Chapter One Hundred: A Suspicious Reunion with an Old Friend

After clearing the plunder, Feng Kexer suddenly slapped herself on the forehead. She had just forgotten to run one test first—whether she could read the composition of the spirit-energy inside the yellow-marten spirit. Now the thing was dead, dead beyond dead, its energy scattered to the winds. No chance to test it anymore.

Fortunately, there were plenty of demon-cultivators in the Obstruction Sea. For her, however, there was something more urgent: finding the Demon King’s treasure.

During her confinement, she had heard from passing demon-cultivators that two hundred years earlier the Demon King had left the Obstruction Sea and vanished. By the rules of that place, such an act was tantamount to abandoning the throne. Whoever first occupied the Heart of the Obstruction Sea became the new Demon King.

Feng Kexer was no demon-cultivator and cared all the less for the throne itself. But the treasure—such things belonged to those with power to seize them. In truth, from the moment she had heard of it, her longing for that treasure had been boundless.

In the cultivation world people tie their heads to their belts and kill and kill for what, exactly? Not for some prideful pretense. If you survive the underworld, reputation is nothing at all. In that life, one can afford to lose one’s life; what is it for face, worth? It is all for survival, for living longer—what people call immortality. And for immortality, everything else is empty: only gaining more spirit energy is true. So resources, techniques, arts, outside “extras”—they are never trifles. They are the heart of the heart.

When Feng Kexer first entered the Obstruction Sea, a large part of her purpose was the Demon King’s treasure. But she was always realistic; she knew her strength was far from enough. So she endured hardship and trained with all her might, aiming for the day she could become strong enough to kill the Demon King and claim that hoard.

After her first battle after leaving seclusion, she had dispatched, almost playfully, a senior demon-cultivator of the sixth-tier Full Perfection with a casual movement of hand and foot. In the lower world, the highest rank among demon-cultivators was at most the seventh-tier Full Perfection. Anything higher belonged not to demon-cultivators at all, but to demon immortals dwelling in the Spirit Realm. That effortless win flooded Feng Kexer with a confidence she had never known before. Without a great boss looming over the sea, she could walk through it at ease.

Still, she had another reason: luck at the Obstruction Sea’s core might let her advance again.

Hua Taiyi’s pursuit had always hung over her like a sword. Though she had grown stronger, it was still unlikely she could withstand a Golden Immortal of the Divine Realm. Yet for two hundred years in the Obstruction Sea she had never encountered any kind of pursuit. Maybe the sea’s obstructive qi did it; maybe some other reason. In any case, she was still safe for now. So she had to seize this rare window and grow as strong as possible.

Since her first day there, she had heard tales of fortunes inside that could carry a cultivator a thousand strides in one leap. The most abundant spirit energy in the sea was in the first layer; that was where successive Demon Kings had trained. It was said that three kings had ascended from that place. So, beyond the treasure, seeking fate at the Heart was the quiet first aim of every great power.

Hence, even the senior demon-cultivators and their hoards in the second layer no longer interested her.

“Pure Breeze Arts,” Feng Kexer raised her sword and went straight for the Heart of the Obstruction Sea.

Her cultivation had risen a full stage, and Pure Breeze Arts had skipped up by several notches at once. She spread both arms, let the wind scream past her ears, and felt the earth fall beneath her feet. The sky stretched high and the sea spread wide; she cut across it free as a kite. What was sword flight compared with this, to ride the wind as if she owned the air?

“Master, look—what is that? It’s moving so fast.”
“Without a flying sword, too fast… Master, that must be a seventh-tier bird demon, right?”

“A bird demon? You’re still calling it ‘bird uncle,’” Feng Kexer heard clearly. Angrily she flicked her sleeve, brushed away the cloud veil from her face, and glanced toward the source of the voices.

The glance almost made her lose her breath. By heaven—how could that man look so much like Hua Taiyi?

On a huge branch of a lush banyan sat two male cultivators, both cross-legged.

One was a middle-aged man in a black robe, an eyepatch over one eye like a one-eyed pirate captain. He was originally handsome, broad-shouldered, with a hard masculine air, and every gesture carried a natural and effortless swagger. Yet the black robe and that black patch gave him a bandit’s shadow and a demonic cast. On top of his natural elegance, he seemed five parts wild and unrestrained.

The other was a young man in a yellow robe. It was this one, just moments ago, shouting at the sky for a “bird demon.” He also had a face that looked just like Hua Taiyi’s.

“Don’t talk nonsense,” the black-robed man muttered, rolling an odd glance at him and sneering. “That’s a blond brat.”

The disciple opened his mouth so wide it could swallow a gourd, then looked up and gasped, “Master, she flies so fast. Faster than you, maybe?”

That seemed to provoke him. He gave the boy a sharp strike, then rose with a growl and pointed toward the dense forest. “You brat, stop chattering. Do you understand anything at all? Enough playing—you’re going in! Kill the monster!”

“Yes, master!” The disciple shrank into himself, picked up the long halberd planted beneath the tree, and with a few leaps shot into the endless thicket. Soon came a resonant shout: “Demon-beast, strike!” Then the crash of combat—then the boy’s desperate cry: “Master, save me!”

“Useless fellow,” Feng Kexer muttered. She must have misread him, but she saw the black-robed master cast what looked like a teasing glance in her direction before he vanished in an instant.

The next moment he appeared at the side of that bandaged, banged-up disciple. He did not move to help at all, standing with folded hands as if conducting an outside lesson. “Lower stance, hit the lower stance. Feng Fuxi, can’t you be even more dense? Speed—did you hear me? Speed!”

Instant movement. In this world, someone really could teleport. Feng Kexer stared open-mouthed. No wonder this ferocious disciple, whose attainment was only Foundation-Completion level, dared to train in the frontier between the second and first layers.

Once she confirmed the disciple’s level, she exhaled in relief. It was a false alarm—the fellow was Feng Fuxi, and beyond sharing a face with Hua Taiyi, he had nothing in common with him. Yet the temperament of that furious master ran as deep as the sea. If that man had designs on the Demon King’s treasure, what chance did Feng Kexer have? With him around, what concern had she for any treasure at all?

Fortune was on her side: this man had a dumb disciple on a string and no free moments. She hastened, stirring her spirit energy, and ran faster still toward the Sea’s heart. She had stolen a bit of technique from that black-robed master, and Pure Breeze Arts improved again at once. Her speed surged.

No move could escape her eyes—no, she almost laughed at herself for thinking that. There was no time to overthink, so she kept the change going, rough as it was.

The black-robed master gave a thin, careless snort. “So this is the Demon King’s treasure, this pile of scrap bronze and broken iron? But the little girl is right about one thing: this disciple truly is stupid. Against that Golden Immortal, he’s worthless. Less than the spiritual torrent of a mere blond brat from below.”

With that, his temper rose—but then he caught himself. If the girl had the master’s attention, she was no ordinary soul.

And so Feng Fuxi noticed that his stare had lost the old sharpness.

Feng Kexer had never once dreamed that her instinct could be wrong: the disciple nearly brought to scream-loudness by a sixth-tier, three-stage demon-cultivator was Hua Taiyi himself—more precisely, Hua Taiyi’s reincarnation.

And the black-robed master was none other than the one-eyed dragon who had once betrayed the mortal world beside Nuwa. He was now, in the lower world, known by everyone as the Tianlong True Lord, a name that usually commands the highest reverence for a cultivator. He gave that title no mind. Truthfully, he cared nothing for being called “Lord” if there was a better label.

“A Grand Demon King,” he would have said if anyone asked. A title is only a title, after all.

Still, the real question remained: how had Hua Taiyi become a reincarnation, and then a disciple of Old Dragon?

Whenever that old dragon had to explain, he always sighed and pounded his chest in theatrical grief: “Such is fate.”

To understand that, one must go back more than two hundred years. Before Nuwa’s defection from the lower world, she had bitten a certain Golden Immortal and curtly warned him that he carried a heart-demon and should never recklessly stir his true qi.

By ordinary standards, a heart-demon was a disease of those at or below the Tribulation stage. Hua Taiyi was a full Golden Immortal; poisons and heart-demons were supposed to be beyond him. So he ignored her warning and did what he wanted.

Then trouble came. After extracting a blood sample from Feng Jiu, he hurried to Kunlun’s Snow Mountains, intending to catch a phoenix-tailed bird before the gate closed—trying to catch Feng Kexer in time, to swap bodies with Nuwa and restore her to human form.

Feng Jiu was furious and threw everything she had into stopping him.

The two fought. Feng Jiu fought in her true form. Hua Taiyi refused to use true qi—how could he stand against her?

In a single moment, the heart-demon manifested and devoured his seven tendons and eight channels.

By then, the foremost antidote master of the Divine Realm, Feng Jun of the Phoenix Clan, came down in search of Feng Jiu. Seeing the situation, he quickly administered medicine to suppress the heart-demon and brought both back to the divine realm.

Hua Taiyi’s case was grim. Feng Jun diagnosed it as follows: the heart-demon had fully formed. There was no cure except removing his immortal bones and being reborn below to begin again.

The Seven-Night Celestial Lord had only one precious son, and when he heard this he looked as if he had found a straw in floodwaters. “Feng Jun,” he asked, “if he can be saved by reincarnating below, can he recover?”

Feng Jun nodded with certainty, then sighed: “Unfortunately, the gate has been sealed.”

A flicker crossed his eyes. The heavenly lord waved it away. “No matter.”

That very night Hua Taiyi came to Feng Jiu to say he would reincarnate. He confessed he had made little Xi this wayward, this ghostly form—karma, his word. But he feared that after rebirth he might do the same again. He knew Feng Jun had the best ideas. Though he worried to approach Feng Jun directly, fearing offense to the Seven-Night Lord, he asked Feng Jiu to put in a word on his behalf.

After a pause, Feng Jiu sighed. “If you meet Nuwa again,” she said, “do not betray her a second time.”

Ordinarily they would have started another quarrel. Yet now Hua Taiyi only stared at her strangely and answered with unusual seriousness, “All right. I understand.”

True to his word, Feng Jiu took him to Feng Jun. Surprisingly, Feng Jun agreed. He sent Feng Jiu out of the cave, and for more than one hour they whispered inside with Hua Taiyi.

The next day, the Seven-Night Celestial Lord announced publicly that Hua Taiyi would begin seclusion from that day onward.

The truth was known only to a few: Hua Taiyi had truly had his immortal bones carved out and silently reincarnated below.

In the days that followed, Feng Jiu hung around Feng Jun like an eggplant left out in the frost, wilted and listless.

At last Feng Jun lost patience and said, “If you rise to Golden Immortal, I’ll make a suggestion to the Celestial Lord. Even Taiyi was formidable; in the lower world, even a great man cannot stand alone. The lord would be glad to have him an ally.”

Feng Jiu’s eyes flashed bright at once. “Done.” As soon as the words left him, that red-feathered great-bird flapped away and vanished from Feng Jun’s cave—off to seclusion.

Back in the lower world, on the summit of Kunlun.

Again it was reporting day. The newly appointed head of the Wind Clan, Li Hentian, appeared as usual, early, outside the cave. Nuwa had said she had no face to face her clan, no right to bear the Wind name anymore, no right to receive their veneration. So she and Old Dragon had always lived far away on Kunlun, at a distance impossible to measure by ordinary reckoning.

This time, however, he had brought a swaddling cloth.

After hearing his report, Nuwa raised her eyes and asked, “A-tian, what is it?”

Li Hentian hurriedly lifted the child forward. “Lady, it is a boy. On the way here I pulled him out from inside a giant lizard’s jaws. He has excellent potential, so I thought to bring him back and raise him in the clan.”

“He cannot inherit our Wind Clan arts,” Nuwa said, turning toward Old Dragon, who sat below, face hard as iron, and smiled. “Brother Dragon, haven’t you been looking for a successor for so long?”

Old Dragon could hold it no longer. He jumped up. “You little brat—how dare you be so shameless?” he growled. Li Hentian’s cultivation was shallow; he could not read the boy’s true origin. But how could he hide it from the old dragon? Thanks to him, this was already Hua Taiyi’s Nth reincarnation in two hundred years.

“Brother Dragon!” Nuwa hurriedly stopped him. Her voice grew grave. “What comes by fate is Heaven’s will. I can see the affinity between you and this child. Besides, I want you to help A-tian in the clan.”

Only then was it clear. Old Dragon inhaled sharply and glared at the baby still snoring in the cradle with an insect-humming tone. “A-tian, has he been named?”

Li Hentian, confused, answered at once: “Yes. He was almost swallowed by the lizard yet did not cry. I called him Fuxi.”

Old Dragon dismissed it with a turn of his head. “He is an idiot beyond all measure,” he growled inwardly, cursing Li Hentian and that useless giant lizard in his heart.

“Let him bear the surname Wind,” Nuwa said, managing a laugh she meant to hide. Then she spoke with unusual seriousness: “Brother Dragon, you will make him the pride of the whole clan, won’t you?”

“Me… you… him?” Old Dragon was dumbstruck for once.

Heavenly Codex, Chapter One Hundred
“An Apparition of an Old Friend”
Update complete!

To be continued.