Demonic Heart Sarira, Demonic Heart Corpse

Mulou.

One of the Twenty-three Northern Kingdoms, it lay in the Southern Territory of Xuanlong. Its territory was long and narrow, like a limp strip pasted against Xuanlong.

A famously weak kingdom, Mulou had once been mighty during the period of "thirty years east of the river." Its territory had been vast, its troops strong and its horses sturdy. Among the twenty-three kingdoms, it had been a powerful presence that bullied its own kind.

Because its ruler had too many ideas and loved making cold jokes that Xuanlong disliked, he had brought about the upheaval of "thirty years west of the river."

At the elder brother's command, Mighty Chu, Wu Zhou, and Qi Yan—the three ruffian underlings—had come running at the scent. More than a dozen proxy kingdoms had formed an allied army and divided up over ninety percent of Mulou's territory.

Someone once said, "If a small state does not dwell in a low position, if the weak do not fear the strong, if the discourteous insult their powerful neighbors, and if the greedy and stubborn are inept at making friends, they may perish."

Mulou was the best example. If the proxies had not feared that bordering Xuanlong would bring them no good fortune, it would not even have been left as a strip.

In an unnamed Barren Mountains, beside the water.

A crooked-necked tree grew along the river, its branches lush and its growth vigorous. After blooming and bearing fruit, its vines drooped down, hanging seven Ginseng Fruits.

Those seven fruits had absorbed the essence of Heaven and Earth and gathered the spirit of the years. They had complete limbs and fully formed features, swaying in the wind—some wore expressions of suffering, while others looked resolute and cold.

Heaven and Earth were vast, and nothing was too strange