Sun Chao’en had walked up to Wei Yuan’s side before he knew it. After reading the letter, he remarked, “You can pour it all out, but can’t hold anything in. Your style is also reckless and untamed. If our teacher sees your calligraphy now, he will surely give you another scolding!”

“True.” Wei Yuan nodded. Suddenly, a pair of tears fell off his eyes and shattered against his chest plate.

His hand felt warm when he used it to wipe his face. When he turned to look at Sun Chao’en, he noticed that the man was full of tears a long time ago.

He wiped his face again when suddenly, he noticed an arrow sitting at a corner. It was the signal arrow Wei Yuan had left behind for Fang Hetong. Had the scholar shot the arrow, he would have learned of the assault and rushed back immediately.

The arrow was right within Fang Hetong’s reach, yet he had never used it.

Wei Yuan wondered why and arrived at the answer just a few seconds later. The Liao barbarians had invaded en masse, and there wasn’t a single spot on the frontier that was untouched by the flames of war. Those with spare forces had already dispatched them to aid the besieged. Wei Yuan himself had no established connections; there was no way anyone would turn back solely to rescue him. Fang Hetong, a man who knew the ways of the world very well, had long discerned this truth when he compared Wei Yuan to Lee Zhi.

Had he shot the signal arrow, Wei Yuan would be the first person to show up. He would also be the only one to show up.

Wei Yuan wiped his face again and set down the signal arrow. Then, he scanned the mound of heads with his perception. Suddenly, he frowned and exclaimed in puzzlement, “Where’s his head?”

Fang Hetong had forged a Dao Foundation. Thus, a speck of spirituality should remain in his sea of consciousness even after he had died. It would not disappear immediately either. When Wei Yuan scanned the mound of heads with his perception, though, he could not find a single primordial spirit that had undergone any sort of refinement. In other words, Fang Hetong’s head was not among them.

Sun Chao’en performed the same check as well until suddenly, he paled. “There’s a Liao tradition where the head of a powerful foe is carved into a skull cup! If Junior Brother Fang’s head isn’t here…”

The moment he heard this, something shot up from underneath Wei Yuan’s feet all the way to his skull and exploded into pure, blinding red!

Meanwhile, Wang Delu was still kowtowing noisily to Fang Hetong’s body. Furious beyond imagination, Sun Chao’en strode over to the commandant and unsheathed his sword. He was going to behead this cur right then and there!

Scared out of his wits, Wang Delu fell backward on his butt. While facing the county magistrate and kicking the floor frantically to put as much distance between himself and Sun Chao’en, he screamed, “Lord Sun, you and I are both officials of the imperial court! Y-you can’t kill me! According to the law, the order must come from the commandery administrator, and the crime reported to the provincial governor! Only after autumn harvest can an execution be carried out! If you kill me now, then you would be guilty of the crime of arbitrarily executing an imperial official!”

Sun Chao’en’s blade froze in mid-air. He was only half a rank higher than Wang Delu, and according to Jin law, this meant that he did not possess the authority to kill Wang Delu. If he did, he would be guilty of unauthorized killing and be punishable by decapitation. His whole clan would be executed as well.

Sun Chao’en’s fury was still waging war against imperial law when suddenly, the weight in his hand disappeared. Wei Yuan had taken his sword.

“Mercy, immortal—” Wang Delu’s screams came to an abrupt end as the sword descended, and his head ascended. Blood sprayed out of his headless neck and painted the ground before Fang Hetong’s feet red!

After cutting down the commandant, Wei Yuan wordlessly turned toward the exit and took a step, appearing outside the ancestral hall. When he took another step, he had already reached the main gate of Flying Sand Village.

A warhorse let out a long whinny and galloped up to him of its own accord. Wei Yuan leaped into the air and landed gently on its back. Lightning flashed, and a one zhang two chi long spear streaked across the air and entered his grip of its own accord.

The horse was just an ordinary horse, and the spear was just an iron spear.

Sun Chao’en ran out of the ancestral hall just in time to see the spear growing thick, long, and indescribably intimidating in no time at all, profound patterns spreading across its whole body. At the same time, wisps of black qi entered the warhorse’s body and caused it to writhe in pain, whinnying and stomping the ground repeatedly. Yet, every time it stomped the ground, it would grow a tad bigger. Just a second later, it had grown into a colossal horse that was one and a half zhang tall, unmatched in ferocity and might!

Its hooves were now as big as jars and covered in faint blue flames. The entire village shuddered when it stomped the ground again and left behind several scorched hoofprints. An earthshaking whinny echoed throughout heaven and earth, and Wei Yuan rode northward toward the Liao realm!

It was only now Sun Chao’en snapped out of his daze and grabbed his county assistant, crying, “Inform Lee Zhi, General Lee, about this right away! Send a messenger to Liao Jingwu and tell him to mobilize the troops as well! We must support…”

Blood rapidly spread across his chest and his back as he overexerted himself. Sun Chao’en failed to finish whatever he was going to say before blacking out.

Wei Yuan cut through the churning yellow clouds and entered the Liao realm in the blink of an eye. As soon as he passed through the border, a massive, invisible web wrapped around his head and filled his whole body with that greasy, sticky sensation where everything screamed foreign once more. His vision instantly narrowed by half, and his Dao energy flowed with noticeably sluggishness.

However, Wei Yuan noticed a speck of white light ahead of him. Like a candle flame weathering a thunderstorm, it was so weak that it could disappear at any moment. It was a fragment of spirituality leaking from Fang Hetong’s lingering primordial spirit. An Avatar Trueman would have difficulty sensing it normally, but Wei Yuan was born with uncanny senses bordering that of the mystic ability, Diting[1]. Thus, he could see it.

A faint light flickered far ahead of Wei Yuan, and far beyond that, another. Like stars, these scattered specks of white light guided him northward.

While riding at top speed, a sudden thought appeared in his empty consciousness: If Brother Fang knew that I could see the light of scattered spirituality, he might have destroyed his own primordial spirit…

The thought quickly faded into nothing.

The flames enveloping the hooves of his mount were growing brighter and brighter. Its hoofprints were moving farther and farther away from the ground as well. It was practically flying. The blade of his spear was sharp, twisted, and unlike any weapon in the current era. Its edge left behind a black trail like ink smeared across a piece of paper, lingering long after it passed.

The Liao realm was endless and churning like a murky ocean. He alone was cutting through the waves toward the north and leaving a long trail behind him.

By now, the wind in front of him had become so thick it was practically tangible. The wind blowing against him felt less like a gale and more like a giant wave crashing down on him, one after another. His whole body was sticky like he was covered in countless spider webs, forcing him to expend several times the energy to execute each and every motion. Even the yellow clouds he had put behind him were chasing him like relentless hounids.

Wei Yuan’s sea of consciousness boiled as the black qi he had accumulated throughout the years disappeared one after another. They were expended to dispel the world’s malice.

That’s right, malice.

It felt as if the Liao realm itself was stirring awake and glaring at the overestimating worm that was him with vile, hateful eyes. It was also channeling more and more energy to stop him, batter him, destroy him.

Wei Yuan did not know how long he rode, only that the trail of weak light eventually came to an end. It was because the yellow clouds of the Liao realm had formed a storm that extinguished the last wisps of Fang Hetong’s spirit fire.

The jade toad surfaced from his sea of consciousness, eyes turning pure black—no, it wasn’t black. It was nothingness that consumed even blackness.

Specks of light appeared before his eyes once more.

In that moment, Wei Yuan was struck by an inexplicable realization: the glimmers he was seeing did not truly exist. He was seeing the light that had not yet faded from the previous moment.

Wei Yuan bent low and became one with his horse. His speed increased dramatically once more as he chased the light northward!

A gigantic yellow storm appeared in the distance. The churning yellow clouds were rotating slowly and forming an indescribable, sky-bridging tornado with a center that spanned at least tens of li in diameter. Faint light glimmered in the eye of the storm.

Wei Yuan did not think. He rode straight into the tornado!

Surprisingly, there was a small, crescent-shaped lake in the eye of the storm. Aquatic blue in color, it was clear like a mirror and so transparent that one could see its bottom with crystal clarity. Speaking of which, the bottom of the lake was covered in countless colorful pebbles instead of yellow sand. They looked like swathes of rainbows beneath the rippling waters.

Clumps of forest stood next to the lake. Beyond the forest was a prairie that stretched on and on like an endless carpet. It was dotted with countless nameless wild flowers.

This piece of land was blessed by the world itself. It was tranquil, beautiful, and full of vitality. Several snow white tents had been erected on the prairie, and a herd of snow white mounts were standing nearby. They were two chi taller than the average Liao horse and incredibly handsome. None of the mounts were feeding on the grass. They were all eating the feed in the troughs with perfect decorum. Occasionally, they would lift a hoof or two to stretch their muscles, but they always landed them gently as if afraid of harming this precious land that was bestowed by the heavens.

Strong, muscular men that would be considered well-built even among the Liao tribesmen were walking in and out the tents, procuring water or tending to the horses. They were all walking bare-footed, afraid of hurting the grass just like their mounts.

Inside the biggest tent, the Liao youngster who had kicked over the wheel was sitting in the middle. A full head taller even compared to the other men in the tents, he was nine chi tall and wearing his shirt loosely, baring his thick chest hair and muscular torso. His face was so youthful it looked as if he had just hit twenty. Not a single blemish marred his bronze-toned skin.

Right now, he was sitting in an animal-hide chair and holding a rhinoceros-horn wine cup with his left hand, lost in thought. His expression was a mixture of resentment and resignation. Several plates of vegetables and fruits were sitting on the low table in front of him. There wasn’t a single meat dish. In fact, the only non-vegetarian sustenance in front of him was the milk tea and wine. Here at this sacred lake, it was disrespectful to eat fish or meat. 𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶

Beside the Liao youngster was a tray holding a severed human head.

“He’s just a southern sheep, young chief. You killed it, so that’s it. Why bother keeping him in your mind?”

Looking down into his wine cup, the Liao youngster replied, “You don’t understand. He is a hero. There exists heroes among the southern sheeps as well.”

The men inside the tent exchanged somewhat puzzled looks with each other. Someone said, “He still died in your hands, didn’t he?”

The Liao youngster shook his head. “Some heroes cannot be measured by their strength. He may have lost, but there wasn’t a speck of fear or false rage born from terror in his eyes from the start until the end. He was calm. He had calmly unveiled his greatest power, killed as many as he could, and waited for death to claim him. It is a shame that he rejected my kindness. If he had joined me, he would have become my strongest, smartest hound. A good hound is worth more than dozens of riders, you know.”

No one knew what to say for a time. Suddenly, the ground shook so violently that every plate on the low table bounced into the air. At the same time, several bloodcurdling screams erupted from outside the tent.

“Enemy attack!” The warriors inside the tent immediately rushed out to face their enemy. As for the Liao youngster, he picked up a long-handled battle and walked toward the exit with deliberate calm. Right before he would exit the tent, he glanced at the severed head on the tray and asked, “Your friend, I suppose?”

The head could not answer, of course.

The Liao youngster lifted the tent flap and stepped outside.

1. Diting is a divine mythical creature and the steed of bodhisattva Kṣitigarbha in Chinese Buddhism. One interpretation of its single horn was that it could receive information across the universe. Its hound ears were like a universal radio, transmitting the ability to distinguish good from bad to all believers. ☜