Qi Yuan drank until midnight before returning to Xiaoqiong Peak. Li Changshou hadn't seen his master this happy in seven or eight years; the old man even hummed a little tune as he walked.
Passing Li Changshou's door, Qi Yuan called: "Changshou? Cultivating?"
"Master, your disciple is resting. I've calmed my mind today and will resume cultivation tomorrow."
"Rest, rest. Your master must go back into seclusion. You did very well rescuing fellow disciple Youqin Xuanya of Potian Peak with your escape art — real glory for Xiaoqiong Peak. But don't grow conceited. Cultivation comes first; never obsess over escape arts, for your own path is the true foundation."
"Your disciple understands," Li Changshou answered within.
Qi Yuan stroked his beard: "Firmly consolidate your realm; cultivation can't be rushed. Rest now. Ling'e has been worrying over you; comfort her tomorrow."
"Yes," Li Changshou replied softly.
Qi Yuan chuckled, hummed his tune, and returned to his cottage, activating soundproofing and vigilance arrays for quiet seclusion.
Li Changshou glanced at the jade boxes in his storage artifact. Once he built the pill chamber he'd long dreamed of, he could refine the Immortal-Dissolving Pill. So long as he succeeded — and persuaded his master to carry it in hand during his tribulation — the old man's chances of survival would rise to nine in ten.
For beings born mortal who crave longevity, the heavenly tribulation is an unavoidable trial — once thunder falls, life and death are decided. And his master, wounded long ago, had a damaged dao foundation; his realm was never stable, his soul-power barely half that of a cultivator at the ninth rank of Return to the Dao. Without recourse, facing the tribulation would be pure death.
Yet his master, in his urgency, yearned to become immortal...
Qi Yuan was also this generation's Peak Master of Xiaoqiong Peak, the only one among the Du Xian Sect's peaks not yet an immortal; the elders never even notified Xiaoqiong Peak of their councils. Senior Uncle Jiu Jiu, who had joined a few years after him, was already a True Immortal, leaving him far behind.
A mortal qi cultivator cannot live past three thousand years, yet Qi Yuan could still live centuries more. But Li Changshou knew his master would neither suppress his realm nor gamble when his lifespan ran short — at times he sensed his master even harbored thoughts of seeking death beneath the tribulation.
It sounded stirring, but to Li Changshou the notion was both stubborn and foolish.
Thus had come fifteen years of secret preparation. Thus, for the first time, Li Changshou had broken his own principle, left the mountain's refuge for the Northern Jambu Continent, and upon discovering the Immortal-Resolution Grass had weighed the risks before scheming against the Three-Eyed Emerald Water Serpent and Yuwen Ling and the rest.
The first plan he'd prepared, "helping Master survive the tribulation," was built on using Immortal-Resolution Grass to refine the Immortal-Dissolving Pill. If his master could withstand the first bolt of heavenly thunder and produce his first thread of immortal aura, he could swallow one, feign death, and trigger a sword-release — dodging the tribulation to come.
An immortal who fails the tribulation becomes, after a sword-release, a "muddy immortal": weaker than a Primordial Immortal, yet spared a lifespan that lets him keep cultivating upward — at most to the True Immortal stage, the so-called Earth Immortal Path, set against the Heavenly Immortal Path.
In this first plan, Li Changshou had even mapped his master's old age: become an earthly immortal, take a leisurely post in the young, hand-hungry Tianting as an earth god or mountain-and-river spirit, and enjoy a little incense — outliving an ordinary True Immortal, and with merit perhaps even certain Heavenly Immortals. Once he and his junior sister were ready, they too could take posts and retire in peace. The perfect plan.
"Refining this pill isn't all that troublesome. With a True Immortal like Senior Uncle Jiu Jiu to help and extra ingredients, I could manage it. But..." his master was the typical sect qi cultivator, proud to the point of needless suffering; persuading him to use this to survive would be harder than hunting the grass itself. Yet a disciple must bear this karmic duty, and if push came to shove, there was always deceit — wrap the pill in sugar and call it a life-saving elixir...
At that thought, Li Changshou smiled faintly. Amid the chirping insects, he reviewed his excursion: his means against Primordial Immortals were insufficient; his paper-cut incarnation never fooled anyone up close; and his Five-Element Escape was sluggish in transitions, exposing ripples in the earth by that cypress's roots. He'd make these up — with no need to leave the mountain, cultivation was all he wanted. As for his own tribulation, he wasn't in a hurry: without ninety-nine hundredths of certainty he would never take that step, lest that last tenth have the Heavenly Dao throwing a tantrum.
*Thud!* A pebble struck the wooden wall. Li Changshou pinched his fingers to calculate the time: the hour of Yin had come without his notice. He rose and ambled toward his junior sister's cottage, where, over the ten years since she'd joined the sect, her tutoring and life guidance had mostly happened at this hour. At her door he knocked lightly; it opened by itself a crack, and he walked in.
Pink curtains rushed to greet him; even the rug had been swapped for pink. Behind the translucent screen, a familiar graceful silhouette lay sideways on the bed, facing inward, her gauze gown letting a little show through. But Li Changshou gave no second glance, going straight to the host's seat: "Stop pretending to sleep. That demure pose doesn't suit the you who sleeps for real."
From behind the screen came a coquettish whine: "Senior Brother, I was just practicing mixing Immortal-Weakening Powder. My head's all dizzy now, body gone soft, can't do a thing."
He made as if to rise: "Then we'll talk tomorrow. Nothing important anyway."
"Don't you dare!" Her act shattered. "Sit down! I'm coming out! Hmph, today you explain why you came back so late!"
After rustling, Blue Ling'e changed into a long dress, came around the screen, sat to the left of the table, and glared at him in a huff.
Li Changshou smiled helplessly: "I did run into complications. Yuan Qing of Potian Peak — do you know him?"
"Mn," she blinked. "The Potian Peak disciple who went north with you that day, second-ranked in cultivation among our generation. They say he's quite gentle."
"Remember: a man's gentleness is always only skin-deep. This time he schemed against Youqin Xuanya and ended up killed by her — a textbook case of sacrificing the greater for the lesser, giving up his standing in the Du Xian Sect to chase fleeting worldly power."
Ling'e propped her chin on her hand: "Senior Brother, what actually happened?"
Li Changshou spoke slowly: "Youqin Xuanya is the Sixth Princess of a mundane kingdom in the Southern Jambu Continent. Yuan Qing was a powerful official's non-primary son, the Fourth Young Master, his mother a formidable concubine from another powerful family. These people fixed their sights on the Sixth Princess, sent to the Du Xian Sect to cultivate: if Yuan Qing married her, he'd become prince consort, gain weight in his clan, and keep the faint chance of scheming for the throne. But he never won her in sixty years; his backers, beset and impatient, resolved to gamble dangerously..."
He gave his junior sister a brief rundown. "Now they've caught the blame; both families will no doubt be uprooted by their sovereign to appease the sect's fury."
Watching her thoughtful face, he asked gently: "Little'e, what can you learn from this story?"
"Mn—" Ling'e deliberated, then declared: "A woman absolutely must never be a concubine! Otherwise fighting for power at home is a real pain!"
"*Cough!*" He pressed a hand to his forehead. "Anything else?"
"This Yuan Qing's plotting was far too crude. And those branch factions gravely underestimated the Du Xian Sect and the worth of its disciples. The correct approach," she analyzed earnestly, "would be to suppress Youqin Xuanya, endure in obscurity for millennia until the Heavenly Immortal stage, then quietly become the hidden dark king of that kingdom. Depending on being a sovereign's son-in-law is pure fantasy — these sovereigns never lack heirs."
Li Changshou: "..."
"Forget it, take it as entertainment. Your own family is a mundane noble house; I meant only to remind you to beware."
"Hehe," she smiled. "Don't worry, Senior Brother. Without you, Ling'e would go nowhere."
Chuckling, he shook his head: "Bring out your medicine pouch — I'll top it up for you. This trip must have used some."
Guilt flooded her face. She sat up straight, folded her hands on her knees, and let her bright eyes drift, pretending to be... obedient, adorable, lost in thought.
It's only that the poison powders and pills her senior brother gave her — this trip, she hadn't, hadn't wasted many at all, honest.