5. Journey to Canglang

On the first day Ci Ying stayed at the Nan household, the courtyard filled with jujube trees was livelier than usual.

Late in the afternoon, when Chusu and Songmu returned from the Nan family school, they saw Huaisheng being prodded by Ci Ying to practice sword swings in the courtyard. Nan Xinjiu and Xu Qingru sat under the eaves, sipping tea and watching the two little ones with amusement. It was a scene of perfect earthly tranquility.

The small wooden sword in Huaisheng’s hand was a trinket from her two-year-old selection ceremony; it was hollow inside, merely a mold of a sword. It wasn’t heavy to swing, but she couldn’t bear having to start over immediately after each stroke.

Ci Ying, embodying the spirit of a vengeful ghost from the underworld, kept his eyes fixed on her. Whenever her swings slowed, he would interject, "Is that all you’ve got? Where did that energy you used for scolding people go?"

Huaisheng desperately wanted to hurl the wooden sword at Ci Ying’s face, but lacking the strength, she could only cast a pleading look toward her parents under the eaves. Nan Xinjiu and Xu Qingru, who had been watching with great interest, immediately looked away—one gazing at the sky, the other lowering his head to pour tea.

The one looking at the sky felt a pang of sympathy for his daughter. After a couple of breaths, he lowered his gaze, his lips moving as if to speak, but Xu Qingru beside him gave a soft cough and handed him a teapot, saying, "Xinjiu, go refill this."

Nan Xinjiu could only silently pick up the teapot, casting an apologetic look at his daughter.

"Huaisheng, your brother Ci Ying is right; you really should practice properly," Xu Qingru said with a gentle smile, deciding to use food as encouragement. "Tonight, Mother will make you delicious Cloud-Milk Peach Blossom Cakes."

The Cloud-Milk Peach Blossom Cakes were made from the blossoms in the Nan family’s Hundred-Spirit Garden. Sweet but not cloying, soft and chewy, they were the favorite treat of Huaisheng, who only had nine baby teeth.

Huaisheng suddenly found the strength to force out another ten swings. After the tenth, her legs gave out completely. Just as she was about to collapse onto the ground, a fair hand caught her collar and, as if handling a marionette, placed her onto a recliner nearby.

"Rest for a quarter of an hour, then continue," Ci Ying said expressionlessly. "There are twenty more to go."

Fifty swings a day was the goal Ci Ying had set for Huaisheng.

The recliner had been custom-made by Nan Xinjiu, layered with a thick, warm, and soft spirit-cotton blanket. As soon as Huaisheng lay down, she felt sleepy. But the moment her eyelids drooped, four detestable fingers pried them open, followed by a hateful, magical voice: "No sleeping."

Huaisheng: "..."

Catching a glimpse of two figures tiptoeing past her toward the eaves, Huaisheng called out like she had found her saviors: "Chusu! Songmu!"

Chusu paused, her eyes darting toward Huaisheng with a grin: "Huaisheng, Songmu and I are going to change our clothes first. Keep working hard! Once you can swing the sword two hundred times, you can come to school with us."

Chusu was the orphan of Xu Qingru’s cousin, and Songmu was an orphan picked up by Nan Xinjiu. Both were a few hours younger than Huaisheng, yet they were sturdy and strong, having begun their studies at the Nan family school two months ago. They had long hoped for Huaisheng to become robust enough to join them, but Huaisheng was too lazy—if she could sleep, she wouldn't rise; if she could lie down, she wouldn't sit; if she could sit, she wouldn't stand. No one knew when she would ever make it to school.

Chusu slipped away. Songmu looked at Huaisheng, hesitating for a moment before being dragged away by the collar by a returning Chusu.

Huaisheng slumped back down, lifeless, and stretched with her eyes closed.

The young boy stood nearby holding his sword, watching her. As he watched, a surge of irritation rose within him for no reason—perhaps he couldn't stand her lifeless look when she closed her eyes, or perhaps he just loathed her lazy nature.

Ci Ying counted to ten in his heart and said, "Time’s up."

Huaisheng’s eyelids flickered, and she widened her eyes: "No, possible, this, fast."

"It is that fast." Ci Ying, iron-hearted, stepped forward to grab her collar. "Your parents said your sword practice is under my care now. If you don't finish these last twenty swings properly, I’ll add thirty more."

Huaisheng felt like a thin radish being pulled from the earth and shoved back in with a thud, and the hollow wooden sword was shoved into her hand.

"Keep practicing."

"..."

—

Huaisheng practiced like this for a full year, moving from fifty swings to eighty, and then to one hundred. Everyone around her—her parents, Chusu, and Songmu—were delighted by this progress. Huaisheng was the only one who suffered through it every day.

On the day of the Little New Year, Nan Xinjiu was summoned to the ancestral grounds by True Lord Linhe early in the morning. Such a solemn event as ancestor worship was only for descendants who had opened their dual apertures and embarked on the path of immortality. Huaisheng, who clearly lacked any such potential, naturally had no qualifications to attend.

She didn't care to go anyway; the Nan family members from the main branch held their noses in the air and were even more annoying than that hateful Ci Ying. She would rather stay home eating sugar melons and cutting paper window decorations with her mother.

It was the height of winter, and fine snow fell from morning till night.

Nan Xinjiu returned from the ancestral grounds covered in frost and snow. His expression was somber, but upon entering the Chuyun Abode, where a fire burned and the sweet scent of sugar melons lingered, the heaviness on his face soon dissipated.

Huaisheng reached out to be held. Nan Xinjiu picked her up with one arm, perched her on his shoulder, and asked with a smile, "Are the sugar melons good?"

The Nan family was a cultivation clan, so even the sugar melons were grown in spirit fields using spirit-melons. Naturally, they tasted excellent. Huaisheng, still wanting more, said they were good.

"I saved, two, for Dad." She lowered her head and fished some out of the sugar jar.

Nan Xinjiu ate both pieces she fed him, then took out a sword-shaped jade tablet and said to Ci Ying, "This is a sword scroll from Senior Brother Yingyu for you. He will return tomorrow and will take you back to Yajian Mountain."

Ci Ying took the scroll. "Thank you, Uncle Nan."

Xu Qingru looked at Ci Ying and said, "The Spring Festival is not far off now. Why not stay through the spring before returning to Yajian Mountain?"

Yajian Mountain was a major sect that emphasized the separation of the immortal and the mortal, and they did not celebrate the New Year. However, Muhe County was home not only to the Nan family but also to smaller clans, rogue cultivators, and many ordinary mortals, so the festive atmosphere was very strong.

Hearing her mother, Huaisheng peeked at Ci Ying, thinking that this detestable person had been forcing her to swing her sword since early morning, even on the Little New Year. If he stayed through the spring, what kind of peaceful life would she have?

As she thought this, Ci Ying readily agreed: "Thank you, Aunt Xu. I will inform the True Lord and return after the festival."

Huaisheng curled her lip, calling him thick-skinned in her heart. Yet, thinking that there would be one more person to spend the spring with this year, she felt a bit happy. She had always liked liveliness. The detestable guy had no family, so she would let him enjoy the spring here; she could just endure a few more days of hard work.

After eating sweet dumplings at night, Nan Xinjiu set up an array and took the four little ones floating into the air to watch the fireworks in the distant mortal town.

The snow fell thick as mats, and dark clouds blanketed the sky. When the fireworks ignited, the gloomy sky was illuminated, making the fine snow look like swarms of fireflies.

Huaisheng and Chusu watched with intense focus, exclaiming how beautiful it was.

The fireworks lit up not only the sky but also the bright, mirror-like Heaven-and-Earth Mirror. The barrier stood ten thousand feet high, like a giant transparent bowl overturned to protect the territory of the human race.

Outside the barrier lay vast, endless dense forests where black mist rolled like a sea of ink filled with murderous intent.

Ci Ying frowned as he looked at that sea of ink.

More than thirty thousand years ago, the path to heaven in the Canglang Realm was severed, and the Peach Wood Forest underwent a sudden transformation. Black mist, thick as water, spread from Mount Buzhou in the east across the entire Dongling Continent, heading straight for the Central Plains and the Western Continent.

The black mist was filled with yin-evil energy, and the creatures in the forest, eroded by the dense fog, were corrupted into strange beasts and demonic plants. If not for this barrier, the Canglang Realm would have long ceased to exist.

Ci Ying had been found in the Peach Wood Forest by True Lord Yunmiao. When asked why he appeared there, Ci Ying did not know; his mind was a blank slate, and aside from the agonizing pain of a shattered spiritual center, he remembered nothing. If not for a wooden tablet he carried with the three characters "Li Ci Ying" written on it, he might not have even known his own name.

The feeling of losing one's memory was not pleasant. Ci Ying always felt that he had left something very important in the Peach Wood Forest, and every day and night, he burned with the desperate desire to return. Yet, because his spiritual center was damaged and he couldn't even hold a sword, he had to obediently be sent to Yajian Mountain by True Lord Yunmiao.

However...

After meeting Nan Huaisheng, that burning, heart-searing anxiety had unexpectedly vanished.

Ci Ying quietly shifted his gaze from the Peach Wood Forest to the little girl in Nan Xinjiu’s arms.

The girl was tired now, her little head resting against Nan Xinjiu’s shoulder, her eyelids drooping as she yawned. Nan Xinjiu, knowing she had reached her limit, dismissed the array after the fireworks ended and took the four children back to their rooms.

Xu Qingru sat by the window wiping her Green Frost Sword. Seeing him return, she asked, "What happened today? Did the Ancestor say something?"

Nan Xinjiu was not one to wear his emotions on his sleeve, but today, when he returned from the ancestral grounds, his expression had been so heavy it could have dripped water. It must have been something significant.

"It wasn't the Ancestor; it was Junior Brother Xiao." Nan Xinjiu’s tone deepened slightly. "I received a sword scroll from him, saying he wants to meet me to talk about what happened four years ago."

Xu Qingru froze. "Is Senior Brother Xiao also investigating what happened four years ago?"

What else could it be from four years ago?

That was when she had been ambushed and infected with a yin-poison. The poison was as fierce as fire, not only stripping her of her cultivation and shattering her meridians, but also harming Huaisheng, who was still in her womb. The Xu family was just an ordinary, small clan; the few cultivators they had produced were low-level. It was a miracle that they had produced a True Lord at the Pill Realm like her. Xu Qingru was kind-hearted and had never made any major enemies, and as a direct disciple of a True Lord from Yajian Mountain, she couldn't imagine who would strike her with such cruelty.

She couldn't recall an enemy powerful enough to destroy a Pill Realm cultivator with a single strike.

If it wasn't an enemy from the Xu side, it could only be from the Nan family.

The Nan family’s greatest rival was the Xiao family, another cultivation clan. Both were vassal clans of Yajian Mountain, constantly embroiled in open and covert struggles. Furthermore, the Xiao family’s most renowned ancestor had died at the hands of Nan Xinjiu’s ancestor; for tens of thousands of years, the two clans had been like fire and water, viewing each other's peers as thorns in their sides.

It was only in the last few decades, due to the friendship between Nan Xinjiu and Xiao Chinan, that the relationship had thawed slightly.

At the time of Xu Qingru’s accident, the Xiao family had been the greatest beneficiaries. Over the past four years, rumors of their involvement in the poisoning had never ceased. When the rumors were at their peak, Nan Xinjiu had gone to the ancestral grounds to ask the secluded True Lord Linhe to investigate.

The ancestor, however, always preferred to downplay major issues. After investigating for a few months, he claimed the source of the rare yin-poison was impossible to find and that further investigation would be futile, effectively burying the case.

Now, four years later, there was still not a single clue.

Xu Qingru had long since let go of the desire for revenge; her only hope was to see Huaisheng cured of this yin-poison before she died.

"Xinjiu, let the past be the past," Xu Qingru said, putting down her sword. "I don't want you to take risks. If something happens to you, what will become of our Huaisheng?"

A trace of sorrow appeared in Nan Xinjiu’s eyes. "Don't worry. Only he and I know about this meeting. There will be no danger. I will return early."

He took the long sword from the wall, kissed Xu Qingru on the forehead, and said, "I will be back soon. You should sleep; don't worry."

—

In the middle of the night, when all was silent, Huaisheng felt as if she were floating in the air again, but this time the sensation was unsettling. Drowsily, she opened her eyes and saw a massive black cloak.

A figure in a black cloak was carrying her, leaping soundlessly onto the jujube tree in the courtyard and taking a few steps through the air, about to leave the premises.

Huaisheng looked down and gathered all her strength to call out, "Dad!"

Alas, her voice was as faint as a mosquito's buzz; the night wind blew, and the sound vanished.

The cloaked figure heard it clearly and looked at her, startled that his spiritual sense hadn't detected her waking up. Seeing Huaisheng about to open her mouth again, the figure flicked his finger, casting a silencing spell on her.

A massive force descended, and Huaisheng’s lips felt as if they were glued shut; she couldn't make a sound.

As she watched the figure break through the array Nan Xinjiu had set up around the Chuyun Abode, and then break through the Nan family’s barrier, a sword light suddenly struck the cloaked figure’s back.

The figure turned with a grunt, raising a hand to block the strike. The sword light transformed into a long sword that flew back into the hand of the newcomer.

Amidst the swirling heavy snow, a young boy gripped his sword and looked coldly at the figure. "Put her down."

When the sword light had arrived, a spark of hope had ignited in Huaisheng’s heart. But upon seeing who it was, those sparks were extinguished in an instant.

Furious and anxious, she glared at Ci Ying. Why did this hateful boy come chasing after them? Was he tired of living? How could he possibly deal with this cloaked figure? What if the figure killed him?

The cloaked figure was clearly surprised that the newcomer was just a child. After a moment's thought, he used a wind-escape technique to appear behind Ci Ying, his fingers like eagle claws grabbing the boy’s back. Holding one in each hand, he continued to speed eastward, disappearing into the wind and snow in no time.