Chapter Eighty-Eight: The Jade Bi of the Southern Pole

"Master, isn’t it a good thing that your cultivation in the martial dao has advanced?" Zhou Qian asked in return.

"Good, yes. But the potential of the human body has its limits. In the end, one reaches a point where no road remains; if one still insists on pressing forward, one will be crushed to pieces."

"Are you saying Master cannot carve out a road of his own?" Zhou Qian said with a faint smile.

After a moment of silence, Zhou Xun said, "Of course I trust Master. But if one truly could open a new path, then why, from ancient times to now, has the longing of mortals to seek immortality and the Way never ceased? And how could all those gods and buddhas in the heavens remain so lofty above us?"

"If you succeed, then where will gods and Buddhas be placed?" His words struck like thunder.

Zhou Xun raised an eyebrow and laughed heartily. "My disciple still sees clearly. Mortals are mortals, after all; sword immortals are still part of the immortal path. The two are worlds apart and cannot be compared."

"Then why are you still doing this, Master?" Zhou Qian asked, his voice already edged with anger. "When there is clearly a broad and easy road before you, why take the risk of walking a dead end?"

"What is a broad and easy road to you is a cliff of knives and stone to your master," Zhou Xun said with deep meaning.

"But..." Zhou Qian had just begun to speak when Zhou Xun cut him off. "Enough! Your master has his reasons for doing this. Remember what I once told you: if I could cultivate immortality, would I go out looking for death? Do you think I, Zhou Xun, see less clearly than you, little brat?"

Zhou Qian opened his mouth, then fell silent, unsure what to say. In his heart, Master had always been lofty and gifted beyond compare. The kindness he had shown him was as boundless as the heavens themselves; it was this man who had brought him into this world. If his own life could repay that debt, he would do so without the slightest hesitation.

And yet, seeing Master clearly doing something wrong while being unable to stop him felt like ten thousand ants gnawing at his heart.

"Do you think I, Zhou Xun, am like those fools who reverse their essence blood just for a breakthrough, or who perform other idiotic acts at the cost of maiming themselves?"

"Isn’t that exactly what you’re doing?" Zhou Qian said without the least courtesy. This was the first time he had openly butted heads with Zhou Xun and not yielded an inch.

"Then tell me, does your master seem at all out of his senses? After reversing essence blood, the vital energy must suffer a heavy loss and the internal organs be damaged. Have you seen any such signs in me?"

"No, but can you give me an explanation?"

"What you don’t understand does not mean your old master does not understand. That is precisely why I am the master and you are the disciple. There is still much for you to learn!" Zhou Xun’s sternness faded, replaced by teasing amusement.

Zhou Qian and Zhou Xun looked at each other. Then, the elder and the younger sword immortal suddenly burst into laughter. Zhou Qian knew then that Zhou Xun had not gone mad and was not courting death. That was enough. To press further would be to lack propriety.

As his master had said: if you are not better than me, if you do not know more than me, how can you be my master? And with Master this formidable, perhaps he had truly found some way after all.

At that moment, Zhou Qian suddenly found himself filled with confidence.

Defying heaven, was it? If Master was the one doing it, perhaps... perhaps there really was even the slightest possibility.

No matter what, he had to walk the same road as his master. As for the outcome, that no longer mattered.

"Come, Master will show you a good thing!" Zhou Xun took out a half-rolled silk-like object. "Look at the very last mark!"

Zhou Qian peered at it and suddenly felt that the terrain on the map seemed strikingly familiar. He exclaimed, "Is this the place where the South Pole Jade Wall lies?!"

"Exactly!" A rare trace of excitement flashed across Zhou Xun’s face. "And this strand of Nether Moon demonic qi was no easy thing for me to obtain."

As he spoke, he extended his left hand. A streak of black radiance struggled wildly, but Zhou Xun’s palm was as if made of jade and wood, leaving it nowhere to flee.

"The map records this: when the jade wall opens, treasures emerge; when the void appears, the ghost-swallowing art manifests. This South Pole Jade Wall is not only where the Extreme Yin True Person stored his most precious treasures, but also where the Supreme Manual of the South Pole Sect lies hidden: the Void-Swallowing Ghost Scripture. Even among sword immortals, this technique is famed far and wide, a peerless masterpiece. Well then, this is the gift your master prepared for you. Are you satisfied?" Zhou Xun asked with a smile.

Zhou Qian opened and closed his mouth, unable to find words. In his heart, he was already thinking that next time he met Li Sanshan, Brother Li Er, he would have to complain bitterly to him at length: just what kind of man was Zhou Xun, his so-called harsh and cold master? Or rather, what kind of person was he to him?

"Let’s go!"

"But Master, that old ginseng spirit said there was a sealing token and a yin demon monster where the Extreme Yin cultivator trains, and we haven’t seen either one. Could they be inside the jade wall?"

"If the immortal who told us so says the two of us can handle it, then so be it. At a time like this, what is there to fear?" Zhou Xun said evenly without breaking his stride.

I’m not exactly afraid, Zhou Qian muttered inwardly, only… aren’t you a bit too confident?

He hurried after him.

The terrain here formed a basin ringed on all sides by mountains. At the breaks in the surrounding cliffs, ranges of peaks rose and folded around them. After traveling a while, they arrived before a sheer, bare cliff on the opposite side. The rock face was smooth, thousands of zhang long and wide, stretching beyond the eye, and its color was pitch-black, made of stone of unknown origin.

Once they reached this place, the Nether Moon demonic qi became even more agitated, thrashing all the more violently. Zhou Qian felt puzzled. Truly strange. With my present constitution, even if the black baleful qi from the underground touched me, I would be left with flesh rotted and bones dissolved. This Nether Moon demonic qi looks far more powerful than that black baleful qi, and yet Master can seize it with a bare hand? Remarkable.

Seeing that it could not break free, the Nether Moon demonic qi burst into black light and swept toward the dark cliff face. In response, the black wall shimmered in echo, and a line of true text manifested:

The Gate of the Mysterious Female is the root of heaven and earth;
The wondrous law of the Five Yin is the lord of all things.

The characters were dozens of zhang high, like dragons and serpents coiling upward, sinister qi surging around them, carrying an indescribable profundity.

Zhou Xun narrowed his eyes. Following the method recorded by the Extreme Yin True Person, he sprang upward three or four zhang, performed a nimble somersault in the air, and then rose another five or six zhang, leaving Zhou Qian clicking his tongue in amazement.

He slapped the Nether Moon demonic qi into the character for "female."

At once, heaven and earth changed.

Dark clouds churned and rolled, a vortex slowly took shape, and amid flashes of thunder, the black cliff began to rumble. It gradually turned illusory. In a single instant, fifteen or sixteen strands of treasure radiance and immortal light shot skyward, scattering in every direction.

Zhou Xun’s face lit up with wild delight. "Disciple, quickly seize the treasures!"

Zhou Qian nodded, his gaze burning. Seeing a streak of yellow light close to the ground, he drove his footwork to its limit and reached out to grab it. In the faint glow he made out a small cauldron. Then, with a thunderous boom, both man and sword were flung high into the air by a tremendous force.

The small cauldron shot like lightning toward the rocky cliff. Zhou Qian’s expression changed, and he hurriedly let go, or else he would have been smashed to pieces.

He hit the ground and rolled more than a dozen times before the force was finally spent. With a bitter smile in his heart, he realized that without immortal means, these treasures were truly not so easy to obtain.

At the same time, a golden streak, four black streaks, and three red streaks pierced through the clouds and vanished without a trace. The summit of Mount Li then exploded with a crash, rock fragments flying everywhere, and the treasures actually burst out of the First Emperor’s tomb, shooting off in all directions.

Far, far away, an elderly man with crimson eyes and a face as white as snow abruptly changed expression. Without any obvious movement, he turned and rose into the clouds, flicking his fingers again and again. The scene inside the First Emperor’s tomb reflected in his eyes, and his face went from red to purple in a flash.

A mass of black qi transformed into a skull ten zhang in size and flew into the air, green flames burning in its eye sockets. Its jaws opened and closed as a hoarse, rasping voice rumbled out: "Five Desires, what has happened?"

"The South Pole Jade Wall has been opened by someone!" the Lord of Five Desires said word by word.

"What?!" The skull exploded with a bang, revealing a gaunt old man. He raged without restraint. "What did you promise back then? And what is going on now?" In an instant, white clouds turned to black and surged forth, and from within them a ferocious black claw formed, lunging straight for the Lord of Five Desires’ body.

"Enough!"

A streak of azure sword light pierced through heaven and earth, instantly scattering the clouds and the claw.

"Little Five Desires, this old ancestor only cares about the whereabouts of the Void-Swallowing Ghost Scripture. You owe me an explanation too."

"The Green Lotus Patriarch need not be angered. The stone wall has opened, the void has appeared, so that manual must have already come into the world..." Five Desires said softly.

"And what of that five-thousand-year-old ginseng? It escaped too?" came a sinister, eerie voice.

The Lord of Five Desires fell silent for a moment, then said with an ugly expression, "The Black Yin Sealing Token was just shattered by someone. Most likely it also..."

Immediately, three or four immense auras filled the void.

"Fine, fine! The little Sumeru Immortal Binding Rope has not yet been refined, the ginseng is gone, the jade wall is open, and the treasures have been born! Is this how you, descendant of the South Pole Sect, do things?"

"It took so much effort to get Mara to hold back those old Taoist priests from the seven great sects, giving us the chance to scheme after the South Pole Sect’s treasures, and now those treasures have been stolen away by righteous cultivators!"

"Impossible! My Black Yin Curtain, fused with the Geng-Ding Five Yin Void Womb Barrier, would take even the Emei sect master armed with a pure yang treasure seven days and seven nights to break. There is no way it could have been breached without the slightest sound. Impossible!" Five Desires protested.

"I don’t care. The Void-Swallowing Ghost Scripture is the key to my second heavenly tribulation. If you lot had not blocked me and insisted that I refine that damned Little Sumeru Immortal Binding Rope to catch the ginseng, I would have acted long ago. And now what has it become? Without it, I have no choice but to borrow the Stupa Tome, and Mara will surely force me to fight the seven great sects to the death. Whose account do we settle that on?"

The sound of their quarrel rolled across heaven and earth. Zhou Qian had never imagined that such a chance encounter would drag out such enormous karmic consequences, leading later to the great assault of the demons on Green City.

At the same time, a beam of azure light floated above the summit of Mount Li. Inside that blue glow, the Longevity True Person blinked his small eyes. After standing dazed for a long while, he suddenly burst into wild laughter.

"Hahahahaha! You little demon of Five Desires, you plotted everything so meticulously and relied on that womb-treasure barrier and the Black Yin Curtain to conclude nothing could go wrong. But you never imagined that a group of mortals would use the currents of the Qi River to rush into the cave abode, and the Geng-Ding Five Yin Void Womb Barrier never even moved, nor did the Black Yin Curtain. Hahahahaha! This old ginseng is nearly laughing himself to death. It really was all thanks to those mere mortals. I ought to thank them properly.

"Though that pair of mortal master and disciple does have some skill. Even an ordinary sword immortal might not be able to defeat that yin demon. Presumably by now that yin demon has already been killed by that boy, so there’s no need to hurry and help him..."

The ginseng spirit’s eyes darted wildly as he grinned. "So many treasures are flying before my eyes. They’ve got this old ginseng terribly tempted. I need to think carefully. The Extreme Yin man’s most precious artifact is the most valuable of all: the Abyss Needle, the Mountains-and-Rivers Cauldron, the Red Whisk Sword Pellet, the Black Snake Shears... right! The Black Snake Shears! They say nothing below true form cannot be cut apart. Hahaha, here I come!"

And just one incense stick earlier, Zhou Qian had still been worrying over how he had entered a mountain of treasures only to return empty-handed...