It was early summer, and all things flourished green.
A youth in plain cloth and straw sandals walked briskly along a mountain path, a small cloth bundle on his back.
After traveling for two days and two nights... Lü Bufan, who had only just become a First Realm cultivator, had led a large group of commoners willing to trust him all the way to the edge of Two-World Mountain.
After finding the mountain valley that led northwest, Lü Bufan distributed the grain and copper coins from his Mustard-Seed Object among the commoners.
The commoners knelt on the ground and kowtowed to Lü Bufan.
Lü Bufan tucked some silver into the robes of several elders leading the group, then left without looking back.
I did my best. That was enough.
The large black dog ahead of the youth stopped and sniffed the air...
Lü Bufan took a pebble from his pocket and asked softly, "Big Black, found some prey?"
Big Black looked toward a small pool up ahead, where an elk was warily lowering her head to drink, a tiny fawn skipping about beside her.
Lü Bufan took a closer look and whispered to Big Black, "She has a little one with her..."
Big Black gave an indifferent snort and continued forward.
Deep in the mountain valley, Lü Bufan took out his dry rations and told Big Black apologetically, "It's late. Tomorrow, Mute and I will go hunting and roast some meat for you..."
Big Black dozed without a sound.
At midnight, thick fog slowly rolled in from outside the valley. Lü Bufan gripped the bamboo tube of incense ash Old Skeleton had given him, his expression grave.
Big Black yawned, suddenly perked up, then trotted into the thick fog, wagging his tail...
"Easy there, my lord..."
Lü Bufan hurried after him, and the boy and dog quickly vanished into the depths of the fog...
On a remote, wild mountain called Ghost Fang Ridge, a giant of a man stood with a scrawny old man perched on his shoulders, facing off against a strange man dressed entirely in white, his face withered and ashen...
Master Ming sat astride the deaf Han Wu's shoulders, looking down at this fellow who refused to budge...
"Your grandpa's out of patience! Jingting Mountain in the Eastern Sea! Two people, two hundred spirit stones, no more bullshit. Don't break your own rules!"
The white-clad man's hoarse voice sounded as though he had swallowed charcoal. "My master said... you, Master Ming, are henceforth forbidden from entering the Underground River Ghost Road!"
"He's farting nonsense! You open your doors for business, so how can you turn customers away? Have you no shame?"
"You are not a customer..."
The deaf Han Wu said in a muffled rumble, "I've already got him on my shoulders. Don't count him as taking the boat. Count him as part of me!"
Master Ming snorted, staring coldly at the ferry landing's gatekeeping ghost as he threatened, "I've given you plenty of face already. I'm even riding this deaf fellow, and that still isn't enough? Or has your Ghostway Gate become someone's dogs, just like those immortal mountains?"
"Since ancient times, our Ghostway Gate has refused to be three things... humans, immortals, or dogs! You old blind bastard, have you tired of living?"
A white-robed man floated through the air from the pitch-black depths of the mountain forest, his scarlet eyes fixed on the old blind man and the deaf man.
Master Ming smiled...
"Well now, someone with a say has arrived... what do you have to say? You don't dare let your grandpa aboard either?"
The white-robed steward gave a cold laugh like a night owl... "Heh heh... Blind Ming, it's only been a few days since that Dustless Sword stirred up a sky full of trouble in Great Jin's Capital City! If you suddenly appear in the north... our Ghostway Gate's Underground River Ghost Road clearly won't escape involvement!"
"You're afraid of that? Where are your balls? Weren't you unafraid of immortals?"
"We aren't afraid, but we don't wish to provoke them either..."
Master Ming pressed lightly on the deaf man's head, swung his body up, and hung in the air. Raising a hand, he traced a talisman in midair.
The pale golden talisman began spinning rapidly. Master Ming plucked one hair from Han Wu's head and another from his own, rubbing them between his fingers until they turned to drifting ash. He blew the ash into the talisman, which instantly became a streak of light and flew away...
"One Breath Transforms the Divine Talisman... Blind Ming, has your cultivation fully recovered?"
Master Ming smiled coldly and slowly landed, his gray robe fluttering without wind, making him look ready to ascend as an immortal... "Well? I've given you every courtesy. Aren't you going to lead the way?"
"One breath transforms the divine, leaving a trail northward... with that, our Ghostway Gate can indeed clear itself of involvement. This way, then..."
The white-clad man beside them silently led Master Ming and the deaf man into the mountain forest, heading straight for a desolate, deep ravine.
Suddenly, the white-robed man who had remained behind bowed respectfully...
The bone hairpin atop his head trembled gently, and a voice emerged from it. "Has that blind man truly recovered his Eighth Realm cultivation?"
The white-robed man answered, "Sect Master, I saw it perfectly clearly!"
"Heh heh heh... when falsehood plays truth, truth becomes falsehood too... what you see is not necessarily real. Wei Wuchen shattered the Immortal Abode with one sword strike to save those useless fools. There is no way they escaped without any lingering damage. Still... forget it. Let us watch the show! Isolate those two. Let no one else come into contact with them... then kick them off the boat halfway."
"Understood!"
The old blind man carried a bamboo staff and swaggered along at the front, his voice as loud as a donkey's braying...
"You damned deaf fool! Remember, no craning your neck and peering around, no bellowing questions about everything, no fighting, no eating without paying... and no drinking water from the underground river..."
The white-clad gatekeeping ghost beside them could not help speaking. "There's no food aboard. Drink all the river water you like if you aren't afraid of shitting yourself to death! We're nearly at the landing. Could you two quiet down?"
Master Ming kicked the gatekeeping ghost squarely in the crack of his backside. "What are you yapping about? What a piece of work... believe me, I'll tie you to the stern and let you soak all the way to Jingting Mountain!"
"You bastard..."
The white-clad gatekeeping ghost trembled all over with rage, but could do nothing about this shameless old rogue... the unorthodox sects and wandering cultivators who made their shady living along ghostly paths, both on and below the mountains, did indeed harbor some fear of these desperate outlaws from Two-World Mountain!
Master Ming snorted and swaggered into a cave with the deaf man, though he still followed the rules and collected a broad outer robe to put on!
A layer of black gauze covered its oversized hood, with wisps of sinister ghostly energy curling around it. Even mighty Sixth Realm or Seventh Realm Great Cultivators could not use divine perception or heavenly sight to glimpse another person's face beneath the robe!
This had been the rule aboard the Ghostway Underground River's ferries for centuries, and it was also the very foundation on which this ghost road stood.
Human, ghost, immortal, or demon-once aboard the ferry, you were only a passenger!
Thus, it was not only disreputable cultivators and Martial Warriors from below the mountains who secretly rode ghostway ferries through the underground passages. Cultivators of the Immortal Sect also traveled secretly aboard them when they needed to evade certain eyes and ears!
A large, flat-bottomed ebony boat lay moored inside an underground limestone cavern, a Soul-Guiding Lantern glowing oily green at its prow.
More than a hundred feet from the ferry stood a crude landing built from rough stones. Another Ghostway Gate boatman, wreathed in sinister ghostly energy, sat on a coffin...
The coffin lid stood slightly ajar, and silent passengers in black robes dropped their Spirit Stones fares inside, one after another.
Master Ming snorted and walked over with the deaf man. Taking out a Mustard-Seed Object pouch, he poured two hundred third-grade spirit stones inside with a clatter...
The ghostly boatman glanced at them and barked quietly, "Fare paid. One third-class lower-deck cabin..."
Master Ming's eyes bulged as he cursed, "Are you blind? That's a hundred spirit stones per person. We should get a second-class cabin!"
"One third-class cabin in the stern's lower hold. Leave if you won't take it! Take it or don't..."
The boatman wore an expression that said, Yes, I'm screwing you over, and yes, it's deliberate! Bite me if you don't like it.
Master Ming ground his teeth. "Fine! Fine, fine, fine... I'll remember you!"
The other passengers did not spare them a glance. After paying their fares, they each displayed their abilities, either striding through empty air or flying on currents of energy to land aboard the ferry. Following the numbers on their Darkwood Tokens, they silently entered their cabins and never came back out...
Everyone who came here to take a boat had reasons that could not bear scrutiny or daylight. Who would not prefer one less trouble to one more?
Grinding his teeth, Master Ming led the deaf man to a corner on the lowest deck at the stern... B-1!
Each deck of the ferry had a lower ceiling than the one above, especially this cabin on the third deck! Once inside, the deaf man could only stoop and walk as painfully as Granny Yu.
Master Ming kicked the damp wooden door. "How many days to Jingting Mountain? Speak up!"
An icy voice came from the end of the corridor. "Two days from now, between one and three in the morning!"
With a bang, Master Ming angrily slammed the door.
Inside, a fluorite stone cast faint, dim light. Master Ming sat cross-legged in meditation and transmitted his voice to the deaf man, who squatted miserably by the door. "I'm afraid we won't make it. Three days from now should be Huang Jiu's best chance to enter the Jinhu Immortal Abode..."
The deaf man shook his head, indicating that he did not know what to say.
Master Ming continued transmitting, "We still carry traces of the Heart-Piercing Curse's aura, so we can't get too close to the Capital City. Neither of us can conceal our aura as well as that bastard Huang Jiu... Mount Yuekong. We'll try to hide there and make some preparations. If Huang Jiu fails or falls into a trap, we'll stir up a disturbance there, then decide what to do next!"
The deaf man nodded, took out a bag of dry rations, and began gnawing on them...
Master Ming sighed and muttered to himself, "These are troubled times! Shameless must have learned something to be so desperate to break our Heart-Piercing Curse..."
The deaf man suddenly looked up from his rations at Master Ming and said in his muffled rumble, "What if Shameless isn't dead? Shameless was awfully powerful..."
Master Ming smiled bitterly. "First he split his divine soul in two, then he burned through his true spirit to command his sword and trade blows with that damned immortal! How could he have survived?"
The deaf man took a vicious bite of his flatbread and muttered, "Commanding a sword with his divine soul-did he become a sword spirit? Huang Jiu's sword spirit was a pity too. They say it's as dead as dead can be..."
Master Ming suddenly froze, then a strange glimmer flickered in his two dim eyes!
He abruptly stood, only for the top of his head to strike the low ceiling above the couch with a thump!
Master Ming stared straight at the bewildered deaf man and transmitted, "You great oaf! You great oaf... you're right! The Dustless Sword... among all the renowned swords under heaven, the Dustless Sword is the only treasured sword without a sword spirit! The Wei Family's Martial Scripture Swordsmanship and Sword-Commanding Way follow a unique path, using the soul as the spirit to command the sword against enemies! Could Shameless still have a wisp of true spirit hidden inside the Dustless Sword... it's possible, it's possible!"
Great Jin, Capital City.
A hundred li to the north lay a sealed-off forbidden site, the Jinhu Immortal Abode, one of the three places under heaven where True Immortals from the Upper Realm had descended in their true forms...
In only a few days, the wooden tower had been restored to pristine condition by the Great Jin Dynasty's court, and once more exuded an air of immortal grandeur.
Koi swam through the newly replenished lake, while immortal cranes preened beside the water.
Only the newly transplanted lotuses seemed somewhat wilted, but bolstered by an array that burned spirit stones into spiritual energy, the entire Jinhu Immortal Abode seemed even more magnificent and otherworldly than before its destruction.
Below the three-story wooden tower, two young immortal attendants, exquisite as carved jade, sat on meditation cushions with fly whisks in their arms, guarding the entrance.
From above, however, came several women's coquettish laughs, enough to melt the soul and eat into the bones...
Dressed in barely concealing gauze, Liu Xian'er knelt on an embroidered meditation cushion, carefully filling a Luminous Jade Cup...
An exquisitely beautiful woman with a vacant expression likewise knelt on a meditation cushion in thin gauze... watching another girl, a shy-looking fifteen- or sixteen-year-old, dance gracefully atop a Sandalwood Table before her!
The immortal from the Upper Realm, who had killed Village Head Wei Wuchen with a single move and snapped the Dustless Sword with one finger, held the beautiful woman in his arms and watched the young girl's enchanting dance with a smile... one hand beneath the gauze skirt of the woman in his embrace... slowly writhing...