan Yi, there wasn’t a single living person inside the Sea of Clouds. The only victim in this matter had been Bai Chunsheng, who had suffered misfortune for no reason due to the time difference.

A few days ago, there’d been rumors that Yan Yi had been spotted coming in and out of the realm border of the Sea of Clouds. The Yuwen clan and the Clear Sky Sect had charged over as if pumped full of blood, but who would’ve expected Yan Yi to set down a barrier and seal off the entire realm, barring all of these people outside. By now, they had all dispersed, like hornets abandoning a nest.

Ever since leaving the Sea of Clouds, Bai Chunsheng had followed the Azure River directly into Oldweald, landing head-first in the trap Shen Yuying had laid to catch him. His Celestial Spirit hadn’t had a chance to come in contact with the information in the outside world at all, and as a result, it had led to the current state of affairs.

As for Shen Yuying’s suspicions that Bai Chunsheng and Yan Yi were acquainted, that was obviously a misunderstanding. That day, Bai Chunsheng had snuck out of the sect, only Shen Yuying didn’t know that he’d actually arrived at the Sea of Clouds before the Yuwen clan had created their array. As for “Yan Yi set down a barrier to seal off the entire realm”? Ridiculous. Most likely, after Yan Yi had returned to the Sea of Clouds, those Yuwen clan and Clear Sky Sect members who’d shouted the loudest had also been the quickest to run, so they’d claimed there’d been a barrier to save themselves some face.

That Yan Yi’s talent with the sword could reach this step truly was a terrifying thing.

Now there were whispers calling Yan Yi “Little Sword Sage.”

Those who thought he was the second Yan Jingqiu could be found everywhere.

Bai Chunsheng’s eyes were fixed on the sentence saying “Because Yan Yi had sealed off the entire realm, the Clear Sky Sect and the Yuwen clan cultivators all dispersed” in the news. A brilliant scheme for avoiding Shen Yuying formed in his mind. He still had two arrows in his body, and he’d ignited the power of his bloodline, so his condition was getting worse by the second.

He urgently needed to find a place to treat his wounds first.

He had just come from the Sea of Clouds, so of course he knew that Yan Yi hadn’t set down any barrier at all, and that Yan YI wasn’t even inside the realm. Moreover, he recalled how wary of Yan Yi Shen Yuying had appeared, reinforcing even more the notion of going to the Sea of Clouds to rest and recuperate.

Bai Chunsheng hadn’t actually left Oldweald yet. At the time, the circ*mstances had been dire, and Bai Chunsheng’s mind had been unsteady, not knowing where he was going to go. But when he thought about it, inside of Oldweald, it wasn’t only his movements that were restricted. Shen Yuying’s side was also being restrained by their barrier, so perhaps he could even stall for a while and confuse them. After all, who would imagine that Bai Chunsheng would be so bold as to not leave the Oldweald spirit realm at all?

But if he were to go to a different little realm, when Shen Yuying figured out exactly where he’d gone, he would really experience what “No matter how vast the Central Regions, there is absolutely no place to seek shelter” meant. All around him would be pursuers seeking his head.

Right now, Bai Chunsheng wasn’t too far from the Azure River, and he raced toward it. If he returned to the Sea of Clouds, perhaps he could still borrow the reputation of “Yan Yi’s barrier” to scare off the dragon clan for a while. Of course, he couldn’t stay in the little realm too long, either. It could only count as a stopgap measure.

Fearing that Shen Yuying and the others were chasing after him, Bai Chunsheng immediately got up. He first swallowed a few high-quality stabilizing pills, meagerly keeping his condition steady so that his wounds wouldn’t continue to worsen, then advanced toward the Azure River.

Although the distance to the Azure River wasn’t very far, Bai Chunsheng still used up three days’ time to arrive on foot. Perhaps because the dragon clan’s people really thought he’d left Oldweald, Bai Chunsheng encountered no hurdles on his journey, barely even coming across very many of the non-sentient fey beasts. But his wounds were still worsening, and more importantly, because he hadn’t immediately treated the aftereffects of igniting his bloodline, Bai Chunsheng’s cultivation level had started to fall. Most severely, his foundations had been damaged.

Just when Bai Chunsheng was almost close enough to see the sky-blue waters of the Azure river, the situation changed.

When he heard the sound of arrows slicing through the air, Bai Chunsheng knew his pursuers had arrived.

He tilted his head and decisively dodged one arrow, brandishing his sword to cut down a few more. Bai Chunsheng’s injuries were severe, yet he took several steps forward and flashed into the fray, sword tip pointed at his attackers.

Bai Chunsheng had long made his preparations. He appeared to have stumbled from panic due to suddenly being intercepted, but in reality, he had prepared this strike much earlier. He quickly focused his strength, breaking through the defense of the person in front of him, then slicing off his hand.

Shen Yuying stood amidst the flock of people, and Bai Chunsheng’s sudden assault successfully frightened her, throwing their battle plans into disarray.

Another man seemed to lose his will to fight and yelled, “Retreat!”

This flock of pursuers wasn’t the same as the one Shen Yuying had led before. It was another group of unfamiliar cultivators, probably all from the Sea Abyss. They had originally thought that after suffering two arrows and injury to his foundations, Bai Chunsheng would be too weak to resist, but they hadn’t expected to see that not only had Bai Chunsheng not left Oldweald, his arrogance remained blazing high. Looking at him, it was like he hadn’t been affected at all.

Bai Chunsheng took advantage of his victory to attack further, once again striking his sword at the oncoming enemy. The energy around him solidified, and his sword Swanflight seemed to flash with the gleaming light of a flame. He said disdainfully, “Sure enough, you’re all trash.”

This was the first omen of a killing technique Bai Jianghan had created in her later years. She hadn’t given it a name, and everyone only knew that after using this killing technique, the heavens and earth would look as if engulfed in blazing flames, the glow of the flames as enchanting as apple blossoms¹ in spring. Thus, people called it “Flowering Apple Rouge.” It had been created by a great master in her later years, after all, so as soon as the technique came out, no one could escape from it with their lives.

A female cultivator behind Shen Yuying recognized it and yelled loudly, “It’s ‘Flowering Apple Rouge,’ this is a trap, run!”

Shen Yuying had yet to give out any orders. She narrowed her eyes, looking at Bai Chunsheng. She had personally witnessed Bai Chunsheng getting shot by her aunt’s arrows, and she didn’t believe that he could really have recovered so quickly. Moreover, “Flowering Apple Rouge” wasn’t so easy to use.

Shen Yuying still had the rationality to analyze the situation, but the people behind her didn’t, especially the male cultivator who’d had his left arm cut off. He was a righteous sect cultivator from the Sea Abyss and had practically never fought with anyone before, waving his tongue more often than his sword. Before coming here, he’d heard of Bai Chunsheng’s reputation as the number one prodigy in the Myriad Fey Sect, and after experiencing a battle with him, his courage had been thoroughly punctured. With no need for the female cultivator’s shout, he’d already retreated in panic.

Spurred on like this, more than a few unsettled Sea Abyss cultivators began to sound the drums of retreat. Who wasn’t aware that “Apple Blossom Rouge” was a huge-scale killing technique? Naturally, the farther one ran away, the less likely one was to get dragged into its wake. The shout had only just subsided when several more people followed behind to flee.

Shen Yuying was just about to speak, but several people had already activated their spiritual treasures and devices to escape. Only the female cultivator who’d just spoken was still following beside her. There had been so many people just a moment ago, and now, only the two of them were left. The pressure on Shen Yuying suddenly increased, and in addition, she saw that the sky was already beginning to change color, and the temperature around her was starting to increase. Without suspecting any tricks, she flung her sleeves angrily and retreated.

Who knew that Bai Chunsheng would laugh. “You think I’ll let you go so easily?! The grudge of those two arrows, I’m counting on your head. Say good-bye to your life!”

Shen Yuying heard Bai Chunsheng’s voice just beside her ear and thought that Bai Chunsheng had already caught up to her. In a moment of fluster, she bit her fingertip and activated her heart’s blood, transforming into her dragon form and immediately darting off into the distance. Seeing Shen Yuying do so, the others who were left were even more reluctant to be left behind, and within a few moments, all of these people had flown in lockstep until they were tens of thousands of li away.

Only when Shen Yuying had flown eighty thousand li did she realize something was wrong. Ever since she’d transformed into her true form, Bai Chunsheng hadn’t been chasing after them at all. With Bai Chunsheng’s petty, narrow-minded vengefulness, that he hadn’t pursued them was the biggest problem.

Shen Yuying thought to herself, this was bad, they’d fallen for it. She hurried to turn back, gathering up everyone to go back the way they’d come.

There hadn’t been any “Flowering Apple Rouge” at all. If it had been before, perhaps he really might have used it, but now?

Bai Chunsheng still needed to preserve his energy to run for his life.

Ever since Shen Yuying had flown away in a rush, he’d been standing where he was, motionless. Seeing Shen Yuying fall for his bluff, he even ridiculed her in his heart, but as a result, he jostled his injuries again. He’d been hanging on by a thread for too long, and this time, he immediately threw up a mouthful of blood.

Bai Chunsheng continued to fly in the direction of the Azure River, but after considering that Shen Yuying might have already seen through his intended destination, he thought it might be best to pick a different destination to recuperate. Before he was able to contemplate what the next most suitable location to use as a backup would be, he heard a sentence from behind: “Bai Chunsheng, you still dare run?!”

Shen Yuying had come storming towards him again.

As he flew, Bai Chunsheng didn’t forget to mock her viciously. “Aren’t you fast? Looks like you’re not as dumb as I’d imagined.”

Shen Yuying became enraged, and her speed increased.

In the end, dragons were faster than spiritual treasures, and the distance between the two began to narrow.

This time, Bai Chunsheng couldn’t speak anymore. He hated this mouth of his to death. If he’d known earlier, he wouldn’t have mocked her.

He had no time to concern himself with his image anymore. Seeing the Azure River just before his eyes, Bai Chunsheng grit his teeth. What had still been an elegant youth just a moment ago was now pretty, snow-white duck, round and beautiful, but its left abdomen and right leg were conspicuously stained with blood.

Although he’d transformed back into his original form, Bai Chunsheng’s speed did indeed increase by quite a bit, but he kept trying to tuck in his left foot. On his left foot was a thin, silver band, like the tags on birds that were kept as pets. Normally, he never allowed others to see this band, and even his grandmother didn’t know about it, but he couldn’t take it off by himself.

—It really was a massive disgrace.

Bai Chunsheng thought to himself, gritting his teeth.

But now, there was no point in Bai Chunsheng continuing to bicker about it with the dead Yan Jingqiu. He ignored it and kept flying.

When he arrived at the Azure River, Bai Chunsheng continued to follow the river forward.

Someone behind him saw through Bai Chunsheng’s intent and yelled, “Not good, he really does know Yan Yi. He’s going to the Sea of Clouds!” Shen Yuying increased her speed, determined to catch this white phoenix who kept scurrying all over the place and pulling tricks out of his sleeves before he reached the realm border.

The rivers of the Azure River were deep shades of green and blue. As they approached the realm border, tiny pieces of broken ice began to appear on the river surface.

Bai Chunsheng saw a black riverboat in front of him.² A cultivator in a black, round-collared robe was standing at the tail of the boat, his clothes embroidered with soaring golden dragons.³ He seemed to be waiting for something.

Bai Chunsheng kept getting the feeling that this person’s figure seemed very familiar, and he diverted some attention to glancing at the person a few more times. Who could’ve guessed that a huge wave would suddenly appear on the calm river without a single ripple? He suspected it was a trick of the Shen Yuying behind him, but because Bai Chunsheng had been distracted, it was already too late to avoid it.

He was just about to dodge to the side when he suddenly encountered a huge force. Bai Chunsheng started to fly uncontrollably toward the black riverboat, crashing head-first into the arms of the cultivator on the boat.

The crash left Bai Chunsheng dizzy, his head spinning. Dazed and disoriented, he heard that person say, neither slowly nor in a rush, “How strange, a dumb thief who runs straight into the net……”

Hearing this familiar voice, Bai Chunsheng raised his head in disbelief. The person had pale skin and thin lips, the bridge of his nose was high and straight, and his petal-shaped eyes were cold and tyrannical. With a gloomy yet aloof expression, his face had an aura of heroic nobility.

Who else could it be but Yan Jingqiu?!

Yan Yi made a “tsk” sound and said, “Huh, what a plump duck.”

“You, y-you!” Bai Chunsheng kept “you”-ing for half a day without managing to finish. “Yan, Yan……”

Yan Yi raised an eyebrow. “It can even speak, impressive.”

Bai Chunsheng: “……”

Bai Chunsheng’s blood had started to boil from seeing Yan Jingqiu come back from the dead, and it still hadn’t subsided when he heard this familiar sentence. With a flop of his head, he immediately fainted from rage.

…………………………

The Author Has Something to Say:

Bai Chunsheng: Yan Jingqiu has come back as a grim reaper??? Specifically to anger me to death?

…………………………

¹ Apple blossoms – y’know, haitang

² Black riverboat – A regional type of riverboat, kind of similar to a Venetian gondola? Maybe? I’m no boat expert.

³ Round-collared robe – this style of robe

Chapter 5: Escape from Death in the Sea of Clouds, PartV

“Well said!” From the shadows underneath Esurience Tower, a woman dressed in palatial red robes slowly stepped out. She wore dangling golden flower hairpins¹ on her head, and her bearing was graceful. As she clapped, she smiled and said in a haughty voice, “Shixiong is absolutely correct.”

Bai Chunsheng stared. The person who’d come was precisely Shen Yuying.

Alarm bells rang loudly in Bai Chunsheng’s heart. He’d imagined it might be the demons from the demon world, he’d surmised it could the Clear Sky Sect of the Central Regions, and he’d even had some suspicions about the Yan clan, but the one thought that had never entered his mind was that the enemy would come from inside the Myriad Fey Sect.

This was even worse, because this meant—

Something had happened to his grandmother.

Bai Jianghan was the only master in the Myriad Fey Sect at late-stage Mahayana. If nothing had happened to her, nobody would dare make a move against Bai Chunsheng.

Bai Chunsheng remained silent, putting away his sword, Swanflight. His brow furrowed as he asked, “You’re already at early-stage Unified Dao?”

Just now, he’d already secretly probed around. Not just Esurience Tower, but over half of Oldweald had been set up with a barrier. If he couldn’t get rid of this barrier, forget leaving, even moving about inside Oldweald would be difficult.

Shen Yuying…… Oh, rather, the Sea Abyss world—had truly spent no small amount of effort on capturing him.

Shen Yuying said, “That’s right. That’s already news from days ago. Shixiong left the sect and has been busy looking for traces of Yan Yi in the little realms, so it’s natural that you didn’t know about it.”

The corners of Bai Chunsheng’s mouth hooked up. “What did you come looking for me for?

“It can’t be that after advancing, you were in a hurry to show me a thing or two?” Bai Chunsheng said bitingly, pointing toward the charred corpses that had ceased to look like anything a long time ago.

Shen Yuying took out a pink handkerchief from her sleeves, putting on a big show of wiping at the corners of her eyes. “I’d forgotten, Yan Yi has sealed off the Sea of Clouds. Information can’t get in, so I’m afraid, Shixiong, you still doesn’t know that an accident has happened to Great-master?”²

“What?!” Bai Chunsheng said, shocked. Although he’d already prepared himself for the news, preparing was one thing, and being faced with the truth was another. “Explain to me, what happened to Grandmother?”

Shen Yuying didn’t answer Bai Chunsheng’s question right away. She took a few steps forward, circling around Bai Chunsheng twice, finally pointing at Bai Chunsheng to ask, “Shixiong, how come you’ve never mentioned before that you know Yan Yi?”

“Who, Yan Yi? Ridiculous.” Bai Chunsheng felt a wave of absurdity. The purpose of his trip had been to find that person, but the Sea of Clouds had been completely vacant, and he hadn’t even been able to find a glimpse of human life. Right now, Bai Chunsheng’s entire focus was on his grandmother, but Shen Yuying insisted on dodging the question, intentionally being mysterious, causing his anxiety to multiply.

Bai Chunsheng said in a cold voice, “I’m in no mood to go in circles with you. You certainly wouldn’t go to such lengths merely to tell me that you’ve advanced. Just tell me, what exactly happened to my grandmother, and what are you planning to do?”

Shen Yuying shook her head. “Two months ago, Great-master failed her tribulation and passed away.”

Hearing this sentence, Bai Chusheng only felt a wave of dizziness, and even his ears were buzzing.

“Two months ago?” Bai Chunsheng put a hand to his forehead. He took a deep breath so that he wouldn’t lose his composure overly much.

When the wave of dizziness subsided, Bai Chunsheng steadied his emotions and grabbed onto the hole in Shen Yuying’s words. He asked, “How could it be two months ago?!”

Bai Chusheng remembered clear as day how long he’d been in the Sea of Clouds—a month and three days. Calculating the time he’d spend on the road, when all was said and done, it couldn’t have exceeded a month and a half’s time.

Shen Yuying said with a laugh, “The Southern Region’s Yuwen clan led the charge and severed the flow of time in the Sea of Clouds, so naturally, you wouldn’t know that a month and a half’s time was actually three months.

“Oh, I forgot…… Because of Yan Yi, all information flowing into the little realm has been sealed. Even such big news as Great-master’s passing isn’t able to reach inside, so you naturally wouldn’t know of it, either.”

Shen Yuying placed her hands behind her back, pacing. “How strange, how strange. Three Unified Dao cultivators from the Clear Sky Sect, the five heads of the Yuwen clan, and all of the cultivators from the Central and Southern Regions with even a little bit of reputation have all been waiting outside the Sea of Clouds. How come not a single one of them has been able to enter, yet you’ve been going in and out as you please?

“Shixiong, do you really not know Yan Yi?” Shen Yuying asked with a broad smile.

Bai Chunsheng had long known that concealed behind her smiles were sharp daggers. Right now, his thoughts were a tangled mess, and he didn’t care a single bit about Yan Yi or whatever. He asked, “Why would Grandmother suddenly challenge her late-stage Mahayana bottleneck?”

At this, Shen Yuying said very calmly, “She’s at that age. If she still can’t break through, her lifespan will come to an end. Although, she had known that she had internal injuries and wouldn’t be able to pass this hurdle. I saw her look perfectly composed underneath the peals of thunder, so she must have already been aware of her ending.”

Bai Chunsheng’s emotions calmed down quite a bit. Right now, the situation was dangerous, and there was no time for him to cry and grieve. Shen Yuying had come charging at him, and he was afraid things weren’t as simple as she’d described them.

He already had a plan in mind. Since he’d first discovered the existence of the barrier, Bai Chunsheng had already begun to mobilize the power of his blood, doing his utmost to break through the boundary as quickly as possible. Their conversation earlier had half been due to his sincere desire to seek the truth, and half because Bai Chunsheng had wanted to stall for time so that he could grasp at a chance at life in this place surrounded by perils.

And judging from Shen Yuying’s behavior, he’d already won that chance. He wasn’t the only one waiting, Shen Yuying was also waiting.

Bai Chunsheng didn’t know what Shen Yuying was waiting for, but he knew that he was about to win.

He quietly gripped the handle of his sword.

Shen Yuying seemed to be walking leisurely, but in truth, her attention had been focused on Bai Chunsheng’s movements the whole time. Seeing him grip his sword, her hand flashed, and a silver blade flew towards Bai Chunsheng like a fluttering butterfly. Before it even got close to Bai Chunsheng, the silver blade was destroyed, dissolving into light and vanishing.

In the blink of an eye, the two of them had already exchanged several blows. Shen Yuying retreated step by step, and Bai Chunsheng leapt onto the table, holding his sword before his chest.

Shen Yuying laughed, saying, “Shixiong really is acting like an outsider. Just a while ago, you were still conversing cheerfully with me, and now, you want my life.”

Bai Chunsheng ignored her. After several exchanges, it wasn’t like he didn’t know the circ*mstances inside the sect. Bai Chunsheng said calmly, “The dragon clan has already taken over the Myriad Fey Sect.”

“If you understand, that’s good. The Myriad Fey Sect no longer has a place for you to call home, and the vast Central Regions won’t, either.” Shen Yuying laughed as if sharing a joke. “Either you die now, or you come back with me. From today on, you’ll change your family name to Shen and become my obedient husband, and there’ll still be a place for you.”

Now that the two of them were no longer feigning civility, Bai Chunsheng actually felt much more at ease. He sneered, “Do you take me for a fool? I’m the only one left of the white phoenix lineage now, and the dragon race has long coveted our white phoenix clan’s inheritance. Only, I never thought you would be this impatient.”

Nobody who could cultivate to this point would be naive enough to place their life in another’s hands for them to do with as they pleased.

Bai Chunsheng didn’t suspect in the least that Shen Yuying’s implication was that she would ruin him, making it so that for the rest of his life, he would only be able to remain as a vessel for them to draw blood or cut flesh from.

To Bai Chunsheng, both of these options led to his doom. He didn’t want to pick either one.

Shen Yuying’s figure was alluring, her features as gorgeous as a peony in May. She turned her hand and sniffed her silver dagger lightly, her scarlet lips appearing even more enchanting next to the silver blade. “I advise you to put your hands up and do as I say. You have such a lovely appearance, I can’t even bear to slice your face open……”

She didn’t even have time to finish before she heard a ripping sound like stone tearing through silk. Shen Yuying’s expression immediately trembled. “Have you gone mad? You haven’t achieved Mahayana yet, burning the power of your bloodline to tear through space and cross the barrier will harm your foundations!”

Bai Chunsheng didn’t dare relax even a bit. The closer he was, the more he had to remain alert. He said mockingly, “Haha, falling into your hands is what would really harm my foundations, isn’t that right?”

Shen Yuying had only just broken through Soul Formation, and her cultivation level wasn’t nearly as stable as Bai Chunsheng’s. Right now, she didn’t dare move recklessly at all.

Bai Chunsheng was in a rush to escape, but at a time like this, it was even more impossible to rush. He counted down the time. Almost, almost, just another moment. When he escaped from Oldweald, he would be free, the sky would be his limit. When he’d cultivated to Mahayana, he would make his reappearance and teach these dragons from the Sea Abyss to be sorry.

Just at the critical junction, Bai Chunsheng heard several sounds cut through the air. In the blink of an eye, seven cultivators in blue and white Daoist robes appeared around Shen Yuying. None of their faces were familiar, and he could only tell that none of their cultivations were lower than Unified Dao, and there was even a woman with a cultivation level far above Bai Chunsheng’s.

Bai Chunsheng thought to himself, this was bad. So Shen Yuying had been stalling for time for their transportation array to take effect.

Looking at it now, not only him, but even the people on Shen Yuying’s side had no way of traveling freely in and out of here.

But why was that? Were they not the ones who’d set up the barrier? Or perhaps, the array had been set up by a powerful array master, and they had no way to control it at all?

The situation was too dangerous for Bai Chunsheng to contemplate for too long. Luckily, Bai Chunsheng could already react with a position, and he quickly chose some coordinates, his figure becoming fainter within a breath’s time.

Seeing this scene, Shen Yuying let out a shout. “Not good, he’s going to escape.”

“With the white phoenix lineage’s talents and power, it looks like we won’t be able to catch him,” another person said.

“If we can’t catch Bai Chunsheng, when our lord comes back, we’re all going to die.”

The tall, slender woman whose cultivation was far above Bai Chunsheng’s had a quiver strapped to her left leg and a deep green bow on her back. She reacted faster than Shen Yuying, and while Shen Yuying was still yelling, she’d already nocked an arrow and drawn her bow. In the last breath before Bai Chunsheng disappeared, an arrow pierced his left abdomen. She seemed to think it still wasn’t enough and took the last second to shoot another arrow into his right leg.

Right before leaving, Bai Chunsheng heard that Shen Yuying’s last sentence was, “Alive, alive, our lord wants him alive! If he dies, we’ll all be lucky to be dead!”

This more or less solved another remaining mystery in Bai Chunsheng’s mind. If one were to say that the scarlet fire’s feast at the very start had been more than powerful and abundantly sinister, then Shen Yuying and the others’ behavior had seemed a bit restrained. It looked like the absolute ruthlessness had been real, and the need to leave him alive had also been real.

As he forcefully broke through the barrier and leapt across space, a bout of dizziness arose, and a delayed pain also reminded Bai Chunsheng of his current plight. He suspected that the arrows had been laced with a treacherous poison or curse, causing his blood to flow without stop so that he had to constantly endure a pain that bore into his very heart. Because of the pain, even the head-spinning dizziness wasn’t worth mentioning.

Bai Chunsheng gulped in a breath with difficulty, one hand pressed against the wound on his left abdomen as he attempted to retrieve the Celestial Spirit book from his spatial pouch.

Sure enough, all information had been sealed from the Sea of Clouds, and the first page of the Celestial Spirit was about the Myriad Fey Sect’s Great Elder Bai Jianghan failing her tribulation and turning into ashes.

Bai Chunsheng had to blink his eyes to clear his vision so that he could continue reading the rest of the news.

The second piece of information that appeared was about Yan Yi. The Clear Sky Sect had no longer been able to endure it, and Bai Chunsheng only now knew what this person had done in the Lianguang domain. He’d killed three Unified Dao cultivators, two of whom had had their souls completely destroyed, while the last had fortunately escaped through his nascent soul.

Yan Yi had proclaimed that his sword had been stolen, and the reason he’d appeared then had been to look for his missing sword. Aside from that, he didn’t care about a single thing.

Other than the unlucky Clear Sky Sect, the Southern Region’s Yuwen clan also had something to add and had even provided proof. They cursed Yan Yi, saying he was full of lies, because when he’d come to the Southern Regions two months ago to loot and plunder, he’d clearly had a sword in his hand.

Yan Yi then said with complete self-assurance: “Naturally, because I stole this sword.”

What a shameless, thick-skinned lowlife! Because he was wearing a mask, did he not even care about face anymore?

……………

¹ Dangling hairpin – a buyao, probably something like this

² Shixiong, great-master – “great” as in like, great-grandmother or great-grandfather, since Bai Jianghan seems to be the master of Shen Yuying’s master. Shixiong, as you might already know, is elder sect-brother

Chapter 4: Escape from Death in the Sea of Clouds, PartIV

The Sea of Clouds was a little realm that was very close in distance to the great realm. The spiritual energy in it was sparse, and the only distinguishing feature there was probably a river in the Sea of Clouds called the River of Lasting Hatred.

The River of Lasting Hatred was an extremely special domain. Its source was rumored to be the celestial-grade domain occupied by the Yan clan, the Drunken Tomb Sea, and downstream was the Oldweald spirit world’s Azure River, stretching a long, long distance into faraway territories. The entire river basin was covered in dangerous beasts, and these beasts had cultivation levels of at least Soul Formation, yet had no sentience at all, nor could they transform into human form. To use Bai Chunsheng’s words to describe them, their brains weren’t much bigger than walnuts.

As soon as Bai Chunsheng saw the Sea of Clouds, he became vexed, because this realm was truly deserted and overgrown to the point of being mystical. There was very little dry land, and aside from the River of Lasting Hatred, it was all covered in the swamps and wetlands of mahogany forests. Moreover, because the Sea of Clouds was confined by the restraints of the River of Lasting Hatred, there were practically no humans or sentient fey creatures living here. For thousands and tens of thousands of years, even though the Sea of Clouds was so close to the great realm, there hadn’t been any cultivators with the qualifications to ascend to the great realm from this place.

What had Yan Yi come here for?

No way, Bai Chunsheng thought to himself. Although the Sea of Clouds hadn’t raised any cultivators who could ascend to the great realm in thousands, tens of thousands of years, Yan Yi wouldn’t be the first to do so in history, would he?

If so, that would explain why no one in the entire cultivation world could figure out Yan Yi’s origins.

Bai Chunsheng’s wild imaginings made up reasonings for Yan Yi.

The Myriad Fey Sect should have had restrictions. For fey who would be able to reach at least Mahayana stage, if these types of great fey wanted to leave the sect, they had to ask for permission from the Great Elder and be appointed someone to protect them before they could leave the White Bone Mountain Range.

It would probably have taken about a month to go through this entire procedure. Plus, a few months ago, Bai Jianghan had suddenly gone into closed door cultivation and had yet to come out. By the time she heard the news, a long time would likely have passed already.

Bai Chunsheng had originally followed the rules to the letter and had properly sent in his application.

After all, the Great Elder was his grandmother. If he didn’t behave, then he’d get beaten, and he was no thick-skinned, tough-muscled bird. He feared pain the most.

But Bai Chunsheng had tossed and turned at night and hadn’t been able to sleep no matter what. When he closed his eyes, he would think of the Yan Yi who’d ruined his party. He hadn’t even gotten a proper taste of being first on the Prodigy Leaderboard, to the point that he hadn’t even gotten the chance to go around and flaunt it before he’d been driven off by this brat from who-knows-where.

The more he’d thought about it, the angrier he’d gotten. He’d wanted nothing more than to immediately fly off toward the Sea of Clouds and grab Yan Yi and give him a proper beating.

Bai Chunsheng had flapped his wings and started to fantasize with delight. If he were to act with enough ruthlessness and cast a curse of servitude on Yan Yi, he would have him enter the Star-Plucking Pavilion, and every day, Yan Yi would carry tea and pour water for him, massage his waist and back, and peel the hard-to-peel grapes for him. Because he still didn’t know what that brat looked like, whenever Bai Chunsheng was cursing or beating up Yan Yi in his heart, he would automatically substitute in Yan Jingqiu’s face.

He’d fantasized and fantasized, almost as if he were personally experiencing it, and he’d felt like he’d already vented some resentment.

Of course, it still hadn’t been enough.

Coincidentally, the Celestial Spirit that had been placed to one side had rustled, and the latest news had appeared: “Yan Yi is guilty of terrible crimes. He has no humanity to speak of, and he is mad and deranged. Fellow Daoists, please be sure to remain cautious of this lunatic.”

To think it actually had to do with Yan Yi.

The head of the Central Region’s three great sects, the Clear Sky Sect, had formally sent out an arrest warrant for Yan Yi, but they remained unwilling to divulge any information about what had happened in the Lianguang domain. Things had already come to this, so Bai Chunshung suspected that either they’d had their faces slapped by Yan Yi, or they’d had their faces slapped, and then some.

Although Bai Chunsheng had known that Yan Yi was currently in the Sea of Clouds, in the end, Yan Yi was a living human with feet. Right now, the entire world was out for his blood, so if he wasn’t stupid, he definitely wouldn’t stay in the same place for too long. If Yan Yi was to run, what would he do?

Since that was the case, Bai Chunsheng had gotten out of bed and paced calmly around the hot spring a few times. He wasn’t afraid that Yan Yi might be stronger than him right now.

He wasn’t an ordinary Unified Dao cultivator himself, either. Bai Chunsheng had at least this much self-confidence.

Only, Yan Yi’s origins were unclear, making him hard to fathom. It actually worried Bai Chunsheng a little that if he were to delay too long, under the pursuit of the great sects, Yan Yi would instead improve by leaps and bounds. In that situation, anything could happen, and it might really allow him to grow into an unsolvable disaster.

No matter how useless the Unified Dao cultivators Yan Yi had faced had been, they had still been cultivators who’d surpassed the heavenly tribulations of the Unified Dao stage.

Ban Chunsheng didn’t think that Yan Yi really had the ability to bridge a major cultivation level to fight on even footing with Unified Dao cultivators, but if it turned out to be true, to be able to do so with just a Soul Formation cultivation level meant that either he had a technique that defied the heavens, or Yan Yi’s talent and sense for battle were terrifying to an unimaginable degree.

The last time he’d gotten this kind of feeling had been from Yan Jingqiu.

But in the blink of an eye, Yan Jingqiu had grown into someone that he’d needed to look up to.

Although Yan Yi couldn’t be compared to Yan Jingqiu, Bai Chunsheng had learned enough hard lessons from Yan Jingqiu and didn’t dare to not be on his guard.

Before the sky had completely brightened, Bai Chunsheng had borrowed the cloak of night to steal out of the sect.

After weighing being beaten by his grandmother to being beaten several times by a matured Yan Yi, Bai Chunsheng had decided that the former was still more economical. This time, he was going to nip the problem in the bud.

There was a specialized transportation array in the Central Region’s Treasure Pavilion for going to the Sea of Clouds, so entering and exiting should have been easy. Unfortunately, the Myriad Fey Sect was already a big customer of the Treasure Pavilion, and Bai Chunsheng’s identity wasn’t average. For someone like him, all of the Treasure Pavilion’s major branches would have arranged devices specially for distinguishing their identities. Most likely, he’d be detected as soon as he walked in the door, and then the Myriad Fey Sect disciples keeping guard there would report back to the sect. Even if his grandmother couldn’t come grab him, there were still the elders of the punishment hall. With the elders’ speed, they’d be able to chase him down within the hour and haul him back to the Moonset Pool.

In order to avoid such a situation, Bai Chunsheng could only take a long detour and head to the Oldweald spirit realm through the rift between realms. It was rumored that the passage to the Sea of Clouds had been sealed, and one could only exit, not enter. With no other choice, Bai Chunsheng could only take a boat from Oldweald and travel upstream through the Azure River to cross the realm border and reach the Sea of Clouds.

Sure enough, the Sea of Clouds was just as desolate as everyone said. The cloud banks lay extremely low, and the land was almost completely submerged in azure river water. The blue waves towered and crashed, and the low-hanging cloud banks were close enough to reach. Tall mahogany trees grew in thickets everywhere the eyes could see.

Bai Chunsheng wandered about the Sea of Clouds for half a month. The Sea of Clouds was completely empty, and there was nothing there at all.

He couldn’t even find a single living person.

Bai Chunsheng had already come this far, so he refused to give up, staying in the weeds in the Sea of Clouds for another half month. But forget Yan Yi, he didn’t even catch a glimpse of the people who had come to hunt Yan Yi down. He suspected that someone might have been playing tricks on him and was about to head home, but Bai Chunsheng also couldn’t swallow his irritation and delayed for another two days before deciding to return.

Seeing as he hadn’t found Yan Yi, Bai Chunsheng wasn’t willing to head home empty-handed after such a hard-won trip outside, so he once again took a boat from the Azure River through the realm border of Oldweald, and then he would return to the great realm from there.

He’d decided to swing by Oldweald one more time.

The Oldweald spirit realm was a little realm dense with vegetation. Above all, although the degree of spiritual energy was lower than that of the great realm, the environment was more suitable for plant growth. A type of aurora fruit that Bai Chunsheng was very fond of came from Oldweald, but because its freshness period was very short, Bai Chunsheng especially snuck around to Oldweald’s cultivator’s market to collect a few.

Bai Chunsheng had originally wanted to buy a few aurora fruits and then leave, but he had come all the way here after all, and he wouldn’t be able to come outside again for a long time, so he took the opportunity to stop by the biggest restaurant in Oldweald to scrounge up some food.

“The Suchen Immortal Lady, Shen Yuying, is about to have her wedding. The Sea Abyss world’s dragon clan is preparing a magnificent feast.”

“Myriad Fey Sect’s Suchen Immortal Lady?”

“Exactly.”

Inside Oldweald’s Esurience Tower¹, several cultivators barely at Golden Core stage were conversing in whispers, but because Bai Chunsheng’s cultivation was far above theirs, every single word of their conversation fell into Bai Chunsheng’s ears.

Hearing this bit of dialogue, Bai Chunsheng was a bit surprised, because Shen Yuying was one of his younger sect-sisters under his grandmother. As a pure-blooded descendent of the dragon clan, Shen Yuying had been at mid-stage Soul Formation level when she’d entered the sect. Three hundred years had passed since then, and she was already at late-stage Soul Formation, so her talent was also pretty decent.

Bai Chensheng very rarely paid attention to what happened inside the sect, nor did he know Shen Yuying very well. He only knew that she performed her Silver Butterfly Frost Dance like a work of art. She was someone who acted with ferocity, carried out matters capably and decisively, and if someone were to offend her and then fall into her hands, they would be hard-pressed to preserve even their soul.

But Shen Yuying was always someone who handled things satisfactorily and with propriety. She was one of the rare cultivators in the Myriad Fey Sect who was rather reliable.

What was strange was that a few months ago, Bai Chunsheng had just met with Shen Yuying, and she hadn’t mentioned the fact that she was about to have her wedding.

He was astonished as to why he hadn’t known a thing about such a big matter as Shen Yuying’s wedding, nor had there been any talk of it in the Myriad Fey Sect.

Bai Chunsheng picked up the Celestial Spirit and looked through it in detail, finding that this marriage seemed to have been arranged with the dragon clan a long time ago, but there was no mention of who the other party in the marriage was.

Although Bai Chunsheng didn’t have too close of a relationship with this Shen Yuying, as the head disciple of the Myriad Fey Sect, Bai Chunsheng thought he should still know a thing or two. He casually made the hand signs for a correspondence spell and was about to ask the person in charge of ceremonies at the department of rites.

Who could’ve guessed that the correspondence spell would fail? Bai Chunsheng didn’t give up and activated it again.

It still didn’t work. The message couldn’t be sent out.

He stared blankly, because something like this could only mean one thing.

Someone had set up a barrier, and it was a barrier that specifically targeted him.

An enemy.

At this thought, Bai Chunsheng promptly flipped over the table. The cultivators beside him were startled by Bai Chunsheng’s sudden outburst and were just about to take up their swords to question him when they saw a pale blue fire leap out of the ground, enveloping these cultivators with average cultivation levels in the blink of an eye. Their skin, bones, and flesh were all lit alight, and these cultivators rolled around on the ground like mortals, trying to extinguish the fire, but to absolutely no avail. The flames coiled around their nascent souls, and before it was extinguished, they could neither beg for mercy nor pray for death.

In moments, despairing shrieks and terrified wails engulfed this originally lively and bustling restaurant.

Perhaps it was because of a spell, or perhaps it was on purpose, but these spontaneously combusting cultivators crawled toward Bai Chunsheng with a grotesque posture, and human-shaped torches who had lost all consciousness surrounded him.

The scene was incredibly strange, and it was obvious at a glance that the enemy had come prepared. Seeing the circ*mstances, a thought had already flashed through Bai Chunsheng’s mind. If it wasn’t someone involved in the internal disputes of the Central Regions wanting to borrow this chance to muddy the waters, then it was because Yan Jingqiu had died and could no longer suppress the restlessness of the demons and monsters, and they’d decided to make an example out of a cultivator with enough power and a high enough status to provoke a fight.

Bai Chunsheng wasn’t scared, he only thought it ridiculous. After not having gone outside for a few years, he’d actually become a pushover in others’ eyes.

The scorching heat practically warped the very air itself, yet it had no way of approaching Bai Chunsheng at all.

Swanflight, the sword in his hand, left its sheathe. In the blink of an eye, there were several loud crashes, and the heads of these cultivators, who, as puppets, had long been only half-alive, fell to the ground one by one. From their perspective, it could also be seen as an escape from hell, and the flames that fed off of their life force were thus extinguished.

Esurience Tower fell into dead silence, so quiet a pin drop could be heard.

Bai Chunsheng lifted his eyes and looked around at his surroundings, his expression impassive as he said, “All of you—”

“You shouldn’t have come here. Remember that in your next life.”

…………………

…………………

¹ Esurience Tower – the original name, “尚膳楼” is a bit of a pun. 尚膳 can mean something along the lines of “to value a meal” or “to present a meal,” but it’s also a hom*ophone for “上善” from “上善如水,” which is a line from the Daodejing meaning something like “to benefit all things without struggling, as water does.” So…… it’s a cultivator restaurant, get it? (I think it might also be the name of a real restaurant in Beijing or Hong Kong or something.)

² Domains – For those who aren’t familiar, it’s a near ubiquitous trope in cultivation settings that high-level cultivators can create something like a pocket dimension for various purposes. Often, after their deaths, these dimensions become something like adventuring dungeons for future generations. I’ve seen this also translated as “secret dimension” or “secret boundary,” etc.

Chapter 3: Escape from Death in the Sea of Clouds, PartIII

In the morning, when Bai Chunsheng had seen that his name had dropped to second place, he’d been frightened so badly he’d thought he was having some kind of nightmare that was even more terrifying than Yan Jingqiu coming back to life.

Only after finding someone to question had he learned that in the few days he’d been fast asleep, the Lianguang Honorable’s inheritance had been passed down to a nameless wandering cultivator who’d come out of nowhere.

This Lianguang Honorable was one thing. Although his Shortsword Gale technique was interesting, in the eyes of cultivators who possessed a complete set of cultivation techniques, at most, it was just the bonus of being able to learn another technique.

The critical point was that that day, this nameless wandering cultivator had used his trifling Soul Formation stage cultivation to fight against a number of Unified Dao cultivators.

Another book that had been placed on the table began to rustle on its own without any breeze. The currently updating Celestial Spirit book was a spiritual device modeled after the Prodigy Leaderboard.

Only core members of the three great sects and the ten great families were allowed to possess one. As soon as any big events happened, specialized members of the great sects of the Central Regions would immediately send out updates, and all the holders of the Celestial Spirit book would be able to see the shared news. At the time, the news that had leaked out of the Lianguang domain had spread so quickly precisely because of this. But the news that could be revealed only contained a bit of conversation between Yan Yi and Yang Hong, and rumors of him fighting against four Unified Dao cultivations.

The shadows in the book shimmered, and present there was a scene that had been recorded down.

It was said that the scene at the time had been precisely the so-called, one sword to block a thousand blows.

The crowd had scattered in terrified retreat, watching him step forward alone.

Other than this person, the closest in distance to the light veil of inheritance had been a main line disciple of the Great Void sect, Yang Hong.

The Lianguang Honorable had been extremely mysterious, his origins unclear. He’d appeared mysteriously, relying on his exquisite, peerless mastery of the sword to leave a heavy and vibrant mark for himself in the pages of history, then had mysteriously disappeared.

There were rumors saying that this Lianguang Honorable had originally been a Great Void Sect disciple, and the Great Void sect had gone to no small effort this time for the sake of “taking back” the inheritance. Although Yang Hong’s skills had been no match from the start, he remained unresigned, his entire face swollen red, tears in his eyes as he demanded, “Who exactly are you?!”

The person turned his head back. The whole time, he had been wearing the black mountain ghoul mask that the Lianguang domain gave out equally. He only said, “Yan Yi.”

That night, the Prodigy Leaderboard had changed once again, and “Yan Yi” had climbed to the top.

Other than Yan Jingqiu, there had been no one else who’d been able to fight on even footing across a major cultivation level.

Since Yan Jingqiu was dead, then naturally, Yan Yi was number one.

Yan Yi’s origins were unclear, and his whereabouts secretive. After snatching away the inheritance in the domain, he’d quickly disappeared under the gaze of the crowd.

Several days passed, and still, no one had figured out where this Yan Yi’s trail had gone.

Some suspected that Yan Yi came from the Yan clan. After all, as an influential family of sword cultivators with first the Tribulation-stage master, the Yan clan’s old elder, and later the Little Celestial Sage Yan Jingqiu, it wasn’t out of the question for them to come out with another prodigy of the sword in Yan Yi.

But even after the news had spread throughout the cultivation world, there was no response from the Yan clan. The Yan clan old elder’s lifespan was reaching its end, and an accident had happened to Yan Jingqiu. From the start, the Yan clan had relied on these two great masters to occupy a sizable amount of the cultivation world’s resources. Now, without these supports, it was the perfect time for storms to brew. When the Yan clan’s old elder passed away, most likely, the Yan clan would become a piece of tender meat eyed by a pack of wolves. Under these circ*mstances, for the Yan clan to show such an ambiguous attitude toward Yan Yi was enough to prove that this Yan Yi either had no relationship at all to the Yan clan, or the relationship between the two was like fire and water.

The Yan Yi recorded in this fragment was a bit similar to the sword cultivator Bai Chunsheng had seen in Mu Liushuang’s memories, but because he was wearing the mask that the Lianguang domain handed out frequently as a reward, Bai Chunsheng didn’t dare to conclude that this person really was Yan Yi. But regardless, just on the basis of the news that had been leaked, leaving that sword cultivator aside for the moment, this Yan Yi definitely also wasn’t easy to deal with.

Bai Chunsheng felt a bit agitated. Out of nowhere, a puff of white mist appeared in the golden birdcage that hung to one side, and shortly afterwards, it turned into a round white bird that looked quite similar to a plump duck.

This bird was Bai Chunsheng’s nascent soul. The nascent soul of a fey was very special. It was a miniature version of their true form. Moreover, as a representation of the owner’s truest thoughts in their inner heart, it could not tell lies. If one could catch a fey’s nascent soul, it would be even more effective than feeding a truth serum to their original body.

…… Similarly, this was also why Bai Chunsheng never revealed his original form in front of outsiders.

In the past few hundred years, the number of people who’d seen his original form combined didn’t exceed the number of fingers he had. Nobody would be able to imagine that the splendid, slim-figured beauty’s original form would actually be a little white duck with a tender yellow beak and dark little eyes, and the soles of his feet were even a soft ginger yellow.

That the white phoenix’s bloodline would mutate like this—everyone who knew of it had been shocked.

After Bai Jianghan’s many years of research, no matter how unwilling she had been to give up, she’d still confirmed the harsh reality that unlike those powerful types of mutations, her precious grandson hadn’t obtained any extra powers other than looking a little cuter.

After the Soul Formation stage, one’s nascent soul could appear outside their body.

Bai Chunsheng had already reached early-stage Unified Dao, so naturally, doing such a thing was as easy as breathing for him.

His grandmother had said that she’d once also had a birdcage like this, and when she was bored, and no one was around, she would let out her nascent soul to bicker with herself to pass the time. But the Mahayana stage refined the soul, and the most critical step of breaking through the Unified Dao stage required the nascent soul to return to the soul, so after that, her birdcage had remained empty.

In Bai Chunsheng’s imagination, his nascent soul could stand gracefully on the pole like his grandmother’s had done.

But in reality, even his nascent soul was a round little thing and could only squat there.

He closed his eyes. The white duck nascent soul in the cage organized his thoughts for him, but when it opened its mouth, it was still Bai Chunsheng’s voice. “Yan Yi…… Hmph, just from the name, you can tell he’s nothing good, and he even wears a mask. Pfft, he’s probably ashamed to show his face, ugly thing.”

It was clearly himself cursing, but he still put on a show of expressing his agreement, giving a tiny nod. “And he’s named Yan, the same surname as Yan Jingqiu.”

The white duck nascent soul said, “Really, and now he’s number one. All of those sword cultivators who have to do with Yan Jingqiu are so hateful, what a pain.”

“Just because they say he can match four Unified Dao cultivators, does that mean he really can? Who knows whether or not there was a restriction in the Lianguang domain that gave his inheritor a boost? It’s hard to say.”

……………

Suddenly, the voice of the white-feathered bird in the golden cage stopped.

The window on the southwest side of the pavilion was still open, and a green paper kite flew in from afar. It flew very urgently, practically crashing head-first into the Star-Plucking Pavilion. The white duck nascent soul whispered in surprise, “Someone’s here.”

It immediately turned into white mist, and alongside the gradually cooling autumn breeze of the Moonset Pool, disappeared little by little back into Bai Chunsheng’s body.

Bai Chunsheng tapped the green paper kite in passing, and it turned into a letter that was covered in hastily scrawled letters: “Yan Yi, little realm, Sea of Clouds.”

After a few breaths, the bottom of the letter burst into red and yellow flames on its own, soon becoming a pile of ashes.

What was written on the letter was Yan Yi’s current whereabouts. Yan Yi had snatched away the Lianguang inheritance and offended the three great sects of the Central Regions and was currently being chased after by the entire cultivation world. Long before Bai Chunsheng had summoned Mu Liushuang, he’d gotten word that Yan Yi had appeared at one of the great realm’s transportation arrays to the little realms.

Bai Chunsheng had told the Myriad Fey Sect’s people there to wait, and when details of Yan Yi’s transportation came out, to immediately send an urgent letter to let him know.

Although Bai Chunsheng didn’t think he would stay at the top of the ranks for too long, Yan Yi’s appearance really did make him feel very displeased.

Bai Chunsheng had acknowledged that he wasn’t Yan Jingqiu’s match, but who was this Yan Yi?

Bai Chunsheng decided that before burning incense for Yan Jingqiu, he would first go to the Sea of Clouds and meet this Yan Yi.

To see whether the rumors that he was a match for four Unified Dao cultivators at Soul Formation stage were true or not.

………………

The Author Has Something to Say:

Bai Chunsheng: “Hmph, my original form is slender and graceful, and my feathers are beautiful and pure white, but I’m not letting you see it.”

“No,” Yan Jingqiu said, “I’ve seen your original form before. Your feathers are gray, and you’re short and round, rather plump, and quite cute.”

“……”

Bai Chunsheng’s mouth was as stubborn as a duck’s beak,¹ but his voice still gradually became smaller and smaller, saying aggrievedly, “I was still little back then.”

—Although he was still short and round as an adult, at least his feathers were white.

Bai Chunsheng thought to himself: How hateful, Yan Jingqiu!

Do Bai Chunsheng and Yan Jingqiu have the feel of Snow White and her evil stepmother right now? (just kidding)

………………

¹ This is a joke based on a Chinese idiom. To have a “hard mouth” is to be stubborn, e.g. to refuse to admit something that’s clearly true, so the idiom is “to have a mouth as hard as a dead duck’s,” because a duck’s beak is stiff (and maybe a dead duck’s is stiffer? I have no clue). This joke gets used pretty frequently in this story because… em… as you can see… he’s a duck…

Chapter 2: Escape from Death in the Sea of Clouds, PartII

At the same time, the Oldweald spirit world was in the midst of autumn.

The night rain carried a hint of chill, and a sharp sword light cut through the long night.

The inheritance domain of the Lianguang Honorable that the three great sects had been planning for for a long time had been taken by an obscure young wandering cultivator. Everyone present had been an emerging talent of an influential sect, yet not a single one of the four Unified Dao cultivators or the multiple Soul Formation cultivators had been able to or had dared to stop him, watching with eyes wide open as he swaggered over and availed himself.

In just an incense stick’s time, the news exploded throughout the entire cultivation world in the blink of an eye.

Word of the Sword Sage’s fall had only just circulated. There were some who had sighed in sorrow and pity, there were some who had rejoiced all night like Bai Chunsheng, but the only commonality among all these people was they were all secretly speculating who would be the next person most qualified to become a Sage. The Yan family’s elder was at the end of his lifespan, and as long as another great talent who could attain Tribulation came along, it would be enough to change the current balance between the cultivation world’s three great sects.

Nobody had thought that the next person to possess such aptitude would arrive so quickly.

As everyone knew, in the cultivation world, after Nascent Soul, the difference between each cultivation stage was as difficult to cross as the heavens. Plenty of Daoists who were revered as elders or gods in the little realms were nothing to write home about in the great realm. Cultivators like the Lingruo Immortal might not have an opportunity to break through Soul Formation stage in their entire lives.

The only person who had been able to fight across cultivation levels at the Soul Formation stage had been Yan Jingqiu at Soul Formation stage.

But how had this young wandering cultivator done so?

He was nameless and obscure, his origins unknown, so how could he compare to the Sword Saint?

“Soul Formation stage, and such a young cultivator?!” Someone exclaimed with a sigh.

Another put the confidential report to one side and said disdainfully, “He’s no more than Soul Formation stage, and you compare him to the Sword Sage? Haha.”

“Even if he’s no match for the Sword Sage of the past, just based on the talent for battle he’s displayed so far, he’s definitely also a great talent,” someone retorted.

………

“Battling four Unified Dao cultivators alone without falling to a disadvantage!” Clear Sky Sect’s Duobao Honorable, Fang Nianhe, looked at the confidential report and couldn’t resist muttering to himself, “Isn’t this only the second day since news of Yan Jingqiu’s death has come out? To think there are still so many talents out in the world.”

He looked at the cooling yunsheng tea on the table, and after a good while, he let out a long, long sigh. Fang Nianhe said darkly, “To say that I’m no match for the Sword Sage is one thing, but am I really not even as good as a nameless nobody from who-knows-where?

“Tip one stone and the entire tower falls. Yan Jingqiu’s sudden death is bound to stir up chaos all across the world.

“If I still can’t break through mid-stage Soul Formation within five years, I’m afraid it will be difficult for me to ever become one of those figures who overturns the clouds in my wake.”

………

People with thoughts such as those were even less rare.

Within a short span of time, as if by tacit agreement, many cultivators who’d made a name for themselves in the great sects and influential clans went into closed door cultivation one after another.

All of this had nothing to do with Bai Chunsheng.

Fey creatures craved sleep. After that day had passed, he’d fallen asleep for three days straight before finally waking up. And the first thing he’d done after waking had been to open his bleary, sleep-lidded eyes and look at his ranking again with delight in his heart.

Bai Chunsheng: “……”

His gaze moved downwards stiffly, and he successfully found his name once again in the spot of second place.

In just three days’ time, how had he become number two again?

It couldn’t be, it couldn’t be——

Yan Jingqiu had come back to life???

Unresigned, Bai Chunsheng rubbed his eyes.

The good news was that he hadn’t gone blind, so the bad news was that everything he was seeing was real.

Yan Yi?

Who?

How hateful!

There had been hints about the Lianguang Honorable’s inheritance since a hundred years ago. After generation after generation of planning, the time when it was ripe for the taking had finally come. Although most of those in the Myriad Fey Sect were fey who relied on the strength of their bloodline, the Lianguang Honorable’s Shortsword Gale technique was quite remarkable, and there had been a few in the Myriad Fey sect who had wanted to dip their toes into the waters.

Mu Liushuang was an early-stage Nascent Soul wood fey. From the start, she was a pure-blooded fey from the great realm, and for centuries, her entire family, her included, had all been eager to become inner sect disciples of Myriad Fey Sect. The whole big family wanted to enter the inner sect to bring honor to their ancestors. Luckily, she was decently talented, and she’d reached Nascent Soul at age fifty-seven, becoming the closest person to reaching their goal in her whole family.

Her cultivation was neither high nor low, and her aptitude was average and not too remarkable. It was precisely at this time that her name appeared in the list of outer sect disciples that Myriad Fey Sect sent up to try their luck in the Lianguang domain.

Out of the entire group, Mu Liushuang was the sole, lucky survivor who was able to return to the Myriad Fey Sect bearing only light wounds.

The day before yesterday, not too long after the Lianguang domain’s sudden change, Mu Liushuang had been sent back to the Myriad Fey Sect by an inner sect elder. Of the other few outer sect disciples who had come with her, some had died, some remained unconscious to this day, and some had suffered heavy injuries that still hadn’t healed. In these past three days, she had practically been unable to sleep or focus on her cultivation. As soon as she closed her eyes, a purgatory-like scene would play over and over before her eyes.

Yesterday, she’d taken the soothing pills passed out by the sect very early on and had finally managed to sleep for the night. Today, as soon as she woke up, there were several high-ranking servants in black robes here to see her, saying that a big personage from the inner sect had business with her.

Mu Liushuang was full of anxiety and unease as she followed the servants through the dense building complex and arrived at a part of the inner sect that she’d never been to before. Next to a secluded lake was a little tower. The Star-Plucking Pavilion that was covered in vines looked like a silent gravestone, and the only things to be seen on the tower were a few small windows that looked like runes.

The servants who had been leading the way brought her to the entrance and then stopped. From inside the tower, another servant draped in a black robe came out. The servant only stopped in front of Mu Liushuang for a few breaths, then turned and went silently back into the murky depths of the tower. Mu Liushuang stood in a daze for a few moments before finally realizing that this meant she should follow. She caught up with small steps, one hand clutching the corner of her skirt, palm covered in sweat.

The door was very tall, and the further inside they walked, the darker it became. Mu Liushuang became even more nervous.

Even further in was a round foyer. There were no lanterns lit, only a bit of light seeping in from the little windows on both sides.

Mu Liushuang blinked and quickly got used to the lighting, becoming able to see what was inside the foyer.

Not too far away were a padded chair and an incense table atop a tall dais. She could see clearly that there was someone sitting there behind a veil. The scarlet veil fluttered in the wind, and a golden birdcage hung to one side. The person leaned against the chair, head propped in his hand.

Out of habit, Mu Liushuang first probed this person’s cultivation level. Almost instantly, she heard the person behind the veil let out a scornful sneer.

Before the unsuccessful bit of consciousness she’d sent out could return to her, Mu Liushuang’s forehead was already covered in cold sweat, and she fell kneeling to the ground, her head lowered in terror.

Previously, when stepping into the Star-Plucking Pavilion, Mu Liushuang had already had a basic guess as to just who wanted to see her. Sure enough, it was him.

Fey creatures with pure bloodlines were different from human cultivators. From the moment of birth, they possessed strong bodies and souls, and their path to cultivation was practically a flat road. As soon as Bai Chunsheng had broken out of his shell, his cultivation level had been at early-stage Soul Formation level. For the rest of his life, all he had to do was eat and drink, and he could match the bitter efforts of decades or even centuries of many cultivators. If nothing unexpected happened in his life, reaching late-stage Mahayana like his grandmother was only a matter of time.

Bai Chunsheng asked lazily, “The Lianguang domain, what happened there?”

Mu Liushuang shook her head. “I, I don’t know.”

“You were right inside the Lianguang domain, yet you don’t know what happened?!” Bai Chunsheng frowned. If not for the fact that the few elders who had gone to the Lianguang domain had all been summoned by the sect master and had yet to return, and that everyone else who was aware of the circ*mstances had all been sworn to secrecy and refused to speak, he wouldn’t have fallen so low as to ask an outer sect disciple who was obviously completely oblivious at a single glance. “Pick some things that you know, and speak.”

Mu Liushuang quickly shook her head in terror. “I don’t know anything at all.”

She sat kneeling on the ground, her head lowered. She heard the sound of footsteps and saw a pair of silver and white daffodil-patterned boots appear within her field of vision. Bai Chunsheng said, “Fine, then lift your head.”

His voice seemed to hold an undefiable power, and Mu Liushuang couldn’t stop herself from raising her head. A very young-looking man stood in front of him. He wasn’t fearsome and vicious-looking as in the rumors, but was actually extremely good-looking, especially those eyes that looked like two spots of black lacquer.

As soon as her eyes met Bai Chunsheng’s, Mu Liushuang’s consciousness went blank for a few moments. By the time she’d come back to her senses, Bai Chunsheng had already turned around to leave. “That’s enough, go back now.”

Hearing this sentence, Mu Liushuang repressed the impulse to scurry and walked out of the Star-Plucking Pavilion as if fleeing.

Bai Chunsheng was silent for a period, lying back down in his padded chair.

He’d already looked through the majority of Mu Liushuang’s memories that had to do with the Lianguang domain. What she’d said hadn’t been wrong, she really didn’t know anything at all.

The composition of the Lianguang domain was extremely peculiar. Inside was a dense gray fog and narrow passageways whose depths couldn’t be seen, and there were endless waves of monsters who would appear out of the mist. The Lianguang domain greatly encouraged cultivators to fight and kill amongst themselves, and the rewards for killing cultivators was even greater than that of killing monsters, so any living person that one encountered was most likely an enemy harboring no good intentions.

The passage intersections could change at any time, so even if one turned back, it wouldn’t be the path they’d come from.

That Mu Liushuang could come back alive from the Lianguang domain was purely due to her good luck. On her entire journey, she practically hadn’t encountered any people or monsters. The only thing that had seemed a little odd was a single sword cultivator.

She’d just experienced a round of battle and had suffered some minor injuries and had been scared out of her mind as she turned the corner of an intersection. She just so happened to run into that sword cultivator slaying a fierce, terrifying mist beast the size of a small mountain.

He just stood there in a pool of blood, slowly and unhurriedly wiping off his sword. As the mist beast’s life force slowly dissipated, the domain’s reward to the sword cultivator appeared on the ground—a black, two-horned mountain ghoul mask.

The sword cultivator’s flicked his wrist, and after putting on the mask, he seemed to glance in Mu Liushuang’s direction. But for some reason, he didn’t do anything at all and left just like that.

After that, Mu Liushuang didn’t encounter anyone else, up until the domain was broken and the elder from the Myriad Fey Sect brought her out along the way before the domain collapsed.

From Mu Liushuang’s point of view, the sword cultivator had most likely been a righteous sect cultivator who hadn’t been willing to kill another person. That this person felt strange wasn’t because Mu Liushuang had found him strange, but because Bai Chunsheng had felt him strange.

Not for any other reason, but because the sword cultivator’s last glance hadn’t seemed like it had been directed at the Nascent Soul level Mu Liushuang, but like it had crossed the span of these few days’ time and layers upon layers of people to look at him, Bai Chunsheng.

This was also hard to say. Aside from those great masters with godly cultivation levels who could sense the Heavenly Dao, there were a few remarkable techniques that could peer across time and see the countless tangled and scattered karmic threads. Judging from his ability to slay a Soul Formation stage mist beast with a single strike of his sword, perhaps this sword cultivator was someone who had inherited such a technique.

Of course, perhaps there had been another reason, and it had been because this sword cultivator’s figure looked oddly familiar from the back.

Bai Chunsheng clicked his tongue. But even if Yan Jingqiu hadn’t died, he wouldn’t be an insignificant sword cultivator like this. Even saying that this sword cultivator might be Yan Yi was more reasonable than thinking that he looked like Yan Jingqiu. If he’d seen wrong, then he’d seen wrong.

This bit of Mu Liushuang’s memory practically contained nothing of worth at all.

At this thought, Bai Chunsheng couldn’t resist creasing his brow. He opened the Prodigy Leaderboard that had been placed to one side on the incense table. The first name on the list had already changed to a completely unfamiliar name.

“Yan Yi,” Bai Chunsheng read softly.

Chapter 1: Escape from Death in the Sea of Clouds, PartI

From the TL:

Hello, this is the first chapter of “Forced to Become My Amnesiac Arch-Rival’s Fake Dao Companion.” To sum it up, this is a story about possibly the two dumbest guys you’ve ever seen, but they’re so funny doing it.

General warning for fantasy violence that spans the whole book.

In terms of posting schedule, updates on this will be irregular until the other story I’m working on gets finished.

As always, please support the original work and author if possible.

………………………………

The White Bone mountain range in the Central Regions stretched on for a hundred thousand li. The silent, dark mountains with nary a trace of human presence surrounded a pool so deep that the bottom couldn’t be seen.

Moonset Pool, whose name was known far and wide in the three thousand realms, was located here.

Regardless of whether they were mortal or cultivator, in the great realm, everyone knew that the Myriad Fey Sect, one of the top cultivation sects, was inside of Moonset Pool.

It was precisely midnight, and the deep pool water reflected the night sky brimming with stars. Within the reflected starlight, this expanse of the White Bone Range took on another appearance.

A palace with black roof tiles and wooden carvings remained brightly lit throughout the night. The Myriad Fey Sect was strictly regulated, and the outer sect fey cultivators of low cultivation were like worker ants, weaving to and fro through the tall buildings at the behest of the masters they respectively served.

At this moment, the Myriad Fey Sect’s Lingruo Immortal got wind of an incredible piece of news from an acquaintance, a female cultivator from Jadespun Palace.

The Sword Sage had died.

Yan Jingqiu had died!

If this news were to circulate, putting aside the great realm, even all of the nearby little realms would fall into chaos.

Speaking of Yan Jingqiu, he was certainly a genius not to be seen in the cultivation world for a thousand years prior or a thousand years to come.

Many of his deeds were highly praised, but his most widely known accomplishment was from a hundred years ago. It had been precisely the last, pivotal moment of the Great War between demons and cultivators. At the time, Yan Jingqiu, who hadn’t even reached a full five hundred years of age, had marched off at the behest of the Great Void Sect, which was under the Yan family’s influence.

With a single sword, he’d split open the demon world’s Demonforge Cavern, severing ten thousand years’ worth of the demon world’s foundations. Thus, he’d determined the fate of the battle, settling the chaos of the Great War between demons and cultivators.

As a result, he became known as the Sword Sage, the Little Celestial Sage.

Although countless years had passed since the cultivation world had last seen a Celestial Sage, according to the widespread opinion of the current cultivation world, it was only a matter of time before Yan Jingqiu broke through the Tribulation phase and became a Celestial Sage. If even someone like him couldn’t break through the nine rounds of heavenly tribulations, was there anyone in the world who could reach the position of Celestial Sage?

Someone like that, how could he suddenly just die?

The female cultivator from Jadespun Palace had an uneasy expression as she said, “It’s hard to say.

“You know me, I’m engaged to the third son of the Yan clan’s seventeenth house, Yan Nanchuan. I also received the news not too long ago.

“The Yan clan hid it for a fairly long time. I wasn’t the first to hear the news. They know they can’t hide it for much longer. I expect this news to circulate through all the three thousand great and little realms tomorrow, and the demonic cultivators of the demon world will also know sooner or later.”

The Lingruo Immortal asked, “But why did the Sword Sage die?”

They were clearly in a private cavern abode, but the female cultivator from Jadespun Palace still used her aqua blue sleeves to cover her mouth. She looked around for a while, then continued to speak in a frightened voice. “I heard that the Sword Sage was wholeheartedly seeking death.

“He was trapped inside his own Boundary of Mortality and couldn’t be rescued. Other than himself, no one could save him,” she said. “A few days ago, I went to the Yan household and heard Nanchuan say so.”

Rather than saying that the Boundary of Mortality was a place, it would be better to say that it was a state, that it was a calamity. It was the very last trial of the Tribulation stage, and it could be said that it was only a half step away from the finish line.

“He’s already reached the Tribulation stage?!”

The Lingruo Immortal didn’t even know if she should be astonished at the Sword Sage’s talent, or if she should lament the fickleness of life. To think that he would actually wholeheartedly seek death at the very last step?

“That’s already old news from a long time ago. There are rumors that say he’d already reached that stage two hundred years ago,” the Jadespun Palace cultivator said.

“But why?” The Lingruo Immortal asked.

The Jadespun Palace cultivator said, “Who knows? After all, it’s the last step of the Tribulation stage. He’s too young, and he hasn’t experienced the strife and hardship of the human world. It’s all too easy to understand being trapped within his own Boundary of Mortality.”

“That’s true,” The Lingruo Immortal said.

Since birth, Yan Jingqiu had been from the main line of an influential family, his brilliance dazzling; after starting to cultivate, swordsmanship was innate to his bones, and he had a godly Dao physique, never encountering any bottlenecks in his cultivation. He was revered and admired, and he never seemed to have encountered any setbacks.

The Lingruo Immortal didn’t continue to speak. There was nothing to be gained by talking too much. The path of cultivation was by nature in defiance of the heavens, and besides, it had already been thousands of years since the cultivation world had last seen someone who could reach this stage. Nobody knew just what kind of calamity the Boundary of Mortality was.

Who knew, maybe Yan Jingqiu had already made preparations before undergoing this last trial, but he’d still failed there, that was all. She was no more than a fey cultivator at the Soul Formation stage. Using the limitations of her own point of view to measure the hardships that a great master encountered was a laughable thing.

Perhaps because they felt it had been a bit inappropriate, in the two acquaintances’ conversations that followed, they both tacitly agreed to avoid this topic. Hands intertwined, they only continued to chat about amusing stories from recent days.

Three incense sticks’ worth of time later, a paper crane flew into the Lingruo Immortal’s cavern abode.

The Jadespun Palace cultivator said it was a senior who had finished their task and who’d come to urge her to set out. The two said their farewells with reluctance.

After sending off the female cultivator, the Lingruo Immortal also mounted a cloud and departed from her cavern. Tomorrow, the biggest Treasure Pavilion in the Central Regions was going to hold an auction. She wanted to buy some pills to consolidate her cultivation. In order to grab a good spot, she had to leave a bit earlier.

She’d ascended from a little realm, and she’d originally been a rare single-horned jade lotus flood dragon from the Azure Wave spirit realm.

But a rare bloodline or astonishing talent in a little realm wasn’t even worth mentioning in the great realm. Being able to enter the Myriad Fey Sect on the basis of her Soul Formation level cultivation and become an inner sect disciple, and then being able to rely on the Myriad Fey Sect’s protection to avoid being captured and having her tendons extracted or her skin peeled off was already the thing the Lingruo Immortal was most thankful for in the past hundred years.

The great realm’s resources were far, far more abundant than the minor realms’, and with the Myriad Fey Sect behind her, according to reason, she shouldn’t have to worry about resources.

But to the Lingruo Immortal, she was suffering from the limitations of her aptitude. Ever since reaching Soul Formation, every breakthrough had been difficulty on top of difficulty for her, and she was truly hard-pressed to advance any further.

For several days in a row, there had been fey cultivators ascending from the little realms. The number of seats for inner sect disciples in the Myriad Fey Sect was limited, and she didn’t have any battle skills or killing techniques that she could bring out. The Lingruo Immortal had long known that the fey cultivators who were of early-stage Soul Formation like her were currently eyeing her position covetously and wanted to challenge her to battle, hoping to use that as a stepping stone to enter the Myriad Fey Sect’s inner sect.

Just now, after hearing the news from the Jadespun Palace cultivator, the Lingruo Immortal was even more moved by the difficulties of the path of cultivation. Putting aside the topic of someone who was just one among the masses like herself, even the Sword Sage had fallen.

At the thought of the Sword Sage Yan Jingqiu, the Lingruo Immortal was reminded of a person whose reputation was known far and wide throughout the Myriad Fey Sect.

The Lingruo Immortal lifted her head toward the very heart of the Myriad Fey Sect, where the Star-Plucking Pavilion stood.

In the Myriad Fey Sect, from top to bottom, there was no one who wasn’t aware that the honored resident of the Star-Plucking Pavilion hated nothing and nobody more than the Yan family’s Sword Sage.

Speaking of the honored resident in the Star-Plucking Pavilion, it was also an interesting matter.

Nobody dared to say so aloud, but in their hearts, they all thought that the title of number one beauty in the Central Regions should belong to this Bai Chunsheng.

He was the Myriad Fey Sect’s Great Elder Bai Jianghan’s grandson. The last Great War between demons and cultivators had lasted nearly a thousand years, and Bai Jianghan’s Dao companion, daughter, and son-in-law had died one after another on the battlefield, where blades were blind. They only left her a single young grandson. Under such circ*mstances, Bai Jianghan naturally spoiled the last of her bloodline beyond belief. To say that Bai Chunsheng feared neither the heavens nor the law in the Myriad Fey Sect wouldn’t be too much of an exaggeration.

Moreover, Bai Chunsheng also possessed the white phoenix bloodline, with an excellent innate talent for cultivation. Before he’d even reached five hundred years of age, he’d broken through the Soul Formation stage and achieved Unified Dao, and he was a prodigy deserving of the name.

But therein lay the problem, he was only a prodigy.

On top of Bai Chunsheng, there was still a Yan Jingqiu.

With Yan Jingqiu present, the people of the world naturally only knew Yan Jingqiu, not Bai Chunsheng.

The thing that had left the deepest impression in the Lingruo Immortal’s mind was hearing that before the Great War had been settled, before Yan Jingqiu had gone into the Boundary of Mortality, Bai Chunsheng had taken advantage of Yan Jingqiu not knowing the state of affairs to issue many, many challenge letters.

After that, Yan Jingqiu had settled the chaotic battle with the demon world in one blow, and Bai Chunsheng had immediately stolen over to the Yan household, blocking his path and saying that he wanted to send Yan Jingqiu a letter declaring war.

Rumors of rumors said, the day before Yan Jingqiu had gone into the Boundary of Mortality, the young Sword Sage had also sent a letter to the Myriad Fey Sect. But just this one action had scared Bai Chunsheng so badly that he hadn’t dared to leave the sect for a year, and who knew whether he’d really done as he’d proclaimed to everyone and brazenly and self-confidently written back to Yan Jingqiu, or if he hadn’t even dared to open the letter at all.

Although everything had been one-sided on Bai Chunsheng’s part, that hadn’t stopped him from seeing it as a great humiliation, and he’d sworn that someday, he’d teach Yan Jingqiu a lesson.

Now, Yan Jingqiu was dead. Most likely, other than the demons and monsters, the happiest person in the cultivation world was Bai Chunsheng.

What the Lingruo Immortal was imagining was practically no different from reality.

At the top of the Star-Plucking Pavilion was a hot spring constructed from warm jade. The pool was filled with spiritual water that was brimming with spiritual energy, and milky white steam rose up in spirals, suffusing the pavilion. Lantern light the color of icy sunshine illuminated everything inside the pavilion with crystal clarity.

Atop a tall dais, a man in white sat kneeling on a soft brocade cushion. His hair looked like black feathers, his skin fair and translucent, his lips tender and full, and he looked charming and beautiful.

His eyes were currently tightly closed, his hands clasped together before his chest. He sat in a carefree posture, and he was muttering to himself, counting the time.

After a while, perhaps because the top of the shichen had come.

Bai Chunsheng covered his eyes with both his hands, his bright, pitch-black eyes peeking through his fingers to look at the Prodigy Leaderboard that was floating just before his face.

This ranking list was a replicating World-level spiritual device. It would automatically search through everyone under a thousand years old in the great realm and conduct a ranking of them based on the events that had happened to them. Rather than saying that this was a leaderboard of prodigies, it would be more accurate to say that it was a “popularity” ranking with age and the state of death or living as restrictions. It used people’s discussions, whether of admiration or of loathing, to conduct its rankings, and although it occasionally had some biases, luckily, it was accurate for the most part.

The name “Yan Jingqiu” written on the leaderboard slowly faded, and after a moment, it disappeared completely. Soon afterwards, the name that was ranked second surged upward by one place.

Bai Chunsheng was unable to contain his jubilance, his eyebrows lifting. Finally, finally, the spot of number one on the Prodigy Leaderboard had changed from Yan Jingqiu to himself, Bai Chunsheng.

In order to await this scene, Bai Chunsheng had already been waiting since noon yesterday until now. No, it should be said that since the very first time he’d heard the name Yan Jingqiu, he’d been waiting for this moment.

The fey were born with a degree of consciousness, and ever since he was little, Bai Chunsheng had grown up being cupped preciously in others’ hands. As a result, only after first walking out the doors of the Myriad Fey Sect at age twenty-five did he discover that the Yan family actually had an accursed Yan Jingqiu.

Yan Jingqiu hovered above his head in every single matter. In these past years, Bai Chunsheng had long been holding back a bellyful of anger.

Early on, the difference in their cultivation hadn’t been very big, and there were still some comparisons that could be made between the two of them. But when Yan Jingqiu reached Soul Formation, not too many years later, it became widely acknowledged that there was no one in the world who could rival him.

Yan Jingqiu had long broken through the Mahayana stage and reached the Tribulation stage two hundred years ago, and at the time, Bai Chunsheng was no more than halfway into the Unified Dao stage. Ever since then, the distance between the two of them had gotten bigger and bigger.

Luckily, Yan Jingqiu had finally died.

As expected, the path of cultivation was long and endless. You still had to look at who lived longer to decide who could have the last laugh.

Bai Chunsheng let out a long breath.

…………………………

The Author Has Something to Say:

1. The shou is a vain and conceited beauty, often flaunting his “pretty feathers.”
2. The Prodigy Leaderboard is arranged according to age, it doesn’t mean that nobody is stronger than him, remember that.

Yan Jingqiu (gong) X Bai Chunsheng (shou)

Don’t stand on the wrong side!

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TL Notes:

Some general translation notes:

1. Character and location names – there are a lot of them in this story. I’ll be adding the important ones to this glossary. I’ll try to keep important plot spoilers out of the glossary, but some people might consider just the existence of certain names/places a spoiler, so just be aware of that.
2. Cultivation terminology – this story kind of assumes you’re familiar with cultivation setting basics from the get-go. I’ll be updating the glossary (same as above) with some settings specific to this story, but if you’re confused, this article also has a lot of good generalized explanations.
3. “Fey” – In Chinese, this is yao, as in 妖精. Common to legend is that they’re animals (or sometimes even plants or objects) that cultivate until they achieve human form, and they can range from benign to malevolent. (I had a huge headache about how to translate this, since it often gets translated as “demon” or “spirit,” but there are actual demons in this story, and “spirit” clashes pretty frequently with other cultivation terminology. “Fey” is less commonly seen, but in my opinion, the connotations of the word match well with the understanding of fae in Western folklore.)
4. “Prodigy Leaderboard” – I so badly wanted to translate this as Fantasy Forbes 30 Under 30. So, so badly.