In Matoupo Village, Xu Ying sat still while Lu Si pressed his head down and poured water over it, scrubbing the blood from his hair.
"I've washed his hair like this his whole life," she said, tears falling. "Seven years. How is he not my son?"
The villagers surrounded them with pitchforks and kitchen knives, keeping Yuan Qi, the bell, and Zhu Chanchan from taking the boy away. They were weak. They were terrified of the serpent. But they stepped forward anyway.
Lu Si finished and wiped her eyes. "How is he not my son?"
Xu Ying sat up. "Mother... I might really not be your son. I remember things now. Fuzzy things. That big snake's surname is Niu, name Qi. We've been through life and death together. And the bell — I see flashes of it shielding me with its life."
Zhu Chanchan leaned in, bright-eyed. "What about me?"
Xu Ying hesitated. "Are you my child bride?"
She punched his head twice. "Dream on!"
"No wonder I don't remember you," he said. "If you were my child bride, I'd definitely recall. I do remember a girl who liked eating rouge."
He thought hard, and his face lit up. "I remember! Her name is Veyon! I loved eating the rouge from her lips!"
Yuan Qi glanced at the bell. Worry creased his serpentine face.
The bell chimed softly. "He mistakes Veyon for a girl. Still, it's progress. He's remembering."
Lu Si wiped her tears and looked at Xu Jin. Xu Jin said nothing.
The village elder shouted. "A-Ying's mother! One word from you and we'll fight these demons to keep the boy!"
Then the bell tolled. The sound rippled through every mind in the village, shattering the memory seals the three elders had planted.
These were ordinary people. The seals were crude. The bell broke them easily.
Memories flooded back. Three months ago, three strange men had brought Xu Ying to the village. Back then, no one knew him. Then suddenly everyone knew him, and everyone remembered Xu Jin pulling him from the river seven years ago.
Now the truth surfaced. The villagers looked at Xu Ying with naked fear.
What was this boy?
Why had their memories changed?
Xu Jin and Lu Si held each other, trembling, staring at their son with terror in their eyes.
"So I'm really not your son," Xu Ying said. He smiled, but his heart sank.
They shook their heads.
Xu Ying's nose stung. The wash water had gone cold, he told himself. Probably caught a chill.
Lu Si hesitated. Said nothing.
Xu Ying looked at them, lips moving.
Their memories were restored. They knew he wasn't their son, hadn't lived with them seven years. But Xu Ying's memories hadn't changed. He still loved them fiercely. He still remembered seven years of meals and laughter.
To him, they were still his parents.
He leaped onto the river surface. His sleeves swept wide, and massive fish flew from the water, landing on the bank — enough to feed the village for weeks.
Zhu Chanchan dropped a spirit pill into the well. "When it dissolves, drink from this well. You'll conceive your own child."
Yuan Qi slid into the Yuan River. The bell flew into Xu Ying's mind. Yuan Qi raised his head from the water, lifting Xu Ying onto his back, and swam east.
Xu Jin and Lu Si watched them go, something hollow in their chests.
* * *
For three months, Xu Ying crept back every night. He'd ride his sword thousands of li to Wuling, deliver fish or tools, and return to Mount Wuwang before dawn.
"You've repaid them," the bell said one morning, waiting on the mountain. "You're a cultivator. They're mortal. What seems small to you could destroy them. Don't make it worse."
Xu Ying's chest tightened. "You're right. I won't go again."
Yuan Qi slithered up. "A-Ying, your cultivation's stronger than before. Remember anything else?"
In three months on Mount Wuwang, Xu Ying had recovered and surpassed his old level. He was nearing the fourth heaven of the Gate-Breaking stage.
Fragments surfaced sometimes. Life in Jiangjia Village. Running with Yuan Qi and the bell. Veyon's face. Zhou Qiyun's tribulation.
But he couldn't stitch them together. Couldn't remember who he'd been.
Zhu Chanchan had grown into a half-grown girl, her aura ethereal, her cultivation profound. She wore Guo Xiaodie's clothes, which fit too tight. She hiked them up, then leaned close to examine the faint lightning mark between Xu Ying's brows.
"This seal," she said, "is a message he left before the lock snapped shut. I think when the seal triggered, he prepared an escape route."
Xu Ying sat obediently, her breath warm on his cheek. He blushed and looked away. "Chanchan, how much of the immortal medicine have you refined?"
"Only a little..."
She froze. Stared at him. "You remember me?"
He nodded. "On the way back from Wuling, something came back. But your cultivation's stalled. You should've refined that medicine by now."
"I have to suppress my level and study nuo arts first," she said. "Unify both paths. The Tusita Palace medicine alone isn't enough for ascension. The cultivator methods of my era never discovered the Six Secrets. Without opening all six, I won't survive the heavenly tribulation even if I digest every pill."
She straightened, eyes sharp. "While you were gone, I decided to open the Six Secrets alongside my cultivation. But there's a problem." Her voice dropped. "I can't open them."
Xu Ying laughed. "You don't have the dragon-vein mapping art. Of course you can't."
"I found your scrolls in Yuan Qi's belly," she said. "I read them. I'm not stupid — I located the secrets. But I still can't open them."
Xu Ying frowned.
Zhu Chanchan sat cross-legged. Her Primordial Spirit rose from her body, radiant and majestic, and took Xu Ying's hand.
His soul left his body. He looked down and saw himself glowing below.
"Oops. Wrong pull. Grabbed your body too."
She pushed him back down, seized his soul, and flew into her own mind.
They entered her Chaos Sea first. Even with his powerful soul, the surging immensity staggered him. Her Chaos Mud Pill loomed like a celestial sphere at the center, drawing everything toward its mass.
Zhu Chanchan's spirit gripped his hand. They flew over the endless sea, waves thundering with chaotic noise that scattered thought itself.
"Even my strongest arts can't crack this Mud Pill," she shouted. "It grows with my cultivation! When my Primordial Spirit first formed, this pill already weighed down the sea. Now it's dozens of times larger."
They passed the Twelve Towers and entered the Crimson Palace. Immortal fire blazed within. Any art here burned to ash. Opening this at the Gate-Breaking stage had been hard enough. Now it was impossible.
The Yellow Court and Jade Pool were worse. The primordial yellow qi crushed countless worlds. The jade-green qi had solidified like stone.
They stopped outside the Jade Pool. Zhu Chanchan sighed. "The great villains blocked the ascension path. To ascend, you need medicine from all six immortal palaces, not just Tusita. I don't have thirty thousand years to steal from the others. So the simplest way is opening the Six Secrets. But the stronger you get, the harder they are to open."
Xu Ying stared into the void. A terrible thought struck him. "If someone cultivated to the ascension stage... could they still open the Six Secrets?"
"No. At Tower-Scaling, even my strongest arts fail. I'd need the treasures I forged for the Zhou Son of Heaven to break through. At ascension?" She shook her head. "Even those treasures wouldn't work."
Xu Ying's eyes blazed. "I know why the Mud Pill owner set up his harvesting trap! He's an ascension-stage cultivator. He couldn't ascend, couldn't open his own Six Secrets, couldn't grow stronger. So he spread nuo arts and let others cultivate the secrets for him!"
"But he only spread the Mud Pill method..."
She caught his meaning. "You think he spread all six? Crimson Palace, Yellow Court, Jade Pool, Jade Capital, Bubbling Spring, Mud Pill — he harvests them all?"
Zhu Chanchan sucked in a breath. "That bastard... if my little junior brother were alive, would he be this ruthless?"
Xu Ying thought hard. "Six months ago, I opened the Yellow Court and fished for spiritual medicine. I didn't feel anyone watching. That means the Yellow Court owner is one of the three who already marked me."
He paused. "I don't know if Veyon completed the Primordial Dao Heavenly Sensing. If not, her ancestor Yuan Wuji is in danger."
When he thought of Veyon, Yuan Rusi's face surfaced instead. He stubbornly believed Veyon was the rouge-loving girl.
Footsteps on the mountain path. A young man approached, bowing. "Are you Xu Ying, senior? My master sent me with an invitation."
"Who's your master?"
"Xu Fu."