"What must I do?" Jiang Chen asked.
"First, leave this place." White Lotus said: "The beast cages stay here. Nothing here may be taken away."
Jiang Chen put down the beast cages, and White Lotus stepped on them, crushing both cages to powder under her foot. Two instruments worthy of being called treasures vanished into smoke in that way.
"But it may be destroyed." she said.
The two returned by the same road, once more throwing on the animal hides, and walked past the two cultivators of the Justice Enforcement Bureau, who still lay unconscious. As when they had climbed, they passed easily through the horde of fierce beasts, making for the foot of the mountain.
"What does it look like, up at the summit?" Jiang Chen asked.
White Lotus did not stop walking: "You wouldn't want to know. Once you have seen the grandeur of Jade Balance Peak, perhaps you would no longer bear to destroy it."
"Then — let it be."
If there were no danger, Jiang Chen would truly have liked to see Jade Balance Peak's summit for himself.
The ancients climbed wherever they came upon a height, and whenever they climbed, they composed a poem. He very much wanted to know what passed through the minds of those who had reached Jade Balance Peak's summit. He wanted to see whether, atop it, any moods had been left behind.
But then he thought — best not to look.
They walked to the mountain's foot without danger or trouble, and Jiang Chen asked again: "Can you tell me now how it is to be done?"
"Not yet. A little farther on."
The two untied their animal hides and burned them with a Dao art at hand. Once clear of Jade Balance Peak, White Lotus at once quickened her pace.
Jiang Chen raced at his utmost speed for about a quarter of an hour, then White Lotus stopped. Now Jade Balance Peak could be seen only as a far-off silhouette.
She took an array plate from her bosom, set it in Jiang Chen's hands, and taught him a hand-seal. Only then did she say: "Remember that array plate I left in the cave? That was the Earth-Dragon Heaven-Overturning Array. What you hold is the child plate. Think it over — once you seal on your side, the great array on the other will be unleashed. And then..."
She parted her red lips: "Boom! The mountain cracks and the earth splits asunder."
So the array plate Jiang Chen had taken for a concealment from sense all along was, in fact, the means to destroy Jade Balance Peak.
Jiang Chen began to form the seal without hesitation.
This business was akin to a letter of fealty. White Lotus could well have done it herself, yet she handed it to him.
Setting the matter itself aside, Jiang Chen was deeply repelled by this kind of act by nature, and yet he could not pin his hopes on White Lotus's pity for Three Mountain City domain. Though his contact with White Lotus had not been much, his instinct told him White Lotus cared nothing for those people.
Moreover, he had promised White Lotus three tasks in repayment of the life-saving grace.
And this business did not violate his principles.
As Jiang Chen completed the seal, a great surge of Dao essence gushed from the Celestial Palace and poured into the array plate. This array plate dissipated like smoke.
And at the same time, black smoke rose suddenly over distant Jade Balance Peak!
Curses rang out, wails moved the heart. Countless trails of black smoke rose, finally condensing into five enormous figures that surrounded Jade Balance Peak.
"Is this the Earth-Dragon Heaven-Overturning Array?" Jiang Chen gathered all his sight into his eyes at the distant, enormous, hideous-favored figures, and a fury of having been fooled welled up in him.
He had never handled an array plate, nor did he know what the true might of the Earth-Dragon Heaven-Overturning Array was. But from the name alone, there was no way such a thing could appear!
"Maybe I misremembered — it's the Five Phantoms Mountain-Crushing Array." White Lotus giggled, waving a hand: "But there's no great difference."
"I trust you, and I have always cooperated with you, and wished to repay the grace of your saving me. But have you been fooling me all along?" Jiang Chen could barely hold back his rage.
"Fooling you? What gain would I have in fooling you?" White Lotus looked at him, her eyes turning extraordinarily cold: "Put away your pitiable false virtue. All it is, is that manipulating the dead weighs on your conscience. But do you know there is a fierce beast on Jade Balance Peak called the Soul-Devouring Bird? The dead souls who fell in battle on Jade Balance Peak, and the resentful spirits wound about the fierce beasts — even if we did not make use of them, they would soon be eaten either way."
She sneered: "You rail on about destroying Jade Balance Peak, about protecting the ordinary folk of Three Mountain City domain. And all the effort you have put in amounts to forming a Dao seal here. But me — all I have is one array plate of the Five Phantoms Mountain-Crushing Array. What am I to do? Pull an Earth-Dragon Heaven-Overturning Array out of thin air for you?"
Jiang Chen fell silent. He did indeed regard manipulating the dead as profanation, and had he known in advance that this was that kind of array plate, he might not have chosen so decisively.
But his own heart was not swayed by White Lotus's words. He only realized that he might already be caught in some whirlpool she had spun, and was sinking deeper and deeper.
And he did not even know how to struggle.
In truth, this was the root of his anger.
...
On Jade Balance Peak, seven silhouettes burst forth in one instant. But with the array plate in effect, the Five Phantoms Mountain-Crushing Array took effect very fast. The five enormous phantoms condensed almost in the blink of an eye, and in the next instant crushed the mountain with joined strength!
Boom, boom, boom!
The mountain cracked and the earth split asunder.
The seven masters had not yet decided how to deal with the giant phantoms. Their Dao arts hammered against the phantoms' bodies, barely beginning to take effect... when Jade Balance Peak toppled!
If Jade Balance Peak were a silent giant beast, then the fierce beasts upon it were as lice. The giant beast toppled, and the lice came tumbling down in droves.
The five giant phantoms did not stop there, but lifted half of Jade Balance Peak with joined force and turned east.
At every footfall, the earth shook and the mountains swayed.
That was the direction of Flying Over Peak! It was the last celebrated mountain of Three Mountain City domain, and the last warren of fierce beasts.
Just then, a lone silhouette appeared abruptly at the edge of the sky.
Beside the five giant phantoms, he was but a black dot, so small.
But he stood suspended in the air, as if before the very sun!
Before one could even see him move, the five giant phantoms dissolved into smoke.
He made no sound, but his momentum spread to cover heaven and earth.
Trees broke and rocks shattered, birds fell and beasts crouched... even the clouds of the sky seemed driven off by his presence, leaving in one stroke a clear sky for ten thousand li.
But Jade Balance Peak had toppled forever.
The fierce beasts upon the mountain, the demon beasts, the hidden secrets... all had gone like smoke.
...
Jiang Chen had only seen that black dot from far away when he felt a fear rising from the depths of his heart. It was the instinctive dread of a living being.
"Don't look." White Lotus reached up to cover his eyes: "The moment he perceives your gaze, we will all die."
Her hand was soft as a boneless thing, slightly cool to the touch.
Jiang Chen stepped back, away from her hand. Of course he also drew back his gaze from Jade Balance Peak.
"Head toward Maple City; we talk as we walk." said White Lotus.
Jiang Chen followed without a word.
"From now on, the fierce beasts of Three Mountain City domain will be halved. You're the great savior of Three Mountain City! There's real hope of marrying Sun Xiaoman. And not impossible to marry Dou Yuemei either. Better to marry Dou Yuemei, that way you get a son and a daughter for free — such a bargain!"
Jiang Chen said nothing.
"I'd meant to take out Flying Over Peak on the way, too. But that old thing came far too fast. Really! Doesn't he have the County Academies' Grand Selection to oversee? Still, I'm plenty satisfied!"
Jiang Chen kept his silence.
White Lotus did not mind, and went on: "Truth be told, a mere Five Phantoms Mountain-Crushing Array, even fortified with the dead souls of that earlier battle, would not be enough to produce such an effect. The crux is that Dou Yuemei is formidable — her Mountain-Tearing divine skill has already severed Jade Balance Peak's mountain roots, which cannot heal in under a hundred years. So the five phantoms gave one push and down it went..."
White Lotus chattered on and on, as if even by herself she could talk until the heavens grew old and the earth grew barren.
Jiang Chen droned: "Your words are always half-true and half-false. I truly do not know what kind of person you are."
White Lotus said, delighted: "Why, the kind of peerless beauty, of course — first-rate gorgeous!"
"..." Jiang Chen very much wanted to say that was not what he meant, but he gave up.
He realized no one could truly know this woman White Lotus, unless she herself chose to bare her heart.
And yet, on reflection, who could say whether her "heart" was truly her heart at all?