An ice cave thirty feet high appeared before Lü Bufan. Panting heavily, he slumped onto the snow and ice, a trace of a smile in his eyes...
His shoes had long since worn through and been discarded. He had torn two pieces from his thick beast-hide robe to wrap around his feet, but even so, the flesh on his hands and feet had been rubbed raw... The freezing wind had also left his face blotched blue and purple.
After meditating for a while, Lü Bufan began to grow accustomed to harmonizing and circulating a Martial Warrior's Gang Qi and a cultivator's True Qi, inside and out. If anyone examined him, they would only discover a Third Realm Martial Warrior circulating his Gang Qi at full strength to protect his body!
A breath of innate True Qi bathed Lü Bufan's dantian in warmth. He shook the snow and ice off himself, stood up, and slowly walked into the cave.
The ice cave grew narrower as he went. To his surprise, pieces of deep-blue crystal, large and small, appeared along both sides, suffused with faint, icy spiritual energy.
Lü Bufan plucked off two crystals and casually put them into a Mustard-Seed Object that looked like a battered beast-hide pouch.
A flat, mirror-smooth platform of ice appeared before him. Lü Bufan breathed a sigh of relief... This had to be the unfrozen-by-time ice that Old Skeleton, Master Peach, had told him about!
Old Skeleton had said that if he could persevere in meditation, gather his mind, and enter a state of self-forgetfulness on this Ice Platform, while smoothly circulating the Thirty-Six Fists and the Daoist Scripture together, he could finally begin practicing the Wandering Swordsmanship that Village Head Shameless had left him!
Was it difficult? Probably very difficult...
Lü Bufan had long since committed the Sword Art of Wandering Swordsmanship to memory. There was no helping it... Who had told him to lack an Immortal Root and the aptitude to comprehend it? All he had was a good memory and stubborn perseverance.
Lü Bufan tidied himself up first, then ate some of the dried meat stored in his Mustard-Seed Object. Finally, he slowly climbed onto the Ice Platform...
"Master, Master Peach! When I return after three months of cultivation, I'll give you both a real surprise! I'll master all three methods of cultivation together. I definitely won't disappoint you..."
Enduring the waves of bone-piercing cold from the Ice Platform beneath him, Lü Bufan closed his eyes and slowly began circulating the Innate Spiritual Qi in his dantian... The acquired Gang Qi of a Martial Warrior naturally began flowing through his limbs, bones, and all the acupoints of his body.
"At a stirring of thought, movement; without movement, movement; in movement, stillness... Seamless harmony, flowing naturally! Natural and effortless, the body as though unmoving! Thought..."
Lü Bufan silently recited an uncanny technique Old Skeleton had taught him, gradually entering a profound and wondrous state...
After an unknown span of time, frost began forming on Lü Bufan's body, and his presence grew so faint it seemed barely there!
Bit by bit, the frost completely enveloped Lü Bufan, with his tattered hide clothes, filthy face, disheveled hair, and beast-hide-wrapped feet... Finally, he became a slightly cloudy block of ice!
In Two Realms Village, Old Skeleton nodded... With a light flick of one hand, a faint strand of green light flashed past!
A mote of dust the size of a mustard seed flickered through space. Within a single breath, it drifted into the ice cave hundreds of miles away where Lü Bufan was cultivating in seclusion, then quietly settled onto the block of ice encasing him...
The mote shone for an instant, then passed through the ice and drifted onto the Baihui Acupoint atop Lü Bufan's head, vanishing!
Old Skeleton's face grew another shade paler and more withered. Then he closed his eyes and meditated without a word.
A low, icy voice sounded in the depths of his heart... "Thanks..."
Old Skeleton looked up at the big black dog, still sleeping and recuperating on the large rock, and shook his head. "This is a child of our Central Earth's Mortal Realm... Pure."
"Heh... Without the aura of the Netherworld's Origin Spirits, would he still be pure?"
"Hmph!" Old Skeleton curled his lip and said nothing more.
By the light of the moon, Master Ming walked softly to the village entrance and asked Old Skeleton, "Master Peach, have you... made any arrangements for my disciple?"
Old Skeleton opened his eyes. "Arrangements, my ass! Let nature take its course. Let him live or die on his own..."
"Well... isn't that a little harsh?"
Old Skeleton glared. "What? You think you're better at teaching disciples than I am? You useless lot taught five disciples. How many are left now?"
"Master Peach, you just had to lift the one pot that hasn't boiled..."
"Enough! A real war is about to begin, and it's one we're bound to lose! Are you lot going to obediently move away with me, or go out and fight one more real battle? Neither Big Black nor I can intervene this time... If you're afraid to die, forget it!"
Seeing that Old Skeleton was unwilling to discuss Lü Bufan further, Master Ming understood that Master Peach probably did not want him interfering with his arrangements for Lü Bufan anymore...
"After living to this point, death is a release instead! Since we can fight openly alongside the Doomed Cultivators of the Wild Spirit Land this time, if we don't swing our swords to our hearts' content... wouldn't our whole journey through Two-World Mountain have been for nothing?"
Old Skeleton curled his lip. "Not bad. Arrange a way out, and remember to bring that fat bastard Luo Wuya back alive..."
"Master Peach, will saving him damage the foundation of your Great Dao?"
"What's it to you? Get lost!"
In the village, the fat bastard Luo Wuya was drinking himself senseless with Du Yuan the cripple and Han Wu the deaf man. Empty wine jars littered the ground...
Du Yuan sat on a wine jar, gazing at the sky... "Why do you have to die? You're living perfectly well, so what are you dying for? You never won over that little wench Lu Hanxin, and you haven't slept with a single Female Immortal... You've taken a damn terrible loss in this life!"
Luo Wuya burped. "What loss? I sneaked plenty of looks at little Hanxin bathing back then... No loss there. Female Immortals... just look at that bastard Immortal Yunxia. What sort of thing is he? Aren't those Female Immortals in the Upper Realm probably even more filthy and debauched than he is? Just thinking about it makes me sick..."
Du Yuan glanced at Luo Wuya. "You fucking spied on her bathing when she was little? Shameless bastard..."
Luo Wuya looked at Du Yuan. "If you had a chance to see Guo'er bathing when she was young... would you sneak a peek?"
"Bullshit! Am I the sort of man who'd sneak a peek?"
"Really...?"
"I'd watch all damn day, until I got her pregnant just by looking... Hahahaha..."
"Wonderful, wonderful! Brother Du, you truly are a model for men like us..."
Beside them, Han Wu, his face flushed from drinking, began to laugh foolishly... "Hehehe... hic... Cripple, have you really lost all three legs? If you marry someday, won't you have to lie in bed and get your wife pregnant with your eyes? Hahahaha..."
Du Yuan was so furious that smoke seemed to pour from all seven openings of his head. "Bullshit, bullshit! Are you fucking cursing me to become a cuckold? You damn deaf bastard, honest on the outside and filthy underneath..."
On the roof, the one-armed Huang Jiu held a wine bottle and tipped his head back for a drink...
Guo'er appeared beside Huang Jiu and asked softly, "Master Peach said you've decided to finish this fight before leaving?"
"Yes... Shameless could openly challenge an Immortal with his sword. We're no worse than him!"
"They... they came back so their fallen leaves could return to their roots. You're different! The Heart-Piercing Curse has been lifted. Why clash head-on with those two Immortals?"
"That's not a reason I can use to convince myself. Some people deserve to die, and they have to be killed. Whether we try to kill them is our business... Whether they survive is theirs!"
Guo'er took the bottle from Huang Jiu and tipped her head back for a drink. "The wine isn't very good..."
Huang Jiu swept back his hair. "Good enough for a send-off!"
Guo'er sighed. "Doesn't saying things like that feel unlucky to you...?"
"I've already died once. Who'd be afraid of that...?"
"Master Peach can't intervene anymore, and neither can Big Black... Otherwise, the Three-Origin Immortal-Severing Array will upset the balance of Two-World Mountain! Some of you really will die..."
"What about you? You aren't at death's door like Luo Wuya. Why did you come here?"
"I... I came to see them off! And to see all of you again while I was here..."
Huang Jiu gave a cold laugh. "That person is using your status to make those great fiends in the Wild Spirit Land who dislike us think twice, isn't he? With you beside Master Peach, at least they won't dare target us openly..."
"Why spell it out? That takes all the fun out of it..."
Guo'er took another drink, tossed the bottle away, and vanished in a flash.
Inside the house, Du Yuan raised his head and glanced at the roof. A trace of loneliness and complicated emotion flashed through his eyes. Then, as though he did not care, he swore loudly, "One-arm! Huang Jiu... what are you doing up on the roof? Spying on Granny Yu bathing again? Get your ass down here and drink..."
"Coming! You damn cripple..."
Huang Jiu flipped down to the ground and shouted as he entered the house, "My Life-Bound Flying Sword is repaired! Pick a fight with me now, and I'll make you regret it!"
"Pah... if you're a man, come compete at drinking!"
Amid a haze of mist, Lü Bufan felt himself drifting through a boundless world of emptiness!
It seemed he had fallen into a dream! In that dream, even his body had vanished... He drifted beneath the night sky, looking at the snowy mountains and wilderness, and the pitch darkness over the Wild Spirit Land!
A bank of seven-colored auspicious clouds seemed to come rolling in from the horizon. Strangely, uncanny bolts of lightning and golden light flashed within them...
Streaks of every color rose from the earth, while bolts of lightning and beams of gold and silver poured fiercely down from the clouds! They tore the colored lights apart and scattered them...
An enormous, soundless bolt of golden lightning finally fell, engulfing the entire valley and half the mountain range! Two towering, immense, indistinct manifestations stood solemnly amid the clouds, then formed seals with their hands and smashed them down...
In midair, human figures seemed to trail blood-colored spiritual light as they charged fearlessly toward those two manifestations!
Drifting there, Lü Bufan took it all in and engraved it in his heart... He felt as though he wanted to cry!
Everything was utterly silent... What was happening? What were they doing?
An indescribable sorrow seemed to envelop him... Were they dead? Who were they?
All the turmoil dispersed, and those figures vanished without a trace... More than half the mountain range had been razed by tremendous power. Only clouds filling the sky and strange human figures flitting everywhere like fireflies remained... Was that... was that Two Realms Village? What had happened to the village? Where were Master and Master Peach? Why hadn't Big Black appeared?
Panic seized Lü Bufan, and he plummeted like a stone... Yet his heart remained unbearably agitated! What had happened? What was going on?
A faint green light flickered for an instant at Lü Bufan's Baihui Acupoint, and the sea of consciousness within his Spiritual Platform was sealed off at once!
Everything became hazy and empty again. Lü Bufan slowly sank into meditation, his mind drawing inward to become a single mustard seed... The block of ice on the Ice Platform never moved a hair. Within it, Lü Bufan remained frozen and motionless, immersed in Embryonic Breathing and deep meditation.