How Fierce Was That?

Yulin's lightly delivered question left Yang Niansan frozen beside her.

What was love?

She had grown up in a place of secluded cultivation, surrounded by strict Heavenly Laws and the rules of her lineage, contemplating the unfeeling Great Dao every day. When had she ever encountered love and longing?

And with her second brother being the way he was, how could she possibly know what love was?

A mortal woman's intuition could sometimes be sharper than an immortal's. Yulin took in every bit of Yang Niansan's bewilderment and chuckled. "Immortal, you're clearly a..."

"Enough!" Before Yulin could expose her, Yang Niansan snapped her folding fan shut and hastily interrupted.

If a mere mortal saw through her Glamour, where would she put her face?

"If you're unwilling, there's certainly no reason to force you!" Yang Niansan raised her voice to conceal her panic. "Think it over carefully!"

With that, she did not spare even another polite remark, quickly shooting Chen Wei a meaningful glance.

Retreat!

Chen Wei was more than happy to stay out of it and immediately transformed into a clear breeze.

The two immortal figures swept out of the great hall one after the other as though fleeing, heading straight into the clouds.

Yulin did not ask them to stay.

She sank back onto her throne, her gaze turning infatuated once more. Her fingers again caressed the brows and eyes of Xuanzang's wooden carving, and a sigh echoed through the hall. "That immortal just now was another stubborn one."

High above, over the sea of clouds.

Yang Niansan stood huffily on a cloud, her face full of anger. "She truly is beyond saving! Stubborn and unrepentant, willing to let an entire city of women lose their kingdom and die without descendants. Utterly unreasonable!"

Chen Wei stood beside her with his hands behind his back, his expression unchanged.

When carrying out the Heavenly Court's duties, letting personal grudges intrude was the greatest taboo. A chief official had to show a chief official's breadth of mind.

"Don't be angry, Official Yang," Chen Wei consoled her in an even tone. "This woman's Three Souls and Seven Spirits are all entangled in tribulation aura. She has lost all reason and long since become a puppet of obsession. We need to find a way to satisfy both sides, completing our assignment without entangling ourselves in karma."

"What way could there possibly be?"

Yang Niansan snorted, her temper flaring. "The one who tied the bell must be the one to untie it. Western Liang's old dream began with that monk. I'll set out at once and invite the Sandalwood Merit Buddha himself down to the mortal realm! He incurred this romantic debt, so he ought to settle it himself!"

Invite the actual Buddha?

Chen Wei's brows rose slightly, and he sighed inwardly.

How fierce was that!

An ordinary immortal official of the Censorate could not even reach the threshold of the Great Thunderclap Monastery, let alone invite a Buddha from Spirit Mountain.

Yet Yang Niansan spoke of inviting a Buddha the moment she opened her mouth. What formidable confidence!

Before Chen Wei could stop her-

Whoosh-

Without so much as a word of farewell, Yang Niansan transformed into a long rainbow piercing the sun, tearing through the sea of clouds toward Spirit Mountain in the west.

Her escaping light sped away as though her eyebrows were on fire.

Chen Wei remained where he was, watching the retreating light, and shook his head slightly. "A scion of an immortal lineage, yet why does she act like a young girl throwing a tantrum?"

After muttering those words, he recalled in his sea of consciousness the unfinished remark Yulin had made in the hall.

"You're clearly a..."

Recalling Yang Niansan's fondness for making tangyuan, her inability to tolerate teasing, and how easily her ears turned red, a bold suspicion crossed Chen Wei's mind.

Could she actually be a woman?

Or did Yang Niansan have some little peculiar preference?

But a suspicion was only a suspicion. Chen Wei quickly gathered his thoughts and snuffed out that stray idea.

The iron rule of surviving the Heavenly Court's rough-and-tumble world was this: never dwell on secrets, never expose a colleague's hidden cards, and dutifully keep to your own assignments. Only then could your Dao attainment remain secure. Immortals having secrets was not frightening; insisting on uncovering them was. It often left you dead without even a scrap remaining.

"It's just as well she's gone to invite the Buddha." Chen Wei dusted off his cuffs. "That gives me time to investigate what's strange about the Water Eye drying up."

The Mother-Child River contained the creative power of yin and yang. Its flow would never cease without reason.

Some evil creature must have been working behind the scenes.

His cloud turned.

Chen Wei descended toward the banks of the Mother-Child River outside the city.

The once-rushing riverbed was now a scene of devastation. Cracked earth crisscrossed like the aged bark of a withered tree. Even the spirit sand deposited on the bottom had lost its luster.

Chen Wei closed his eyes and spread his divine sense, tracing the dried riverbed upstream.

A river imbued with such special spiritual energy could never have dried up so completely unless someone had tampered with it.

Sure enough, a faint trace of demonic aura emanated from a hidden Water Eye node upstream.

Was a demon entrenched there?

Chen Wei flew toward the node and had just rounded a patch of dried reeds.

A short black figure darted out from behind a pile of rocks and blocked his path.

On closer inspection, it was a fish demon with a pointed mouth and pinched cheeks, waterweed atop his head and an iron fork held upside down in his hand. His cultivation was barely sufficient to assume humanoid form; he had not even fully formed his demon core.

Seeing Chen Wei dressed as a fangshi without the slightest ripple of spiritual power about him, the lesser demon immediately put on a swaggering air. "Get lost! You blind mortal fangshi! Haven't you got eyes? Our king sealed this place off long ago! No one is allowed within ten li!"

Chen Wei did not so much as lift his eyelids.

A mere insignificant lesser demon dared block an immortal official of the Heavenly Court.

When handling Heavenly Court business, one tailored the dishes to the immortal being served.

Dealing with mighty beings called for dimming one's brilliance and mingling with the dust. Dealing with lowly evil creatures without any backing called only for a heavy fist, never wasted words.

As the saying went, cultivation had three realms: ant, fellow Daoist, and senior.

Clearly, this lesser demon belonged to the first.

"Noise." Chen Wei raised his right hand slightly, pointed at the fish demon from a distance, and casually curled his finger back.

Whoosh-

A gust of astral wind sprang from nowhere over the riverbed.

The fish demon slammed down at Chen Wei's feet, all four limbs pointing skyward. His iron fork clanged against the ground and broke in two.

"Spare me, Immortal! Spare me, Immortal Grandfather!" Scared out of his wits, the fish demon begged again and again.

Chen Wei stood with his hands behind his back, looking down at the demon. "I ask, you answer. Why has this river dried up?"

"Immortal, I don't know why the river dried up!" Trembling like chaff in a sieve, the fish demon kowtowed repeatedly and spilled everything he knew. "I was originally a guard at the Fetus-Dropping Spring. On the True Immortal Ruyi's decree, I came here to guard the dried riverbed. As for where the water went, my rank is too low. I truly have no access to such core secrets!"

True Immortal Ruyi?

The name sounded somewhat immortal-like, yet its owner was engaged in the despicable business of sealing off a river.

Having obtained a lead, Chen Wei could not be bothered to waste words on an ant. With a casual sweep of his sleeve, he flung the lesser demon into the wild mountains a hundred li away.

Then he took out a voice-transmission jade slip. "Old Ma, consult the case files and look into the True Immortal Ruyi's background."

When carrying out Heavenly Court duties, learning an opponent's history was of the utmost importance.

Only by knowing oneself and one's enemy could one stand undefeated.

Two incense sticks later.

The jade slip glimmered, and Ma Muzhi's voice emerged. "Sir, according to the case files, the True Immortal Ruyi hails from the territory of Accumulating Thunder Mountain in the lower realm. He and the Bull Demon King are blood brothers born of the same mother."

Chen Wei lifted his eyelids slightly.

As a Demon Sage's younger brother, claiming a mountain and ruling as king certainly fit the ways of the lower realm.

No wonder he dared seal off a kingdom's lifeline. The Bull Demon King of Accumulating Thunder Mountain stood behind him as his mountain of support.

From the voice-transmission jade slip, Ma Muzhi continued, "The files also record an old incident. When the Great Sage Equal to Heaven escorted Tripitaka westward, they passed through Jieyang Mountain, where he encountered the True Immortal Ruyi. The Heavenly Court's historian wrote rather delicately, recording only a discussion of the Dao and an exchange of pointers. But judging from my years of experience, it was most likely unpleasant."

A discussion of the Dao, an exchange of pointers, and a peaceful conclusion.

With phrases from the Heavenly Court's official documents, taking them to mean the opposite was invariably correct.

Chen Wei's eyes flickered as the clues swiftly linked together in his sea of consciousness.

Xuanzang, Sun Wukong, the True Immortal Ruyi, the women's kingdom of Western Liang.

Cause and effect became clear in an instant.

The Mother-Child River's drying up was no natural disaster, but a continuation of old grudges.

Unable to beat the monkey, he went after the monk's old flame instead?

Draining the Mother-Child River's Water Eye and cutting off the women's kingdom's lifeline was a slap in the face of Spirit Mountain's great Buddha!

When immortals clashed, mortals suffered.

An old, messy account had gone round and round, only to become an assignment for the Discipline Inspection Bureau.

Once he grasped the crucial connections, Chen Wei's thoughts flowed freely.

He had thought this an ordinary assignment to sever a mortal's obsessive attachment, never imagining it would dredge up an unresolved historical problem.

Old grudges had gained fresh resentment, and the situation had grown complicated.