Chapter Thirty-Eight: Portents

The man in the black robe glanced at the hand gripping his wrist, and a chill ran through his heart—it was as if he had been caught in the midst of an illicit affair, the door flung open at a crucial moment. Forcing himself to calm down, he fixed his gaze on the old man called Yu before him.

He noticed that the flower cocoon behind Yu had split open at some point. Shifting his eyes to the side, he caught, in the corner of his vision, a face twisted in a cold sneer—a face all too familiar to him.

“Jiang Pingchuan, what are you trying to do?”

The man in black turned his head to glare at Jiang Pingchuan, who stood beside him with a perpetual sneer. Just as his clawed hand reached for Yu’s throat, searing pain shot through the wrist Jiang Pingchuan had seized.

With a cry of agony, the man in black was sent flying by a kick from Jiang Pingchuan. As he hit the ground, he clutched his mask in panic, terrified it would be jarred loose by the impact.

“You dare lay a hand on my little Hua? You think wearing a mask makes you some peerless master?”

Jiang Pingchuan cast an indifferent glance at Yu, then strolled unhurriedly toward the black-robed figure sprawled on the ground. Seeing Jiang Pingchuan approach, the man’s heart roiled with dread and suspicion.

He was certain Jiang Pingchuan should have lost two of his Dao Crystals, so how could he still stand before him, seemingly unaffected?

“Are you wondering how I can stand here without my Dao Crystals?” Jiang Pingchuan crouched down, gripping the black-robed man’s ghostly white beast claw, examining its inky blackness. Without warning, he twisted the claw and drove it ruthlessly into the man’s own abdomen.

A muffled groan escaped the man in black as he tried to pull out his beast claw, but Jiang Pingchuan pinned it firmly in place. Silver light flickered in Jiang Pingchuan’s eyes.

For reasons unknown, Jiang Pingchuan found that, with two Dao Crystals less, the world seemed more willing to accept him—as if, the weaker his cultivation, the less he was suppressed. By his estimation, the suppression on this continent peaked at the Foundation Establishment stage. While he hadn’t yet glimpsed the threshold of Foundation Establishment himself, when he looked at the black-robed man, strings of characters materialized in his mind.

The man before him was at the early stage of Foundation Establishment. He’d just heard the black-robed man boast that using two of his Dao Crystals would be enough to break the world’s seal. That meant the suppression here was artificially imposed.

And its limit was the early Foundation Establishment stage—a laughable notion, really, that the mightiest fighter in an entire continent was merely at the start of Foundation Establishment.

How, then, could this land resist an invasion from elsewhere? Even a mid-stage Foundation Establishment cultivator from another continent could dominate here.

“How did you do it?” the black-robed man asked in a low voice. Jiang Pingchuan’s words had struck a chord—he truly was bewildered by how Jiang Pingchuan, having lost his Dao Crystals, could stand before him without the slightest sign of damage.

“If you want to know, it's simple. But you’ll answer a few questions for me first,” Jiang Pingchuan replied, tightening his grip and twisting the beast claw still embedded in the man’s abdomen, churning his organs.

The black-robed man agreed at once, all hostility vanished—clearly, he had underestimated Jiang Pingchuan.

“Ask whatever you wish, just stop torturing me, please! Is there no honor among cultivators?” His voice trembled beneath the mask; though Jiang Pingchuan couldn’t see his face, he doubted the man was feigning his agony.

Sweat poured from beneath the mask, trickling down his cheeks and dripping onto the grass. Jiang Pingchuan noticed something peculiar: wherever the man’s sweat fell, the nearby flowers and grass seemed to awaken, albeit in a strange, puppet-like way.

Recalling the seven funeral urns in the Zhou family’s compound, with their lingering scent of corpse-nurturing soil from beneath the spring tree, Jiang Pingchuan realized the aura was almost identical. Which meant—the culprit behind the Zhou family’s misfortune was almost certainly this black-robed man. Tightening his hold, Jiang Pingchuan elicited another groan.

“Spare me your talk of honor. Answer me: how did you learn of my existence, and know that I possess eight Dao Crystals? Speak plainly, and I may consider showing mercy. Otherwise, weigh your options carefully,” Jiang Pingchuan said with a cold sneer, flashing white teeth.

He found it odd—ever since arriving in this world, he had felt watched. Yet his activities had never strayed beyond Sanjiang County, so he should have attracted no attention, and yet misfortune seemed to dog his steps, strange people and stranger events crossing his path time and again.

First, in the Grave Village, he had met the old man who’d sheltered him and given him a jade token. That rainy night, he’d failed to follow the ghostly aura—not because he was too slow, but because the jade token had muddled his senses. The token itself interfered with the ghost’s trail, so even when the black bead in his hand had vanished, he had not found the corpse-nurturing ground. Instead, the token led him to the enigmatic, half-human, half-ghost crone with the cat’s face.

And then, when he told Zhou Ninger that he wished to visit Pushui River, hoping to catch a glimpse of the legendary Spiked Scale Fish, yet another strange event occurred. The fish, which had been missing for so long, suddenly appeared in droves before him, leaping and cheering. He had met the mysterious woman who called herself Yu, and then the black-robed man who tried to claim his life.

Jiang Pingchuan quickly reviewed everything he had experienced since arriving on this continent. It all seemed coincidental, yet he couldn’t shake the feeling that some unseen hand was leading him.

Or perhaps, someone in his circle had been watching his every move, feeding information to those who wished him harm—the black-robed man before him being just one of many.

“This continent is sealed,” the black-robed man said in a hushed voice, pain easing as Jiang Pingchuan released his grip. “Whenever an outsider breaks through the barrier to enter, other cultivators become aware of their presence. But this only applies to those at the early Foundation Establishment stage, and if the distance is too great, the suppression makes it impossible to detect you. Sanjiang County, as it happens, is within my range.”

Jiang Pingchuan nodded; this fit with his own deductions.

“Is this continent’s suppression natural or imposed? And you said my Dao Crystals could break the seal—how do you know that?”

Jiang Pingchuan suddenly yanked out the beast claw, a drop of blood splattering on his trousers. He quietly circulated his energy, enveloping the blood and drawing it into his robe.

The man in black howled in pain, then slumped on the ground, gazing at his blood-soaked abdomen and swallowing hard.

“This continent has a master,” he said hoarsely. “All cultivators here are his slaves. Your Dao Crystals transcend the Three Realms and Six Laws—they can help me break the seal so I can leave this place. As for how I know you possess those Dao Crystals—it is because of her. She has seen all that flows in the River of Time. All of this is her doing.”

His voice grew urgent as he pointed a trembling finger at Yu behind Jiang Pingchuan, shouting hoarsely. At his words, a flicker of panic crossed Yu’s delicate face, and she instinctively retreated.

She could sense the deep-seated savagery lurking within Jiang Pingchuan—a gift of her birth. Even Jiang Pingchuan himself was likely unaware of the violent energy hidden within him.

“Die!”

With a thunderous boom, the black-robed man suddenly launched a palm strike at Jiang Pingchuan as he turned to look at Yu. When the blow landed, the man felt a terrifying backlash. He was hurled into Pushui River and vanished beneath the water.

Yu rushed over anxiously to support the wavering Jiang Pingchuan. Blood dripped from his lips as he looked in the direction where the black-robed man had disappeared—then, his entire form dissolved into a swirl of starlight and vanished from sight.

Yu stood there in shock, staring at the empty space where Jiang Pingchuan had been. All that remained was an intact flower cocoon—nothing else.