The removal of the disguise technique by the Yin-Yang Fish was far trickier than Gu Chengming had anticipated.
The crux of the problem wasn't his face. Showing his true face was indeed troublesome, but the disciples of the Harmonious Joy Sect shouldn't recognize this face of "Gu Chengming." As long as he didn't expose his Night-Watch Bureau identity, a handsome face would at most attract unnecessary attention—not enough to doom him.
What was truly fatal was the prying of the Red Dust Art.
Any disciple of the Harmonious Joy Sect who cultivated the Red Dust Art could sense the karmic threads on another person through the Red Dust Qi.
Where you came from, who you held dear, how many unresolved karmic ties bound you—before a cultivator versed in the Red Dust Art, these things were as clear as if written on your face.
Gu Chengming had too many karmic threads.
Those from the Wenjian Sect, those from the Night-Watch Bureau—these karmic threads were like countless fine filaments coiled around his body. Any Harmonious Joy Sect cultivator above the Fourth Realm need only cast a single probe of the Red Dust Art toward him to immediately discover that this so-called "Imperial Academy medical apprentice" identity couldn't withstand any scrutiny.
Before, with the "Red Dust Veil" obscuring his karma, he could naturally rest easy.
But now the Red Dust Veil had been wiped away in a single stroke by the Yin-Yang Fish, and any fool could tell there was something wrong with him.
"I need to think of something." Gu Chengming sat cross-legged on the couch, fingers unconsciously tapping his knee.
Within his sea of consciousness, several cultivation methods were also voicing their opinions.
[The Red Dust Phantom Body Formula analyzed calmly: In my view, the safest plan is to use the Red Dust Qi of the Yin-Yang Creation Strategy itself to construct a new layer of concealment. Since the Harmonious Joy Sect disciples pry into karma through Red Dust Qi, then using Red Dust Qi of the same origin to disguise the karmic threads is theoretically achievable.]
[The Hundred Bones Resonance raised its hand: Or just blast to death everyone who dares to spy on Heavenly Emperor Gu.]
Gu Chengming ignored the Hundred Emperor's increasingly outrageous remarks and turned his attention back to the Red Dust Phantom Body Formula's analysis.
Using the Red Dust Qi of the Yin-Yang Creation Strategy to conceal his own karmic threads—that line of thinking was correct.
Gu Chengming closed his eyes, sank his divine sense into his body, and slowly activated the Yin-Yang Creation Strategy.
The instant the method began to circulate, that familiar yin-yang dual qi flowed through his meridians.
At the same time, he carefully guided the Red Dust Qi he had only recently condensed within his body, trying to let it spread along his own karmic threads—not to influence others, but to wrap up his own karmic threads, making them blurry, ambiguous, and hard to discern.
The Red Dust Qi did flow according to his will, but each time it tried to cover those deeper karmic threads, it would evaporate with a "hiss," like water droplets falling on a red-hot iron plate.
Gu Chengming was about to give up this attempt when a power that did not belong to him suddenly surged up within his body. That Red Dust Qi, which had been so thin as to be nearly invisible, swelled more than tenfold in that instant.
No—it wasn't a swelling. Something was continuously feeding Red Dust Qi into his body from the outside!
And the source of this feeding... was the Yin-Yang Fish?
When this power surged into his body, it naturally began to spread along those thick karmic threads, wrapping them up.
The whole process flowed as smoothly as drifting clouds and running water, requiring no deliberate control from Gu Chengming at all.
Those karmic threads that had been exposed quickly grew blurry under the concealment of this power.
The once-clear "Night-Watch Bureau" label was smeared into a blob of ambiguous mist; the traces of the "Wenjian Sect" also gradually faded—a perfect disguise.
But what surprised Gu Chengming even more was that, while concealing his karma, that power from the Yin-Yang Fish was actually still guiding the Yin-Yang Creation Strategy within his body into some kind of spontaneous circulation.
After roughly half a shichen, that power from the Yin-Yang Fish slowly receded.
The cultivation of the Yin-Yang Creation Strategy had advanced by at least thirty percent.
And more importantly, that layer of Red Dust mist personally constructed by the Yin-Yang Fish now steadily enveloped his whole body, concealing every karmic thread that shouldn't be exposed, tight and airtight.
As long as he didn't actively remove this concealment, even a Fourth Realm probe of the Red Dust Art would only see an utterly ordinary "Gu An."
Gu Chengming felt a subtle unease. What the hell are you actually trying to do?
First wiping away the Red Dust Veil, then actively helping him conceal his aura—the true intentions of this Yin-Yang Fish were truly hard to fathom.
Just as he was thinking this, tap tap tap—a knock suddenly came from the window lattice.
Three short, one long; three short, one long. This was the secret signal he'd agreed on with Su Qiuzhi.
Gu Chengming rose and pushed the window open a crack.
Under the moonlight, a figure wrapped in an ink-black cloak was pressed against the base of the wall outside the window, the brim of the hood pulled low, revealing only a sliver of a pointed chin.
Su Qiuzhi slipped in through the window in one fluid motion, clearly not the first time she'd done this sort of wall-climbing break-in.
After landing, she instinctively glanced around the room, confirming no third party was present before removing her hood, revealing that lovely face.
"The things you wanted—the personnel changes within the Harmonious Joy Sect over these years, the web of relationships among the elders, and some secret information I was able to dig up."
She raised her head, her gaze lingering for a moment on Gu Chengming's face—a face enough to drive the entire Harmonious Joy Sect mad—then swiftly moved away, the tips of her ears flushing a faint, barely noticeable red.
"Let's start with the key points."
Su Qiuzhi cleared her throat, forcing her tone to remain businesslike and calm: "The current power structure of the Harmonious Joy Sect—on the surface, with the Sect Master and the senior elders having vanished, the three elders jointly hold command. But in reality, the disagreements among the three elders are far greater than the outside world knows."
She held up three fingers and bent them down one by one.
"First is Elder Yun Ni, the one you've met, in charge of the sect's daily affairs and external relations. She holds the most power among the three, and is the de facto ruler at present."
"Then there's Elder Kurong, of an odd temperament, in secluded cultivation year-round, rarely involved in affairs."
"It's no secret that Yun Ni and Kurong don't get along. But their disagreement isn't an ordinary power struggle."
She pointed to a certain passage on the silk scroll on the table: "According to the information I coaxed out of a few senior sisters, Elder Kurong has always advocated sealing the Twin Yin-Yang Fish Formation, cutting off the Yin-Yang Fish's connection to the outside world, and using the dumbest but safest method to suppress the imbalance."
"Elder Yun Ni's stance, however, is the complete opposite."
"Elder Yun Ni proposed a theory she calls—the Land of Ultimate Bliss."
"Put simply, Elder Yun Ni believes the imbalance of the Yin-Yang Fish is not a calamity, but an opportunity. Her theory is that the Yin-Yang Fish became imbalanced because the Harmonious Joy Sect's method of cultivation over the past thousand years has been too conservative, too restrained. There's nothing wrong with entering the Dao through emotion, but every generation of the Harmonious Joy Sect's heirs has wavered between proving the Dao through emotion and binding emotion with propriety, never daring to truly let go and embrace the red dust."
"She believes the Yin-Yang Fish's imbalance is precisely caused by a thousand years of pent-up Red Dust Qi that cannot be vented. Rather than expending all this effort to suppress it, it would be better to go with the flow—to have the entire Harmonious Joy Sect completely release its restraints on desire. Once the Red Dust Qi is fully released and no longer pent up, the Yin-Yang Fish will naturally return to balance."
"And when that time comes, the entire Harmonious Joy Sect will enter an unprecedented realm—which she calls the Land of Ultimate Bliss. In that state, every Harmonious Joy Sect disciple will be able to face their most authentic desires, and thereby break through their shackles and advance their cultivation."
After listening, Gu Chengming pondered: "To put it bluntly, it's about making everyone abandon reason and sink completely into desire?"
"More or less that's the idea."
Su Qiuzhi added: "But don't think this theory is absurd. At least within the Harmonious Joy Sect, no small number of people support Elder Yun Ni."
"How many?"
"Eighty percent."
Those two words made Gu Chengming's brow furrow involuntarily.
"The disciples of the Harmonious Joy Sect are already increasingly affected by the Red Dust Qi, their self-control steadily declining. In this situation, when you tell them they no longer need to hold back, that indulgence is the true path—how many do you think can resist that temptation?"
"Especially the younger generation of disciples. They grew up in the Harmonious Joy Sect from childhood, and their dependence on the Red Dust Art is already deeply rooted. Elder Yun Ni is also extremely skilled at winning people over. Over the years, the forces she's cultivated within the sect have grown intertwined and entrenched—from core disciples to outer-sect stewards, her people are everywhere."
"What about Elder Jingxin?"
"Elder Jingxin stands on Kurong's side, but her attitude isn't as hardline as Kurong's. She has a peacemaker's temperament, mediating between both sides, and the result is that she pleases neither." Su Qiuzhi shook her head.
Gu Chengming digested this information, fingers unconsciously tapping the tabletop a few times.
"There's more." Su Qiuzhi pulled out another slip of paper, on which were written a few lines of hasty small characters: "That Elder Fu Xiaoxiao you asked me to keep an eye on earlier."
Gu Chengming's movements paused slightly.
Su Qiuzhi noticed his reaction. She pressed her lips together somewhat unnaturally before continuing: "I heard some news from a few senior sisters with longer seniority. Elder Fu Xiaoxiao returned to the Harmonious Joy Sect about several months ago—a few days earlier even than the sect's official sealing of the mountain."
Gu Chengming silently calculated the timing. That was just about when Fu Xiaoxiao had left the Capital.
"They say she wasn't in good condition when she returned." Su Qiuzhi weighed her words: "Something went wrong with her cultivation. No one can say exactly what went wrong—the news was tightly sealed. All that's known is that as soon as she returned, she was arranged into some place for secluded cultivation, and no one has seen her since."
"Arranged? Arranged by whom?"
"Elder Yun Ni."
Hearing this name again, Gu Chengming's eyes sank slightly.
Su Qiuzhi seemed to sense that this name was coming up a bit too frequently, and continued:
"I have a senior sister I'm close with who works under Elder Yun Ni. She let slip inadvertently that Elder Fu Xiaoxiao's place of secluded cultivation doesn't seem to be one of the Harmonious Joy Sect's regular cultivation caves."
"Then where is it?" Gu Chengming asked.
Su Qiuzhi shook her head: "She doesn't know the exact location either. She only said that place is heavily guarded—even Fourth Realm cultivators aren't allowed near it. And what's more..."
She hesitated: "There's also a rumor that the true body of the Yin-Yang Fish might be hidden in that direction."
Hearing this, Gu Chengming's heart stirred.
What he'd seen in the forbidden ground before was only a phantom of the Yin-Yang Fish—a reflection it projected into the Twin Yin-Yang Fish Formation as the formation's eye.
As for the true body of the Yin-Yang Fish—that is, the main body of that innate spiritual object—no one had ever told him where it was, from beginning to end.
"But this information is all pieced together from scraps, fragmentary bits and pieces. I can't guarantee how much is true and how much is false. But there's one thing I can confirm—"
She stood up, walked to the window, and pointed toward the northern direction of Red Dust Mountain.
"On the northern foot of Red Dust Mountain, there's a place where the concentration of Red Dust Qi is abnormal. I've probed it with the Red Dust Art more than once. The concentration of Red Dust Qi there is roughly seven to eight times that of other places on the mountain, and its aura is extremely mixed and chaotic—it doesn't seem to have gathered naturally, but rather looks as if it's being actively drawn there by something."
"Any disciple who approaches that area, without exception, becomes dazed in spirit with surging desires. So that whole area has always been designated a forbidden zone by the sect—even patrols give it a wide berth."
Gu Chengming stood up, walked to Su Qiuzhi's side, and looked in the direction she was pointing.
Beneath the veil of night, the northern foot of Red Dust Mountain was shrouded in heavy shadow, and one could faintly see a layer of pink mist, denser than elsewhere, coiling and lingering around the mountainside.
A place where the Red Dust Qi was especially thick. Fu Xiaoxiao, arranged by Yun Ni into secluded cultivation, with no word since.
The direction where the true body of the Yin-Yang Fish might be.
And the batch of Harmonious Joy Sect disciples who had died bizarrely after venturing out for training three years ago—Li Suizhuang had said that the timing of that batch of disciples' deaths coincided exactly with when the Yin-Yang Fish began to lose balance.
All the clues pointed in the same direction.
Gu Chengming suddenly asked a question that seemed entirely unrelated: "Do you know when Elder Yun Ni first proposed the 'Land of Ultimate Bliss' theory?"
Su Qiuzhi was startled by the question, and after carefully recalling for a moment: "It seems... three years ago?"
The timeline matched perfectly.
After finishing telling him what she'd investigated, Su Qiuzhi prepared to leave directly. She pulled up her hood, covering her somewhat flushed cheeks, and vaulted out through the window.
Before landing, she suddenly turned back, hesitated, and then still asked: "That... Elder Fu Xiaoxiao—what's your relationship with her?"
Gu Chengming was slightly taken aback, then said: "She's my senior sister."
"Oh."
Su Qiuzhi nodded, who knew what she was thinking, and her figure vanished into the night.
The northern foot of Red Dust Mountain, the Secluded Bamboo Dwelling.
The three-sectioned courtyard was surrounded by a stretch of emerald bamboo, the bamboo leaves rustling in the night breeze. Within the courtyard was a hot spring pool fed by flowing water; the couch was spread with East Sea dragon-silk brocade; on the curio shelf in the corner were scattered a few storybooks and miscellaneous notes, along with a half-eaten plate of osmanthus cake.
If someone unaware of the circumstances stumbled in here, they'd probably only assume it was some favored elder's cultivation retreat.
Fu Xiaoxiao sat cross-legged on the soft couch by the window, hugging a pillow, her chin resting on it. Her complexion was considerably worse than when she'd been in the Capital.
Footsteps came from the courtyard gate.
Fu Xiaoxiao's ears twitched, but her body didn't move. She didn't need to turn around to know who was coming.
In the entire Secluded Bamboo Dwelling, there was only one person qualified to push open the door and enter without announcement.
"Creak—"
The door was pushed open. Yun Ni, in purple palace attire, her hair coiled high, carried a food box in her hand. She didn't look like she'd come to discuss business—more like she'd come to pay a casual visit.
"Xiaoxiao, have you eaten today's medicinal meal?"
Yun Ni's tone was gentle. She set the food box on the table and opened the lid; inside was a bowl of steaming lingzhi-and-lotus-seed soup, along with a few exquisite pastries.
Fu Xiaoxiao glanced at it, then turned her face away.
Yun Ni wasn't annoyed. She ladled out the lotus-seed soup on her own and placed it within Fu Xiaoxiao's reach, then arranged the plates of pastries one by one.
Having done all this, she finally sat down in the chair opposite Fu Xiaoxiao, smoothed her skirt, and fell silent for a moment.
"You still won't agree?" Yun Ni sighed.
Fu Xiaoxiao didn't answer.
Watching her like this, Yun Ni felt somewhat helpless in her heart.
She knew the other too well. Fu Xiaoxiao's stubbornness was carved into her bones—it had been so ever since she was the Harmonious Joy Sect's most dazzling prodigy disciple. Once she'd made up her mind about something, ten oxen couldn't drag her back; and for something she refused, you could hold a blade to her neck and she still wouldn't bow her head.
"I know you're angry inside. But have you ever considered—if not for my mediating on the side, given your current situation—"
"Don't feed me that." Fu Xiaoxiao finally turned her head, those eyes full of disappointment-tinged fury: "Before I came, I never once imagined that your so-called 'letting the Harmonious Joy Sect continue' meant cooperating with the Eternal Life Sect."
Yun Ni's expression didn't change much—only the fingers holding the teacup tightened slightly.
"'Cooperation' is too heavy a word." She set down the teacup, her voice still steady: "It's merely borrowing their momentum. The Eternal Life Sect has its purposes, I have mine. Both sides take what they need, without interfering with each other. I have never handed the Harmonious Joy Sect's lifeblood into an outsider's hands—of that you should be clear."
"Take what they need?" Fu Xiaoxiao sneered coldly: "What kind of thing the Eternal Life Sect is, you know better than I do. Those madmen who cultivate death-qi and use the lives of all beings as kindling—you think they'll 'take what they need' with you? Did everything you learned in the sect back then go to the dogs?"
"Xiaoxiao—"
"How did that batch of disciples die three years ago?" Fu Xiaoxiao abruptly cut her off: "Those junior sisters who went out for training—did their deaths have anything to do with this 'borrowing momentum' of yours?"
Yun Ni fell silent, and this silence was longer than any before.
After a long while, she slowly spoke, her tone carrying a few traces of the heaviness she so rarely revealed: "That was an accident."
"An accident?"
"The people on the Eternal Life Sect's side lost control of their actions, exceeding my estimation. That batch of disciples' deaths... were indeed connected to this matter."
She paused, as if weighing her words, but in the end still chose to speak plainly.
"But I've already dealt with that out-of-control link. In the three years since, nothing similar has happened again."
Fu Xiaoxiao stared at her, too many emotions surging in those eyes.
She had once trusted the person before her so much. Back when she'd agreed to return to the Harmonious Joy Sect, agreed to cooperate with that plan, more than half the reason had been because of Yun Ni.
They had cultivated as fellow disciples for several hundred years—though they couldn't be called as close as sisters, they were at least fellow travelers who trusted each other. Among the upper echelons of the Harmonious Joy Sect, Yun Ni was one of the few people Fu Xiaoxiao considered "reliable."
She knew all too well how serious the Harmonious Joy Sect's crisis was, and she understood the pressure Yun Ni bore for the sect's survival. So when Yun Ni told her that plan, though her heart quailed, she still nodded.
"Do you remember what you told me back then?"
Fu Xiaoxiao's voice dropped low, so low it was almost as if she were talking to herself: "You said, Xiaoxiao, the Harmonious Joy Sect needs you. You said only you could accomplish this. You said that when it was all over, you'd give me back a whole and complete Harmonious Joy Sect."
"I believed you. And then you tell me you have cooperation with the people of the Eternal Life Sect?"
Yun Ni closed her eyes. She could feel the pain of betrayal in Fu Xiaoxiao's words—a pain harder to parry than any accusation.
"Xiaoxiao, all of this is merely the process of reaching ultimate bliss, merely a means."
Fu Xiaoxiao gave a scornful laugh: "What a fine 'means.'"
She leaned forward, her gaze meeting Yun Ni's eyes directly: "Then let me ask you—if Senior Sister Qian came back, would you still dare to say this?"
Yun Ni's movements froze. The "Senior Sister Qian" Fu Xiaoxiao spoke of was the Sect Master of the Harmonious Joy Sect—the woman who, on the eve of the great world's coming chaos, had vanished together with a host of the most senior elders.
"When the Sect Master left, she told no one of her destination." Yun Ni's voice was a shade lower than before: "If I hadn't held the situation together, the Harmonious Joy Sect would have been targeted long ago."
She lifted her head, her gaze heavy as she looked at Fu Xiaoxiao.
"You ask me whether I'd still dare say this if Senior Sister came back?"
"Then you tell me—when will she come back? Will she even come back at all?"
These two counter-questions choked Fu Xiaoxiao's fervor.
The Sect Master's disappearance was indeed the Harmonious Joy Sect's greatest hidden wound. In such circumstances, Yun Ni had taken up this thousand-ton burden and struggled to bear it for all these years.
Fu Xiaoxiao was unwilling to admit it, but in her heart she understood: if someone else had taken over, they might not have done better than Yun Ni. But that didn't mean she could accept cooperation with the Eternal Life Sect.
"Even if Senior Sister isn't coming back, you still have no right to make this kind of decision on behalf of the Harmonious Joy Sect." Fu Xiaoxiao clenched her teeth, enunciating word by word.
Yun Ni looked at her—long enough that several bamboo leaves growing outside the window were blown down by the wind, long enough that the steam from the bowl of lotus-seed soup on the table had completely dissipated.
At last, Yun Ni stood up.
"I've said all this not to persuade you." She smoothed her sleeve cuffs, her tone returning to that unhurried composure of her usual days: "Whether you agree or not, to me... it no longer matters."
Fu Xiaoxiao's head snapped up, her gaze meeting Yun Ni's eyes.
Yun Ni didn't avoid her gaze; instead she turned slightly to the side, looking at the emerald bamboo swaying outside the window in the night breeze.
"I tell you these things only because I don't want... don't wish to become enemies with you."
At this moment her voice held a little less of an elder's authority and a little more of a barely perceptible private emotion.
"After all, we've been fellow disciples for several hundred years."
Yun Ni didn't wait for her response. She stepped toward the doorway, and, just as when she'd come, the door closed.
Yun Ni walked out of the Secluded Bamboo Dwelling's courtyard gate and stopped on the bamboo-lined path.
She lifted her head, gazing toward Red Dust Mountain, those eyes reflecting the faint light of the Twin Yin-Yang Fish Formation revolving in the distance.
Fu Xiaoxiao's refusal to agree was within expectations, but it still left her feeling some regret.
To this day she still remembered the scene when she first met Fu Xiaoxiao several hundred years ago.
Back then the Harmonious Joy Sect was not the state it was now. The Sect Master still lived, the elders gathered together, its fortunes flourishing—and Fu Xiaoxiao was the most brilliant pearl of that era.
Comprehending the Red Dust Art upon entry, breaking into the second stage within ten years, reaching Great Perfection of the Third Realm within thirty years.
In the several-thousand-year history of the Harmonious Joy Sect, the disciples whose cultivation speed could match hers numbered no more than the fingers of one hand.[GNT_PBREAK
The whole sect, high and low, believed she would be the undisputed choice for the next Sect Master of the Harmonious Joy Sect. Even the Sect Master herself had once privately said to Yun Ni: "If Xiaoxiao can smoothly break into the Fifth Realm, then the Harmonious Joy Sect's next thousand years are secured."
Then, that thing happened.
That year, a batch of Harmonious Joy Sect disciples was ambushed by a Fifth Realm great demon while traveling in the outside world.
Fifth Realm.
That was an existence which, at the time, only the Sect Master and a very few elders of the Harmonious Joy Sect could match. And Fu Xiaoxiao, who led the group, was then merely Fourth Realm. By common reasoning, facing a Fifth Realm great demon, what she ought to have done was protect the disciples' retreat and then send word for reinforcements.
But Fu Xiaoxiao did not retreat. She chose a near-suicidal method—Reverse the Effect to the Cause.
With a Fourth Realm body, she forcibly unleashed upon a Fifth Realm great demon the most extreme reverse-slaying technique of the Red Dust Art.
She first planted within her own spirit the "effect" that "this demon is already dead," then, using her own dao foundation as kindling, forcibly drew upon the karmic power of heaven and earth to complete that "cause."
The karma of heaven and earth was swept up by her will, forcibly locking dead the life force of that Fifth Realm great demon.
The demon died; the disciples lived.
But the price a Fourth Realm cultivator paid to reverse-slay a Fifth Realm great demon far exceeded imagination—her meridians ruptured inch by inch, her dantian nearly shattered, and her spirit, having borne karmic power far beyond its limit, suffered irreversible injury.
When reinforcements arrived, Fu Xiaoxiao was already at her last breath, the aura around her body so faint as to be almost imperceptible. Everyone thought she wouldn't survive the day.
But she did not die.
Because the Yin-Yang Fish—the founding foundation of the Harmonious Joy Sect, that innate spiritual object—extended a hand to her of its own accord at the moment when Fu Xiaoxiao was about to burn out like a spent lamp.
The Yin-Yang Fish used its own power to stabilize her collapsing dao foundation, barely maintaining those ruptured meridians and that shattered dantian in a state that would not continue to deteriorate.
But the price was—Fu Xiaoxiao was bound to the Yin-Yang Fish from then on.
Her life depended on the Yin-Yang Fish's power to sustain it. Once she left the Yin-Yang Fish's range of protection for too long, the old injuries suppressed within her body would strike back.
And the Yin-Yang Fish did not rescue her for free. It would continuously draw yin-qi from within Fu Xiaoxiao's body as the price of maintaining this "protection." The yin-qi being continuously drawn away meant that the yin-yang balance within Fu Xiaoxiao's body was permanently broken.
Her cultivation could never advance an inch from then on.
The Harmonious Joy Sect Master cherished talent and couldn't bear to watch her sink into ruin like this, so she appointed her "Fish-Warden Elder."
This position sounded dignified, but in truth had only one duty—to coexist with the Yin-Yang Fish, to serve as the medium between the Yin-Yang Fish and the Harmonious Joy Sect, and to assist the Sect Master in maintaining the stable operation of the Twin Yin-Yang Fish Formation.
To put it bluntly, it used a nice-sounding title to let Fu Xiaoxiao stay by the Yin-Yang Fish's side with proper justification, relying on the Yin-Yang Fish's power to go on living.
This was Fu Xiaoxiao's past.
Yun Ni opened her eyes and drew back her thoughts.
She didn't think Fu Xiaoxiao was a fool—quite the opposite. It was precisely because she understood this resolve of Fu Xiaoxiao's that, after the Sect Master's disappearance three years ago, she'd thought of her first thing.
The Harmonious Joy Sect's crisis was far graver than the outside world knew.
The great world was about to fall into chaos. The Sect Master had not abandoned the Harmonious Joy Sect—rather, she had foreseen a certain crisis, one far beyond the Harmonious Joy Sect's capacity to bear, that was about to arrive. So she had taken away some people in advance to make some unknown arrangement.
But she left behind the Harmonious Joy Sect, left behind over a thousand disciples, left behind the Twin Yin-Yang Fish Formation, left behind a thousand-year foundation—and also left behind a hole-ridden mess.
The Harmonious Joy Sect's cultivation-method system itself had a fatal flaw—it relied on the Yin-Yang Fish.
Every method cultivated by the Harmonious Joy Sect's disciples, traced to its root, drew its power from the yin-yang dual qi and Red Dust Qi that the Yin-Yang Fish emanated. The Yin-Yang Fish was the root of the Harmonious Joy Sect. Without this root, all of the Harmonious Joy Sect's methods would become water without a source, a tree without roots.
And the essence of the Yin-Yang Fish was not that of an ordinary innate spiritual object. It had once been a Dharma-Station.
Dharma-Station—one of the most supreme existences between heaven and earth, the concrete manifestation of the rules of the Heavenly Dao. Each Dharma-Station corresponded to one law of the Heavenly Dao, and one who possessed a Dharma-Station was equivalent to grasping part of the authority of that law.
A Dharma-Station transforming into a spiritual object meant it was no longer authority monopolized by a single person, but had become a public instrument capable of protecting an entire sect. The disciples of the Harmonious Joy Sect were thus able to cultivate by borrowing the Yin-Yang Fish's power, and the whole sect flourished for a thousand years because of it.
But this transformation was not without cost.
A Dharma-Station is eternal; a spiritual object is not. A spiritual object will decay, will lose balance, will be disturbed by external factors.
While that founding ancestor still lived, her extraordinary cultivation suppressed all hidden troubles, so naturally no problem would arise. But after the ancestor passed, the Yin-Yang Fish could only rely on the cultivation of successive Harmonious Joy Sect Masters to maintain balance.
Now the Sect Master was missing, and the strongest batch of elders had departed along with her. The Yin-Yang Fish, having lost its most powerful suppressor, was destined to fall out of balance.
Yun Ni had seen this clearly three years ago, so she'd made a decision.
—To reverse the Yin-Yang Fish, transforming it back into a Dharma-Station.
As long as the Yin-Yang Fish returned to its Dharma-Station form, it would no longer be bound by a spiritual object's law of decay, no longer need anyone to suppress it, and no longer fall out of balance. The Harmonious Joy Sect's cultivation-method system could be rebuilt with the Dharma-Station as its foundation, forever freed from dependence on a spiritual object.
But transforming a spiritual object into a Dharma-Station was an entirely different matter from transforming a Dharma-Station into a spiritual object.
The reason the ancestor back then could turn a Dharma-Station into a spiritual object was that she herself was the holder of that Dharma-Station. For the holder to voluntarily relinquish the Dharma-Station with her authority, dispersing it into a spiritual object, was merely going with the current.
But in reverse—to re-condense an innate spiritual object that had already existed in spiritual-object form for a thousand years back into a Dharma-Station—was like reversing the effect to the cause.
To accomplish this, one first needed to return the Yin-Yang Fish to its most primordial, most chaotic state.
And to push the Yin-Yang Fish into that chaotic state required massive, surging, uncontrolled emotion and desire to bombard it.
This was the true essence of the "Land of Ultimate Bliss" theory.
The karmic desires of all beings—the surging emotions bursting forth from the Harmonious Joy Sect's thousand-plus disciples under the catalysis of the Red Dust Qi, those countless intertwined and tangled karmic threads, those most primal, most instinctive, least reason-bound desires—when all of this converged, it could form a torrent powerful enough to bombard the Yin-Yang Fish and push it back to its primordial chaotic state.
This was also the main cause of the Yin-Yang Fish's imbalance.
It was not a natural disaster, nor entirely the infiltration of the Eternal Life Sect, but Yun Ni deliberately and covertly guiding all of this to happen.
She let the Red Dust Qi spread, she tacitly permitted the disciples' loss of control, she put forward the "Land of Ultimate Bliss" theory to soothe people's hearts—all of it was to push the Yin-Yang Fish toward that critical point.
And in this process, Fu Xiaoxiao was the most crucial link.
As the Fish-Warden Elder, Fu Xiaoxiao had a deep connection with the Yin-Yang Fish, built through several hundred years of symbiosis.
Though her dao foundation was shattered, it was precisely because of this that her body had been permeated by the Yin-Yang Fish's power countless times over, becoming almost half an avatar of the Yin-Yang Fish in the human world.
At the moment the Yin-Yang Fish was pushed back into its chaotic state and re-condensed into a Dharma-Station, a medium would be needed to bear this transformation process—just as a vessel is needed to hold water that is once again coming to a boil.
Fu Xiaoxiao was that vessel. She would first bear the Dharma-Station, then act as intermediary to transfer the Dharma-Station into the hands of the next holder.
And that next holder was, naturally, Yun Ni herself.
Yun Ni had never concealed this point.
From the very beginning, she'd laid out all the gains and losses before Fu Xiaoxiao, including the worst possibility.
Fu Xiaoxiao understood clearly what this meant.
Once the Yin-Yang Fish transformed back into a Dharma-Station, that power sustaining her dao foundation from collapse would vanish in an instant, and the old injuries suppressed for over a hundred years would all strike back at once.
Ruptured meridians, a collapsed dantian, a cracked spirit—all of it would come crashing down after losing the Yin-Yang Fish's protection.
At that point she would very likely die, body and dao extinguished. But Fu Xiaoxiao still agreed.
To this day Yun Ni remembered Fu Xiaoxiao's expression that day.
No tragic solemnity, no heroic passion, not even much hesitation. She only looked at her, as if confirming something.
Then she said one sentence.
"If this can really save the Harmonious Joy Sect."
Just that simple—as simple as when she reverse-slew a Fifth Realm great demon with a Fourth Realm body back then.
She had never been someone who considered herself too much. So when Fu Xiaoxiao discovered, in the course of cooperating, the "cooperation" between Yun Ni and the Eternal Life Sect, that eruption was especially violent.
She could die for the Harmonious Joy Sect, but she could not accept that her death would be stained with the filth of the Eternal Life Sect.
This was the origin of the present deadlock.
Bamboo leaves rustled.
Yun Ni drew back her drifting thoughts and cast one last look at the dimly lantern-lit Secluded Bamboo Dwelling behind her. In the end, she still hadn't managed to persuade Fu Xiaoxiao.
But just as she'd said—whether Fu Xiaoxiao agreed or not, to her it no longer mattered.
The plan had already advanced to this stage. It couldn't stop midway just because of one person's objection.
It was only that...
Yun Ni turned and stepped into the night amid the depths of the bamboo forest.
As for not becoming enemies—that was probably impossible now.
Meanwhile, on another side.
Pinpointing the Yin-Yang Fish's location was even faster than Gu Chengming had anticipated.
Or more precisely—the Yin-Yang Fish was almost actively guiding him.
Ever since the night the Yin-Yang Fish constructed the karmic concealment for him, Gu Chengming had discovered that the Yin-Yang Creation Strategy within his body had gained a kind of sensing ability it had never had before.
It was like standing beside a river with your eyes closed—though you can't see the water, you can clearly feel the direction of the current, the volume of the flow, and where the source it ultimately empties into lies.
The Red Dust Qi was that river.
And the source of the river lay at the northern foot of Red Dust Mountain.
The intelligence Su Qiuzhi provided matched perfectly with his own sensing.
That area designated a forbidden zone by the sect—the concentration of Red Dust Qi there was seven to eight times that of other places on the mountain, and this Red Dust Qi had not gathered naturally, but was flowing in an orderly fashion toward a fixed direction.
Tracing back along the direction of this flow, Gu Chengming locked onto a location.
Deep in the northern foot, a valley surrounded by emerald bamboo.
From the terrain, this place wasn't particularly hidden—there was even a repaired bluestone path leading to the valley entrance. But both sides of that path were laid with restrictive spells, layer upon layer, at least five layers or more.
Ordinary disciples would be bounced away by the restrictions' repelling force halfway along, not even qualified to approach.
But that layer of karmic concealment the Yin-Yang Fish had bestowed on Gu Chengming not only shielded against the prying of the Red Dust Art—it also granted him a new ability: within the Harmonious Joy Sect, all formations and restrictions constructed on the basis of yin-yang dual qi and Red Dust Qi would automatically fail upon contact with him.
And so he passed through the five layers of restrictions unimpeded. The further in he went, the thicker the Red Dust Qi grew.
At the end of the bamboo forest, a three-sectioned courtyard appeared abruptly in his view.
The courtyard's layout was quite refined—white walls and dark tiles, arranged with pleasing irregularity. Within were a hot spring pool, an herb garden, a covered walkway, and even an exquisite little pavilion.
Gu Chengming vaulted over the courtyard wall and dropped into the inner court, the tips of his toes touching the bluestone ground without making the slightest sound.
He looked around, his gaze quickly locking onto the lit wing-room at the very back, a small figure reflected on the window lattice.
That figure sat cross-legged, seemingly lost in thought. Gu Chengming looked at it, walked forward, and raised a hand to knock on the window lattice.
A moment later, the window was abruptly pushed open from the inside.
Fu Xiaoxiao's face appeared at the window—much thinner than months ago in the Capital.
Upon seeing who had come, her mind went blank for about three breaths.
The first breath, she thought she was dreaming.
The second breath, she confirmed she wasn't dreaming.
The third breath—
"Why are you here?!"
Fu Xiaoxiao's voice was pressed extremely low, but that shocked-and-furious emotion simply couldn't be hidden—it was almost squeezed out from between her teeth.
Before Gu Chengming could open his mouth, Fu Xiaoxiao had already grabbed his collar and was desperately pushing him out.
"Are you insane? Do you have any idea what this place is?!"
Her strength wasn't much—pushing at Gu Chengming was like a kitten pawing at someone—but that urgency was utterly real.
"There are restrictions outside! How did you even get in?! No, how are you in the Harmonious Joy Sect at all?! Aren't you supposed to be in the Capital?!"
A string of questions battered at him like a barrage of cannon fire. Fu Xiaoxiao spoke so fast there was almost no pause, her whole being in a state of bristling agitation.
Pushing all the while, she cursed in a hushed voice: "Get out of here right now! Before anyone finds out, hurry and climb back out!"
"Gu Chengming, you listen to me—this matter has nothing to do with you at all. Don't come wade into these muddy waters; you can't handle them!"
Gu Chengming stood where he was, letting her push him for a good while, not moving a single step.
Only when Fu Xiaoxiao had nearly exhausted her strength from pushing, and stopped panting for breath, her hands still braced against his chest as she glared up at him, did Gu Chengming speak.
"Senior Sister Fu." He smiled, his tone as casual as if running into her by chance on the corridors of the Imperial Academy: "Long time no see."
"I've been carrying the coupon for Suxiang Studio all along. But it's been getting cold in the Capital lately, so there are far fewer people queuing—not much need to cut in line anymore."
His gaze swept over Fu Xiaoxiao's face, his tone carrying a few traces of natural concern.
"Senior Sister, though—you've lost a lot of weight. Is the food here no good?"
Fu Xiaoxiao opened her mouth, then closed it again.
Her hands were still braced against Gu Chengming's chest, and she could feel the heartbeat beneath her palms—that heartbeat neither hurried nor slow, just like his expression, without the slightest of the tension one ought to have after breaking into a forbidden ground.
As if he hadn't come to court danger, but merely to pay a visit.
Fu Xiaoxiao wanted to curse him, wanted to hit him, wanted to beat him out. But as she looked at that long-unseen face, at those smiling eyes, all the anger and anxiety filling her chest deflated bit by bit, like a balloon pricked by a needle.
"You bastard..."
Fu Xiaoxiao's voice was muffled, carrying a bit of a nasal tone even she hadn't managed to control.
She abruptly withdrew her hands, turned around to face away from Gu Chengming, and crossed her arms over her chest.
"Who wants to hear you go on about coupons or whatever."
Gu Chengming could tell she was straining hard to keep her expression composed.
Fu Xiaoxiao took several deep breaths, those clenched fists loosening and tightening, tightening and loosening, and it took a good while before she finally pressed down the surging emotions.
"Speak."
She walked back to the soft couch and sat down, picked up that pillow she'd kneaded somewhat out of shape, and rested her chin on it, her voice recovering some of its usual crisp briskness.
"You, a person of the Night-Watch Bureau, come running to a place like the Harmonious Joy Sect, and even found your way here—what's happened?"
Gu Chengming sat down in the chair across from her, not beating around the bush: "Over in the Capital, the effects of the Harmonious Joy Sect's Yin-Yang Fish imbalance have already spread to the capital region."
Fu Xiaoxiao's movements paused slightly.
"The Night-Watch Bureau sent me to the Harmonious Joy Sect to investigate the cause of the Yin-Yang Fish's imbalance."
"I infiltrated the Harmonious Joy Sect under the identity of Li Suizhuang's medical apprentice, using the alias Gu An. So far, I've roughly grasped the situation among the sect's internal elders, and I also know about Elder Yun Ni's problem."
"I also killed an Eternal Life Sect person in the forbidden ground of the Twin Yin-Yang Fish Formation."
Fu Xiaoxiao was silent for a few breaths, then said: "Li Suizhuang is here too?"
"Yes."
"Does she know about my situation?"
"Not sure, but she's been asking around for news of you."
The corner of Fu Xiaoxiao's mouth twitched, as if she wanted to say something, but in the end she only let out a low sigh.
Gu Chengming didn't press her, quietly waiting.
The room fell silent for a long while—long enough that several bamboo leaves outside the window were blown down by the wind, long enough that the flame of the oil lamp on the table flickered countless times.
At last, Fu Xiaoxiao spoke.
"So, you've come to investigate the Yin-Yang Fish."
"Yes."
Fu Xiaoxiao looked at him, the emotions in those big eyes churning back and forth several times, finally turning into a resigned acceptance tinged with some helplessness.
"Gu Chengming, I'm going to ask you one thing, and you answer me honestly."
"Please speak, Senior Sister Fu."
"If I tell you about the Harmonious Joy Sect's affairs, will you stay here and not leave?"
Gu Chengming looked at her, not answering immediately.
Fu Xiaoxiao's gaze was fixed tightly on his face, as if trying to find some kind of promise in his expression.
"I'll leave," Gu Chengming said.
Fu Xiaoxiao stared at him for several breaths, and only after confirming he didn't seem to be perfunctory did she say with a stern face: "After I tell you, you hurry back to the Capital."
Her tone brooked no discussion, like issuing a final ultimatum.
"The matters here aren't something you can meddle in, nor something the Night-Watch Bureau can handle. Yun Ni's plan is about to begin. If you leave now, a round trip takes at least a few days. By the time you bring people back from the Capital, everything will already be settled and done."
"So—"
She took a deep breath, as if making some kind of decision.
"Whatever you want to know, I'll tell you. But after I finish, you must leave the Harmonious Joy Sect immediately."
Gu Chengming nodded: "All right."
Fu Xiaoxiao looked at that face of his, but her heart didn't relax much because of his promise. Even though the time they'd spent together wasn't long, Fu Xiaoxiao's intuition told her that this person's "all right" wasn't necessarily a true "all right."
But she had no better choice.
Rather than letting him grope around blindly in the Harmonious Joy Sect, it was better to lay things out clearly, to let him know how deep these waters were—deep enough that a Second Realm sword cultivator like him couldn't possibly wade across.
Only then would he know to retreat in the face of difficulty.
At least, that was how Fu Xiaoxiao thought.
She tossed the pillow to the side, sat cross-legged properly, and cleared her throat.
"Do you know what the essence of the Yin-Yang Fish is?"
"An innate spiritual object?"
"No, one layer deeper than that." Fu Xiaoxiao shook her head: "The Yin-Yang Fish was once a Dharma-Station."
Over the following incense-stick's time, Fu Xiaoxiao told Gu Chengming everything she knew, holding nothing back.
The history of the Dharma-Station transforming into a spiritual object, the fundamental flaw of the Harmonious Joy Sect's methods relying on the Yin-Yang Fish, the truth of the Sect Master leaving without a word along with twenty-three elders, the plan Yun Ni had devised to reverse the Yin-Yang Fish back into a Dharma-Station, and the role she herself played in this plan as the Fish-Warden Elder.
Gu Chengming quietly listened to all of it, and until Fu Xiaoxiao spoke her last word, the room once again sank into silence.
After a long silence, Gu Chengming spoke.
He didn't ask about the Yin-Yang Fish, didn't ask about Yun Ni's plan, didn't ask about the details of the Eternal Life Sect. What he asked was: "And what about you, Senior Sister Fu?"
Fu Xiaoxiao was stunned: "What?"
"What are your own thoughts, Senior Sister Fu?"
Gu Chengming looked at her: "About the Yin-Yang Fish, about Yun Ni's plan, about the future of the Harmonious Joy Sect. What do you yourself think, Senior Sister?"
Fu Xiaoxiao had utterly not expected him to ask this question. She'd just said so much—Dharma-Station, Yin-Yang Fish, Yun Ni, the Eternal Life Sect, the Sect Master's disappearance, the great world's coming chaos—every one of them a great matter enough to shake the structure of the Nine Provinces.
She'd thought Gu Chengming would seize on those great matters and press for details.
But he hadn't. What he asked was about her.
Fu Xiaoxiao stared blankly at Gu Chengming, her lips moving, and it took a long while before she found her own voice.
"Of course I agree."
"Isn't this exactly how the Harmonious Joy Sect ought to be? Entering the world through the red dust, proving the Dao through emotion, using desire as a guide. The Land of Ultimate Bliss may sound a bit exaggerated, but in the end it's merely pushing the Harmonious Joy Sect's Dao to its extreme."
"As long as it can preserve the Harmonious Joy Sect and preserve the Yin-Yang Fish, these means are all worth it."
She spoke very fluently, as if she'd rehearsed it in her heart countless times.
Gu Chengming said nothing, only quietly looking at Fu Xiaoxiao.
Fu Xiaoxiao felt a little unnerved under his gaze, and shifted uncomfortably.
"What are you looking at? I've finished, and you should be leaving too."
Throughout Fu Xiaoxiao's account, Gu Chengming had been using the Red Dust Art to sense her emotions.
Fu Xiaoxiao's body was too weak right now, so Gu Chengming could clearly "see" her true emotions.
To this day, Fu Xiaoxiao had never dual-cultivated with anyone. She had cultivated the Red Dust Art for several hundred years, but the red dust she cultivated had never been desire.
What she cultivated was the myriad states of human life, the mortal warmth of the streets and alleys, the joys and sorrows of partings and reunions, of life and death—those insignificant, ordinary, trivial things that nonetheless constituted the entire meaning of the lives of all living beings.
So the "Land of Ultimate Bliss" had, to her, never been any extreme of the Harmonious Joy Sect's Dao, but rather a wholesale negation of the Dao she'd cultivated her whole life.
To let all disciples degenerate into beasts of desire who knew only coupling—this was not the future of the Harmonious Joy Sect; this was the death of the Harmonious Joy Sect.
But she could change nothing. Her dao foundation was shattered, her cultivation couldn't advance an inch, and she was imprisoned in this tiny space, unable even to protect herself—so what right did she have to resist Yun Ni's plan?
So she chose to lie.
She hoped Gu Chengming would leave after hearing her words—leave far away, return to the Wenjian Sect, return to the Night-Watch Bureau, return to that relatively safe world of his—and not come wade into these muddy waters.
This was the entirety of Fu Xiaoxiao's heart.
Gu Chengming looked at that small-statured elder hugging a pillow, wearing a stern face, pretending to be nonchalant.
He thought of the corridors of the Imperial Academy in the Capital, the new clothes she'd deliberately changed into when she pretended to run into him by chance; he thought of the five hundred spirit stones of "karma" after she finished teaching him the Red Dust Art; he thought of how, before parting, she'd stuffed a big pile of things into his arms and then walked off without looking back; he thought of the way she'd waved with feigned nonchalance as she said, "Don't miss This Seat too much."
"I understand."
Gu Chengming said.
Fu Xiaoxiao lifted her eyes to glance at him, and after confirming that expression of "understood and ready to leave" on his face, that heart hanging in suspense finally settled slowly back into place.
Watching Gu Chengming's departing back, she at last let out a breath of relief.
...
Quiet Contemplation Court, candlelight flickering.
After listening to Gu Chengming's account, Li Suizhuang was silent for a long time.
She held her teacup, fingertips slightly whitening from the force, her white hair falling by her cheek and hiding most of her face, her expression unreadable.
Gu Chengming laid out everything he'd learned from Fu Xiaoxiao—the Dharma-Station essence of the Yin-Yang Fish, Yun Ni's plan to reverse the Yin-Yang Fish, Fu Xiaoxiao's role as the medium, and the ultimate bliss soon to come.
After a long while, Li Suizhuang set down her teacup and said: "So what you mean is, you want me to go back to the Capital first and fetch reinforcements."
"Yes." Gu Chengming nodded: "Director Zhou holds the authority to mobilize dragon-qi. As long as the intelligence is brought back, the Night-Watch Bureau has sufficient means to intervene."
"And you?" Li Suizhuang lifted her head to look at Gu Chengming: "You tell me to go—what about you yourself?"
Gu Chengming pondered for a breath: "I'll stay behind and see whether there's a way to resolve this."
Li Suizhuang stood up, quickly walked to stand before Gu Chengming, and looked down at him.
This was the first time she'd shown such obvious emotional fluctuation before Gu Chengming, her white hair trembling faintly amid her rapid breathing, her palm clenching and unclenching, unclenching and clenching again.
"Chief Banner Officer Gu, do you understand what you're saying? Yun Ni is a peak Fourth Realm cultivator, holding the greater part of the Harmonious Joy Sect's authority, and also holds partial control over the Twin Yin-Yang Fish Formation. And you—"
Her gaze swept over Gu Chengming, her voice carrying a few traces of hard-to-conceal urgency.
"You're only Second Realm."
"I know." Gu Chengming's tone was very calm—so calm it made Li Suizhuang even more uneasy: "But the Yin-Yang Fish has given me some... possibilities."
He didn't say more—not out of distrust of Li Suizhuang, but because some things he himself hadn't yet thought through clearly, and saying them aloud would only make her worry more.
Li Suizhuang stared at him for a long time, and finally sighed: "All right."
She stepped back, straightened her somewhat disheveled sleeves, her voice returning to steadiness: "I'll set out through the night. At a flying-boat's speed, I can reach the Capital in four days at the fastest."
"You yourself must put your own safety first."
Li Suizhuang was a clever person—clever enough to know that at such a moment, any superfluous words would only become a burden.
Gu Chengming sat alone at the table, his gaze falling on the moon outside the window, tinged faintly pink by the Red Dust Qi.
In truth, he himself wasn't certain. His plan, rather than a plan, was more of a wager—a bet that the Yin-Yang Fish would stand on his side.
From the moment he entered the Harmonious Joy Sect, the Yin-Yang Fish had been secretly helping him—concealing the traces of the killing, wiping away the disguise technique so he showed his true face, actively constructing the karmic concealment for him, even personally guiding his cultivation of the Yin-Yang Creation Strategy.
Taken individually, each of these behaviors had a different explanation, but strung together, there was only one answer.
The Yin-Yang Fish was choosing him—an imbalanced innate spiritual object pushed to the edge of chaos, or rather, an existence about to be forcibly reversed back into Dharma-Station form that did not want to be reversed.
But even if his judgment was correct, he was still only a Second Realm cultivator.
Facing Yun Ni's Fourth Realm cultivation and the desires of all the beings of the entire Harmonious Joy Sect, just how much the Yin-Yang Fish's protection could help him, he had no certainty.
[The Red Dust Phantom Body Formula, rarely, offered no analysis at all.]
[The Hundred Bones Resonance, as always, was excited: Heavenly Emperor Gu! The final decisive battle!]
Gu Chengming looked at Old Hundred and couldn't help but smile.
Indeed, it was time to bring things to a close.
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