Su Yan looked back once. The Fusang tree stood against the horizon like a burning mountain, smaller with every step.
"The people who worship Jin Buyi will keep him fed," he told himself. "That should help."
He turned to Xue Ying'an. "You reached Yunmeng Marsh before us. What happened after?"
Xue Ying'an told the tale. When the stone city blazed its way out of the Minor Xuantian and back into the marsh, the nuo families had scattered. Guo Xiaodie had waited several days for Su Yan before leaving with a heavy heart.
"I waited too," Xue Ying'an said. "I wanted to invite you to Jiucai Ridge together. But after what you told me about my master, I couldn't sit still. I had to know the truth. So I went back alone."
He had confessed everything to Li Xiaoke — the spiritual root, the near-death, the suspicions. Li Xiaoke had been happy for him. Night after night, Xue Ying'an lay awake, waiting for the blade that never came.
"Ten days. Nothing happened. After that, I knew you were wrong."
Su Yan nodded slowly. "Your master is a better man than I thought."
Yuan Qi slithered closer, thoughtful. "A-Ying, Grand Preceptor Jiang sent his voice across all worlds. Everyone had to surrender their hidden spiritual roots or face heavenly punishment. He even destroyed one world to make the point. Could that be why Li Xiaoke guessed Xue Ying'an was lying?"
Su Yan blinked. "Li Xiaoke knew his disciple was kind. A kind man would never let an entire world burn just to keep a root. So Li Xiaoke knew Xue Ying'an had surrendered it." He looked at Yuan Qi. "Since when are you this sharp?"
Yuan Qi stared at his own tail. "I don't know. I've been forgetting things, but my mind feels clearer."
The bell hummed. "Perhaps all those books you read were cluttering your brain. Now that you've lost some memories, there's more room for actual thinking."
"You're saying I have a small brain?" Yuan Qi hissed. "You did this to me! You owe me!"
The bell soothed him, privately horrified. The snake really had gotten smarter.
"A-Ying, you need to break that second seal quickly," the bell whispered. "Before he starts calculating interest on our debts."
Su Yan was already working on it, studying the runes as they walked. He had broken the seals on more than thirty past-life bodies. Each time, the body's cultivation returned to him — not much, since most of those lives had only practiced the Grand Unity Daoyin Art to the Qi-Gathering stage. But at the forty-fifth life, he found something stronger. A nuo master who had cultivated a Crimson Palace secret art.
"Another韭菜," Su Yan thought. "Cut down before the harvest."
"Master!" Xue Ying'an called out. "We're here!"
Su Yan looked up. Nine dragons of stone and earth coiled around a single mountain peak, their heads turned inward, mouths open as if offering a throne to the sky. The peak they held was Jiucai Ridge.
On its slopes, green chives grew in neat rows, bright and healthy. A man in farmer's clothes worked among them, swinging a sickle with easy rhythm.
Xue Ying'an pointed. "That's my master."
Li Xiaoke straightened. He held a bundle of fresh chives in one hand and a sickle in the other. His smile was warm, his eyes sharp.
"Old friends meet again," he called. "I haven't harvested enough for a proper meal yet. Care to help me cut some, Undying Immortal?"