The Path Toward Heaven

Guo Dong smiled wryly.

She didn’t like these people, who were, unlike Jing Yang back then, not straightforward, not even slightly. In fact, Jing Yang would have done whatever he thought was necessary to do, and he would even dare to thrust his sword toward the back of his big brother without hesitation, and he had been taught by him since his youth; and on the other hand, he wouldn’t do anything that he thought wasn’t worth his effort; even if his partners or friends were dying in front of him, he wouldn’t even feel a thing.

Looking at the sky in the east, she thought it was obvious that he was unwilling to enter, but he still displayed the pretense that he was actually worried about his daughter.

Then, she looked at the sky in the south, thinking that he was the one who would like to see the disinheritance of Shenmo Peak the most, meaning there was no point in him pretending that he was concerned about Jing Jiu’s whereabouts.

…

…

Juye City was located three hundred miles south of White Town.

The headquarter of the Windy-Broadsword Sect was here. Juye City was a lot more populous than White Town, with sheep vendors and medicine salesmen filling the streets and peddlers’ commercial calls bombarding people’s ears at all hours of the day.

In such a populous city, there must be a hotpot restaurant.

A short and thin old man and a handsome young man were eating hotpot.

It was the couple’s hotpot.

The red broth was boiling, but the white broth was still undisturbed, looking like the fog in the deep end of the snowland.

The young man held a pair of long chopsticks, dipping the tripe in the red broth, looking very pleasant with two glinting eyes.

The short and thin old man was the third-generation grandmaster of the Mysterious Dark Sect.

He wasn’t in a good enough mood to eat the hotpot at such a critical moment. He glanced at the young man, a strange look forming in his eyes, and said, “What’s so good about the hotpot?”

The young man didn’t heed his complaint. His right hand held the chopsticks was fairly steady, rising up and down now and then and sending the foods directly into his mouth as if it was not hot at all.

“The Center Sect Master and Yuan Qijing are of no big concern; one is in the Grand Arrival, and another is in the Heavenly Arrival. I have achieved those states myself before.”

The short and thin old man squinted at the distant north as he asked, “Why does the broadsword energy make me feel like hiding from it?”

The young man picked up a piece of greasy intestine with his chopsticks and put it in his mouth, chewing noisily as he said indistinctly, “He probably hadn’t even been born when you hid underground.”

The short and thin old man said, “I of course know that he was the Broadsword King, as the mortals call him.”

The young man drank a mouthful of sour plum soup from a clay bowl, exhaling in satisfaction.

“He is a Buddha who has practiced and killed in the wind and snow, so his nature is the antithesis of yours.”

Shaking his head, the short and thin old man asked while pointing to the north, “What has happened in the Snowy Kingdom? Even I feel somewhat frightened.”

The young man put down the bowl and picked up the warm towel on the table to wipe his face. “Nothing important. It’s just that the other being is going to have a baby,” he said offhandedly.

The short and thin old man was surprised at hearing this news. “Is the being the Queen of the Snowy Kingdom? She is a nonhuman being; how can she have a baby?” the old man gasped.

Glancing at him once, the young man said, “You have become dim-witted as you age. Who said that only humans can have babies? Didn’t you know that royal concubine in the palace has already been pregnant?”

It took a while for the old man to subdue the shock he felt deep in his heart, and he asked the young man, “How did you know about this?”

The young man said with a wry smile, “I have learned it from Tianjingren…. Okay, I have lived long enough to know more things.”

“I have lived a long time as well,” the old man said indignantly.

The young man responded, “You have been hiding underground, unable to see the sun and sky day in and day out, let alone the the world; your existence can’t be called living, merely surviving.”

“Okay, what you said is probably true.”

Looking at the young man, the short and thin old man said admirably, “You have included such an event in your scheme; you’re really awesome.”

“It’s just a coincidence and has nothing to do with my plotting,” said the young man with a soft smile.

The short and thin old man suddenly changed the topic as he asked, “Why do you want that Jing Jiu to die so much? Even if he is the successor of your Young Brother, what makes you so alarmed? Or…does he have other background?”

The young man was fully aware that the only this grandmaster of deviant sect wanted to know was the answer to that question and that every other question was utter nonsense, so he simply smiled without explaining it.

The short and thin old man narrowed his eyes, pressing, “In other words, even if Jing Yang is dead, you are still afraid of him, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I’m afraid of him. It’s because I couldn’t understand him. Besides his desire of acquiring Dao and ascending, I had never known what he wanted or liked.”

The young man picked up a few green vegetables with the chopsticks, about to put in the red broth, but after some thought, he put them instead in the white broth which hadn’t started boiling yet, as he continued, “I asked him many times when he was young, about what color he liked, and what magic method he liked, but I had never gotten any definite answers.”

Many years ago, the couple hotpot was the top choice when the hotpot became popular on Shangde Peak.

He and his two wicked disciples ate the red broth, and Jing Yang ate the white broth, which later on became simply water soup.

Jing Yang was tasteless and uninteresting to the extreme, devoid of any desire, but also had no weakness.

The person he was alarmed about the most in this world wasn’t his two wicked disciples, or anybody else, and that person could only be Jing Yang.

The young man thought it would be worrisome if Jing Yang hadn’t died.

In the meantime, he wanted to find out whether Jing Jiu was Jing Yang or not.

He had been certain about Jing Jiu’s identity, but he became uncertain due to certain events.

…

…

It was the true white world thirty thousand miles north of White Town.

The ice and snow were everywhere here.

Even the sky was a grayish white.

A snowy peak rose up from the snowland, and it was higher than anyone could imagine, as if the peak would pierce through the roof of the sky.

The peak top was high up in the sky, and the sunshine was quite bright here, making the peak look like it was set ablaze by white fire, but the sunshine didn’t have any warmth, and it was extremely cold here.

Even the red lava bursting out from the underground would be instantly frozen and break into small pebbles when it had contact with the cold air here.

In fact, the ten-thousand-mile plain land before this snowy peak had formed this way.

There was no snow foot monster, no snow worm, or any creature of the Snowy Kingdom here; it was deathly quiet.

If one perceived it with great care, they would be able to discover that there was a faint life energy hidden amid this patch of extremely cold world.

That life energy had grown stronger and stronger, creating a feeling of expansion.

The life energy started like a new bud in the early spring, and was growing at an unimaginable speed. Where did this life energy come from?

The life energy came from the deep end of the snowy peak.

The most ancient and the strongest life form, which was in the highest state, existed on the peak.

A most powerful awareness had swept the boundless snowland.

If willing to, she could cover half of the Chaotian with her awareness.

Suddenly, she encountered another awareness from thirty thousand miles away.

That awareness was very weak, but it seemed that she had sensed it somewhere before.

A sound boomed like the thunder.

Countless flakes of accumulated snow rolled down from the peak, and the snowland shook uneasily; it was a terrifying scene.

The snowy wave rolled forward to the south fervently, displaying her will and emotion.

It was powerful and angry.

Someone dares threaten me?

That mere ant of a human!

…

…

Jing Jiu’s body shook slightly, his face pale. If his feet weren’t caught on the rocks, he might have fallen off the cliff again.

In his current Cultivation state, to converse with a being of such a high state was incredibly dangerous, and his awareness could fall to pieces at any minute.

Though the mount of his zhenyuan was far more than other Cultivation practitioners of the same state and was purer, it had already been exhausted in such a short time.

His heart and soul were extremely tired, much more so than when he had played that chess game with Tong Yan.

The most troublesome fact was that the surface of his Sword Pill had a shallow crack.

Yet, he had received enough information, and sent out his own information as well.

The exchange didn’t involve any words, just awareness.

The negotiation was ambiguous on the surface, but it was actually quite clear.

If any of his actions was regarded by the other being as a threat, the war would begin.