A Son of the Jiang Clan

The Black Tide stirred restlessly in the Rising Yang Mansion, never once quieting during the days Fang Lin lay unconscious!

But unless he sent the uninvolved people away, Jiang Wangxuan did not dare venture into the secret realm between the two peaks. No one knew what was hidden inside.

This had to be one man's secret adventure!

With the magic sword Autumn Frost already in hand, Jiang Wangxuan held his breath and focused. Under Big Fat Fish's forceful guidance, the Black Tide surging within the Rising Yang Mansion finally revealed a trace of its Qi!

Black clouds at once blotted out the sky above Jinping Mountain. A cold gleam appeared between its two highest peaks, followed by a boundless chill that spread outward. Just like that, a deep, dark "rift" appeared between the peaks!

It was like a "demonic eye" opening in the night sky to scrutinize the world below. Yet Jiang Wangxuan could sense that it was false!

It was an illusion, a trick of the senses. No one in the scenic area at the foot of the mountain would notice anything amiss above. The sky over Jinping Mountain had now become a secret realm hidden within an illusion!

That familiar Qi left Jiang Wangxuan with no further hesitation. This mysterious, unfathomable transformation had been left behind by the Cicada Immortal!

Jiang Wangxuan stepped into the air, and steps of condensed ice floated into being beneath his feet. The deep rift grew larger and larger in his sight!

At last, it seemed to blot out the entire night sky. What he saw was what the illusion showed him. Jiang Wangxuan cultivated in Grand Yin, and seeing through falsehood was his specialty. The design here mingled illusion and reality, reality and illusion!

It was all real! And all false! The "rift" into the secret realm was actually only as wide as a single hair!

The dividing line between illusion and reality emerged, and Jinping Mountain's night sky receded "backward" at tremendous speed. Scenes of spring, summer, autumn and winter flashed past in turn. After an unknown number of cycles of the four seasons, a deathly still, desolate presence finally arrived!

It was a mountain, a mountain called Jinping. The two peaks in its center still stood just as close together, like the ends of a scroll, but their summits had broken off. The breaks were charred black, like two lengths of dead wood split by a giant axe.

A land of the dead, a place without light!

A deep ravine cut through the middle of the mountain. Its walls were smooth as mirrors, the marks of a lightning strike, and a thin layer of frost covered the scorched earth. Jiang Wangxuan drew a deep breath and followed the ravine forward.

The earth beneath his feet was charred black and barren, soft as ash underfoot. Scattered fires burned all through the mountain, their flames white as ashen frost.

Farther ahead, countless ashes and fragments of wreckage densely carpeted the entire mountain hollow.

At the end of the hollow, the terrain suddenly opened into an enormous, charred-black valley floor. In its very center stood a tree stump.

The stump was larger than any tree he had ever seen. It would have taken ten people with arms outstretched to encircle it, and its blackened surface was riven with cracks deep enough to swallow a wrist.

On the stump's cut surface, beneath its charred outer layer, were rings upon rings of growth. At their very center, where the heartwood should have been, was a hollow. Its edges were smooth and rounded, as though something had been removed from within.

Cold Qi sealed the remaining cavity, forming an ice mirror the size of a fist. He leaned closer and saw an exceedingly tiny world inside, no bigger than a fingernail.

In that tiny world stood an equally tiny locust tree, so short it reached only to his fingertip. Beneath it, an even smaller cicada lay on the roots, its wings covered in thin frost. It did not move, as though asleep.

Understanding dawned on Jiang Wangxuan. Jinping Mountain must have suffered a great calamity from an unknown source. Though the ancient tree had died and its Dao had perished, it had used its own body to shelter the cicada while it was still young!

Protected by the ancient tree, the cicada had survived the catastrophe and ultimately sought a Divine Ability and entered the Purple Mansion! And this secret realm was a scene of Jinping Mountain as it had been then, a veritable domain of death, sealed away by True Person Shouhui.

Such wondrous power showed just how profound the Cicada Immortal's cultivation was! But why had none of the county annals found in Luzhou ever mentioned this disaster?

Before he could think further, however, the secret realm suddenly changed!

"Brother Yin, I never expected your hometown to have such a blessed mountain. For us remnants of Punishment Sacrifice Peak, heaven has left a path open after all..."

"Tao Yao, did your martial uncle and the others go to the great marsh in the south?"

"Martial Uncle Yin, they had no other choice. The Ancestral Pool no longer responds, and they can no longer maintain their Immortal Foundations..."

Projection after projection appeared around the stump. Their faces were panicked as they gathered around it. At first there were dozens of them, but as time passed, fewer and fewer people remained inside the stump!

"Tao Yao, your martial uncle and the others aren't coming back! We have to wait here, and we can't go down Jinping Mountain either. We'll wait here for ten years, or even longer, until the thunder dies down..."

"Martial Uncle Yin, this is our last Fortune-Stealing Life-Extending Pill. Martial Uncle specifically entrusted it to Tao Yao before he left..."

"Tao Yao, take this pill and leave the secret realm. Fleeing for my life all the way here cost me much of my lifespan. This is our fate, and there's no escaping it. After you leave, I intend to seek a Divine Ability here and advance to the Purple Mansion. If I haven't come out in twenty years, you must accept reality!"

"Remember, after I seek the Divine Ability, this secret realm must never be opened again, or a great calamity will descend. Remember that, remember it well..."

"And Tao Yao, even when the last moment comes, don't do anything foolish. If Punishment Sacrifice Peak can't be saved, then so be it. The vast Southern Fire Heavenly Manor has been utterly wiped out. What can we possibly change? You're only in Qi Refinement; you can't shoulder this Dao legacy either."

"If I don't come out, abandon the Dao legacy, go down the mountain and live your lives..."

At last, only one person remained by the stump. His hair was white with age, and he wore a gray hemp tunic. His hands were as thin as kindling, and he looked as though a gust of wind could knock him over. He was in no condition to seek a Divine Ability!

Only his eyes shone brightly. He slumped against the stump, his legs sprawled out across the land of the dead like a shameless rascal!

All at once, he stared to one side and revealed a strange smile. "You've come, son of the Jiang clan!"

Another peal of thunder crashed through the secret realm, and raging lightning and fierce fire descended upon it once more!

Jiang Wangxuan could not help staggering back several steps. Martial Uncle Yin, the last to remain and seek a breakthrough to the Purple Mansion, was now facing him, his eyes fixed firmly in his direction!

"You were bound to come! This is the fate of our Jiang clan! For hundreds of years, every one of our forebears who set foot on the immortal path was the same. Though those who came before smashed their cultivation methods to pieces, the Jiang bloodline still led every child with a Spirit Aperture down a road of no return!"

"As for the Jiang clan's secret, even I have only glimpsed the faintest corner of it. When I broke through to Qi Refinement at twenty, the Jiang bloodline awakened. I found the old Jiang Household ancestral hall, burned almost beyond recognition, and set another fire. Then, following our forebears' custom, I changed my surname to Yin."

"I broke through to Foundation Establishment in the Southern Fire Heavenly Manor, but I left no name in Huaqi. The Foundation Establishment Realm cultivation method was already in my bloodline. I cultivated in Horn Wood, yet obtained the True Explanation of Shedding Wood, Crossing Calamity and Transforming Spirits, and used a Horn Wood Immortal Foundation to seek a Renewed Wood demonic-path Divine Ability!"

At that, Martial Uncle Yin suddenly burst out laughing, until tears and snot streamed down his face. When he finished, he sat like a wooden chicken for a long time before speaking to "Jiang Wangxuan" again. "This is the Jiang clan's sin!"

"The Renewed Wood demonic path. Ha! Every Jiang child with a Spirit Aperture ultimately ends up on this demonic path, even if they don't cultivate in Wood Virtue!"

"Whenever a Jiang child with a Spirit Aperture dies, the next is born into the bloodline. That was why I went to the Southern Fire Heavenly Manor and befriended Punishment Sacrifice Peak, hoping to uncover the mystery of the bloodline."

"But in the end, I was wrong. The centuries of misfortune that befell Jiang children with Spirit Apertures weren't simply connected to the bloodline. That was our fate!"

"But I refuse to believe in fate!"

Martial Uncle Yin produced a jug of wine from who knew where. He poured and drank alone, occasionally raising his cup to "Jiang Wangxuan" and draining it!

"Son of the Jiang clan, the year is Qinghuan 1058. If you come from a few decades later, it means I failed. If you come from a hundred years later or an even more distant future, it means I won!"

"The mystery of the Jiang bloodline can never be brought to an end, but I can interrupt this secret for a hundred years. This is my hopelessly overreaching defiance. If I succeed, you should be proud of me!"

"Drink with me!"

He soon emptied the jug, pouring and drinking by himself. Martial Uncle Yin's eyes were bleary with drink. He desperately wanted to get drunk, ideally to drink himself into a stupor and never wake again.

"Son of the Jiang clan, you needn't search for who I am, or investigate what our ancestors did. You were always going to come, but I can decide when you come to see me!"

He flung the wine jug into the darkness. A brilliant green radiance poured from his body, illuminating the lightless land. In an instant, the withered stump renewed its former vitality, like a sick tree meeting spring!

Yet Martial Uncle Yin was not surprised in the least. He threw back his head and laughed. "I understood long ago. Centuries of Jiang sons' accumulated reserves-you were waiting for my Horn Wood! You're desperate to bring Renewed Wood back into the world!"

"What a fine True Explanation of Shedding Wood, Crossing Calamity and Transforming Spirits!"

Jiang Wangxuan stood with his sword drawn. Before him, the dead stump had already regained its "vitality." Its limbs had twisted and warped, no longer growing upward but spreading in every direction, like a gigantic, withered hand pressed against the ground.

Every branch was coated in a thick layer of dark green slime, beneath which countless tiny, writhing roots could dimly be seen.

A slit had opened in the middle of the trunk. Its upper and lower edges curled outward like a mouth stretched sideways, with rows of tiny teeth densely packed along its rim.

Thunder crashed down, and gray-white flames swept in from the foot of the mountain. The awakened "giant tree" let out an explosive shriek from its "mouth."

Lightning struck the "giant tree," only to be conducted through its branches. The dark green slime writhed wildly, and in the midst of that transformation, the lightning became a bolt of brown "demonic lightning."

When the gray-white flames reached the "giant tree's" limbs, they gave off a ghostly green netherflame. The "giant tree" grew even larger, as though it had risen to its feet, and swung its twisted limbs like a giant.

It gazed greedily at the little figure beneath it!