The Road Ahead

The official road was a quagmire after the autumn rain. The wheels rolled through puddles, making a sticky, squelching sound.

Chen Ping reined in the horses, and the Green Canopy Carriage slowly came to a stop beside a bend in the road.

A few steps away, several bodies lay sprawled beside a thicket. A few vultures beat their wings as they pecked at the corpses. When they saw a living person approach, they didn't take flight, only letting out hoarse, warning cries.

Chen Ping jumped down from the carriage. His boots sank into the mud as he walked over to inspect the scene, his face expressionless.

The corpses were already unrecognizable, but he spotted the telltale signs at a glance.

Some kind of brute force had torn open their throats and chests. The wounds bore no marks of sharp teeth, and their edges had turned a strange purplish black—the same as the dried corpses he'd seen that night at the Anping post station.

"Those things again..."

Chen Ping narrowed his eyes, his fingertips unconsciously rubbing the short blade in his sleeve.

The closer this mortal land lay to the Cultivation World, the more these neither-human-nor-ghost Evil Spirits appeared.

He didn't linger. Turning back to the carriage, he lifted the heavy curtain.

Inside, Yun Niang was wrapped in a thick fox-fur cloak, yet she still huddled in a ball, her face as pale as paper.

Days of jolting travel and sleeping rough had left the mortal woman, whose heart meridians were already congested, looking ever more haggard.

"Pinglang, outside..."

Yun Niang's voice was weak. She trailed off.

"Just a few stray dogs fighting over food. Don't look."

Chen Ping climbed into the carriage and took off his coat, still heavy with cold, by the door. Only then did he sit beside Yun Niang and take her icy hand in his.

Within his Dantian, the precious thread of Everlasting Spring Technique Spiritual Power trembled faintly, sending a hair-thin stream of warmth from his palm and slowly into Yun Niang's body.

As the Spiritual Power coursed through her, the furrow in Yun Niang's brow eased. Color returned to her pale cheeks, and her breathing steadied.

Chen Ping looked at the fine lines at the corners of his wife's eyes and the single silver strand at her temple. His hatred for the frailty of mortal flesh welled up inside him once more.

He was nearly a hundred years old now, strong and hale, while the woman in his arms was like a candle guttering in the wind.

His grip on Yun Niang's hand tightened.

The carriage continued onward. After roughly two hours, a group of ragged figures suddenly swarmed into the middle of the road ahead.

There were more than twenty refugees, all with ravenous eyes, carrying rusty hatchets and sharpened wooden poles.

Their leader was a one-eyed brute with a face full of flesh. He stared at the sturdy draft horse, practically drooling.

"Stop! Leave the horse and food, then get lost!"

The one-eyed man brandished his hatchet. His roar was edged with the madness of a man at the end of his road.

Chen Ping sat on the carriage shaft, his bamboo hat pulled low over his face.

He said nothing and didn't use even the slightest trace of Spiritual Power.

The one-eyed man had just taken his third step when Chen Ping gave his wrist the faintest, most discreet flick.

"Whoosh—"

A sharp-edged pebble shot through the air with a short, piercing whistle.

"Thud."

The one-eyed man's roar cut off abruptly. A hole appeared between his brows, and a spray of red and white burst from the back of his head.

His single eye stared wide as he toppled backward, splashing mud everywhere.

A deathly silence fell over the road.

The remaining refugees stared in terror at the bamboo-hatted man, still sitting motionless on the carriage shaft, as if they were looking at a Baleful Intent incarnate.

"Get lost."

Chen Ping barely moved his lips as he uttered the words. A penetrating force, the hallmark of an inner-strength master, rode his voice and made everyone's eardrums ache.

The refugees let out a shriek, dropped their weapons, and scrambled into the woods on either side. In the blink of an eye, they were gone.

Chen Ping's expression remained indifferent, as though he'd merely swatted a fly. He cracked the reins, and the wheels rolled over the one-eyed man's corpse as the carriage continued on.

By dusk, the sky had darkened ominously.

A dilapidated mountain village appeared ahead. Chen Ping had meant to seek lodging there, but the moment the carriage reached the entrance, the familiar chill made him pull up the reins.

The village was frighteningly quiet. There were no roosters crowing or dogs barking, no smoke rising from the chimneys.

A wisp of faint black vapor seemed to curl over the old well at the village entrance.

Chen Ping closed his eyes and sent his faint Spiritual Sense toward the mouth of the well.

In an instant, a bone-chilling aura from the depths of the netherworld crept along his perception. It was as if countless venomous eyes were peering up from the bottom.

"Yin energy gathering into baleful intent. A dead end."

Chen Ping's eyes flew open. A cold sweat broke out across his back.

He was curious about what lay beneath the well—or what kind of cultivation material it might be—but reason immediately crushed his greed.

He was only a novice who'd just reached the first layer of Qi Refining. The slightest bit of curiosity could doom him beyond redemption.

"Turn around. We'll go the long way."

Ignoring Yun Niang's confusion, he decisively turned the horse around. He'd rather take a detour of thirty extra li than set foot in that village.

Night fell deep in the mountains.

The campfire crackled, driving away some of the cold.

Chen Ping sat cross-legged beside it, palms turned toward the sky, and circulated the Everlasting Spring Technique.

As he breathed in and out, he was surprised to find that the Spiritual Energy in this wilderness was two or three parts richer than in Qinghe County.

[Everlasting Spring Technique Proficiency +1]

[Everlasting Spring Technique Proficiency +1]

Watching the numbers flicker across his vision, Chen Ping's hard face finally softened with satisfaction, and a hint of greed glimmered in his eyes.

This proved the theory of Spiritual Veins: the closer one got to the Cultivation World, the richer the Spiritual Energy. His hopes of immortality grew with every step.

"Mm..."

A pained murmur came from the carriage behind him.

Chen Ping tensed, hurriedly stopped cultivating, and climbed inside.

By the firelight, he saw Yun Niang's face flushed red, her forehead burning hot. She must have caught a chill, and her fever wouldn't break.

"Cold... so cold..."

Yun Niang clutched Chen Ping's sleeve in a daze.

Without hesitation, Chen Ping once more drew on the Spiritual Power that had just accumulated in his Dantian, the power he cherished as dearly as his life.

Simply warming her would no longer help. This time, he would use Spiritual Power to force its way through her blocked Meridians and drive out the chill.

It would consume a great deal of Spiritual Power, perhaps even setting his cultivation back.

Pale blue light shone inside the dim carriage. As Chen Ping's Spiritual Power ebbed away, his face grew paler and paler. Yet when he saw the crease between Yun Niang's brows smooth, his eyes held only tenderness, not the slightest regret.

Spiritual Power could be cultivated again. If he lost his wife, all that awaited him on the long road to immortality would be loneliness.

Three days later, at the border between the two provinces, they reached One-Line Sky.

Cliffs rose on both sides, sheer as if carved by a blade and reaching into the clouds. Between them lay a narrow crevice, barely wide enough for one person to pass through. The carriage could never make it across.

The wind howled through the gorge like wailing ghosts.

Chen Ping unhitched the draft horse and patted its rump, letting it go.

Then he tied the precious Gold Leaves and their dry provisions into a bundle against his chest and crouched down.

"Get on."

Yun Niang looked at the perilous mountain path, tears in her eyes.

"Pinglang, I... I'm a burden."

"What nonsense."

Chen Ping swept her onto his back and bound them tightly together with a strip of cloth.

"Hold on tight."

Chen Ping drew a deep breath and circulated the Songhe Yanshou Jin to its utmost. The muscles in his legs suddenly tightened.

"Up!"

He sprang upward like an agile ape, leaping several zhang into the air. His toes touched a jutting rock on the cliff, and his body shot higher.

His mastery of the Light Body Movement Technique was on full display.

Even with someone on his back, Chen Ping remained light as a swallow, vaulting and leaping across the sheer cliff face.

Every landing was precise to the slightest degree, every burst of strength perfectly measured.

Sweat dripped from his forehead onto the rocks, only to be dried by the wind in an instant.

Yun Niang clung tightly to his neck, burying her face in the hollow of his shoulder. She didn't dare look down into the abyss; all she could hear was her husband's steady, powerful heartbeat.

After who knew how long, Chen Ping finally climbed onto the last rock.

The view opened up before them.

He stood at the summit, gazing into the distance.

No mortal cities or villages lay ahead. Instead, a range of mountains stretched before him, shrouded in mist all year round. As the clouds roiled, strange peaks and bizarre rock formations appeared and vanished, like a fairyland—yet an oppressive aura emanated from them, enough to make the heart tremble.

There lay the natural barrier between the mortal world and the Cultivation World.

The Golden Sun token, silent in his arms until now, suddenly began to grow faintly warm, trembling as it pointed toward the depths of the mist.

Chen Ping untied the cloth and set Yun Niang down, then clasped her hand tightly in his.

The mountain wind howled, whipping his clothes about.

Though he was still mortal, with a pack on his back and his ailing wife's hand in his, his silhouette as he gazed over the sea of clouds from the summit already bore the loneliness and resolve unique to one who sought the Dao.

"Yun Niang,"

Chen Ping stared at the unknown mist, his voice low and steady,

"We've arrived."