Xu Ying was beside himself with excitement. His mind raced: "As a Qi-refiner, controlling one’s own power is only natural. The deities shape their divine power into flying swords, so for them controlling their power means controlling the sword. I can control my origin qi as well—my qi can leak outward and form the Elephant-King God Body, so naturally it can also become a sword!"
He tried eagerly to mold his origin qi into the shape of a sword, but after several attempts he failed.
Xu Ying was not discouraged and continued to practice. But the shape of a sword was different from the Elephant-King God Body. The God Body followed the circulation pathways of a cultivation art and was inherently constrained. A sword had no such constraints—it required Xu Ying to control his origin qi and force it into the form of a blade, which was enormously difficult.
"Perhaps I should start by trying to control the willow branch."
His mind stirred at once. He tried feeding origin qi into the willow branch, using his spirit sense to guide the qi within, then slowly relaxing his grip.
The willow branch wobbled, then rose into the air.
Xu Ying was delighted. With a thought, the branch wobbled through the air, flying in a drunken zigzag.
Yuan Qi stared, dumbfounded: "He actually did it… Which sentence of mine inspired him? If I can inspire him, surely I can inspire myself!"
Confidence surged through him. What was Xu Ying, after all? Just a junior who had received guidance from Serpent-Grandpa. If Xu Ying could do it, so could Serpent-Grandpa!
Xu Ying controlled the willow branch, wielding the sword techniques he had deduced. The branch was too light, difficult to master—too much mental force and the moves fell apart.
He clumsily controlled the willow branch, rehearsing the sword forms over and over, learning how to govern his mind, his spirit sense, and his origin qi.
He worked alone, yet his progress was astonishing. Before long he had grasped the art of sword-flight, controlling the willow branch to execute every basic sword strike.
Yuan Qi still had not figured out which sentence it was. Seeing Xu Ying perform the forms with increasing mastery, he thought in dismay, "What use is this brain of Serpent-Grandpa?"
The willow branch flew back and hovered half a foot above Xu Ying’s shoulder. Wherever he went, the branch followed.
Xu Ying frowned slightly, pondering: "My sword-flight is as smooth as moving my arm, but I wonder if I can project sword-essence and sword-light the way one can when holding a blade in hand?"
Yuan Qi saw him struggling with the problem and laughed: "A-Ying, I’ve heard that clever people can often draw parallels—"
Xu Ying’s eyes lit up. He slapped his hands together. "You are absolutely right! Thank you for the hint—I’ve finally figured it out!"
"I hadn’t even finished… Never mind, as long as you’re happy."
Xu Ying was ecstatic, controlling the willow branch in sword-form while blurting: "You’re right—draw parallels! I use spirit sense to control the qi in the branch; the spirit sense is my arm. I grip the branch, and qi flows through my arm into it, producing sword-essence. In other words, I can channel my own origin qi along my spirit sense into the flying branch and project sword-essence and sword-light!"
The willow branch whirled around Xu Ying and Yuan Qi, then with a hiss an invisible bolt of sword-essence shot from its tip, piercing the air with a shrill whistle.
Yuan Qi jerked his tail back just in time. The sword-essence grazed it and flew past. A boulder cracked open with a puff of smoke, sliced cleanly in two by the invisible blade.
Xu Ying sent the willow branch darting here and there. At its tip, sword-essence crisscrossed, unstoppable—each flash sheared the crown from a great tree.
The severed crown whirled upward, sailing a dozen paces before crashing to the ground.
Yuan Qi’s heart nearly stopped. That crown must have weighed tens of thousands of pounds, yet the force embedded in Xu Ying’s stroke had hurled it a dozen paces. The power behind that single blow was staggering!
Such sword-essence could rival a deity’s incense-born flying sword.
Xu Ying recalled the willow branch, bursting with joy. "Little Seven, without your hint I could never have mastered sword-flight so quickly!"
Yuan Qi summoned his courage. "It shows that reading is useful after all. A-Ying, since it was my hint that let you learn sword-flight—could you teach it to me?"
Xu Ying nodded eagerly. "Of course. It’s very simple."
Yuan Qi struggled for a long while, suspicious: "Very simple? Are you tricking me?"
He practiced again and again but could not make the willow branch fly.
Xu Ying left him to it and resumed his own study. Suddenly a thought struck him: "I can make the branch fly with spirit sense and origin qi. The spirit sense bears none of the branch’s weight. Could I then stand on the branch and fly?"
He acted at once. His spirit sense stirred, the willow branch rose, and he jumped onto it—only for the branch to smack to the ground.
He tried again. The branch could not support his weight and crashed down once more. Try as he might, the willow never lifted him into the air.
"A-Ying, we’ve reached Wuwang Mountain!"
Yuan Qi surged ahead, excited. "Come on! This is my home—three generations of my Ox family have lived on Wuwang Mountain! To the north is the Shuikou Temple of Emperor Shun; to the west, the Yilin Monastery; to the south, Mount Xiao; to the east, Bird Pond Village. The mountains are full of wild fruit, and every autumn when the leaves turn yellow, the demons who have taken human form carry the ripe fruit down to the market to trade for rice and flour."
He dashed onto the peak and pointed west. "Look—there’s the Yilin Monastery. The abbot is the demon god White Gentleman… Huh? Where’s the monastery?"
Yuan Qi stood frozen on the summit. Panic crept into his voice: "That’s wrong! That’s wrong! Where has the great Yilin Monastery gone? And the Shuikou Temple! Where is it? And Bird Pond Village—where is that entire village…"
He tilted his head, gazing around in bewilderment, murmuring: "Is this still Wuwang Mountain…"
He knew every detail of Wuwang Mountain’s surroundings, yet now the landscape was entirely different: towering peaks rose like knife-cut cliffs, a great river threaded through the valleys, and a lake as vast as the sea glittered in the distance.
The only thing unchanged was the mountain beneath his feet.
Suddenly the earth shook. Wuwang Mountain groaned and surged upward, its colossal mass erupting from the ground, climbing higher and higher.
At Yuan Qi’s feet a cliff face shot straight up, growing before his very eyes.
A moment later the cliff had risen a thousand zhang. Massive boulders broke free and crashed down with thunderous booms.
Yuan Qi looked up, his eyelids twitching. Two characters were carved into the cliff face:
Wuwang.
The Wuwang Mountain he knew was gone. Only Wuwang Mountain remained.
"Qinyan Cave! My Qinyan Cave must still be there!" Yuan Qi slid down the slope in a hurry, heading for the cave.
Xu Ying hurried after him. Before long Yuan Qi found his old home. From the mouth of Qinyan Cave, waves of iridescent light poured forth, thrumming with vital energy, dazzlingly beautiful.
Xu Ying stepped forward. The radiant energy touched his chest, and the scars that had already healed began to itch unbearably. He scratched reflexively.
The more he scratched, the worse it itched. He tore open his collar and froze.
Across his chest ran several wounds. Three deep gashes, bone-deep, were the marks left by the Stone Mountain deity—blows that had nearly disemboweled him.
After bathing in dragon blood at the Home-Viewing Terrace, all his wounds had closed, leaving behind only terrible scars. The gashes across his chest looked like small crimson dragons clinging to his skin, rough and ugly to the touch.
But now those scars were fading at a visible rate. Where they vanished, the skin was indistinguishable from the rest—no trace that he had ever been wounded.
"This Qinyan Cave is brimming with vital energy—extraordinary!" Xu Ying was astonished. Could this really be the home where three generations of the Ox family had lived?
Yuan Qi’s own scars were fading as well, leaving not a single mark. He had not expected this change in Qinyan Cave. Without hesitation he darted inside.
Xu Ying followed, afraid something might be wrong.
Qinyan Cave plunged more than ten li into the mountain. The transformation of Wuwang Mountain into Wuwang had widened and deepened it many times over.
Xu Ying trailed Yuan Qi through a twisting labyrinth of cliffs and stalactites. Strange stones lined the walls; some looked newly formed, their surfaces still fresh, yet enormous spirit-pearls hung from them, casting a faint glow that lit the way.
"Little Seven, your home is enormous," Xu Ying said, gazing around in wonder.
Yuan Qi led him through a winding maze of caverns and connected chambers. Some were flooded, requiring them to dive through.
Xu Ying, carrying the great bell, followed Yuan Qi underwater. The stones around them were kaleidoscopic, and great stone walls bore strange inscriptions—but the light was too dim to read them.
Without Yuan Qi to guide him, Xu Ying would never have guessed that an entire hidden world lay beneath the water.
"With Qinyan Cave this labyrinthine, no pursuer could ever find us!"
Then he laughed to himself. Wuwang Mountain had become Wuwang; the geography had changed beyond recognition. Even Yuan Qi could not navigate it, let alone the magistrate or the City God.
"They probably do not even know where Wuwang is," Xu Ying thought.
Yuan Qi swam toward a stone wall that had fractured. A section had collapsed, and they slipped through the gap, surfacing into a chamber where a flight of white jade stairs rose from the water.
They climbed out onto a white jade bridge that stretched ahead.
Only here did Yuan Qi relax. "My home is still here… my home is still here…"
He led the way across the bridge. After an unknowable distance the water ahead grew bright and expansive, and a palace of white jade came into view.
Yuan Qi smiled. "This is where I cultivate. Without me to lead the way, no one could ever find it."
Xu Ying gazed around, speechless. Who would have imagined that such a magnificent palace could exist within a mountain cavern?
And here the vital energy was even more concentrated. In the space of a few breaths, his cultivation advanced noticeably—a true blessed land.
Suddenly Xu Ying stopped, his eyes fixed on what lay ahead. His heart hammered.
In the center of the white jade palace stood a black coffin.
Not far from the coffin, a girl stood with her back to them, gazing up at a tall jade disc.
"Little Seven, you said no one could find this place without your guidance!" Xu Ying whispered, inching backward.
The snake demon Yuan Qi had seen the coffin too and was already retreating. He moaned, "In over three hundred years my Ox family has lived here, and no outsider ever came. How did that female ghost find it?"
The transformation of Wuwang had already driven him half-mad. Now his home had been raided by a female ghost.
The "female ghost" they spoke of was the girl from the black coffin in the ancient well of Stone Mountain.
The black coffin in the white jade palace was that very same coffin.
Xu Ying would never forget the night the Nether River changed course. He could not possibly be mistaken—the girl beneath the jade disc was the "ghost" who had emerged from the coffin.
He remembered how they had been controlled by the monstrous eye in the well, forced to drag the chains, while blood bubbled up from the depths.
He remembered the girl sitting at the well’s mouth, combing her hair.
"The great bell was injured by her!"
The bell had been wounded by the coffin girl; she had been imprisoned beneath the well for untold years by the bell. Their enmity was absolute.
And now the great bell was in his hands.
He hurled the bell off the bridge.
Clang.
The bronze bell splashed into the water.
Inside the white jade palace, the coffin girl was startled by the sound. She turned, and her beauty struck Xu Ying like a blow—his breath quickened.
The coffin girl seemed to recognize him and looked mildly surprised, as though wondering how he had found this place. But her interest faded at once and she turned back to the jade disc.
Xu Ying continued to retreat. The bell, buoyant as wood, bobbed on the surface and drifted after him wherever he went.
His scalp tingled. In his mind he pleaded: "Sink! Old Bell, please sink!"
The bell drifted serenely on the surface, stubbornly refusing to go under, as though determined to drag him down with it.
At that moment, from the white jade palace came a soft, lingering sigh. A gentle voice drifted through the cavern, serene and mysterious as an orchid in an empty valley.
"South of the Xiao and Xiang, in the depths of Cangwu. Beneath Mount Jiuyi, the Undying Immortal. This place of ascension has fallen to ruin at last."
The girl in the palace murmured, "Even one as powerful as you could not escape birth, aging, sickness, and death? Even your sanctum has become a dwelling for demons?"
The great bell shuddered and sank slowly to the bottom.