"Mid-stage... and he looks so young," whispered a female cultivator from the Crescent Moon Sect, her eyes hidden behind a thin veil, fixed intently on Zhi Xuan. "Who exactly is this Gu Fengyan? I have roamed the southern regions for three hundred years, yet I have never felt ripples of energy so profound."

  "Perhaps he is a hidden disciple of one of the Old Monsters from the northern mountains," her companion replied in a low tone. "Look at how he rejected that fox's charm just now. Only those whose Dao Hearts have frozen into eternal crystals are capable of such a feat."

  Li Chen, feeling his mood reach its peak, nudged Zhi Xuan’s shoulder with a beaming face. "Hear that, Brother Gu? You’ve become the star of the show overnight. Master Taixuan rarely offers the position of 'equal partner.' Usually, he treats everyone like pawns on his chessboard."

  Zhi Xuan continued to stare into his cup, his voice as cold as the night wind. "A useful pawn is still a pawn, Brother Li. Do not let the wine dull your vigilance. Master Taixuan did not invite me out of respect, but because he sees a sharper tool to dissect the mist of the Ancient Demon Lands."

  "Heh, you really are no fun at all," Li Chen grumbled while sipping his wine, but then he whispered more seriously. "But you’re right. Look at his eyes. He doesn’t look at you as a human, but as a key."

  Suddenly, Master Taixuan rose from his golden throne, bringing an immediate silence to the entire room. He spread his arms, and the starlight glow on the tower ceiling dimmed, leaving a single spotlight on an ancient map projected in the center of a water pool.

  "Look at this, fellow Daoists," Master Taixuan's voice resonated deeply, cutting through the heavy silence. On the surface of the pool, the projection of the ancient map began to throb, revealing red lines resembling rotting veins amidst the green expanse of Yao Gu. "This is the Ancient Demon Lands. A place where the laws of Heaven are twisted, and where the Heavenly Demon Calamity Banner awaits its awakening."

  Li Chen leaned toward Zhi Xuan, his eyes—once playful—now filled with cold calculation. "Look at that black dot in the center of the map, Brother Gu. That is the Valley of Despair. Rumor has it the Yin pressure there is enough to freeze the flow of spiritual essence before you can even form a protective mudra."

  Zhi Xuan kept his gaze on the projection, his Heavenly Eyes working tirelessly behind his sapphire pupils. "Master Taixuan," his voice broke the silence, "that map radiates an unnatural aura of death. You didn't invite us all here just to show the way, did you? There is a price to be paid even just to step foot on the border of that land."

  Master Taixuan chuckled softly, a sound like the scraping of ancient metal. "Your inner perception is truly extraordinary, Brother Gu. Indeed, the demonic mist at the gates of the Valley of Despair requires an offering of pure Yang essence to be parted. Without the strength of at least ten Soul Transformation cultivators united, we will only become food for the starving spirits there."

  "Ten Soul Transformation?" Li Chen whispered in shock, glancing at Zhi Xuan. "Brother Gu, that’s no longer an expedition; that’s a full-scale invasion! Master Taixuan is truly mad if he thinks he can control ten egos of the Soul Transformation realm for a single goal."

  Zhi Xuan did not avert his gaze from the black dot on the map. "How many of them will return safely, Master? Or rather, the question is: how many of them do you expect to remain alive after that gate opens?"

  Zhi Xuan’s blunt question made several cultivators nearby flinch. Ba Yan, just recovering from his shock, snorted softly but did not dare look at Zhi Xuan directly. "A bold question. But in this southern region, risk is the sibling of opportunity."

  Master Taixuan narrowed his eyes, a flash of sinister light crossing their depths. "Fortune favors the bold, Brother Gu. As for who returns... that depends on how sturdy each individual's Dao Heart is."

  Zhi Xuan gave a thin smile, lifting his hands and clasping them in a gesture of feigned trust, before calmly draining the spiritual wine from his jug. The thud of the jug hitting the marble table created a singular, eerie chime in the silence. Although he spoke with an air of resignation, the dusky grey glow enveloping his body radiated an authority that was hard to dispute.

  "If the Dao Heart is the guarantee, then this Gu will take a seat on Master Taixuan’s boat," Zhi Xuan said, his voice calm yet carrying an echo that rippled across the pool’s surface.

  Master Taixuan nodded in satisfaction, though his mind was slightly unsettled by the youth's composure. He swept his sleeve, and the map projection expanded, showing mountain ranges that looked like broken dragon fangs.

  "Excellent! With Brother Gu and Brother Li, we have a sufficiently strong foundation," Master Taixuan shifted his gaze across the room. "Two days from now, when the Seven Suns are at their nadir and Yang energy peaks, we will gather at the South Gate of Dragon Lotus City. Prepare yourselves, for once we pass through that mist, the laws of the mortal world no longer apply."

  The banquet slowly began to wind down, yet the atmosphere was no longer as festive. Cultivators began to speak in whispers, forming small groups to watch each other's backs. Li Chen, usually the loudest, remained silent, rhythmically playing with his jade fan.

  "Brother Gu," Li Chen whispered after a while, "did you feel that? When Master Taixuan laughed earlier, the formation beneath this pool pulsed in rhythm with his heartbeat. He has already bound this place with his bloodline. If we aren't careful, he could swallow us all before we even reach the Ancient Demon Lands."

  Zhi Xuan glanced at the bottom of the pool, where his Heavenly Eyes caught the flow of blood-red energy streaming from Taixuan’s throne to every lotus petal occupied by the guests. "He hasn't just bound this place, Brother Li. He is marking every spiritual essence in this room. Every cup of wine drunk, every scent inhaled... they are all tracking threads."

  Li Chen gasped, nearly dropping his cup. "Then you? You just drank that wine!"

  Zhi Xuan wore a mysterious smile. "The wine did enter my body, but whether it can touch my Divine Soul... that is a different matter."

  Inside his Sea of Consciousness, Zhi Xuan’s Divine Spirit, seated atop the Heavenly Samsara Wheel, moved its hands. The wine containing Master Taixuan’s spiritual mark was immediately enveloped by dusky grey flames and purified into pure essence, while the tracking mark was isolated and imprisoned within the Karma Crystal inside the Heavenly Trifold Reincarnation Cauldron.

  "Let us go, Brother Li. This place is beginning to feel suffocating from the stench of overbearing ambition," Zhi Xuan rose, his black-and-white robes fluttering elegantly.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  The two stepped out of the Dragon Lotus Courtyard under the sharp gaze of Master Taixuan and the whispers of other cultivators. As they walked across the bridge of light toward the inn, the night wind of Dragon Lotus City carried a bone-chilling cold—a sign that the peace in the southern Yao Gu was merely the stillness atop cracking ice.

  Zhi Xuan stared at the vast night sky, where the constellations twinkled faintly. Two hundred years had passed, and he had returned to the world's stage not to be a follower, but to be the storm that would sweep away all falsehoods.

  "The Ancient Demon Lands... the Calamity Banner," he thought, clenching his left hand, which was etched with silver markings. "If it truly is an artifact capable of manipulating Yin energy, then it is the key I need to perfect this God-Devil physique."

  Zhi Xuan parted ways with Li Chen to walk through the silent midnight. He stopped by a riverbank in Dragon Lotus City, leaning his sturdy back against a stone pillar of the bridge. With a wave of his hand, a wine jug appeared, and he drank again, inviting a melancholy atmosphere.

  The rustle of the river beneath the bridge sounded like the whispers of thousands of spirits trying to convey messages from the past. Zhi Xuan took a gulp, letting the heat burn his throat, yet his mind remained as cold as the snow on an eternal mountain peak.

  Under the dim moonlight of Yao Gu, his long shadow on the water's surface looked foreign, as if the body itself belonged to someone he had only just met.

  "Four hundred years of cultivation..." he whispered, his voice nearly lost in the wind. "Every drop of this wine carries a different taste from my last memory. The world has shifted, yet man's greed for power remains the sturdiest law."

  He raised his left hand, staring at the fine silver patterns creeping beneath his skin. Those marks were the remnants of the purification of the Demon Seed and Slaughter Karma, now one with his Ancient Heavenly bloodline.

  In the eyes of others, he might appear a hero or a young genius rising in status, but Zhi Xuan knew that every step he took was a dance on a sword's edge between sanctity and destruction.

  TING—TING—TING

  Zhi Xuan felt his heart skip a beat; that familiar string sound now seized him. The chime of the guqin echoed again, piercing the silence of the riverbank. Zhi Xuan, who had been leaning back with eyes closed, slowly straightened his posture.

  His inner senses, which had reached the mid-stage of Soul Transformation, caught a very specific resonance—a frequency that had vibrated his Dao Heart two hundred years ago at the Flower Dew Bridge.

  He looked toward the sky, where a flying carriage pulled by white cranes glided gracefully. Atop the carriage sat a woman whose aura was like the moon partially obscured by thin clouds.

  "This music... a melody carrying the weight of all living beings' sorrow," Zhi Xuan murmured. His memory flashed back to the night under the peach blossom tree, when he still held little Mei Hua in his arms.

  The flying carriage landed slowly on a high platform overlooking the river, right in front of a long-abandoned ancient temple. The woman stepped down, her green robes fluttering in the night wind, matching the falling leaves.

  Though two hundred years had passed in mortal time, the beauty and gloom radiating from her half-veiled face had not changed in the slightest. Holy Fairy Ye. Zhi Xuan placed his wine jug on the stone railing and stepped forward. Every footstep was silent, merging with the night shadows. He stopped ten paces behind her.

  Zhi Xuan stood frozen ten paces behind the green-robed figure. The cold river wind brushed his long, loose black hair, but the chill could not match the silence radiating from the woman's back.

  Two hundred years. To the mortal world, it was several generations turned to dust. To a Soul Transformation cultivator, it was but one long breath in meditation. But to Zhi Xuan, two hundred years was the distance between a young man seeking peace under a peach tree and a God-Demon now carrying the weight of thousands of lives on his shoulders.

  Holy Fairy Ye did not turn around, but her slender fingers stopped atop the guqin strings. The silence between them was so heavy that the sound of the river below seemed to freeze.

  "Fellow Daoist over there," Holy Fairy Ye said without turning, her tone melodious yet sharp. "Please, stay where you are. I do not wish to be disturbed."

  Zhi Xuan froze for a moment, his white-and-black robes billowing in the night wind. His sapphire blue eyes still held a cold glint of eternal oceanic void as he stood calmly, staring at the slender back of the woman before him.

  "That melody..." Zhi Xuan’s voice broke through the silence, low and authoritative, yet carrying a deeply familiar vibration. "It still carries the same weight of sorrow, Holy Fairy. Are two hundred years not enough to wash that grief into the estuary?"

  The green-robed woman’s shoulders trembled slightly. She slowly turned her body, a movement so graceful that her robes looked like a leaf dancing in the dawn wind. Her half-veil was still there, hiding her face, but her mournful eyes—eyes that had once seen the emptiness within Zhi Xuan two centuries ago—now widened.

  She stared at the figure before her. Pitch-black hair tied with snow jade, a body radiating a majestic gold-silver glow, and most strikingly, a pair of sapphire eyes that no longer held only death, but a depth of natural laws that was unreachable.

  "You..." Holy Fairy Ye’s voice trembled, fainter than the softest pluck of a string. "This aura... that silver hair has turned black, you... Senior?"

  Holy Fairy Ye was paralyzed, her fingers still on the guqin strings shaking violently. She stared at him as if trying to pierce through the fog of time spanning two hundred years. The silver-haired youth who once had dead star eyes full of emptiness had now transformed into a majestic figure carrying the weight of mountains and seas in every fold of his robe.

  "Senior... is it truly you?" whispered Holy Fairy Ye, her voice nearly breaking with unbearable emotion. "Two hundred years... how is it possible, you are truly... here?"

  Zhi Xuan took one step forward, letting the moonlight illuminate his face, which was now as calm as a lake in winter. "Mortal time does indeed move forward, Holy Fairy. But for those who seek the Dao, time is but dust clinging to one's traveling robes. I have seen the end of darkness, and now I return to see the beginning of light."

  Holy Fairy Ye slowly stood up. She no longer cared for her dignity as a Holy Fairy who was usually cold and untouchable. She stepped closer to Zhi Xuan, inhaling the scent radiated by the youth’s divine body—a scent of ancient sandalwood mixed with a chill that was piercing yet pure.

  "Your aura... you have stepped into Soul Transformation," Holy Fairy Ye murmured as she stood only three paces from him. Her mournful eyes looked straight into Zhi Xuan’s sapphire pupils. "I did not expect that Senior could reach Soul Transformation."

  Zhi Xuan looked into the eyes of the woman before him. He still saw the same grief, but this time it was mixed with a flicker of fragile hope. "Two hundred years ago, your melody gave me a moment of peace before the storm hit. Tonight, I hear it again."

  Holy Fairy Ye lowered her head, her veil trembling. "After that night at the Flower Dew Bridge, my Dao Heart could never return to peace. Your image—those dead star eyes—always haunted every pluck of my strings. I searched for you across all of Yao Gu, even asking every moon, but there was no answer."

  Zhi Xuan remained silent. He had not expected their brief encounter under the peach tree to leave such a deep mark on the Dao Heart of a Holy Fairy. He raised his right hand, hesitated for a moment, then let it hang in the air.

  "Gu Fengyan," Zhi Xuan said calmly and coldly, pulling back his hand and letting it rest at his side.

  Holy Fairy Ye was stunned by the name. A foreign name that sounded like thunder in a blizzard—cold, arrogant, yet containing a vast void. She stared at Zhi Xuan’s palm which had just been withdrawn, as if she had just lost the chance to touch a piece of living history.

  "Gu Fengyan..." Ye repeated the name, the sound bitter on her tongue. "A name that carries the scent of death and ancient madness. Is the body standing before me truly the Senior I knew, or has Senior swallowed his own soul to reach this peak?"

  Zhi Xuan turned his face toward the rushing river, letting the moonlight carve the silhouette of his perfect features. "I am but a wanderer, Holy Fairy. However, though our previous encounter was brief, the debt of gratitude for your melody of peace remains etched in my Divine Soul."

  "A debt of gratitude?" Holy Fairy Ye laughed sorrowfully, a sound more painful than crying. "For two hundred years I searched for a man who wouldn't even deign to reveal his name to me."

  Zhi Xuan frowned; he felt this was no longer a mere reunion. "Holy Fairy, this Gu does not know what you are talking about. We only met briefly by chance, but that does not mean I share a karmic bond with you."

  "Ye Xishui, call me Xishui!" Holy Fairy Ye’s voice sounded like a small cry filled with faint frustration, her foot even stomping against the ground.