The bitter wind howled, snowflakes fluttering down in thick flurries, when a mound of snow in a corner halfway up Snow Ridge suddenly moved!
The method Lü Bufan had worked out on his own, practicing cultivation and martial arts together, actually worked! A breath of spiritual True Qi protected his dantian while his Martial Warrior Gang Qi circulated slowly. Lü Bufan struggled to take a step, then looked up in delight at the Ice Cave overhead, which still seemed impossibly far away...
"I'm alive, and I can still move! I'm a goddamn genius..."
Lü Bufan panted for a while, then continued his arduous climb.
At the foot of the mountain, in Two Realms Village, the deaf Han Wu raised his head to look at the distant snowy mountain, then turned and shouted to Master Ming, who sat in the courtyard, "That little brat went to climb the snowy mountain alone? You people are heartless..."
Huang Jiu curled his lip from the rooftop. "It was Old Skeleton's idea. Big Black gave his tacit approval!"
Thick smoke rose from the cripple Du Yuan's little courtyard. A small earthen furnace had been built there, with a little stone trough beside it for quenching and washing swords.
Du Yuan watched the earthen furnace before him with complete concentration. The materials smelting inside it were slowly changing.
"Huang Jiu! Get your ass over here! The sword blank!"
Hearing him, Huang Jiu immediately turned into a streak of light and appeared beside Du Yuan. He raised a hand and removed the Sword Cord from his wrist... "Cripple! Are you sure about this?"
"Cut the fucking chatter! Toss it in!"
Huang Jiu threw the red Sword Cord into the furnace. Within an ancient-looking clay crucible, several materials that had turned five different colors churned and tangled together... The moment the Sword Cord entered the earthen furnace, it began writhing violently, letting out bursts of strange, mournful cries! Beside it, the Sword Cultivator Huang Jiu immediately staggered and spat out a mouthful of blood...
"Master Ming!" Du Yuan shouted toward Master Ming's courtyard, utterly focused on driving the dark red flames beneath the earthen furnace.
Master Ming rose silently. In a few steps, his drifting figure arrived beside the furnace, and he pressed a hand against the center of Huang Jiu's back... "Preserve your essence and hold to the One! Recite the Still-Mind Sword Mantra! You fool, I told you long ago to sever the bond between your mind and this flying sword, but you wouldn't listen!"
Huang Jiu gave a bitter smile and slowly sat cross-legged on the ground. He closed his eyes and focused, bitterly enduring the boundless agony of having his mind tempered and repaired in the furnace flames alongside his flying sword!
At the village entrance, Old Skeleton sat cross-legged before the Land God Temple, coldly watching Guo'er, the female cultivator from the Wild Spirit Land, who had suddenly appeared before him.
"Master Peach, the three great Immortal Sects in the northwest and the north are already stirring! Word has also come back from the residences of the descended immortals in Western Liang and Northern Qi. Before Great Jin's newly appointed Immortal Venerable descends this time, the other two immortals will surely enter Great Jin together... Firstly, to show their loyalty to the Immortal Realm, and secondly, to subtly intimidate Great Jin's new Immortal Venerable! They're going to move against Two-World Mountain. Guo'er begs Master Peach to agree to move Two Realms Village immediately to the old site of Three-Autumn Valley. The cultivators infiltrating from the Wild Spirit Land will guard this place!"
"I don't mind leaving, but won't the people who come from the Wild Spirit Land end up being butchered by those two immortals venting their anger?"
A trace of sorrow surfaced on Guo'er's face. She said softly, "Everyone coming is either an old cultivator with little lifespan left or an unaffiliated cultivator whose Great Dao has been cut off... They don't have much time left anyway! They've had enough of hiding in the Wild Spirit Land, and enough of enduring it all! For the final battle of their lives, they want to stand proud upon the soil of Central Earth and openly offer those immortals a sword strike!"
Old Skeleton lowered his head and remained silent for a long time...
"Then that's how it'll be!"
With that, Old Skeleton suddenly raised his lone arm. A wisp of dark green radiance flickered in his palm, and something enormous seemed to writhe beneath the earth all around the Land God Temple. Then, a little peach tree grew out of the ground in this strange fashion! It stopped growing when it reached roughly a person's height, swaying in the wind as a dozen or so tender pink flower buds blossomed on it...
Guo'er immediately dropped to her knees and refused to rise. "Master Peach, you mustn't! You're already struggling so much. How can we let you expend your Great Dao Origin to shelter those remnant souls?"
Old Skeleton looked drained, but raised his head and said, "Enough chatter. I know what I'm doing! If they die at the hands of those fucking immortals, even having their souls scattered won't come easily! Have them refine the buds into their souls. After they die, they can cling to this miserable existence with me! Perhaps one day they'll see the light of day again, or reenter the cycle of reincarnation..."
The female cultivator Guo'er wiped away her tears and respectfully kowtowed. "On behalf of the Human Race cultivators in the Wild Spirit Land, Guo'er thanks Ancestor Master Peach for his kindness!"
Suddenly, a dozen or so Human Race cultivators appeared in the void. Their auras were profound and their strength immense, yet every one of their souls was dim and lightless. They descended and knelt together on the ground, choking on their sobs as they said, "We thank the ancestor for his kindness in sheltering our remnant souls..."
Master Ming waved a hand, and a dozen or so flower buds slowly drifted down onto the heads of these Wild Spirit Land cultivators and vanished, sinking into their feeble souls!
With sorrow on his face, Master Ming looked at these Human Race cultivators who, unable to endure enslavement by the immortals and Immortal Sects in years past, had fought their way into the Wild Spirit Land... He could still faintly remember most of them.
Even so, one person had not received a flower bud. This fellow took it in stride, however, and did not beg Master Peach. Instead, he got up with a cheeky grin and came before him... "Master Peach! Playing favorites, are you? You've taken in so many people, but you won't look after an old acquaintance like me!"
Old Skeleton turned and glanced at him. "You fat bastard! Haven't you always wanted to fuck an immortal? I'm giving you that chance. Even after you die, don't let those fucking immortals off! That Immortal Venerable from Northern Qi really is a female immortal. This time, you can finally get your wish!"
"Fuck me... fucking immortals... Master Peach, that's dirty of you! You're taking the long way around to curse me!"
Master Peach looked at the flickering soul-light inside this flippant fat man and shook his head. "What? Even going to Azurefall Lake didn't heal your Great Dao injury?"
The fat man shook his head. Beside him, Guo'er gave him a complicated look. "Master Peach, this fatty gave the Azurefall Ice Gallbladder, which could suppress his Great Dao injury, to Sister Hanxin. That's why Sister Hanxin was able to extend her life by another span..."
Master Peach looked more gently at the fat man beside him and said, "Of the Twelve Who Crossed the Mountain back then, you were the one who spent all day hovering around that girl Lu Hanxin. How have you still not won her over after thirty years?"
A trace of frustration and regret flashed across the fat man's face. He squatted on the ground and lowered his head. "Don't remind me! Sixty years, and I still couldn't warm her heart! Before Guo'er and I left this time, I made a special trip to see her, but she still hid in the Lake-Bottom Cave Abode and refused to meet me! So I spoke through the door... I'm going to cut down immortals! I probably won't come back... Can't you grant my wish before I die?"
"But Hanxin snorted and said... Isn't that perfect? Haven't you always dreamed of sleeping with a female immortal? Get lost. Stop bothering me!"
The fat man chuckled. "But I could tell that heart of hers, frozen solid for ten thousand years, had finally begun to thaw. Heh, heh, heh... Maybe she couldn't quite bear to let me go off and die either!"
Guo'er rolled her eyes at him. "I was inside the cave abode at Azurefall Lake at the time! I'd brought Hanxin a female disciple who could inherit her legacy... When you were saying all that nonsense, Sister Hanxin's tears were already falling..."
"Really? You're not lying to me?" The fat man sprang up and asked excitedly.
Guo'er turned her head away, refusing to pay any more attention to this fat bastard who never behaved himself, yet loved with such utter sincerity.
The fat man clutched his head and squatted on the ground... "Oh, damn! All that effort, lost at the final hurdle! If I'd just held out a little longer the day before yesterday, I might've gotten into her cave abode and stolen a kiss! Even one night as a pair of illicit lovebirds would've been enough... Ah..."
Master Peach found him an eyesore and slapped him straight into the ditch beside them.
Suddenly, Sword Qi with an astonishing presence shot up from the ground! It was accompanied by a roar that turned from pent-up anguish to excitement... "Hahaha! It worked! My flying sword is alive again... Ahahaha..."
Old Skeleton spat. Beside him, Guo'er raised her head and looked toward the village with a complicated expression... "It's that fellow Huang Jiu! He repaired his flying sword?"
"One broken piece of junk, and it had nearly become his inner demon! Useless fool, obsessing over a bonded flying sword instead of repairing his own sword heart! Serves him right, being stuck at the Eighth Realm bottleneck. Why doesn't it choke him to death?"
The fat man crawled out of the ditch, covered in dirt, planted his hands on his hips, and bellowed toward Two Realms Village, "Blind Ming! Cripple Du! You big idiot, you deaf bastard... And that one-handed ugly bastard Huang Jiu..."
Killing intent erupted beside him. The fat man suddenly realized that the ill-tempered Old Skeleton, Master Peach, also seemed to sport the one-handed look. He was just about to turn and apologize when an enormous foot suddenly grew larger before his eyes... Smack! Master Ming kicked the fat bastard, whose mouth stank worse than a cesspit, flying!
The Great Cultivators from the Wild Spirit Land bowed deeply to Old Skeleton, Master Peach, once more, then concealed their auras and forms together, afraid of alerting the Three-Origin Immortal-Severing Formation that had begun operating again across Great Jin's territory! The fat man, however, shamelessly crawled back beside the Land God Temple, groaning and pretending to be dead.
Carrying a Green Bamboo Cane, Master Ming arrived at the village entrance with the cripple Du Yuan, who walked using two little stools in his hands as his legs.
Old friends met again. Looking at Master Ming's cloudy eyes and the wretched sight of Du Yuan without his legs, the fat man who had crossed Two-World Mountain and attacked Guardian City alongside Master Ming and the others wiped away tears that did not exist and said with great feeling, "Thirty years... Looking at you now, you're even more fucking disgusting than you were back then!"
Du Yuan rolled his eyes. "You fat pig! Thirty years and you still haven't healed your injuries. What a useless bastard!"
The fat man gave him a sidelong look. "What? You talk like you've grown back all three legs you lost! You damned eunuch..."
"Quit spewing your mother's stinking dog farts! I didn't become a eunuch! Sister Guo'er, don't listen to this fat pig's bullshit!"
The female cultivator Guo'er looked utterly disdainful, swept her sleeve to conceal her form, and disappeared.
The cripple Du Yuan wailed, "I've been wronged!"
Leaning on his bamboo cane, Master Ming glanced in the direction where the Wild Spirit Land cultivators had vanished, then looked at the fat man and said, "Luo Wuya, have you come back... for one last look at Central Earth?"
The Eighth Realm Great Cultivator named Luo Wuya chuckled. "You old blind man, remember to burn some spirit money for Master Fatty in the future!"
Master Ming shook his head. "You'll die with nowhere to bury your body and nowhere for your soul to return. What the hell would I burn it for?"
The fat man spat and ran off to continue mocking the cripple Du Yuan.
Master Ming came before Old Skeleton and bowed, asking softly, "Master Peach, are we really going to the old site of Three-Autumn Valley?"
Old Skeleton smiled indifferently. "No matter where we are, we'll just be loafing around, eating and waiting to die. What difference does it make if we stay there?"
A complicated gleam suddenly flashed deep within Master Ming's cloudy eyes. He nodded. "Then we'll still follow Ancestor Master Peach's Land God Temple. Wherever the Land God Temple goes, Two Realms Village will be there! Together in life and death..."
Old Skeleton raised his head and glanced at Master Ming. "What a pack of good-for-nothings. You've really latched onto me..."