After forcibly breaking out of Xiezhi Sect, Yan Jianlan headed straight for the Sheng family.
Halfway there, he learned Sheng Jiao and Yu Tuishan had ceased fighting—Yu Tuishan had simply fled. Yan Jianlan stopped, utterly confused, feeling like he’d been walked like a dog.
They hadn’t fought to the death, yet he’d panicked and broken through the waterway. Sheng Jiao knowing would think he’d been schemed against again.
Yan Jianlan suddenly felt inexplicably guilty.
He took out the rhino horn lamp, pondering how to appease Sect Master Sheng, when a golden pattern flashed in his eyes. Yu Tuishan transmitted a message through the “Kan Tianyan” origin spiritual power.
“Ling’er, are you still imprisoned by Sect Master Sheng?”
Yan Jianlan replied: “Thanks, I’ve successfully escaped—where are you now?”
“Guess.” Yu Tuishan’s voice was lazy. “Can you find me?”
Yan Jianlan frowned, extremely dissatisfied with Yu Tuishan’s childish behavior. “Are you still a child?”
Despite his words, he seemed to already know the answer, turning to ride the wind toward the Xi family ruins.
On the way, Yan Jianlan felt like a blade would cut either way. With a grim face, he sent a transmission through the rhino horn lamp to Sheng Jiao.
“Dao companion, I’ll bring you osmanthus cake tomorrow. Don’t worry.”
Sheng Jiao was silent for a long time before replying with one succinct word.
“Mm.”
Yan Jianlan was full of doubts. The Heavenly Dao lord, who had been wildly jealous just days ago, seemed to have suddenly seen through worldly desires and attained enlightenment. Knowing he’d escaped Xiezhi Sect—and likely gone to find Yu Tuishan—he asked nothing.
His indulgence made Yan Jianlan even more panicked and insecure.
But he couldn’t return directly now, so he focused on the matter at hand, hurrying to the Xi family.
Yu Tuishan wasn’t in the empty Tianyan earth veins but curled up in his “gentle haven” from youth—now just ruins.
Goose-feather snow fell thickly. Yu Tuishan, in white robes, lay amid the filthy debris, his black hair scattered and nearly covered by snow.
The small courtyard had collapsed into a mess of rubble. Six years later, withered weeds and vines sprawled everywhere, impossible to distinguish. Yet Yu Tuishan precisely found the original inner chamber bed’s location, lying quietly as if back to worry-free sleep in his “gentle haven” before age twelve.
Creak.
Yan Jianlan stepped slowly through the snow, gathered his robes, and squatted beside Yu Tuishan: “Brother, what are you doing lying here?”
A thin layer of snow had settled on Yu Tuishan. He didn’t open his eyes, mumbling lazily: “Sleeping.”
Yan Jianlan chuckled, propping himself on the ground to lie beside him. It was like two youths on a warm bed from over a decade ago, heads tilted watching snowflakes whirl down onto pale faces.
Feeling the movement behind him, Yu Tuishan finally stirred.
He rolled over, pillowing his head on his arm to face Yan Jianlan, saying quietly: “I’m unhappy.”
Yan Jianlan raised an eyebrow slightly: “Didn’t you toy with the great families and Xiezhi Sect today? Wasn’t it fun?”
“Fun.” Yu Tuishan frowned, like someone whose bowl had been overturned mid-meal, sullenly saying, “But I’m still unhappy.”
Yan Jianlan’s eyes curved in a smile: “Where are you unhappy?”
Yu Tuishan took Yan Jianlan’s hand and pressed it to his chest: “Here. Something’s blocked.”
Yan Jianlan sighed, gently moving Yu Tuishan’s hand to the left side, whispering: “The heart is here.”
Yu Tuishan looked utterly confused.
His divided soul body had no warmth, no heartbeat, not even breath. He’d felt his body so little for so long, nearly forgetting the heart was on the left.
“Right.” Yu Tuishan nodded. “No wonder I’m so tired.”
Yan Jianlan’s lashes held a snowflake that melted into a water drop as he blinked. His voice was soft: “Yes, you’re too tired.”
Yu Tuishan: “That explains it.”
Yan Jianlan laughed, seeing him plan to lie there till dawn. He simply dragged him up: “We’re not sleeping here. Come, I’ll take you to…”
He paused. Besides Xiezhi Sect, there was nowhere for them to stay.
Yu Tuishan draped lazily over Yan Jianlan’s shoulder: “Where to?”
Yan Jianlan quickly thought of a place, standing and pulling him up: “Follow me.”
Exhausted, Yu Tuishan didn’t care about comfort, wanting only to lie in the snow overnight. But Yan Jianlan had been punished kneeling in snow for days before and instinctively recoiled at the sight.
He led Yu Tuishan riding the wind, silently landing moments later at a small courtyard’s gate.
It was Zhuxing Study Hall at Tianyan Academy.
Yan Jianlan deftly opened the study hall’s barrier, leading Yu Tuishan inside.
He hung the crane cloak on the screen, about to tell Yu Tuishan to make himself at home, when Yu Tuishan dashed to the inner chamber bed and sprawled across it like he owned the place.
—If he’d awakened anything but “Kan Tianyan,” this might have been his quarters.
Yan Jianlan pushed Yu Tuishan inward and lay sideways beside him.
Outside, snow swirled, the faint sounds of flakes on window frames and ground crystal clear in Yan Ling’s ears.
Yan Jianlan lay silently, listening to the snow.
He thought Yu Tuishan had fallen asleep inside, but soon Yu Tuishan rolled over, tugging his sleeve.
“Yan Ling?”
Yan Jianlan opened his eyes: “What?”
“What sound am I?” Yu Tuishan gazed eagerly. “You hear all things. What about me?”
He wanted to know his own sound.
Yan Jianlan was silent for a moment, as if hesitant to say, murmuring: “Brother…”
Yu Tuishan didn’t notice his difficulty, still expectant: “Mm?”
Yan Jianlan sighed faintly, covering his ears and saying softly: “None.”
Yu Tuishan didn’t understand: “What?”
Yan Jianlan said: “You have no sound.”
Yu Tuishan’s face stiffened.
Everyone had a sound—not literal speech, but like Sheng Jiao’s cracking scorched earth, Yan Yuhu’s rippling water, or hissing with killing intent. Yan Jianlan could even hear spiritual veins.
Except for Yu Tuishan.
“Sound of Leisure” was born from “Kan Tianyan,” yet it couldn’t hear “Kan Tianyan’s” sound.
From their first meeting as youths, Xi Jue had always been a quiet void of dead silence in Yan Ling’s ears.
Yu Tuishan asked softly, clinging to a thread of hope: “Is it that I have no sound, or you can’t hear it?”
Yan Jianlan: “I don’t know.”
“Oh.” Yu Tuishan pulled the brocade quilt over half his face, revealing only a pair of pure golden eyes. He looked somewhat dejected. “I see.”
Yan Jianlan’s heart ached sharply. He coaxed familiarly: “It’s fine. ‘Sound of Leisure’ is the most useless xiangwen anyway, not very helpful. Besides, I can’t hear my own either.”
Yu Tuishan was instantly convinced, his eyes curving as he grinned: “That’s good. I’m not alone.”
Yan Jianlan smiled.
The two lay on the vast bed in Zhuxing Study Hall’s chamber, quietly listening to breathing and falling snow.
Yu Tuishan chuckled for a while, then suddenly said without warning, gazing at the warm candlelight:
“Ling’er, I’m scared.”
Yan Jianlan didn’t ask what he feared, as if long knowing all of Yu Tuishan’s hopes and dreads. He paused gently before answering softly: “Then don’t do it.”
But Yu Tuishan shook his head immediately: “No.”
He didn’t want to be imprisoned in Tianyan earth veins forever, without freedom.
Yu Tuishan seemed to want to say more, but realized after thinking that everything had already been said during their dozen-plus years depending on each other.
All comforts, persuasions, reminders—everything said.
Yu Tuishan lay quietly, feeling Yan Jianlan’s faint breathing, and finally closed his eyes.
This was his first peaceful sleep in fourteen years.
***
The next morning, snow still fell.
Yan Jianlan usually rose at chenshi, but today he slept deeply, unable to wake as if ghost-pressed, not even a finger stirring.
Yu Tuishan had shed yesterday’s rare vulnerability, wearing warm yellow robes identical in style and pattern to “Xi Jue’s” coming-of-age ceremony.
Squatting by the bed, his golden eyes watched Yan Jianlan’s sleeping face, smiling: “I’m leaving.”
Yan Jianlan seemed to sense something, frowning as if struggling to wake, but Yu Tuishan’s fingertip Tianyan spiritual power dragged him into deeper darkness.
Yu Tuishan’s finger slowly lifted from Yan Jianlan’s brow, the faint warmth on his fingertip fading bit by bit with the cold wind.
For over a decade, Yu Tuishan’s long hair had hung loose like a child’s—untamed, innocent. But today, he tied it in a rare hair crown, his eerie golden pupils returning to pitch black.
He rose slowly, layered robes trailing, his youthful face unchanged—like the boy heading to his coming-of-age rite.
Yu Tuishan gazed at Yan Jianlan, repeating: “I’m gone.”
Yan Jianlan’s frown deepened, Tianyan xiangwen uncontrollably spreading from his neck like golden vines, forcibly entering his consciousness. “Sound of Leisure” tried to wake him.
Yu Tuishan left before it succeeded, walking lightly step by step from Zhuxing Study Hall.
A place that never belonged to him.
Nowhere belonged to him.
Rang Chen waited outside. Seeing his odd attire, he frowned: “What is this…”
Yu Tuishan smiled: “Am I at my end today?”
A golden Tianyan flashed in Rang Chen’s eyes. He shook his head gently: “No.”
Yu Tuishan laughed loudly, who knows why.
They left Tianyan Academy, heading straight to the Xi family ruins.
The entire estate was rubble, only a half-collapsed spirit pagoda standing amid wind and snow.
Yu Tuishan leaped to the pagoda’s tip, taking a wooden puppet from his storage ring—the one he’d seized from Ying Zhu three months ago.
Yu Tuishan had reshaped the puppet’s face to “Xi Jue’s” likeness. He closed his eyes slightly, pouring his divided soul inside.
Soon, Yu Tuishan’s Tianyan divided soul flashed as golden light into the wooden puppet, suddenly opening eyes made of glass beads.
Regaining a body felt wondrous. Yu Tuishan struggled to move limbs, then pressed his palm to his left chest. After listening long, he realized it was a wooden puppet—no heart.
Yu Tuishan clicked his tongue.
Rang Chen couldn’t fathom his actions, idly turning prayer beads: “The massive array you laid in Jiuxiao City and Evil Qi Road with ‘Abandoned Immortal Bone’—how much Tianyan does it need to activate?”
Yu Tuishan, adapting to the new body, said casually: “One vein suffices.”
One Tianyan spiritual vein to unleash a world-destroying array, utterly erasing Tianyan spiritual veins from existence.
Rang Chen nodded.
Yu Tuishan grinned: “Once activated, the array sweeps from northern Evil Qi Road across the Thirteen States to southern Jiuxiao City. The whole realm quakes—countless deaths. A compassionate gentleman like you doesn’t try stopping me but joins in evil. How rare.”
Rang Chen glanced flatly, silent.
As Yu Tuishan spoke, a wooden crack sounded in his ear. Looking down, the intact puppet couldn’t bear “Kan Tianyan’s” divided soul, splintering from fingers upward.
In moments, half the puppet crumbled into white shards falling like snow.
Yu Tuishan withdrew his soul immediately.
The puppet crashed down, its spiritual core riddled with holes like insect-eaten wood, crumbling to white dust in the wind.
It lasted mere moments before destruction.
Yu Tuishan kicked it disdainfully: “Useless.”
Then he took another “body” from his storage ring.
Rang Chen thought it was another wooden puppet, but peering closely, it was a real, flesh-and-blood corpse.
“What is this?”
Yu Tuishan poured his soul into it again, moving the new body left and right: “This is a body made by You Dan Illusion. Hope it lasts longer.”
Rang Chen frowned: “Your ‘Kan Tianyan’ makes your soul too powerful. Even seizing a real cultivator’s body, it probably won’t last a quarter-hour.”
It was like a restriction from Heavenly Dao and Heavenly Path, forcing Yu Tuishan to remain in his original body. If he tried possessing another to escape, the Tianyan on his soul would gradually destroy that foreign body.
Cutting off all his escape routes.
Yu Tuishan pressed his hand to his chest, feeling the simulated heartbeat under his palm, saying comfortably: “Don’t worry. I won’t need it long.”
He just wanted to briefly feel a heartbeat.
Yu Tuishan clapped his hands, looking down at snow-covered Central State from the tower: “It’s starting.”
As he spoke, golden Tianyan spiritual power spread from the Xi family’s earth veins north and south, like floodwaters filling dry riverbeds, silently flowing underground toward the “Abandoned Immortal Bone” arrays laid six years ago in the southern and northern borders.
***
Xiezhi Sect.
Sheng Jiao sat cross-legged on a mat meditating, rhino horn lamp quietly beside him. The candle flame flickered faintly, occasionally replaying Yan Jianlan’s transmission:
“Dao companion, I’ll bring osmanthus cake tomorrow. Don’t worry.”
Sheng Jiao frowned tightly. The 108 Tianyan Pearls on his wrist sensed the earth veins’ tremors, intermittently flashing blue lightning patterns.
Suddenly, “Kan Tian Dao” surged through Sheng Jiao’s meridians, golden vines bursting from his neck, spreading like burning fire across his face.
“Boom—”
Sheng Jiao’s body erupted with massive spiritual power, instantly shattering everything in Qingcheng Building that Yan Jianlan had arranged into powder. He opened his eyes—empty pupils flashing familiar blue patterns, silently struggling and roaring.
Sheng Jiao struggled to raise a hand to his eyes, jaw clenched, battling an invisible force.
But as the 108 pearls trembled, all turning to “Guilty,” his shaking body instantly stilled, as if completely controlled.
Juan Xunfang rushed in at the noise: “Sect Master?!”
Sheng Jiao stood, coldly surveying the powder around him, face icy and indifferent.
All expressions vanished. His aura returned to the merciless Heavenly Dao lord, icy eyes glinting dark blue, looking down like Heavenly Dao upon mortal ants—not of this world.
Juan Xunfang froze, suddenly gripped by a strange illusion.
The person before him…
Wasn’t Sheng Jiao.
**
(advanced chapters available on kofi)
wannaberecluse On SRTT Chapter 50.1