Chapter 52
Chapter 52: Going Ahead
Jiang Li Sheng slept for three full days and still didn’t wake.
Chen Liu An couldn’t sit still anymore. The wounds on his body had long since healed, so he ran out and looped around Bitter Mountain again and again until he’d practically memorized every rock. When he finally returned, he sighed at Wei Qing Lan. “Junior Brother Wei, Junior Sister Jiang doesn’t look like she’ll wake up anytime soon. We can’t just keep guarding her forever. That isn’t a plan.”
Wei Qing Lan didn’t rush and didn’t fidget. He wasn’t impatient in the slightest. “Senior Brother Chen, if you’re in a hurry, you can leave. Junior Sister Jiang came from Qing Xu Sect, but she’s studying at Kun Lun Sect now. For the time being, she’s Kun Lun Sect’s responsibility. I’ll stay here and wait for her to wake.”
“I’m not really in a hurry,” Chen Liu An said, scratching his head. “I’m just… worried. She keeps not waking up, and it’s making my skin crawl. What I mean is, do we have a way to call her awake?” He’d already tried—shouting at her, nudging her, pushing her shoulder. Nothing. She slept like someone had packed her spirit into a box and buried it.
She might sleep another ten days. Maybe half a month.
Wei Qing Lan reached out and took Jiang Li Sheng’s pulse, his fingers steady and cool against her wrist. “Her spirit is completely asleep. Without half a month, she won’t wake. You can’t call her awake.”
That wasn’t entirely true. If he used the old method and linked to her spiritual abode, he might be able to tug her back from its depths.
But what was the point? If her spirit needed this kind of rest, waking her early wouldn’t make her able to travel. It would just make her groggy and useless. Was he supposed to carry her around like a sack for the whole journey?
He looked at Chen Liu An. “Senior Brother Chen can go ahead. You can keep heading east along Bitter Mountain to Da Gui Mountain and try to enter the secret realm again, or you can return to Tai Yi Sect. Either is fine.”
Chen Liu An did want to go, though he wasn’t desperate. He glanced at Jiang Li Sheng’s pale, quiet face. “With Junior Sister Jiang like this, even if she wakes up, she won’t be able to go to Da Gui Mountain to find the secret realm again, right? Her spiritual power is completely drained. Even after she wakes, it probably won’t come back.”
“Hard to say,” Wei Qing Lan said. He didn’t know what Jiang Li Sheng would decide once she opened her eyes.
“Then what about you, Junior Brother Wei?” Chen Liu An asked. “If Junior Sister Jiang wakes up and still insists on entering the secret realm, what will you do?”
“I’ll watch over her,” Wei Qing Lan said simply. “Senior Brother Chen can rest assured.”
Chen Liu An nodded, thinking it over. “I already sent word to the sect about my situation. Even my master can’t make sense of it, so he went to check the ancient texts. He said since I’m safe and sound, I can try entering the secret realm again. If I truly can’t get in, then I should return to the sect.” He looked at Wei Qing Lan again. “How about this? I’ll head east first and search. If I really find the entrance and can enter, I’ll send you a message. By then, Junior Sister Jiang should have woken up too, and we can ask whether the three of us should enter together. If I can’t find it, I’ll come back for you. Before I return to the sect, I at least need to say goodbye to Junior Sister Jiang.”
Grand Completion Stage cultivators couldn’t suppress their cultivation to slip into a secret realm, but Wei Qing Lan was only at the Golden Core Stage. He wasn’t a Grand Completion Stage cultivator yet. If he suppressed his cultivation, the secret realm shouldn’t reject him.
“All right,” Wei Qing Lan said. “Go.”
Chen Liu An packed up quickly. Before he left, he stretched out a foot and kicked Shan Gao awake without the slightest tenderness. “Hey, you mutt. What are you doing now? Want to come with me?”
Shan Gao cracked one eye open, gave him a disgusted look, then shut it again. “Stop bothering me.”
“Hey! You mutt!” Chen Liu An bristled. “You’re actually looking down on me? Fine. This young master won’t care about you anymore.” He turned and waved at Wei Qing Lan. “Junior Brother Wei, I’m heading out first. When Junior Sister Jiang wakes up, tell her I’m not refusing to wait. It’s just that all of us sitting here is a waste of time.”
“Mm,” Wei Qing Lan said. “I’ll tell her.”
Chen Liu An didn’t dawdle. He rose on his sword and shot east like a streak of light.
He might be alone, but he was bolder than Jiang Li Sheng. Traveling solo didn’t bother him.
Besides, the Dao was hard. No one climbed it without bruises, and most people climbed it alone.
With Chen Liu An gone, nothing really changed for Wei Qing Lan. He returned to meditating, still as a statue.
Shan Gao opened its eyes and felt a deep, bitter boredom. This man did nothing but cultivate. He could sit for three days without moving, as if he’d been carved into the stone bed. He wasn’t like the stupid girl sleeping on the other side—she was at least interesting. If she were awake, she definitely wouldn’t spend all her time cultivating.
Shan Gao muttered, “No wonder you could save people and come out unscathed when the mountains collapsed. You love cultivating even more than my master.”
Wei Qing Lan opened his eyes. “What’s your master called?”
Shan Gao perked up. When Wei Qing Lan acknowledged it, it suddenly had energy again. “My master is the Lord of Bitter Mountain. He’s incredible. He entered the Dao through formations. He understood heaven, earth, and the cosmos, then turned Bitter Mountain into a Grand Array. The day the Grand Array was completed, he ascended.”
Wei Qing Lan’s gaze sharpened. “You mean the day the Grand Array was completed was the day he ascended?”
“Yes.”
“What cultivation level did he have at the time?”
“Understood heaven and earth—of course he was at the Grand Completion Stage.”
Something in Wei Qing Lan’s expression settled into place. He finally understood why Jiang Li Sheng had failed. “Then you should know this: you kept urging her to accept the inheritance, but her cultivation was only early Foundation Establishment Stage. Compared to your master, that’s the difference between a pebble and a mountain. A Grand Array forged by a Grand Completion Stage cultivator was too much for her. She couldn’t endure it. It nearly destroyed her spiritual abode. The fact that she’s alive is already lucky.”
Shan Gao blurted out, “That stupid girl is too dumb! How can her cultivation be so low?”
Wei Qing Lan stared at it.
Shan Gao’s mouth snapped shut. It finally understood. Earlier, when Wei Qing Lan had watched it with that blank expression, it hadn’t been indifference—it had been a warning. Say one more word, and you die.
Shan Gao didn’t doubt it. This man could kill it as easily as breathing.
Still confused, Shan Gao muttered, “But how is that possible? My master said to wait for a fated person. If she had no fate, how could she be dragged into the inheritance? If she can receive the inheritance, how could she not endure it? What the hell is going on?”
Wei Qing Lan didn’t answer. He closed his eyes again, but his thoughts were no longer smooth and quiet.
After a while, he stopped. He got off the stone bed, stepped out of the cave dwelling, and stood with his hands behind his back, staring at the wasteland outside.
Scorched earth as far as the eye could see. Ravines, cracks, jagged chasms. No green. No life.
Shan Gao shook itself and followed him out. The wound on its jaw had never healed, and it ached in a way that made it want to tear at its own flesh. Looking out at the endless blackened ground, it grew gloomy. “I lived here for over ten thousand years. When I was young, yellow-thorn trees and no-goiter herb were everywhere. Back then I had so many brothers and sisters… but one by one, they couldn’t survive their heavenly tribulations. I was lucky. My master protected me and helped me through tribulation after tribulation. Is my own great tribulation finally here?”
Whether demon beasts, divine beasts, spirit plants, or cultivators on the human path, the Devil Path, or the ghost path—everything had to face tribulations. Cultivation was defying heaven. Heaven did not let you win for free.
Wei Qing Lan seemed to be struck by something in Shan Gao’s words. He raised a hand. A strand of golden light shot forward.
Shan Gao jolted, but it couldn’t dodge. It braced for death.
Instead, warmth flooded its jaw.
The bloody hole that had refused to heal began to close, slowly knitting together under Wei Qing Lan’s power.
Shan Gao’s eyes went wide, stunned and thrilled all at once. It stared at Wei Qing Lan as if he’d grown a second head.
Wei Qing Lan’s face remained calm. “I didn’t have any healing art before,” he said. “But after Jiang Li Sheng repaired my spiritual abode, I gained this ability.”