# Chapter 157: The One Who Set Out Never to Return
To the south, the Kingdom of Yong shared with the Kingdom of Zhuang only a small stretch of border; most of its frontier was cut off by the Qichang Range. To the northwest of Yong lay a small country called Chen. Small as it was, within its borders stood a famous and dreaded place, the Valley of No Return. No one could say whence its danger came, but true to its name, every man who entered it never came back.
In the mist of early morning, a woman with long hair falling past her shoulders walked upon the fog into the valley. She wore a featureless mask, sinister and strange, yet her figure was exquisite.
The valley's interior was open and broad, not fierce at all as people imagined. The atmosphere was peaceful: strange flowers vying to bloom, a brook babbling clear. At the center stood a wooden cabin, the stream running before its door; chickens strolled on the bank, and a yellow dog lay curled before the threshold.
The woman stood before the cabin and shouted: "Boss!" Her voice startled the dog into a scramble and sent the chickens flapping.
Still no sound came from within. She seemed used to it, and was about to shout again when, with a creak, the wooden door swung open and a grey-haired old man came out. He seemed hard of hearing, and speaking came with difficulty.
"You've come, Yanzi?"
"I've come!" she shouted. "Don't call me Yanzi anymore!"
The old man nodded: "Yanzi, little Bear Wen sent me a letter with a drawing of a dog on it. You don't suppose... he's developed a taste for dog meat?"
The yellow dog whimpered and, tail between its legs, scurried off behind the cabin.
"Who knows what year you're talking about." She sighed and shouted: "Bear Wen died long ago!"
"Bear Wen's dead?" It seemed the old man had not quite taken it in.
"Boss! He's been dead for months! The whole of Fenglin City is gone!"
"Bear Wen's dead, is he? Then I'd better go and see." His lips trembling, he said: "Yanzi, go and see for me."
"I've just done a job for you!" she ground her teeth and complained under her breath, but in the end she raised her voice: "Right you are, Boss!"
She was nothing like this doddering old man. One foot stamped, and she had already sprung up and shot off into the mist. The fog scattered, then gathered again.
The grey-haired old man was silent for a long while before scratching his head: "What was it I meant to say just now?" He gave up without further ado and went back inside. "Best to sleep well while you're living, so you won't sleep poorly after you're dead."
Time moved steadily on. The building of the minor Zhou Heavenly circulation secured the Zhou Heavenly Circulation Realm; the turning of the Major marked the arrival of the Seventh-Peak Heaven-Access Realm.
After days of travelling—the lands passed along the way need no mention—he had now entered the territory of Qi. On a nameless little mountain, Jiang Wang sat cross-legged upon a great rock. Within his Heaven-Access Palace, nine clusters of starry river-channels wheeled without cease; with three clusters to a minor circulation, they hung suspended at the upper, middle, and lower levels of the palace.
The first minor circulation was of sun, moon, and stars, of heaven and earth running crosswise, of a universe without end. The second was of mountains and rivers, of the great earth, through the drift of the ages. In the third, he pondered himself: journeying forward, for what purpose had he come, and whither bound? After a journey of ten thousand li, his Dao-heart had been whetted like a blade. He saw through his own thoughts and desires, deeds and aims, and would walk on in them unchanged to the very end.
Heaven is the stars, earth the mountains and rivers, and man himself. The Major Zhou Heavenly Circulation gathered up this vast conception, the Three Powers united, the cycle wheeling round. At last—heaven was reached!
Though the sky was without a single cloud, he heard thunder rolling. Feeling it closely, he knew it was no thunder of heaven and earth, but a roar from some unknowable place. Behind him, in a dim, shifting void, a lofty great gate loomed into sight—the reflection of his body, a milestone on the road of cultivation.
Between heaven and earth there stands a gate, and man is the Heaven-Earth Gate.
It was the third day of the third month, the year three thousand nine hundred and eighteen of the Dao Calendar. Jiang Wang's cultivation was complete. He had achieved the Major circulation and formally entered the Heaven-Access Realm.
In the simplest sense, it was only upon entering this realm that one could set out toward the Heaven-Earth Gate. For many cultivators, consolidating the Major circulation, seeing into oneself, and probing the way to the gate was a slow, drawn-out process. Even Zhao Lang had been slow to find his road, lingering in the Heaven-Access Realm for years, endlessly burnishing his Dao arts. But Jiang Wang's building had been perfect, his accumulation rich—from the very first instant he achieved the Major he had already seen the gate.
He rose from the stone platform. To have seen the gate was not to push it open and send his Dao vein rearing in a Dragon-Rising leap. What he faced was but a first glimpse; the gate's finer details were not yet manifest. And from seeing the gate to pushing it open was another transformation in kind.
Moreover, the Heavenly Treasury Secret Realm he was about to enter admitted only cultivators of the Sixth-Peak Dragon-Rising Realm and below. Any strong cultivator who had pushed open the Heaven-Earth Gate, however he disguised it, would bring the passage crashing down the instant he entered—what Zhen the Invincible had impressed upon him again and again. Jiang Wang now knew his true name: this portly fellow was born to the celebrated Chongxuan clan of Qi, and his given name was a single one—Sheng.
While Jiang Wang had been far off in Zhuang, he had heard nothing of the world. But travelling along this road, before he had even reached Qi, the Chongxuan clan's renown had already thundered in his ears—showing him what a true great house looked like, far beyond the three great surnames of Fenglin City or the Lin of Wangjiang City.
At the Heaven-Access Realm, the capacity of his Heaven-Access Palace was again increased, and he could carve a new instant-cast Dao art into it—but he set the matter aside for now. In offense his Dao arts had the Flame Flower, his swordsmanship the Purple Qi from the East. His defense rested entirely on the Four Spirit Body-Tempering Art; in escaping arts he had accomplished nothing. The White Bone Escape Art was formidable, but he no longer dared to use it.
The trouble was that though he had both a Dao-Platform for deriving new arts and merit accrued, he lacked a suitable Dao art to serve as the foundation for such derivation. Even the cleverest housewife cannot cook without rice. This was one of the drawbacks of losing a stable environment: no master remained to resolve his doubts, no arts bequeathed by the ancients to choose among. Yet no road ahead, however hard, could hold him back.
He and Chongxuan Sheng had agreed on a time within the Taixu Illusory Realm. Once he broke through, he lingered no more, passing no city unentered, staying at no inn, speeding with all haste to the appointed place.
By the coast of Qi lay a commandery containing a small city called Heavenly Treasury City. It had begun as a fishing village; ever since the Old Celestial Treasury left his secret realm here, great numbers of cultivators had gathered at every opening. At first there was utter chaos, but Qi's officialdom set down rules and allotted quotas to the parties, and the process grew secure. The village grew, and over the years became the Heavenly Treasury City of today.
Each opening of the Heavenly Treasury Secret Realm yielded fifty places in all, and Qi set aside ten of them for outsiders to contend over. Those who gained something in the realm, Qi would court; those who gained nothing were escorted courteously out. Over the years, any man who carried off a prize, so long as he did not die young, would in the end become a formidable cultivator—and even those who did not join Qi often held it in good will.
On the official road ten li north of Heavenly Treasury City, a single rider came at full speed, kicking up a plume of dust. A gust of wind rolled the dust into one coil, and when it settled, the rider was gone. The horse ran on a while before it realized its back was empty. For a moment it did not know whether to go left or right. Then it lowered its head, sniffed around, and left the road alone.