The Forbidden Path to Immortality

Chapter 287

Li Xun had heard this kind of gossip before. People was saying that once Old Tian Yuan stepped down, the sect leadership would probably fall to either Bisu or Wang Luo. Bi Su was sharp and quick on his feet; Wang Luo was quiet, steady, and hard to read. Different styles, but both were widely seen as strong choices to carry the sect forward.

But after centuries of trials and tests, ended up leaning toward Wang Luo after all. The decision would likely be announced to the world soon. That was something Bisu, who’d spent years scheming and maneuvering, just couldn’t swallow. In the end, he chose to rely on outside forces to take his rival out of the picture.

What he did not realize was that Gu Yin had already grown tired of him. She had set a noose long ago, just waiting for him to stick his head into it on his own.

Heh. That woman... when has she ever shown kindness without a reason?

Li Xun gave a little shake of his head, then suddenly realized he was pretty much judging his own situation. A wry smile tugged at his lips; he couldn’t help but poke fun at himself. When he turned his attention back to the primordial qi swirling around, though, his brows knitted together in a frown.

What he was best at when it came to forbidden techniques was what he called “from one thing to the next.” You tug on a single loose thread and patiently sort out the entire knot. The beauty of this approach was that once you truly understood one method, the rest fell into place as well. As long as the main thread was clear, all the side branches became obvious and easy to follow.

But the flow of qi within the Star River followed the will of the heavens. Countless threads intertwined, shifting and changing at random, making it almost impossible to tell beginning from end. Earlier, the Star Transformation Chart had given him something to grab onto, like catching hold of a loose thread. Now, though, that thread was tangled together with hundreds of others. He managed to pull out a bit of it by sheer effort, only to run straight into a dead knot.

The knot was not impossible to untie. It would just take far too much time. Even though Li Xun felt his curiosity flare at the challenge, he still knew how to weigh priorities. With a quiet sigh, he finally decided to let it go.

He was just about to scout out a quiet, hidden spot to lay low and wait for the right moment, when out of the corner of his eye a brilliant flash of light caught his attention. It had to be a disciple from the Xingji Sword Sect, streaking through the sky on a flying sword.

Li Xun had run into a few of them along the way, so he didn’t think much of it. He merely shifted his stance a little, tucking himself deeper into the shadows.

Yet in response to that flash of light, a spark of insight also flared in his mind.

Li Xun snapped his head up and saw the sword light carve a line through the empty sky, neither quite straight nor fully curved, as it sped toward the Taiwei Enclosure. By the time the turbulence in the primordial qi high above reached the ground, it had grown very faint. Even so, Li Xun felt as though something had clicked into place.

All the tangled shifts in energy that had been knotted up in his mind seemed to be sliced open a little by the path of that sword light. The dead knot had loosened, but fully unraveling it was still not something he could accomplish anytime soon.

Li Xun shook his head and simply sat down cross-legged. Without even realizing it, his fingers traced lines in the dirt as he tried to pinpoint the real snag in the pattern. Before he had even settled in, another streak of light flashed across the sky.

Startled, Li Xun looked up and saw that this sword light was traveling almost the same direction as the last one, but at a much higher speed. As it cut through the night sky, its path was different too. Compared to the first, it was cleaner and sharper, with no sign of deliberate course correction. From start to finish, it ran straight through in one unbroken line.

The moment that sword light vanished into the void, Li Xun sprang to his feet. Without a word, he took off at a dead run. His speed was naturally nothing like flying by sword, but his movement was smooth and unhesitating, as if he had just been handed another Star Transformation Chart.

Of course, no one was going to give him another one now. But the flight paths of those two sword-flying cultivators, taken together... told him more than a single chart ever could.

These two people passed through one after the other, each appearing at exactly the moment when Li Xun was stuck on a crucial point in his contemplation of the celestial shifts. Both entered the Taiwei Enclosure from the direction of the Qingcang River, yet their pacing was different. One was measured, the other swift, each at a distinct level. Together, they formed an almost perfect, uncannily well-timed demonstration of a cultivation method, allowing Li Xun to glimpse its inner workings in full.

More important still was Li Xun’s own state of cultivation.

Because of the suppression and sealing imposed by Jade Bixie, Li Xun did not yet know what tremendous benefits stepping into the True Person realm would bring to his actual power. On the level of the mind, however, he had already begun to sense subtle changes. What was happening now was a prime example.

The impact of those two sword lights lasted only an instant. That flash was enough to give Li Xun the insight he needed to start undoing the “dead knot,” something made possible by his own mastery of forbidden techniques. Yet something even stranger happened at the same moment the sword lights appeared. For an instant, it felt like every distraction, every barrier around him just… fell away. In that hazy blink, he reached the other shore in the most direct, unblocked way imaginable.

It felt like intuition, and yet it was clearly something beyond intuition. So profound and elusive that it defied description.

Over the course of his cultivation, Li Xun had occasionally experienced little flickers of of this kind of perception. But something like today, seeming almost illusory and yet real, was entirely new to him.

That was why he ran.

Moving at such speed, his calculations of the shifting stars and that intuitive pull on his own heart... clicked together. The moment he caught the first hint of a pattern, he already knew the outcome. Every twist and side path in between was perfectly clear to him, as if it had all been stamped into his mind from the start.

What a marvelous feeling. How exhilarating!

Li Xun's mood kept lifting higher and higher, and with it, his speed picked up too... until finally his feet weren't even touching the ground anymore. He was riding the wind.

By then, he had gone far beyond the agreed-upon spot, plunging hundreds of li past it.

Of course, he understood why. Long days of contemplation had finally detonated all at once, and once it began, there was no stopping it. The momentum felt unstoppable, like a blade cutting straight through bamboo. But after charging forward for several hundred li, the edge began to dull. If he kept pushing with that kind of reckless bravado, he knew it would not end well.

After flying on for another half an hour, he judged that he was close to entering the heart of the Taiwei Enclosure. Feeling satisfied, and seeing that the timing was about right, he decided to turn around and head back.

Li Xun came to a halt and surveyed his surroundings. The terrain here was much gentler, spreading out like a broad plain. From a higher vantage point, he saw open land stretching in every direction, dotted with low trees and clear streams. Scattered among them were small towers and houses, all set against the glow of the star-filled sky. The place was quiet, fresh, and serene, truly a blessed land.

Li Xun did not feel that this place held any particular blessing. The flow of stellar force here was far more pronounced than it was by the Qingcang River, with tides that rose and fell unpredictably. In that sense, it was much like the summit of Zuowang Peak.

When the stellar force grew thick, the Soul-Piercing Light it produced looked like ghostly flames, almost solid to the eye. Li Xun could clearly feel that power slowly seeping into his pores, then mixing into his meridians and bloodstream, bringing with it a creeping sense of discomfort.

If he stayed any longer, he'd probably end up hurting himself without ever facing an enemy.

At that moment, of all people, he thought of Ming Ji. He had only lingered here for a few short moments and was already feeling this way. Ming Ji, on the other hand, had been confined for nearly a month. What must she be like now?

Once the thought took hold, a tight, heavy feeling settled in Li Xun’s chest. Still, reason won out in the end. He frowned and had just begun to turn around when a sudden warning flared in his mind.

There was no time to react. Li Xun twisted, and in an instant his body blurred and faded, melting into the pitch-black night sky.

He had only just hidden himself when a streak of sword light shot out from deep within the Taiwei Enclosure. It tore through the air, passing within a hundred feet of where Li Xun was, but it did not slow in the slightest, vanishing again into the distance in the blink of an eye.

Li Xun let out a long breath, realizing that the man had merely passed by and had not discovered him. Even so, his brow knit even tighter.

They had practically brushed past each other, and Li Xun quickly recognized him as the very cultivator who had been the first to fly over his head earlier. Coming and going in such a hurry was unusual in itself.

More importantly, in the instant the man streaked past, Li Xun saw his face clearly. It was ashen, his expression twisted and unstable. His lips were even moving as if he were muttering curses. Two of the words, in particular, jumped out at Li Xun. From a distance, using lip-reading, he translated them at once.

“Ming ji.”

The man was actually cursing Ming ji.

Li Xun's mind reeled. In a split second, he'd already worked out how long that round trip must have taken the guy, and from there figured the farthest he could possibly have gone. Maybe a little over three hundred li from where he was standing right now. Was this it? Were they already closing in on Gathering Stars Platform?

He quickly recalled what Bisu had told him about the Gathering Stars Platform.

Because he was certain the trouble would not spread to the Taiwei Enclosure, and because it involved secrets of the sect, Bisu had been deliberately vague when explaining it. He only said that the incident had taken place along the mandatory route to the Gathering Stars Platform, and that the straight-line distance to the platform was not very far. As for what “not very far” actually meant, he did not say, and Li Xun had not pressed him.

Now, it seemed that distance was practically within reach.

For once, Li Xun hesitated.

If he thought about it purely rationally, right now he was already tangled up in shifts and schemes from every side. Even sticking strictly to the plan and pushing it forward step by step might not be enough... so how could he afford to invite new complications or stir up trouble?

But if he hadn't run into that man just now, he could've let it slide. But no, the guy had to come swaggering over, cursing up a storm, and worse, he'd mentioned Ming Ji in his rant. Heaven only knew what kind of situation she was in right now.