Outside Haojing, Su Yan spotted Zhu Chanchan from far off. The girl had grown into a young woman, and she sprinted toward him in a burst of joy. His spirits lifted, and he laughed out loud, leaping off Yuan Qi's head and spreading his arms wide.
Whoosh.
Zhu Chanchan tore straight past him. Wham — one punch sent the delighted great serpent flat on his belly.
Yuan Qi had been holding his head high. The blow straightened him out, chin thudding into the dirt.
Zhu Chanchan lifted his jaw and marched into his mouth. A cheer echoed from inside: "Still here! All my treasures are still here!"
The muffled voice came out of Yuan Qi's nostrils. "Nobody's stealing my babies... hey, there's more of them now!"
Su Yan waited. Presently Zhu Chanchan pushed the serpent's jaws open and stepped out, beaming.
She studied Yuan Qi, then whacked him twice more. The serpent felt refreshed, his spirit soaring. "Grandma Chanchan's fists grow stronger every time. Strange — a couple of knocks from you and my cultivation feels sharper."
Zhu Chanchan darted a glance at his rear. Her mark was still there. She sighed with relief.
Then she saw Jin Buyi. Her eyes lit up. She bounded over and hammered him twice — and burst into tears. Jin Buyi was ancient and weak, but his divine strength still reigned supreme. She couldn't move him at all. Her hands nearly shattered on impact.
Su Yan lifted the great bell from Yuan Qi's neck. "Chanchan, Bell Lord is wounded. Please patch him up. Everything in Seven Lord's belly is my collection. Use whatever materials you need — don't hold back."
Zhu Chanchan took the bell. Its walls were battered almost beyond repair; only eight immortal runes remained intact. By any standard, it was scrap.
"Anything in Yuan Qi's belly, I can use however I like?" Her eyes sparkled as she fixed them on Su Yan.
He laughed. "As long as it heals Bell Lord — use as much as you want!"
Zhu Chanchan cheered.
Su Yan noticed she was thinner than before. "What have you been up to, Chanchan? You've vanished for two years."
"The Zhou Son of Heaven asked me to rebuild Haojing," she said. "He gave me a heavy responsibility. I was his old subject — how could I refuse?"
In the distance, a Great Zhou cultivator cracked his whip. "Craftsman Zhu! Enough chatting. Back to work!"
She called back, "My friends are here!"
"Work or no dinner!"
"Coming, coming!"
She waved it off and smiled at Su Yan. "I rank high in Haojing. They can't manage an hour without me. At dinner I'll have the cooks save you extra portions. As for fixing Bell Lord — wait until my shift ends..."
Su Yan watched her hurry away. Yuan Qi murmured, "A-Ying, Grandma Chanchan doesn't seem happy."
A cultivator tossed Zhu Chanchan a pair of shackles. "Put those on."
She wore them and went to supervise the work.
Jiang Qi's voice carried over. "Craftsman Zhu wasn't executed. That alone is grace beyond the law. Under Great Zhou law, her crimes merit the extreme penalty."
Su Yan bowed. "Grand Preceptor Jiang. We meet again."
Jiang Qi returned the bow and studied Jin Buyi, surprise flickering across his face. Then his expression shifted, as if recalling something. He turned to his attendants. "Do not slight this golden crow."
Su Yan explained his purpose. Jiang Qi smiled. "A friend of Elder A-Ying's is wounded? Then not a moment's delay. Someone — fetch Craftsman Zhu."
Soon Zhu Chanchan was brought back. Jiang Qi said, "Craftsman Zhu, Elder A-Ying's friend is hurt. Take a few days off and mend his bell. Do not treat it lightly."
Zhu Chanchan stared at Su Yan in astonishment. She had no idea he commanded such influence that Jiang Qi would intervene for him. She was the Celestial Craftsman overseeing Haojing's entire restoration. If she stopped, the city's work ground to a halt.
Was Su Yan merely an immortal who had lived long enough to earn such a favor from Jiang Qi?
Su Yan handed her the bell. "Craftsman Zhu, Bell Lord is in your hands."
She carried it off, calling Yuan Qi over. "I need the hottest fire!"
Jin Buyi craned his head over. "How about me?"
Zhu Chanchan led them away.
Jiang Qi studied Su Yan. "Elder A-Ying, your brow is heavy. What troubles you?"
Su Yan let out a long breath and told him everything. "I've witnessed the greatest qi cultivators, the finest nuo masters. I see how far I still have to go. I want to advance — but I no longer know the way."
Jiang Qi considered this. "I am not the strongest in Great Zhou. I would not crack the top ten. In time, every cultivator in the dynasty will walk both the qi and nuo paths, and I'll rank even lower. I'm afraid I cannot answer your question."
Su Yan said gravely, "If you walked both paths, you could enter the top ten. Even hold first place, I think."
Jiang Qi shook his head. "I am Great Zhou's strategist. I don't need overwhelming force — adequate force serves. To me, wisdom is worth a hundred times more than strength."
He had once had the chance to cultivate both paths. But he needed to reach the pinnacle in the shortest time, to master the Heaven-Punishing Sword and execute his plan to protect the Zhou Son of Heaven. So he had given it up.
Jiang Qi continued: "Most people merely learn their ancestral techniques and spend a lifetime refining them to Ascension. The world calls them geniuses. But most of them are mediocrities. Master a couple of new techniques, and men name you a Grand Master. Elder A-Ying, you comprehended the Eight Yuan Tones, studied the Heavenly Dao runes, grasped Heavenly Dao techniques, and delved into immortal runes. You have long surpassed the vast majority."
Su Yan's face fell. "But those were things the old me did, the old me understood. I still can't call myself a Grand Master."
"Yet what you understood — how many men could achieve in a hundred lifetimes?" Jiang Qi sighed, summoned a cultivator to lodge Su Yan in Haojing, and departed.
Su Yan settled in. Meals and lodging were arranged; he had nothing to do but rest. But he couldn't stay idle. When he rested, he went to help Zhu Chanchan repair the bell.
"Chanchan — did you build Haojing?"
Su Yan realized the city was a colossal artifact. Every street, every house, every bridge and canal was assembled from different classes of treasures. He was awed.
Zhu Chanchan's face dimmed. "My master designed it. He never finished. I completed it for him."
She drew broken artifact fragments from Yuan Qi's mouth and had Jin Buyi melt them down with his fire, extracting the precious ore. As she worked, she told her master's story.
"Haojing is the Zhou Son of Heaven's capital. In those days, he dreamed of lifting the entire nation to the immortal realm. For that, he needed a city vast enough to carry everyone aloft."
The firelight flickered across her face.
Forging such a vessel required a mind that comprehended the heavens: supreme experience with artifacts, mastery of casting and rune-engraving, and absolute command of space.
"Men with that gift were called Celestial Craftsmen. My master and I — we were the greatest of them!"
The task fell to her master and herself. Her master told the Zhou Son of Heaven that even if every mine in the land were stripped, Haojing could never carry him through the tribulation.
"Strip the realm of all its bronze — can it defy Heaven's judgment? The city falls, and men die, gaining only a bloody name. Spend every life in the land — can it defy Heaven's judgment? The nation falls, and all perish, earning only infamy."
Hearing this, the Zhou Son of Heaven flew into a rage. He ordered her master executed and his entire clan slaughtered. Many heads rolled.
Before he died, her master told her: never let the Zhou Son of Heaven pursue the nation-lifting ascension.
"He couldn't face the tribulation alone, so he tried to drag the whole realm into it — betting that Heaven would not dare destroy all its people."
"But Heaven is heartless. It cares nothing for the masses. If the nation ascends, the nation will fall."
"After my master died, Haojing's forging fell to me." Firelight glittered in Zhu Chanchan's eyes, then a clear tear slid down her cheek. "From that day, no matter how much ore the Zhou Son of Heaven hauled in, it could never fill Haojing's bottomless pit. With me as Celestial Craftsman, he could never finish this city."
"So," Su Yan said, "in the end, he settled for the Other Shore Ship — to carry his court across the sea. Am I right?"
Zhu Chanchan laughed. "He nearly failed at that too. He knew I had stolen a great deal, but he never dared kill me. Kill me, and no one else could finish the ship."
Yuan Qi was puzzled. "Grandma Chanchan, why didn't you board the Other Shore Ship?"
Zhu Chanchan said flatly, "A criminal's disciple has no place aboard. Only the noble-born could board. I was Celestial Craftsman in name — but to the Zhou Son of Heaven, a craftsman is no different from a silkworm tender or a fisherman."
Yuan Qi muttered, "Those who built the ship had no seat aboard, while those who never lifted a hammer sailed off in comfort. What kind of justice is that?"
Jin Buyi, dozing while he breathed great sunfire, cracked one cloudy eye open. "That's how it's always been. Look at the mud-caked men who raise houses — how many of them can afford to live in one?"
Su Yan exhaled. "But the Zhou Son of Heaven is coming back. Your Flying Peak is bigger than the Other Shore Ship. That crime is enough to send you to your master."
Zhu Chanchan smiled. "Don't worry. I'll find a way to escape."
The bell had been cast from ordinary bronze, and the recent battle had wrecked it. Zhu Chanchan decided to forge it anew.
Su Yan had gathered many artifact fragments in Taiyi Minor Xuantian — treasures of the mightiest cultivators across the Ten Thousand Worlds, rich beyond counting.
Extracting those materials took Zhu Chanchan enormous effort. More than ten days passed, and still the bell was not done.
Jiang Qi had permitted her to finish the bell first, but the delay gnawed at him. He came to urge her on several times.
Su Yan returned to his quarters and pondered his path.
One day, a realization struck him: "What is a technique? What is a divine art? What is martial arts? What were they created for?"
Excitement surged. "Rebellion!"
"To resist the storm winds when they tear at our homes!"
"To resist the floods when they swallow our lives!"
"To resist the beasts when they feed on us!"
"To resist the powerful when they leave us no way to live!"
"To resist Heaven itself when it tramples us!"
He leaped to his feet, laughing. "When humanity was weak, we had no beast's claws, no tyrant's hosts, no storm's fury, no flood's might, no Heaven's authority. When we began to fight back, all we had was these fists!"
"Our ancestors used their bare bodies against flood and beast, against Heaven and tyranny. Every technique, every divine art — they all began with martial arts!"
He stopped chasing technique manuals. He cast aside the inner maps of qi cultivation and divine arts. He turned his gaze inward, stirred his qi and blood — and his golden core rose from the furnace, blazing through his body.
"Let us begin with the fist!"