The key of the Flame Flower lay not in the flame, but in the flower.
And the key to the flower lay not in its form, but in its spirit.
In truth, when Bai Lian did battle with Ji Xuan by the banks of the Clear River, she too had displayed a Flame Flower kindled from white flame, its inspiration, surely, drawn from same Blossomfire City-Burner of Zhuo Lie.
Jiang Chen had walked into a wrong path from the very outset. He had tried to carve a flower by manipulating fire-element primal energy, and thanks to the subtlety of Swift Seal Casting, he had managed the deed. But the flower of flame he maintained with such painstaking effort was, in the end, only flame — not a flower.
And so it could not "bloom."
One should not go out of one's way to shape a flower. It ought to come into being of its own accord.
Jiang Chen quietly formed a seal, and a single point of fire-element primal energy generated at his fingertip.
Under careful, measured channeling of his Dao essence, it gradually swelled.
Jiang Chen imagined himself watering the soil, enriching it, and that initial point of fire-element primal energy was the seed of the flower.
Primal energy was its nourishment, and a Dao cultivator's spirit was its vitality.
It grew, it strengthened, it sprouted...
At last, a tiny Flame Flower opened upon his fingertip.
Between its petals ran faint, almost natural patterns of interlocking array runes.
They built beauty together, and condensed within them an extraordinarily powerful force of destruction.
Each flower possessed a beauty all its own.
This Flame Flower was unlike Dean Dong's Flame Flower, and absolutely unlike Zhuo Lie's own. It was a Flame Flower belonging to Jiang Chen alone.
Because he, had bestowed upon it "life."
It was life in another form.
Though it fell within the ranks of superior third-grade Dao arts, it was utterly unlike the Dao arts of its kind.
Only such a Flame Flower could develop into that Flame Flower City-Burner which had astonished everyone.
Yet Jiang Chen felt no pride at having achieved the Flame Flower.
On the contrary, only awe.
The Flame Flower was merely the foundation of the art known as Flame Flower City-Burner, and already it was enough to capture the study of an expert of Dean Dong's caliber. And rumor had it that when Zhuo Lie had first created the art of Flame Flower City-Burner, he had been only nineteen — the same age as Ling Chuan was now.
What a brilliant and radiant genius he had been!
What was his own dominance at the same rank of the Maple Forest City Dao Academy worth, then? Or, as Zhen Wudi said, even if he climbed to the very top of the Spirit Wander realm within the Grand Illusionary Realm, what was that worth?
True experts set their gaze on far more than the sight before their eyes.
Having mastered the Flame Flower, Jiang Chen was confident that of every ten duels with Zhen Wudi, he could now stably claim victory in three or more.
For he too now possessed a means to threaten Zhen Wudi without closing distance, and the space of choices in battle had widened enormously — this was no mere incremental stride.
In their earlier fights, if Zhen Wudi did not throw open his secret arts, he could no longer get the better of the exchange.
There was less and less improvement to be gained from sparring with Zhen Wudi.
And so, re-entering the Grand Illusionary Realm, Jiang Chen resolutely ignored the fat man Zhen and began a new round of matchmaking on the Sword Discourse Platform.
...
Fang Lin stepped into the ancestral hall, and what awaited him was not the three-part tribunal he had imagined, but only his father, Fang Zesheng, alone.
The man stood facing the soul tablets of the Fang clan's forebears, arms clasped behind his back.
"Father." Fang Lin called out in a low voice.
Fang Zesheng turned around and, raising his hand, dealt him a slap across the face.
Crack!
"Do you know what you have been doing?"
Fang Lin's cheek swelled up at once, but he did not cry out in pain, and dared not even dodge.
"I know." he said.
Crack!
"You know?" Fang Zesheng demanded.
Crack!
The back of his hand delivered another slap.
"You know?"
Fang Lin said not a word.
"Do you know how matters stand in the State of Yun at this moment? Do you know that the person you helped the caravan cover for may well be a demon of the Bone Lotus Path — may even be Ouyang Lie himself?"
"Do you know what the Bone Lotus Path is? Do you know how Xiaolin Town was wiped out? Those people are true devils, slaying the living and defiling the dead — what is there they would not do! And you say you know?"
"Do you know what will happen if you are tied up with them? The State of Yun's business you can kiss goodbye — Wei Quji alone would skin you alive, and would drag the entire Fang clan down with you! And you say you know?"
Fang Zesheng's fingers trembled with rage, and he raised his hand to deal Fang Lin another slap.
"They put something in me!" Fang Lin cried out, his voice dropping low. "If I do not obey, I will die."
"That time before, when your whole squad was wiped out on a mission?"
"Yes." Fang Lin explained the events of that day.
"It is a conspiracy!" Fang Zesheng raged when he had heard it all. "You are a fool who has been manipulated and made game of!"
"But I had no choice. Father."
"I listened to you. I strove to catch up with Jiang Chen, I wanted to prove to you that I could. I cultivated hard, I trained eagerly. Whatever task Jiang Chen could take, I could too! But those people were too strong — the moment they met my fellow disciples, they killed them. Do I not also know full well that it was a conspiracy?" Fang Lin said, "But I do not want to die. Father."
"No. No." Fang Zesheng shook his head. "I will find someone to think of a way for whatever you swallowed. But this must be reported to the city lord. When a matter touches the Bone Lotus Path, our Fang clan cannot bear it! Even if your clan uncle is willing to help, it is useless — no one in the Fang clan can bear it!"
The Fang clan of Maple Forest City did in fact have one great figure among them. In his youth he had joined the army, and now he was already the chief general of the Maple Forest City city guard. Yet he came from a collateral branch, had received no clan resources while growing up, and bore no particular closeness to the Fang clan.
He was utterly loyal to Wei Quji, who had shown him a debt of gratitude. Minor requests brought before him he might see to; a matter like this he would never condone.
If he had any choice, Fang Zesheng would gladly shoulder it for his son. But he knew very well he could not withstand it. Even were he to stake the entire Fang clan, it would still be so.
"Father, you cannot do this." Fang Lin took a step to the right, planting himself before Fang Zesheng.
"Get out of my way!" Fang Zesheng slapped him across the face.
But Fang Lin still stood his ground, only turning back the head that had been knocked aside, and meeting his father's gaze he said, "If Wei Quji learns that I am entangled with the Bone Lotus Path, your son is truly finished! There is no way Dean Dong will shield me!"
"You are already finished!" Fang Zesheng roared, and he seemed weary. "Now I must preserve the Fang clan."
"Father." Fang Lin suddenly struck, seizing Fang Zesheng in a grip and pressing him down into one of the armchairs set along the two sides of the ancestral hall.
"I am not finished. I have already reached the Zhou Heavenly realm, and the Grand Unity realm is within sight."
There was a touch of madness in his tone.
"Fang Lin! What do you think you are doing?" Fang Zesheng barked.
"Father, you cannot begin to imagine what a force the Bone Lotus Path can mobilize. There are countless powers helping Ouyang Lie flee the State of Yun, and our caravan is only one of them. He could appear in any company at all; it does not have to be ours. But we — we need the Bone Lotus Path." Fang Lin pressed down on his father's shoulder and stared straight at him. "You know what they gave me for doing their work? The Blood Returning Pill!"
"I ate only one, and I broke through to the Zhou Heavenly realm. Do you know what that means?"
"I only entered the inner sect this year. If I cultivated step by step as I should, when would I ever catch up with Wang Hao and Zhang Yuan? Our Fang clan would forever be looking up to others, forever minding their faces!"
"Now it is different, you know that?"
"I know they all look down on me. Fang Heng, Jiang Chen, Zhao Yan, and even Zhang Yuan, Shen Nanqi! They treat me as a laughingstock! I know you look down on me too!"
"But now it is different. Sooner or later, everyone will have to take me seriously!"
"You ask me whether I know what I am doing? I know very well. I am only desperately, desperately trying to prove it to you."
Fang Zesheng himself was no great talent in cultivation, nor had he won his present position through cultivation.
And so before his own son, he had little strength with which to resist.
Every last bit of his son's progress he had watched and followed, and he had been deeply gratified.
But he had never imagined the Bone Lotus Path would cut across his path, using a brutal test of life and death to knock his son back to square one.
Deeply mortified, he cried, "You are skinning the tiger by its own side!"
"Father!"
Fang Lin knelt before Fang Zesheng.
"Father, just believe me this once. From childhood up, I have always followed your arrangements. Now let me decide for myself once. I am perfectly clear-headed; I know what I am doing. I do not want to be anyone's shadow anymore!
Skinning the tiger by its own side... it need not fail!
Perhaps one day, your son will peel off the tiger skin and show it to you."
"But the premise is that you have the strength to fight the tiger. My foolish son." Fang Zesheng mourned thus in his heart. But he did not voice another word.
The great door of the ancestral hall slowly closed.
That day, Fang Zesheng was placed under house arrest within the ancestral hall by his own son, and the great authority of the Fang clan changed hands.