The Path Toward Heaven

…

…

Starting over again.

Cultivating amid the sparse energy of heaven and earth.

Being a prince.

Jing Jiu had the experiences in all of these.

As a result, it was fairly easy for him to get used to the Illusionary Realm in the Green Sky Mirror.

Yet, he somehow found something was not quite right here.

As he was dazing in the royal garden one day, he saw two palace servant girls play the Go game; he went over and placed a Go piece for one of the servant girls.

He didn’t do it seeking adventure or to show off his intelligence; it was mostly instinct

Now he was a mortal. This was something he hadn’t experienced for a long time. It seemed that he had gone back to Zhaoge City a great many years ago. He was running around in the Royal Palace, and worried that his elder brother might catch him to bring him back to the study room. In the royal garden, he saw two servant girls drink alcohol and play the finger guessing game secretly.

After he placed the Go piece, Jing Jiu realized that he was not in Zhaoge City.

This Royal Palace was not the same as that Royal Palace.

His elder brother had died at the Fruit Formation Temple a great many years ago.

Was he affected by the Illusionary Realm of Cloud-Dream?

Jing Jiu finally understood something.

From that day on, he hadn’t played the Go game again, until one winter day many years later.

The son of King Jing came to the capital amid the wind and snow that day.

…

…

The son of King Jing was extremely smart and born with ample wisdom; but he was only four years old, so he couldn’t predict that he would go to the capital many years later. And there were many other things he couldn’t that he wanted to; for instance, he couldn’t make the King Jing listen to all of his ideas, nor could he find a spy organization of his own to find other participants as soon as possible.

His teacher had already left. He sat before the window and wrote something on the paper while facing the falling snow outside the window.

He was able to write the words pretty well. To say nothing of those children his age, even fewer of the advisors in the King Jing Manor could write as well as he did. His teacher was quite satisfied with his progress and very proud of him; the teacher mentioned a few times that he didn’t need to practice writing so hard. But he didn’t listen and still kept on writing a great many words in the study room every day.

Those seemingly unrelated words were the information he recorded; but nobody else could understand them except himself.

It was not a difficult task to find other participants, because they were all born on the same day; and he also remembered all of their habitual movements, facial expressions, and other habits. What he worried was that he might gradually forget some of the past events after he lived in the illusionary environment for a prolonged period of time, since his mental state could be affected after a while.

That was why he wrote down all the information in case he might have some kind of amnesia later on. Of course, he didn’t forget putting down the most important information.

…

…

Who am I?

Where did I come from?

What am I supposed to do here?

…

…

After having finished writing down those words, the son of King Jing pushed the paper to a corner of the table. He then moved with some difficulty to the window, looking out at the snowflakes outside.

Cangzhou was located in the northernmost part of Chu State, bordering Luo State and Qin State. It was colder here than other parts of Chu State; the snowfall occurred earlier than in other parts of the state.

Many participants should have noticed him by now.

A few years later, some of them might come to Cangzhou. The King Jing commanded an army in the number of thirty thousand inside and outside Cangzhou.

He stood calmly in the middle of the net he had set up, waiting for those participants to come. By the time he would either kill them or form alliance with them.

Some participants, like himself, were not afraid of being discovered by others; they probably had the same idea as him.

For instance, the Ninth Prince in the Royal Palace was one of them, the one said to be slow.

The cold wind drifted in from the window.

He coughed twice, and then took a blanket to cover his legs. As he looked at his face in the mirror, he let out a pleased smile.

The young boy in the mirror had a pair of thick eyebrows, like the swords.

…

…

Luo State was the weakest among the five states, and their populace was the poorest.

The villagers near the Zhang River were especially poor. They didn’t benefit from the water of the river, but instead, their houses had been destroyed by the flood a few years ago, and they hadn’t recovered from the disaster yet.

There was a ditch in the field located on the border between two villages. When it was a drought year as it happened before, this ditch would be the precious property fought for by the two villages, and the ditch would be guarded by many men holding hoes. At the moment, no man could be found by the ditch, except for two young kids standing on the opposite sides of the ditch.

These two kids were about four or five years old, wearing tattered clothes. It was easy to tell that they were kids from poor families.

They folded their hands behind their backs, looking at the sun reflected in the ditch. They were not talking or throwing stones at each other. They seemed rather old in their temperaments.

“Do you think the sun in the ditch is the real one or not,” the kid from the east village suddenly asked.

The kid from the west village countered, “Then, do you think the sun in the sky is the real one or not?”

The kid from the east village lifted his head to look at the sky, and said while squinting, “I’m afraid it’s just an orb.”

“The Heavenly Retrieval Orb?” the kid from the west village offered.

The two kids eyed each other and discover out each other’s identities. They were a bit excited, as well as a bit cautious.

“Do you drink alcohol?” the kid from the west village asked.

The kid from the east village replied, “I can drink a lot.”

The eyes of the kid from the west village lit up a little, asking, “What is your favorite dish to go with alcohol?”

The kid from the east village said, “I like eating bean curd, preserved egg, and fried beans the most; and you?”

“I like spicy preserved bean curd with steamed bun,” the kid from the west village said.

The two kids exchanged a look, and then they reached out their hands to each other from each side of the ditch and shook each others’ hands.

The kid from the east village was perplexed, as he asked, “My luck has been always lousy; but what happened to your good luck? I can’t believe you end up in such a desolate place.”

The kid from the west village sighed, and said, “Don’t mention it. But my luck is not too bad after all now that I have met you here.”

…

…

The kid from the west village liked eating spicy preserved bean curd and was famous for his good luck; he was none other than He Zhan.

The name of the kid from the east village was Jiang Rui. He was a free-traveling practitioner, one of The Zhan’s friends.

Before entering the Huiyin Valley, Jiang Rui had seen He Zhan; but he didn’t expect him to be his first encounter in the Illusionary Realm.

Looking at the sun in the sky, He Zhan said, “Thinking that we are probably being watched at the moment, I feel a little embarrassed.”

Jiang Rui knew that He Zhan was reminding him not to reveal his identity, so he asked in a hushed voice, “How did you become a monk at the Fruit Formation Temple?”

“I’ll tell you when we get out of here,” said He Zhan. “What is your situation right now?”

Jiang Rui let out a bitter smile, as he said, “I’m in a bad way. I have to wait for a few more years, and then I must kill that man first.”

He Zhan noticed the wounds on his body through the tattered cloth, saying, “I’ll come over to help by then.”

…

…

Jiang Rui returned to his house in the east village. Before he could do anything in the house, he was struck to the ground by a slap.

A man with the smell of alcohol all over his body swore at him, “Why the heck didn’t you stay at home looking after your young sister instead of fooling around?!”

This man was his father in this world. He liked drinking alcohol and gambling. Regardless of whether he drank too much or lost in gambling, he liked hitting his family to vent his frustration.

His family was poor to begin with, but his father sold all the things in the family that had some value.

The free-traveling practitioner was Cultivation practitioner as well. Jiang Rui was regarded by the mortals as a fairy immortal when he was traveling in Chaotian. He had never been treated like this. He wanted to recover his Cultivation state as soon as possible so that he could kill this drunkard and then left this damned place. Yet, the spiritual energy was sparse here in the Illusionary Realm, which meant it would take many years for him to recover. Did he have to put up with this sort of life for many more years? But, if he left with He Zhan right away, they wouldn’t be able to go very far, before they were sold by the human traffickers or eaten by the wild animals.

Thinking of He Zhan, an idea suddenly occurred to Jiang Rui, and it was stuck to his mind since.

Then many ideas flashed in his mind. Finally, a sentence came out from his mouth.

“I have made a friend from the village on the other side of the ditch.”

His drunkard father responded by slapping him again on his face, as his father demanded, “You are only a little rascal; how do you know what a friend is?”

“He gave me white rice cake to eat, and fruits. Of course he’s my friend,” said Jiang Rui while clutching his face with his hand, tears running down his cheeks.

His drunkard father paused a bit before asking, “White rice cake? I haven’t eaten it for a long time. He…your friend has a rich family?”

Jiang Rui said while sobbing, “He told me that a precious object was washed up in the river, and his mom picked it up when she was washing clothes by the river. He said that they can use that object to exchange for many other things, like white rice cakes, brown rice cakes…”

His drunkard father remained silent for a while before asking, “What does that precious object look like?”

Jiang Rui stole a glance at his father and said, “I don’t know. He said that it looks like the dried poop. But how could something looking like that be a precious object?”

His drunkard father scratched his head, as he pressed, “The dried poop…is its yellow color?”

“No. He said it has the color…of…that.”

Jiang Rui pointed to the sky as he said that.

There was a golden sun in the sky at the moment.

Looking at the sun, his drunkard father narrowed his eyes, wondering if it was the Dog-Head Gold.

He heard that the Wang family in the neighboring village became rich after they found a Dog-Head Gold in the river over thirty years ago.

Could such a lucky incident occur to himself?

“That is nothing but a dried poop!”

His drunkard father pretended to be angry and swung his palm toward Jiang Rui’s head, but he merely rubbed his head instead.

His drunkard father left the house the same night after finishing the supper.

Jiang Rui knew that he didn’t go to the gambling house, because he didn’t drink alcohol that night.

His family was too poor to buy the oil for the lamp. It was dark in the house at night.

His mother had lulled his younger sister into sleep, and she was asleep on the other end of the bed as well.

Jiang Rui squatted on the opposite side of the bed while wrapping the quilt around himself, only exposing his face to the outside.

He looked at the stars through the window, and pondered things in silence.

It was a good thing to form alliance with He Zhan, and he trusted He Zhan’s ability and integrity. Yet, if he and He Zhan could last till the end of the competition, who would win the Tripod then?

He had no confidence to defeat He Zhan.

Well, this was not important. And it was not important that he had to endure it for many more years. He was mostly jealous of He Zhan.

In the real world, he had been jealous of He Zhan’s good luck, and also jealous of the fact that He Zhan had so many friends of the major Cultivation sects; but He Zhan had never introduced one of his friends to him.

Here was the Illusionary Realm of Cloud-Dream; were you still going to have such a good luck?

If your luck was still as good as before, then you would be able to survive tonight.

As Jiang Rui thought of all this, he felt chillier as the night got late. He tightened the quilt around him

…

…

In a mud house in the west village.

A woman fell on the ground and stopped breathing.

She had lived her miserable life for over thirty years by washing clothes and cooking, but she couldn’t figure out why she was killed so easily for a nonexistent Dog-Head Gold.

He Zhan’s hands and feet were bound while lying on the ground; his face was covered in blood.

He moved his line of sight from his adopted mother to the man who was searching the boxes and cabinets. He Zhan was a bit numb right now. He had been rather dejected in the real world due to those happenings. He gave in to the bad situation after entering the Illusionary Realm. He thought that he could simply take it easy and endure it until the end of the competition; so he seldom cultivated. But he realized that night that he was wrong.

That man didn’t find the Dog-Head Gold in the end and felt extremely disappointed. He turned around and kicked and punched He Zhan a good many times, ignoring that he was merely a little child.

He Zhan didn’t scream in pain or yelled for help, because he was afraid that the man might kill him if he did so.

All he wanted was to live.

…

…

Being alive sometimes is even worse than being dead.

He Zhan increasingly understood this saying in the following days of his life in this world.

That man was unwilling to go home empty-handed; so he sold He Zhan to a human trafficker.

That human trafficker sold him to another trafficker. He had been sold many times, and in the end he was sold to someone in Zhao State.

He had suffered a great deal during the journey. The good luck he had in the real world turned upside down on him in the Illusionary Realm.

When his bound hands were finally untied in a dental clinic in the capital of Zhao State, the wounds on his wrists were so deep that the bones could almost be seen.

The people in the dental clinic brought some food for him to eat, and they even bathed him and treated his wounds. Later, they gave him some clean clothes to wear.

However, He Zhan’s bad luck didn’t end here. The more painful experience awaited him.

A horse-drawn carriage headed toward the deep part of the capital with a few boys in it. They could see the splendid Royal Palace up ahead.

Seeing what lay ahead, He Zhan’s face grew pale. He attempted to escape the first time. He gritted his teeth and jumped off the carriage while the caretaker of the dental clinic didn’t pay attention.

But he was only a five years old boy; so he was captured before he could get far.

He was brought to the Royal Palace after being beaten with sticks.

He was tied to a chair in a dark room. He was very weak after being forced down some sort of drug into his stomach; he didn’t have any energy left in him.

All he could do was watch an old eunuch approach him with a small knife that had a deer skin hilt.

…

…

Chu State was receiving a diplomatic mission from the northern Qin State.

It was actually not accurate to call the group “diplomatic mission”, because it was the Emperor of Qin State came to visit in person. It had never happened that an emperor went to visit another state. It was said that the decision by the Emperor of Qin State was criticized inside his state; but he insisted on doing so. And he even brought his favorite princess with him.

The little princess was only five years old. It was unclear why the Emperor of Qin State was willing to bring her of such a young age in this long journey.

Nobody knew what matter the Emperor of Qin State and the Emperor of Chu State would talk about, besides the two of them.

The Prince had no choice but to attend the welcoming banquet. Jing Jiu sat on a bed and looked at the Princess who was of the same age as his, wondering who she was among the participants.

As the Princess of Qin State saw Jing Jiu, her line of sight had never left his face, full of delight in her eyes.

The palace servant girls and old maidservants of Chu State couldn’t help but grin while covering their mouths with their hands. It was rumored that the people of Qin State were honest and truthful, they thought, and it was indeed true. A little girl could even tell what good looks were like, and she even looked at the good-looking boy so explicitly.

The Emperor of Qin State and the Emperor of Chu State started their secret discussion after ordering all the servants to get out of the hall, except that Jing Jiu and the little princess of Qin State were allowed to stay on the bed.

It was quiet and soundless in the hall. The little princess suddenly crawled slowly to the other end of the bed and then sat down when she crawled to the side of Jing Jiu.