Casting the Elephant Down into the Mortal World

The Third Reflection.

Once again jolted awake by the agony of flames consuming his body, Li Shun gasped for breath. As usual, he completed the ritual of "Three Reflections Upon Myself," then swiftly forced himself to calm down and began his final preparations.

"Unlike the first two illusory experiences, everything that happens this time will be real, enough to settle the Cosmos Realm. There will be no turning back. If I die this time... I don't know what the result will be. I must be exceedingly cautious!"

"Fortunately, the gains from the previous awakening were considerable. Not only did I discover where Cold Mountain Venerable was truly hidden, I also learned the background of that bandit leader."

"The legitimate descendant of Great Xiang... Xiong Jin."

The reflection of those towering flames seemed to linger in his mind. The arrogant, ice-cold eyes of the Great Xiang remnant leader seemed to be staring at him across the void, and Li Shun could not help but snort.

"In the past, the emperors of Great Qian trampled the Seven Kingdoms beneath their horses' hooves and established the realm. The fates of the former royal houses differed. Some wagged their tails and begged for mercy, submitting and becoming dukes and ministers; some fought to the death rather than surrender, and had their nine clans exterminated; others changed their names and vanished without a trace."

"The Great Xiang royal house belonged to the kind ordered to be uprooted, weeds and all. Though rumors had long circulated among the people that a small remnant of its bloodline still clung to life, none had ever been proven. Who would have thought I would encounter one today!"

"I just wonder... if I could capture or kill such a legitimate descendant of the Great Xiang imperial house, what sort of reward could I get?"

Of course, the thought merely flashed through Li Shun's mind.

Xiong Jin's strength was simply inconceivable. Even the elite Black-Armored Army stationed in a county had been crushed before him as easily as chickens and dogs. He was far beyond anything Li Shun could covet now.

"Still, if he did not possess such heaven-piercing, earth-reaching ability, it would truly be difficult for me to scheme for that Cold Mountain Venerable!"

Under the cold night sky, Li Shun performed one final deduction in his mind of the bloodstorm that would erupt today.

"Pulling chestnuts from the fire does carry considerable risk."

"But time waits for no one!"

Li Shun paced back and forth in the cramped room. After hesitating for a long while, a fierce resolve finally flashed through his eyes.

"Today is the second day of the second month, year 572 of the Great Qian New Calendar."

"The Great Xiang remnants somehow learned that Cold Mountain Venerable had appeared. Under Xiong Jin's command, they brazenly launched a surprise assault on the county office. The poorly defended Cold Mountain County suffered near-total casualties, and Cold Mountain Venerable was successfully seized."

"That was the original course of history."

"Before the calamity of a city collapsing, a lowly Great Qian laborer like me is indeed no more than grass or an ant. Any stray ripple could crush me to dust."

"But..."

"With the ability to know beforehand, even an ant can summon wind and rain!"

When the first ray of dawn once again pierced the gloom, Li Shun limped as usual into the dark Jixia Bookshop.

This time, he did not mention Cold Mountain Venerable at all, nor did he reveal that he already knew the shopkeeper's name.

Li Shun simply followed the usual procedure and exchanged for another fragmentary page of the Book of Imperial Exegesis.

[When Jiang Tai'e first arrived in the Sacred Capital, he wore a short coarse robe and straw sandals. He was thin as firewood, dark-faced, and resembled a rustic laborer. At the time, the capital flourished. The sons of meritorious nobles all wore brocade and rode in carriages. Seeing Tai'e's rough appearance, many covered their mouths and laughed, while some pointed and mocked him. "What withered stick from nowhere dares set foot in the Sacred Capital?"

Tai'e heard them, yet his expression did not change. "When the great peng plans to fly south, it must first crouch among reeds and weeds. Before the hidden dragon shines, it often coils amid muddy pools. Though I am insignificant now, I am still like Tai'e sunk in mud and sand, thunder dormant in a secluded valley, or calamity-fire hidden beneath cold ashes. Divine things conceal their own brilliance and do not seek fame; a fine merchant stores his treasures deep—why would he crave empty reputation? Gentlemen, you see only the skin and have not fathomed the depths. Such is the common way of the world. What have I to blame?" Having spoken, he raised his head, gave a long salute, and departed. The dukes and marquises filling the street were all robbed of breath, staring at one another in astonishment.]

Whether it was some unseen coincidence or the pull of fate, the story of Great Qian's Right Chancellor recorded on this fragment suited Li Shun's current state of mind perfectly.

He savored those few lines over and over, his eyes gleaming. "The current Right Chancellor once looked like a mere laborer as well. Who is to say I, Li Shun, cannot accomplish something!"

Reining in his thoughts, he returned to the wooden hut and woke Feng Guan, who was still asleep next door.

"Cripple, why are you making a fuss so early in the morning?" Feng Guan rubbed his bleary eyes and mumbled drowsily.

Li Shun ignored his complaints and asked instead, his gaze burning, "Old Feng, do you know... how great the reward would be for reporting villains harboring ill intent to the authorities?"

"Villains? Harboring ill intent?" Feng Guan yawned. "What kind of villains? Reporting petty thieves who steal chickens and dogs would not count as much of a merit, would it?"

"Rebels."

Those two lightly spoken words were like a basin of ice water poured over Feng Guan's head. He shuddered violently and became fully awake.

He swallowed in terror and instinctively looked around. "Cripple, don't scare me this early in the morning! In broad daylight, beneath the clear heavens, where would rebels come from in this godforsaken backwater?!"

"Think carefully. Has Liang Zhou ever done anything strange or suspicious in daily life?" Li Shun did not answer, instead continuing to guide him step by step.

"Liang Zhou?" Feng Guan furrowed his aged brow and began to recall.

Liang Zhou was also one of Cold Mountain County's many laborers. Ordinarily, he was not particularly close to their gang of old hands.

"If you hadn't brought it up, I wouldn't have thought much of it. But now that you mention it..." A trace of suspicion surfaced in Feng Guan's cloudy eyes. "That kid really does seem a little uncanny!"

"Whenever he has nothing to do, he likes to poke around and ask questions about everything. And in this cursed place, I don't think I've ever heard him complain even once about the hardships of forced labor!"

Such was the human heart. First set up a target, then shoot arrows of hearsay at it. Even if Liang Zhou himself had no suspicion on him, under such biased scrutiny, every word and deed of his seemed strange.

The more Feng Guan thought, the colder his back became. "How about... we hurry and report this to the authorities?"

"Fool!" Li Shun immediately rebuked him in a low voice, cutting off the thought. "As the saying goes, catch a thief with the stolen goods, catch adulterers in bed together. We have nothing but empty words now. If we report it without a shred of solid evidence... aren't you afraid they'll bite back and accuse you of false charges?"

"Then... then forget it." Feng Guan's body shrank back sharply. The little greed that had just arisen was instantly extinguished, and he immediately began to retreat.

"Don't you know some methods of the School of Novelists? Send an insect to watch him in secret. If we can truly uncover some solid evidence..."

Li Shun lowered his voice, his tone brimming with bewitching power. "Then the two of us brothers will have riches vast enough to overturn the heavens!"

"Fine... I'll do it!" Feng Guan wrestled with himself for quite some time. In the end, his desire to escape forced labor overcame his fear, and he nodded fiercely.

A moment later, an inconspicuous midge wobbled into the air and silently flew toward Liang Zhou's residence.

Li Shun waited patiently.

About an hour and a half later, Feng Guan's tightly shut eyes suddenly flew open. His face was filled with ecstatic, startled fervor. "Cripple, you really guessed right! That bastard Liang Zhou really is hiding evil intentions!"

"The moment I flew into his room, I saw him looking tense and unable to sit still. Every so often, he looked toward the door, as if waiting for someone. Not long after, that kid Sun Bo sneaked in too. The two gathered together and whispered privately. I vaguely heard words like 'soon' and 'make preparations'..."

"We can't go wrong arresting them! Even if they aren't rebels, they're definitely hiding secrets that cannot see the light of day!"

The more Feng Guan spoke, the more excited he became. His shriveled old face turned crimson, as though he could already see a great road leading to freedom and reward.

Li Shun's expression abruptly turned solemn. "Now that we have a grasp of the situation, leave at once and report to the authorities! Remember, under no circumstances are you to go directly to the county office. Secretly find Foreman Sun instead!"

"I understand! It's to keep those villains' spies from noticing, right?" Feng Guan suddenly understood. Nodding repeatedly, he lifted his robes and rushed out in frantic haste.

Just as he reached the door, he suddenly stopped short and turned back. "Right, Cripple, what about you?"

Li Shun gave a bitter smile and waved a hand, pointing at his crippled leg. "The situation is urgent. This broken body of mine cannot move easily and would only delay things. Just hurry and go!"

"Cripple, don't worry. I definitely won't leave you out of this heaven-overturning merit!" Feng Guan declared solemnly, thumping his chest before turning and disappearing into the street.

Watching Feng Guan's back vanish completely, the helplessness on Li Shun's face instantly faded, replaced by utter chill and solemnity.

His consciousness descended like a falling meteor, crashing into the Square Inch space. From above, he looked down upon the puppet that was still tirelessly performing the Spirit-Splitting Life-Creation Technique.

"Square Inch Arises in the Mind..."

Li Shun's will let out a low roar and plunged heavily toward the puppet below. In an instant, the two seemed to fuse together seamlessly.

At the same time, Li Shun in the real world abruptly opened his eyes. A dark light blazed in those deep pupils. He suddenly raised his right hand, pressing his fingers together like a sword and pointing into the empty air before him as he shouted in a low voice:

"Casting the Elephant into the Mortal World."

Bzzzz—!

With that sharp cry, the space ahead seemed like a lake struck by a massive boulder, abruptly rippling with violent rings of transparent waves. Some heavy, strange existence was tearing through an invisible barrier, struggling to descend into the real world.

When the spatial ripples finally settled and dispersed, a figure identical to Li Shun stood before him!

Its height and build were no different from his true body. Yet its face and body seemed shrouded in a thousand layers of mist, hovering between illusion and reality, impossible to see clearly.

At this moment, within the Square Inch space inside Li Shun's body, the puppet Li Shun that had toiled without rest day and night had already stopped all movement. It stood frozen as though completely sealed in ten-thousand-year black ice. Even its once-solid body had visibly become somewhat illusory and transparent.

In reality, Li Shun's true body had turned pale as gold paper, utterly bloodless. Beads of cold sweat the size of beans poured madly from his brow like rain.

Yet as he looked at the perfect double he had forcibly dragged out of the Square Inch space and brought into the mortal world, a faint smile curled across his pale, cracked lips.