Chapter 353 — Soft-Hearted

The Three Primes elders saluted him together, and the Perfected One of the Heaven Prime asked in surprise, "Why has the Human Sovereign come out without undergoing the Five Qi breakthrough?"

Shen Mu's legs were still trembling. "The Five Luminaries saw that my condition was poor, and permitted me to enter the Hall of Five Qi again in the future to make the challenge another day. Immortal Qingyou, as for the trial of the Hall of Five Qi — might you grant me a few days' grace?"

Qingyou's expression eased, and he said gravely, "In the Human Sovereign's present state, it is indeed unfit for him to go on fighting. Beyond the Hall of Five Qi lies the Hall of the Six Harmonies, and our two friends the old Daoist Master and the old Tathagata will need some time before they are familiar with it. Very well: the Human Sovereign may come again to Little Jade Capital after a while, and break through the Hall of Five Qi and the Hall of the Six Harmonies together."

Shen Mu ventured, "Then, as to the matter of inviting an expert of Little Jade Capital to descend the mountain..."

Qingyou laughed. "I had only meant that if you defeated my three disciples of Little Jade Capital, I would go down the mountain with you. Now your Three Primes breakthrough has exceeded all my expectations. Since I gave you my word, I cannot take it back."

Shen Mu was astonished. Since he had come up the mountain, Qingyou had never once shown him a kind face, only cold mockery — so why was he so agreeable now?

Qingyou said to the Three Primes elders, "Elder brothers, I will go down the mountain with the Human Sovereign to deal with certain worldly affairs. I shall be away for some days, and I must ask you three to bear a little more of the burden."

The Perfected One of the Water Prime said, "The red dust is full of disturbance; it is hard to still an immortal's heart. Junior brother, going down the mountain, beware lest the purity of that heart be unsettled."

Qingyou laughed. "I have already gone through my trials in the red dust of the world, and my worldly heart died long ago. Rest easy; I will certainly come back."

He then summoned Wang Muran, Mu Qingdai and Long Yu. "I am going down the mountain with the Human Sovereign. You shall come with me. There is no need to wither away your whole lives on Little Jade Capital; keeping company with old men and old women like us is no pleasure."

The three were startled and overjoyed. They had long wished to go down the mountain, but the rules of Little Jade Capital were strict, and Qingyou ordinarily never permitted them to go down for training.

Qingyou then took his leave of the old Daoist Master and the old Tathagata. The two old men laughed. "We have only just shaken off worldly affairs, and came to Little Jade Capital seeking quiet, and now you are leaping into the red dust again. Immortal Qingyou, we fear that once you are dyed with the red dust you will never leap out of it again!"

Qingyou said gravely, "You worry too much. I go down the mountain only to keep my word, and once my word is kept I will return. Worldly matters cannot trip me."

"Let us hope so."

Qingyou then invited two more old immortals. "Wandering Cloud, Hidden River — you two elder brothers are masters of the divining arts. Come down the mountain with me for a turn, will you not?"

The two old immortals laughed. "A walk down the mountain will do us good."

Wang Muran rode up on a great stag. The stag had been the mount of Loose Immortal Zhen; when Zhen died at the hands of the Imperial Preceptor of Jingping, his mount had passed into Wang Muran's keeping.

The great deer was in no way inferior to the Dragon Qilin. Because the Dragon Qilin was fat, the stag actually looked the more imposing of the two, and it cast a disdainful glance at the Dragon Qilin, holding that cat-like fat creature in utter contempt.

The Dragon Qilin was long used to this and paid it no mind. Xiong Qi'er whispered, "Fat Dragon, the big deer is despising you."

"Let him spit in my face and I will let it dry."

The Dragon Qilin, evidently long since enlightened, said, "Let him be as overbearing as he likes — the clear wind sweeps the mountain ridge."

The party left Little Jade Capital. Qingyou looked back once and was moved. He said to the headman, "Many years ago, when I left this place following you, my heart was full of grand ambition, wholly bent on achieving some deed that would shake heaven and earth. When I came back, my will was broken, and all that ambition had been ground away to nothing. I thought I would never leave again — and now your disciple has talked me out of Little Jade Capital. Fate does play tricks on a man."

"It was not Shen'er who drew you out; it was your own heart that stirred."

The headman said, with meaning, "Is it the wind that moves, or the banner? The benevolent man's heart moves, that is all."

Qingyou laughed heartily. "You are wrong. My worldly heart is dead and will never come back to life!"

The headman shook his head and laughed. "A knife for a mouth and tofu for a heart. Shen'er, pay no mind to the way this old fellow always snarls at you — he is in truth the most fragile of men. If you break his heart, that tofu heart of his will shatter all over the ground, and no amount of pasting will put it back together!"

Qingyou sneered, "My heart shattered beyond pasting? You were the one lying on the ground weeping just now!"

The headman was furious. "When the immortal maiden Xueqi left you all those years ago, who was it that lay on the ground weeping like a figure of tears?"

"You cried so piteously just now that the Human Sovereign had to hold you."

"When you shamelessly wept and begged her to take you back, did you ever think I would be throwing it in your face today?"

"And you wiped your snot on the Human Sovereign's chest!"

...

Shen Mu's eyes went wide. The two old men's ages together must come to sixteen hundred years at least, and here they were quarreling without pause, dragging up each other's failings and digging out every shameful story.

"The longer they live, the younger they get. A pair of old children."

Shen Mu shook his head and thought, "Where has Cripple Grandpa gone? If the Daoist expert did not catch up with him, he has likely entered Little Jade Capital already. I have been delayed here two or three days; in that time Cripple Grandpa could have turned Little Jade Capital upside down several times over. And I wonder how the fighting on the grasslands goes — has the Imperial Preceptor of Jingping reached the Golden Palace of Loulan?"

At the Great Snow Mountain, outside the Golden Palace of Loulan, all was grim and still.

The Imperial Preceptor of Jingping stood with his hands clasped behind his back, his face expressionless, his gaze resting upon the towering, glittering palace. Behind him the tens of thousands of the Jingping army stood in perfect ranks and made no sound; even the strange beasts in their ranks were silent.

"Imperial Preceptor of Jingping, Khagan Luandi has come to surrender!" A general stepped forward and bowed.