WITH THE EXIT of Bitan Manor, Huang Xiaoyue had no more excuses to dawdle; he could do nothing but head up the mountain.
Mo Ran was in no mood for time-wasting and swiftly stepped through the rift, the disciples of Jiangdong Hall at his heels. Within moments of crossing the barrier, shrieks rose from the group behind him.
The dead were everywhere. Lying on the ground, hanging from trees, covering the slope like swarming ants. They moved and crawled, twitched and convulsed, sluggishly making their way toward the living.
They had entered a mountain of corpses.
In the face of such a sight, Huang Xiaoyue stepped forward alone. He struck out with his horsetail whisk, hitting several revenants on their heads. Where had this old man found so much courage? Before Mo Ran could wrap his head around it, Huang Xiaoyue let out a high-pitched scream. He collapsed to the ground, his limbs comically sprawled and eyes rolling back in his skull, coughing up bloody spittle.
Mo Ran stared, dumbfounded.
Jiangdong Hall's disciples rushed forward. "Huang-qianbei—" "Qianbei…"
"Not to worry. I've been gravely injured, but I can fight on." Huang Xiaoyue made to clamber upright, but his knees gave out. He crumpled back to the ground, panting laboriously.
"Qianbei, you should rest at the bottom," a disciple said anxiously. "There's too much demonic energy here. It's no good for your heart."
"That's right!" another voice crowed in agreement.
Huang Xiaoyue made a great show of demurring as he coughed up a revolting mixture of blood and phlegm. After carrying on with this charade until he was satisfied, he donned an expression of deep regret. At last, and with a great swishing of robes, he led most of Jiangdong Hall's disciples out of the barrier once more like a school of carp making its way downstream. The barrier prevented people from entering but not exiting.
Soon, only a handful of Jiangdong Hall's people remained on the mountain.
Before them appeared a young man making his way down the gentle slope. His hair was long and pale-gold, his eyes jade-green, and his expression somber. When he spied Mo Ran, both blinked in surprise.
Mo Ran was first to react. "Mei-xiong?" Mei Hanxue nodded coolly.
"Have you seen my shizun and the others?" Mo Ran asked urgently.
"They're all up ahead." As he spoke, a corpse lurched up behind Mei Hanxue. Mo Ran opened his mouth with a warning when he saw the cold flash of a sword. Mei Hanxue drew his weapon without turning and carved a gaping hole into the corpse's chest. He pulled the sword out with a wet noise, its blade stained with dark blood. Features chilly, Mei Hanxue wiped the sword clean, then said to Mo Ran, "Straight up this path and take a left at the first fork. There are too many revenants. Everyone is trying to clear the way."
Mo Ran thanked him. As he stepped forward to leave, Mei Hanxue called out to him again. "Wait a moment."
"Does Mei-xiong have a request?"
"Mn. The palace leader was a friend of Madam Rong's. She's worried—she sent me to check on the two from Rufeng Sect. How are they? Are they still outside?"
Relief flooded through Mo Ran. "Yes, they're waiting outside the barrier. Nangong Si placed a confinement curse on himself. Huang Xiaoyue went down too; I'm afraid he'll make trouble for them again. If you could look after them, I'd be grateful."
Mei Hanxue pursed his lips and said no more. A graceful leap, and he disappeared through the barrier.
Mo Ran made his way up the mountain with all haste. So many undead lurked here; it would have been no surprise to stumble across at least a few bodies of fallen cultivators along the way. Yet curiously, all he encountered were dismembered and decaying corpses. They were disgusting, certainly, but not a single cultivator's remains stood out among them. Was it because the sect leaders had only brought their most accomplished subordinates?
He had no time to consider this; he threw himself into the fray to clear away the revenants. He had previously been passing by corpses others had already defeated; feeble and twitching the ground. But as Mo Ran met more of the fresh undead, the situation grew more curious still. Fighting them was too easy, nothing like what he would have expected from the reanimated bodies of warriors. He felt like he was cutting down ordinary people who barely had the strength to truss a chicken.
Mo Ran's unease redoubled. A terrifying notion was taking shape in his mind.
"Aaaargh!"
A corpse hanging from a tree, hair covering its face, lunged for Mo Ran's neck. Mo Ran jumped back, and the corpse turned its head to follow. Nostrils flaring, it sunk its bony fingers into Mo Ran's shoulder and thrust its decaying face toward his.
Unspeakably revolted, Mo Ran still thought strategically. One powerful kick sent the corpse flying into the thronging undead, knocking over several revenants that were closing in.
"Mo Ran!"
Xue Meng fought his way over and caught his breath; his cheeks were splashed with dark blood, eyes fiery. "What's going on?" he said in a low voice. "What's with these corpses? Are they trying to wear us down via sheer numbers? Why are they all so weak?"
Mo Ran's gaze was icy and distant. As the erstwhile Emperor Taxian-jun, he had read of many evil spells, and had a faint suspicion as to what was going on. He just didn't have sufficient evidence.
"These revenants aren't cultivators," Mo Ran said through gritted teeth. "They're commoners."
"What?!" Xue Meng turned to him in shock. "They're practically ashes, how the hell do you know they're not cultivators? I can't even fucking tell if they're men or women!"
In lieu of an answer, Mo Ran asked, "If we were fighting and you grabbed my shoulder because I didn't dodge quickly enough, what would you do?"
"How would you expose your shoulder to me in the first place? That's a rookie move. Even twelve-year-old disciples wouldn't make a mistake like that."
"Why is it a rookie move?"
"Because it's close to the spiritual core! If I grab your shoulder, it's as good as grabbing half of your spiritual core! I'd just need to use my other hand to pierce your chest and you'd be done for!"
"Right," replied Mo Ran. "One of the corpses grabbed my shoulder just now."
"How could you be so careless?" Xue Meng cried in alarm. "Do you want to die?"
"It didn't do anything." "Huh?"
"It was so close, but it didn't occur to the corpse to go for my core
with its other hand. Any cultivator should have a bone-deep instinct to protect their own core and attack their opponent's. Like you said—even a twelve-year-old would know that, and their bodies should retain those reflexes after death. But the corpse didn't do that." When Mo Ran continued, his voice was grim. "Why not? There are two possibilities: it either couldn't, or it didn't think of it."
Xue Meng stared at him.
"Its limbs were uninjured, and I was wide open, so that rules out the former," said Mo Ran. "It can only be that it failed to recognize the opportunity… These bodies probably all belonged to commoners. After death, they would be no match for top cultivators. Look, no one's gotten even a scratch in all the fighting."
"How could this be?" Xue Meng asked, astonished. "Why would Xu Shuanglin pile so many dead commoners onto Mount Huang? If he can control corpses, why not control the corpses of cultivators?"
"It's the same again: either he couldn't, or he didn't think of it." "How could he possibly fail to think of it?"
"So that leaves only the first option. He couldn't." Mo Ran's gaze was dark. Jiangui's scarlet sparks danced in his eyes like molten iron falling into the vast sea of night. "Xu Shuanglin's spiritual power isn't enough to control so many cultivators using the Zhenlong Chess Formation."
"But what use is it to control these weaklings?" Xue Meng kicked down a row of undead, unsure whether to laugh or cry. "What's the point of this? Who would this possibly stop?"
Mo Ran said nothing. His conjecture was gaining form, sharpening at the edges. He surveyed the crowd of cultivators battling the corpses and noticed something bizarre: when the cultivators hacked off the revenants' limbs or heads, they collapsed to the ground. As he watched, a tiny vine sprouted from the earth and plunged into each of their chests. The vine wrapped around their heart and, with a soft pop, pulled it into the ground, vanishing from sight.
This seemed like it would be hard to miss, but the scene was incredibly chaotic, and everyone had their hands full with fighting. The vines were so small that unless someone stood to the side in observation, they were practically invisible.
"Mo Ran?"
Xue Meng called his name a few times, but it was like Mo Ran couldn't hear him at all.
Suddenly Mo Ran leapt into the air and grabbed a corpse by the neck, slashing open its chest with the dagger concealed in his palm. Black blood sprayed onto his face.
Xue Meng's mouth fell open. He took a few quick steps back, unable to speak. Had Mo Ran lost his mind…?
Turning his chiseled features aside, Mo Ran wrenched the corpse's shriveled gray heart from its chest and crushed it in his fingers.
Within was a black chess piece. This was no surprise. The corpses on Mount Huang would only fight like this under the control of Zhenlong Chess. Mo Ran hadn't been looking for this black piece at all. Enduring the awful stench, he prodded through the gore.
Xue Meng couldn't take it any longer; he doubled over and retched. "You! Are you nuts? That's…so gross… Ugh…"
Mo Ran ignored him. He dragged his fingers through the congealed blood until they closed around the object he was looking for. A tiny scarlet insect was curled up on the reverse side of the chess piece. A soul-eater.
Without warning, a dozen vines burst from the ground and shot toward Mo Ran's bloody hands. He ducked out of the way, but the vines flew after him with increasing speed. They seemed to be hell-bent on bringing that chess piece, and the insect on it, into the earth.
By now, Mo Ran's guesses about Xu Shuanglin's plans and methods had been fully realized. Every hair on his body stood on end, and his blood ran cold. No one in the world could have devised this sort of dark forbidden technique—no one save the past life's Taxian-jun!
Just as the Sigil of the Returning Billows was Chu Wanning's creation, everything that stood before him—this chess piece, this soul- eater, this horde of corpses, this strategy—pointed toward a spell that Mo Ran couldn't be more familiar with: the Shared-Heart Array.
In the past lifetime, he himself had invented this spell.
If Mo Ran had merely suspected before, the appearance of this technique hit him over the head with the proof. It confirmed two things. Firstly, there was another reborn person in this world. Secondly, that person was intimately familiar with Taxian-jun's methods.
Mo Ran's hands were shaking. Dark blood dripped between his fingers as he clutched that black chess piece and the scarlet insect. As he dodged the flailing vines, his mind was in chaos. Lost in confusion and shock, scattered memories from the past life swam into his consciousness.
In the beginning, he was only nineteen.
The Heavenly Rift had been recently repaired, and the pain of Shi Mei's death was fresh. Unbeknownst to all, Mo Ran had been teaching himself the Zhenlong Chess Formation in secret for almost half a year. But he had never succeeded—until today.
The nineteen-year-old Mo Weiyu sat cross-legged on the floor.
Slowly, his eyes fluttered open. When he uncurled his fingers, two night- dark chess pieces nestled in his pale palm—the first Zhenlong chess pieces he had ever managed to refine.
He had tried thousands of different methods and met with failure after failure. He couldn't decipher the cryptic instructions in the forbidden technique scrolls, but he also couldn't ask Chu Wanning what they meant. By then, he was reluctant to speak to Chu Wanning about anything; Shi Mei's death had opened a chasm between them that could never be filled. They were master and disciple in name only, no more. In the few months before he revealed his fiendish plans to the world, he sometimes crossed paths with that man in white. But each time Mo Ran would pretend he hadn't seen him and walk away without a word.
Truthfully, there were several instances, as they'd walked past one another on Naihe Bridge, when Mo Ran had noticed Chu Wanning looking as though he wished to speak. But Chu Wanning's pride prevented him from calling out to his disciple, and Mo Ran didn't give him time to deliberate. He walked in the opposite direction, never turning back. In the end, they passed each other by.
Mo Ran toiled for months over those fragmented scrolls. At last, though no one would lend him aid, he teased out enough meaning to grasp the crux of the Zhenlong Chess Formation.
Every chess piece, whether black or the more powerful white that could share a spellcaster's will, must be refined from the caster's spiritual energy. The amount of spiritual energy needed to form each piece was terrifying. A black piece demanded the same amount of energy as making a hundred moves in a fight. The price for a white piece would be tantamount to draining all the spiritual energy of a great zongshi like Chu Wanning in a flashing instant. It mattered not how brilliant one was, or how well-versed in the subtleties of Zhenlong Chess. If one lacked the spiritual energy, they could never put it to practice.
Mo Ran was supremely gifted and blessed with copious spiritual energy, but he was still a young man, not yet twenty. Even after expending all his effort and failing countless times, he could refine no more than two black chess pieces.
And at that very moment, they lay in his palm.
He stared at those two black pieces, an uncanny glint in his eye. The only light in the room came from a guttering candle, flickering unsteadily over his face.
He'd done it.
Back then, he hadn't yet thought about the number of pawns he would need. Euphoria at this simple success washed over him. He'd done it!
Despite the handsomeness of his features, his face twisted with beastly malice. He walked, lightheaded, out of the dark cultivation room, half from joy, and half because these scant two chess pieces had sapped nearly all his spiritual energy. He was hollowed out and empty as he stepped outside. The brilliant sunlight dazzled him, making the world spin, taking his breath away.
His face flushed then paled; the scenery seemed to wobble before his eyes. He saw two Sisheng Peak disciples approaching from a distance. With his last scrap of consciousness, he stuffed those two black chess pieces into his qiankun pouch. Then his knees buckled—he crumpled to the ground and knew no more.
Some time later, as he walked between dreams and waking, he realized someone had brought him back to the disciple quarters. He was lying in his narrow bed. When he peered from between his eyelids, he saw a hazy figure sitting at his side.
Mo Ran was delirious with fever; he couldn't make out that person's features. Yet he sensed that the gaze on him held so much concern, attentiveness, and warmth; even some sharp slivers of self-reproach.
"Shi…"
Mo Ran's lips parted and shut, but his voice was so hoarse he couldn't get out more than a syllable. His tears, however, spilled freely.
The figure in white seemed to hesitate. Then Mo Ran felt a warm palm against his face, wiping the tears from his cheeks. That person sighed softly. "Why are you crying again?"
Mo Ran couldn't respond.
Shi Mei, you came back. Please, don't go… Don't die… Don't leave me alone… Since my mom left this world, there's been no one as kind to me as you were… There's no one else who doesn't look down on me, who's willing to remain by my side…
Shi Mei, don't go…
He couldn't hold back the hot tears that rolled down his face. It felt so childish, but he cried in his sleep as he dreamed on and on.
The person at his bedside didn't move. After a time, he took Mo Ran's hand in his own. He never spoke, but he kept him company, never leaving for a moment.
Mo Ran thought of the two Zhenlong chess pieces in his qiankun pouch. They were the fonts of sin, the seeds of evil. But they were also the hard-won bargaining chips with which he would take on heaven and earth. Refining chess pieces required more than spiritual energy—for this, he sacrificed his unblemished souls.
Beneath wet lashes, Mo Ran's gaze was murky. Staring at the vision of Shi Mei, he mumbled, "I'm sorry… If you were still here, I wouldn't…"
I wouldn't want to take this path either.
But he hadn't the strength to finish the sentence. He fell into unconsciousness once more.
When he next awoke, that white-robed man had gone. Mo Ran became convinced he was a figment of his half-dreaming imagination. But he remembered an incense burner had been lit in his room earlier. Xue Zhengyong had placed it there to soothe his nerves. It was good incense, but Mo Ran didn't like it. Now, that incense had been put out. It was a long coil, left unfinished—someone must have come and extinguished it.
Who had come here?
Mo Ran sat up, looking at the censer in a daze, but he couldn't figure it out. After a while, he decided to forget about it. He saw that his clothes, accessories, and holy weapon had been neatly laid out on his table. Among them was his qiankun pouch.
With a jolt of panic, he jumped barefoot from the bed and grabbed the qiankun pouch. Before he passed out, he had carefully triple-knotted the cord. Luck was with him—all three knots were still there, untouched. Mo Ran loosened them and let out a breath of relief. Rummaging through the pouch, he spotted those two Zhenlong chess pieces, dark as a lightless night, lying in wait in a corner like two ghoulish eyes. They looked as though they might swallow him whole.
He stared at those two pieces for a very long time.
Here, perhaps was the hand of fate—if Chu Wanning had looked through Mo Ran's qiankun pouch, everything after would have been different. But Chu Wanning was never the type to go through the belongings of others without reason. Even if their pockets were gaping open, he wouldn't take a second look.
Mo Ran picked out the chess pieces. His throat bobbed, and his heart pounded like a drum. What now? How should he use these two pieces? They were the very first fruits of his labor, and he was eager to test them. But on whom?
Inspiration struck like a bolt of lightning. A diabolical, deranged idea burst to life in his head.
Chu Wanning.
He wanted to put a chess piece in Chu Wanning.
Once it was in him, would this callous, hypocritical man obey his every whim? Would he kneel on command, and never dare to resist?
Could Mo Ran make Chu Wanning fall to his knees before him and apologize? Make Chu Wanning cower at his feet? He could make Chu Wanning call him his master; he could wound him, stab him, tear him to pieces!
Ecstasy warped the light in Mo Ran's eyes. Yes, he could torment him. But how could he inflict the utmost pain, the utmost humiliation, upon this imperious cultivator?
Humiliation…
Mo Ran gripped those two chess pieces. His mouth was dry, and grew drier by the minute. Exhilaration and apprehension washed over him in turns. He licked chapped lips. He wanted this so badly; he wanted to see Chu Wanning lower his pale neck before him. He wanted to reach out and lay a hand upon it, to feel him trembling under his touch, and then…
Break his neck? Snap his bones?
Mo Ran felt displeased. For some reason, that seemed pointless, unsatisfactory. Letting Chu Wanning die would be a bore. Even the thought annoyed Mo Ran. He wanted to see him weep and grovel; he wanted to see him live a life worse than death, to be crushed by fury and shame.
There had to be a more gratifying way for him to vent his anger.
He touched a chess piece to his lips. Mouth pressed to its ice-cold surface, he murmured, "You can't stop me anymore, Chu Wanning. Soon, the day will come when I'll make you…"
Make you what?
At nineteen, he hadn't understood that the desire surging through him was in large part lust and a primal urge to conquer. But even then, he already possessed a terrifyingly strong masculine instinct to take the very first seed of evil he had nurtured and sow it within Chu Wanning's body.
He wanted to defile him.
Mo Ran stood up. He pushed open the door and stepped out of the room.