Chapter 443

The sky of the Spirit Realm was finally no longer gray. It wasn't a sudden change one day, but a gradual cleansing.

The rain fell for seven days and seven nights—not a downpour, but that fine mist so dense you could barely see the raindrops, like needle points, falling on the roof almost silently, on the stone slabs leaving only the tiniest damp spot.

It made a rustling sound when it landed on the withered yellow leaves, like someone whispering, the words indistinct but the tone light and soft.

The rain washed away the gray. The gray wasn't swept away—it was "dissolved"—each raindrop that fell caused a small patch of gray to dissolve in the water, turning into extremely pale gray water that dripped from leaf tips, seeped through tile gaps, and flowed from the edges of the stone slabs deep into the soil.

Once the gray water seeped into the earth, it never rose again. Washing patch after patch, like wiping a mirror covered in three years of dust, first on the east side a small patch of blue appeared.

That hint of blue was very pale, so pale it didn't seem real, like the blue in a dream—you see a patch of sky in your dream, wake up and can't recall exactly how blue it was, only remember it made your heart still for a moment.

Then the west side emerged—the west's gray also had a small hole torn in it, behind which lay a deeper blue, like rain-washed blue-and-white porcelain.

Then came the south and north, gray diminishing, blue increasing, until the entire Spirit Realm's sky became like a curtain slowly being drawn back, revealing the original face beneath.

On the morning of the seventh day, the sun came out. Not bursting forth suddenly—rain hadn't fully stopped, clouds hadn't fully dispersed, the sun squeezed its light through the gaps in the clouds. The first ray of light fell on the roof of the Ninth Dao Institute, the tiles still wet, reflecting an intensely bright spot.

It fell on the crown of the Fusang tree, which was still in deep slumber, its leaves not fully unfurled, but the hairs on the leaf surfaces stood up in the light, like the gooseflesh on a person stretching after waking.

It fell on those tattered banners, the banner faces washed pale by rain but still damp, light shining through from between the canvas fibers, making the crooked, twisted stitching of several patches stand out in sharp relief.

Warm, bright. Not the scorching heat of midsummer noon, but the warmth of the first ray of spring sunlight after rain falling on the nape of the neck—you stand in the courtyard, face upturned, eyes closed, light passing through the eyelids turning into a pale orange hue.

Bright but not dazzling, the kind of light someone emerging from long grayness needs—not lightning splitting darkness, but that candle telling you day has broken.

Wang Ping did not see the sun. He lay in a quiet chamber behind the mountain of the Ninth Dao Institute, a chamber vacated by Profound Expansion Dao Venerable—the oldest Unity cultivator in the Spirit Realm, who had lived in this chamber for thirty thousand years, giving it to a young cultivator whose cultivation had collapsed to the brink of falling from Nascent Soul. The chamber was not large, its four walls built of raw stone, with extremely fine, pale moss growing in the cracks, the window facing east, directly toward the Fusang tree behind the mountain. He closed his eyes, his breath slow and shallow—each inhale caused such a slight rise and fall of the chest that the blanket over him barely moved; each exhale, the airflow leaking from between his lips could barely stir the finest down above his upper lip. Like a lamp nearly out of oil—the wick still there, the flame still there, but the oil exhausted, the flame shrunk to an extremely fine, tiny thread, trembling lightly at the wick's tip, not daring to sway too much, for each extra sway would consume a bit more oil.

His robes had been changed. Who changed them? Youying did—she had not left this room since Wang Ping collapsed. She prepared warm water and, with a towel, gradually wiped away the dried blood scabs on his body—chaotic-colored blood mixed with the silver-white remnants of order fragments, dried on the skin like a hard shell. She dared not rub his face hard, for the desert-like cracks on his face had just formed a thin layer of new skin, beneath which the true dermis had not yet grown, and pressing hard would cause it to bleed anew. She merely used the corner of the damp towel, extremely lightly, to dab his cheeks, lifting the gray while leaving the bloodstains—bloodstains already dry, needing no wiping, she feared wiping them off would also take the new skin with them.

Clean white plain cloth robes, without ornament. These were not Wang Ping's own clothes—his own had long turned to ash in the ruins of the Holy Palace. These were temporarily taken from the Ninth Dao Institute's storeroom—originally prepared for new disciples, the fabric coarse, cuffs and collar simple flat seams. Worn on him they were slightly short, wrists exposed, the array of old and new scars on his arms lining up outside the cuffs. He lay there, like a corpse. No color on his face—not deathly pale, but a grayish white paler than white, like the edge of an old page, like the thin frost on frozen winter ground. His lips were white, dry and cracked, the fissures extending from the cupid's bow to the trough of the lip, at the deepest point one could see dried mucous membrane beneath which tissue fluid had not yet seeped out.

Youying sat beside the bed, holding his hand. Her hand was small, slightly larger than when it first emerged from the shadow—this year she had used these hands daily to change his medicine, wipe him down, give him water, turn him over, her knuckles slowly opening, the pads of her fingers worn into an extremely thin callus. She was cool—her body still based on shadow form, her temperature somewhat lower than a normal person's, holding hands long enough would warm her from his heat, but her own temperature never reached normal levels. Soft—after the void power receded, her body was no longer half-ethereal in feel, but solid flesh and blood.

Her eyes fixed on his face, unblinking. Not that she didn't want to blink, but she dared not—she feared he would vanish the moment she blinked. This was not baseless worry. Over the past year, his vital signs had weakened so many times that when she placed her hand on his chest she could feel no heartbeat, only able to press her ear to his left chest, hold her breath, and listen for a long, long time before hearing that extremely distant, extremely faint sound—thud. She had sat like this for a long time, emerging from the passage, returning from the Holy Palace ruins, from the moment Wang Ping collapsed, it had been thus. Since then, the time she spent sitting at this bedside exceeded that spent on any other activity, including sleep—she had pushed two stools together beside the bed, and when drowsy would lie sideways for a while, her hand never releasing his wrist pulse.

Her legs had gone numb. Maintaining the same seated posture for a long time, the sciatic nerve in the back of her thighs was compressed, numbness spreading from the buttocks down to the toes, like countless needles pricking. She shifted her weight to her left leg, the numbness in her right leg slightly receded, but her left leg began to go numb. Her lower back ached—her lumbar spine had gone long without chair support, the erector spinae muscles continuously tensed to maintain posture, lactic acid building to the limit in the muscles before beginning to ache faintly. Her eyes also grew strained—staring at the same face for too long, especially in the dim light of the quiet chamber, the lens of the eye held at a fixed focus for too long, the ciliary muscles fatigued from overuse began automatically adjusting focus, so his face would alternate between clear and blurry. She did not move.

Cangxuan stood outside the quiet chamber's door, hand on his sword hilt. This door was wooden, old, the frame somewhat warped, not sealing tightly, the gap revealing the dim yellow glow of the oil lamp inside. He stood to the left of the doorframe, back against the stone wall, sword sheathed, silent. The sword knew this was a time for waiting, not combat. He had stood here a long time—since returning on the first day, this had been his shift—by day he stood, by night Youying took over. Not Youying replacing him, but their own arrangement: Cangxuan watches day, Youying watches night. Two people's shifts, rotating. The one on night watch may enter, sit beside the bed and hold his hand; the one on day watch stands outside the door, preventing unnecessary disturbance from passing through.

He had no need to speak, for he was listening. Through the door panel, he listened to Wang Ping's breath—on inhalation, airflow passing through the nasal passages, because the nasal mucosa was somewhat dry, it produced an extremely faint friction sound; on exhalation, airflow leaking from between the lips, because the lips were cracked, it produced an extremely faint whistling at the edges of the fissure. He listened to his heartbeat—he had tuned his sword-heart to the lowest frequency, using it to catch the extremely faint vibrations transmitted through the door gap. He listened to his body slowly recovering—recovery was not a straight line, but several days of improvement followed by one of decline, when breathing would suddenly quicken, heartbeat would suddenly falter on a beat, then slowly stabilize again. Recovery was so slow that sometimes he stood a whole day and heard no change. But he knew recovery was underway—because the rhythm of the heartbeat was more stable than last month's, because the depth of breathing was deeper than last week's. Recovery, he knew, could be measured in months.

To live is to wake. Sword cultivators understand this best. A bone severed by sword, if still alive, can regrow. Meridians shattered by sword intent, if still alive, can reopen. A spirit sea dried by the price one paid, if still alive, can refill. To live is the most important thing. He was waiting for Wang Ping to do just that.

Yuliuli sat beneath the Fusang tree, her zither on her lap. The Fusang tree was still in deep slumber, its canopy gathered, leaves half-rolled, half-unfurled. She came every afternoon, arriving without her zither—it remained here, placed beside the tree's roots, covered with an oilcloth. She lifted the oilcloth, wiped the dew from the zither dry, sat cross-legged on the roots, placed the zither on her lap. She did not play—not because she didn't want to, but because this piece was not yet finished. She had been composing a piece for Jiu'er for half a year, revised it countless times, each playthrough feeling wrong.

But she was listening. Her zither-heart was the law of listening, not of speaking. She tuned her zither-heart to the lowest frequency, to listen to the Fusang tree's pulse—its heartbeat slower than Jiu'er's, roughly one beat per incense stick, that beat extremely deep and heavy, like the snore from deep within the earth. She listened to Jiu'er's breathing—Jiu'er slept within the Fusang tree's trunk, like an infant in its mother's womb. Her face appeared and disappeared on the trunk, very small, very white, like a flower buried in soil. You could make out her five features—eyebrows, closed eyes, tiny nose, lips pressed together, the corner of her mouth bearing a trace of extremely faint smile. She was Jiu'er, she was dreaming, dreaming that big brother had stopped fighting, sitting under the tree waiting for her to wake.

Yuliuli's finger lightly plucked a zither string. She did not hook the string, merely pressed the softest part of her fingertip pad lightly against it, then released. The string did not leave its original position, merely depressed then rebounded, this process producing no audible pitch—but it did produce vibration. The vibration's frequency was extremely low, too low for human ears to hear, but it could "transmit." The vibration traveled along the zither's paulownia faceplate to the soundbox, from the soundbox to her kneecap, from the kneecap into the soil entwined with the tree roots. The Fusang tree's rootlets deep in the soil felt this vibration, the root tips twitched slightly, like being lightly tapped on the shoulder. Then its leaves began to vibrate—shasha, like someone speaking. Not language, but "linguistic feel"—she understood what the tree was saying. It said—she was still here, she was well, she would wake. She had not deceived the tree, nor had the tree deceived her.

Profound Expansion Dao Venerable had come once. That was the second month after Wang Ping returned from the Holy Palace, he leaning on a cane—formerly he did not use a cane, though his back was bent and his legs thin, he walked without aid. This cane was taken up after the battle, when withstanding pressure in the Holy Palace his kneecap had been shattered, fractured into several pieces, after returning he himself used spiritual power to reassemble the bone fragments, but the cartilage had worn away, each step now bone grinding on bone. He walked extremely slowly, the cane tapping the stone slabs with a dull thud, from the foot of the rear mountain all the way to the quiet chamber's door.

He stood at the door, gazing at Wang Ping lying on the bed, gazing for a long time. Not wondering whether he could still live—with his eyesight, at a glance he could see Wang Ping's life remained, but his cultivation had collapsed. From mid-God Transformation it had fallen to late Nascent Soul, the late Nascent Soul stage's edge still slowly slipping downward, like a tree whose main trunk had snapped, branches still there, but the bark could no longer support the weight of the canopy. He took out a pill from his bosom. Not kept in a jade bottle, not sealed in a jade box, but placed directly against his body in his bosom—the pill's wax seal had softened somewhat from body heat. He placed the pill in Youying's hand. Youying lowered her gaze to examine the pill—very small, very round, like a pearl, but lighter than a pearl, its surface bearing extremely fine pill patterns slowly flowing, traces of spiritual power circulating within the pill body. The pill body was semi-transparent, within which a tiny cluster of flame could be seen burning.

"God Transformation Pill—take it and he will wake." The Spirit Realm's sole remaining God Transformation Pill, refined by Profound Expansion Dao Venerable at the peak of his God Transformation cultivation, prepared for his own breakthrough, hoarded for over ten thousand years. Youying stared at that pill, stared for a long time. She did not immediately put it into Wang Ping's mouth—she knew how precious this pill was, precious to the point that no second could be found in all the myriad worlds. She also knew Profound Expansion Dao Venerable's pause before speaking those words was not hesitation, but that another sentence followed, one he could not bear to say. So she waited.

"But if he wakes, his cultivation will be lower. This pill is a double-edged sword—it can pull a God Transformation cultivator back from the brink of death, but the one pulled back will, upon waking, suffer the pill's medicinal impact. His current condition, his meridians cannot withstand the full potency of the God Transformation Pill; once the potency floods in, it will blast open his blocked meridians, reignite his dried spirit sea, but the impact itself will shake a new fissure in his already fractured Dao foundation. His cultivation will fall. Perhaps to Nascent Soul. You must think it over." Perhaps to Nascent Soul—let her decide for herself.

Youying did not think. Not that she wouldn't think, but she needn't think. She had thought it through in the three months of changing his medicine, wiping him down, giving him water—if he never woke, she would guard him here for life; if he woke and became a mortal, she would accompany him as a mortal; if he woke and fell to Nascent Soul, she would begin accompanying him anew from his Nascent Soul stage to re-cultivate to God Transformation. Having considered all possibilities, she needed no further thought. She placed the pill into Wang Ping's mouth. The pill melted on contact—its wax seal melted the instant it touched his tongue tip, the pill body turning into an extremely fine warm current, flowing from his tongue root down, down the throat into the esophagus, where it exploded in the stomach. Wang Ping swallowed it, his Adam's apple moving once. That was the first time in three months he had voluntarily performed the act of swallowing.

His complexion did not change—the moment the pill entered his belly, Youying thought he would frown, or his eyelid twitch, or his lips press together. But he merely moved his Adam's apple. His face remained white, remained cold. But she knew his body was in motion. She compressed her chaotic divine sense to the finest thread, probing into his dantian—the chaotic spirit sea in his dantian had dried up by more than half, only a shallow shoal remained at the deepest point, the chaotic spirit liquid on that shoal struck by the warm current transformed from the pill. The warm current was like spring meltwater seeping into dry soil, seeping into the cracks of his fractured Dao foundation, the fissures did not immediately heal, but the edges began to soften.

Profound Expansion Dao Venerable turned and left. His cane resumed tapping on the stone slabs—thud, thud, thud. After a few steps he stopped, without turning back. "He has woken, let him come find me." His tone was neither negotiation nor command, but that of a master speaking to a disciple. The Spirit Realm's oldest Unity cultivator, after this battle, had begun taking on disciples again. He departed.

The Ancestor of Thunder Prison also came. That was the fifth month after Wang Ping returned from the Holy Palace, he arrived that day without prior announcement—the founding ancestor of Thunder Prison Valley announces nothing, no matter what he does. His hammer had shattered into powder in the Holy Palace, his hands empty, his fingers unconsciously making the gripping-a-hammer motion in the air—five fingers inward, tiger's mouth open, clenched, but only air in the palm. He lowered his hands, his fingers still maintaining that bent arc.

He stood beside the bed, gazing at Wang Ping, gazing for a long time. He was not the quiet gaze of Profound Expansion Dao Venerable—when he looked, his brows were furrowed, mouth corners downturned, the air exhaled from his nose coarse. Not anger, but this was simply his expression when looking at anything.

Then he spoke, his voice coarse, like sandpaper rubbing wood. "Kid, you owe me a life." He paused, not waiting for Wang Ping's reply—Wang Ping was still in deep sleep. He was waiting to steady his breath for the next sentence.

In the Holy Palace ruins I nearly had my soul scattered by the final pressure of the Lord of Order—your chaotic primordial spirit bore that blow for me—that blow fractured your Dao foundation by one-third.

I owe the Spirit Realm—I promised Bingyue that if the Spirit Realm had need, I must come forth with my hammer. I have fulfilled that. You owe me—you still owe me. Repay it when you wake. Not repaying is fine too, just don't die. Who would repay it if you died?

He departed, walking slowly. His leg had been struck on the battlefield—a residual wave of Order power had shattered his tibia, after returning the bone had not set properly, grown crooked, when walking his right leg was half a finger shorter than his left, causing a limp.

But he did not use a cane, for he thought it unsightly. If the founding ancestor of Thunder Prison Valley walked with a cane through the mountain gate, what would the disciples think—Master is old?

Master is crippled? Can Thunder Prison Valley still fight? So he endured. His receding figure in the corridor grew more distant, bent at the waist, right shoulder slightly lower than left, like an aging bear. An old bear's claws remain, but its walk is slow.

When the Wind Sovereign came, it was a windy afternoon. That was the eighth month after Wang Ping returned—his wings in the Holy Palace ruins had been torn of most flight feathers, the remaining quills after half a year of regeneration barely managing to grow new feathers.

The new feathers were very short, very tender, the shafts still soft, not fully hardened, color paler than the old feathers, not white, but milk-white. He stood outside the window, not entering.

The Feathered Heaven tribe is not suited to confined spaces—their breathing requires wind, requires air to flow between their feathers. He stood on the grass outside the window, separated by the glass, gazing at Wang Ping. He gazed for a while.

Then he turned and walked to beneath the Fusang tree, stood there, gazing at Jiu'er's face. That day Yuliuli was absent, beneath the Fusang tree only he was present.

His wings swayed lightly in the wind—an unconscious motion, the Feathered Heaven tribe's wings automatically adjusting their opening angle with the wind to maintain basic balance even when muscles relax. Sunlight struck the new feathers, the milk-white plumage turning into a translucent honey hue in backlight.

He spoke not, for he knew not what to say. The Feathered Heaven tribe is not adept at speech—their language evolved in high-altitude wind noise, relying on feather vibration to transmit signals, using the vocal tract to produce sound being a later acquisition. He would utter only the necessary words, and standing here required none.

After standing a while, he departed. As he walked, his wings opened slightly—just half-extended, extended halfway then retracted, that being the Feathered Heaven tribe's farewell gesture.

Half-extension is for peers, full-extension for elders. He gave the Fusang tree half-extension, gave the Jiu'er within half-extension. Then his body rose three feet, feet leaving the ground, wind lifting from below, transforming into an extremely pale white streak shooting toward the sky. He departed.

When the Ruin Heaven came, it was a moonless night. That was the ninth month. He held in his hand that broken staff—the staff had snapped in the middle into two sections, he used the Return-to-the-Void clan's Illusory Void technique to rejoin the two broken sections, the joint very fine, but still discernible.

The bead on the staff head still shone—the left eye of the Myriad Phenomena Stargazer, embedded in the staff head for long enough years, having been embedded since the old man was still young and strong. Now the bead still emitted light, very faint, faint enough that without close inspection it cannot be seen.

He placed the broken staff beside Wang Ping's hand. Not giving it to him—for the Return-to-the-Void clan does not give staves, the staff is each Return-to-the-Void cultivator's bodily extension of bone.

The bead was pressed against Wang Ping's finger, and the light inside the bead seeped out from its surface in an extremely faint thread that fell upon his ring finger.

That bead recognized him; in the ruins of the Holy Temple, when he used chaotic light to save Youying, the bead had flashed once in Xu Tian's embrace, and that flash had recorded his law frequency. Now it transmitted the last remnant of Gui Xu's residual heat to him—a stone that could glow in the dark.

Xu Tian stood there, looking at Wang Ping's face. His eyes held no expression. The facial muscles of the Gui Xu clan had atrophied over tens of thousands of years in darkness; their faces could neither cry nor laugh, but other parts could. His hand was trembling—not from fear, but from thinking of friends. Xingmou was dead.

After the battle ended, he gathered her body deep in the ruins—the transparent shell's internal organs' light points had all extinguished, and he collected every single one without omission into his personal void box, bringing it back to the Spirit Realm to bury on the eastern side of Jianmu. The Gui Xu clan do not weep; their tear glands have atrophied over tens of thousands of years of aridity. But his hand was trembling.

Bing Po Xianzi did not come. She sent someone to deliver a piece of ice—not ordinary ice. It was a fragment of the mother ice from the deepest part of the Xu Bing Palace's ten-thousand-year Xu Bing ice cave, never melted, and never would melt.

The ice was placed in a box carved from a single piece of Xu Bing ice, one chi square, entirely transparent, with not a trace of impurity—no bubbles, no cracks, no unfrozen ice core. The ice sat in the corner of the quiet chamber, placed from the second month until now, and had not melted.

Occasionally someone would light a fire in the quiet chamber—in winter, Youying had placed a charcoal brazier in the room for Wang Ping to warm his feet—when the charcoal fire burned brightest, the room's temperature rose several dozen degrees above freezing. Yet the ice still did not melt.

It is the crystallization of the Xu Bing law, insoluble in ordinary heat, soluble only in sincerity. It is waiting. Waiting for Wang Ping to awaken—waiting for his chaotic light to reignite, even if it be only Nascent Soul-level chaotic light. It will melt into a drop of ice water within his light.