The morning sunlight streamed in through the half-open window, warm and inviting.
Cen Yuchi woke in a simple, crude room. The moment he opened his eyes, he saw Yin Xiaoyang sitting by the bed, back ramrod straight.
Yin Xiaoyang had worn Immortal Feather Peak’s robes before, but for convenience he usually rolled up his sleeves and tied his hair back casually. Today, however, his entire outfit was impeccably neat, his hair let down and gathered only at the crown of his head to hold a hair crown.
But sitting so primly and properly made Cen Yuchi feel something was off, and he found it deeply uncomfortable. A strange guilt crept over him, and he tried hard to recall whether, while his consciousness had been hazy, he had done anything he shouldn’t have or said anything he shouldn’t have.
Fortunately, the moment Yin Xiaoyang saw he was awake, he snorted and said gruffly, “Not bad. You didn’t die.”
“……”
The moment he opened his mouth, it was unmistakably Yin Xiaoyang himself. It seemed Cen Yuchi had been worrying over nothing.
“That child……” As soon as the words left Cen Yuchi’s mouth, he realized his voice was terribly hoarse, and speaking tugged at the wound on his chest. His face went pale and he flopped back down, shutting his mouth.
Seeing him like this, Yin Xiaoyang seemed somewhat worried and leaned forward, half extending a hand, but immediately sat back and said, “The child is fine. After some rest, he should recover.” Yin Xiaoyang paused here, then frowned and continued, “It’s just that the scribble on his forehead won’t come off no matter how we wipe at it.”
Cen Yuchi rolled his eyes. “That’s a Life-Exchange Talisman. Ignoramus! It’ll fall off on its own in a couple of days.”
Yin Xiaoyang returned the eye roll and went on, “The temple has been destroyed. I had people look into it, it was built ten years ago by a young Daoist priest from out of town. Apparently, strange things had been happening frequently on this mountain back then. The priest passed through the area, discovered a Tree Spirit causing trouble, cut down the tree, and built the temple on that spot to suppress it. Sure enough, no strange occurrences happened afterward. But it’s been too long, there’s no way to find out who he was, and nothing in the temple offered any clues. We asked the villagers, but no one could say anything useful.”
Cen Yuchi listened and nodded silently.
Yin Xiaoyang watched Cen Yuchi sit there without saying a word for a long while, and finally couldn’t help saying, “Do you realize you really could have died?”
Cen Yuchi froze at those words, then grinned. “Well, I’ve got the great Immortal Yin watching over me, don’t I!”
But Yin Xiaoyang’s face darkened, and he said in a low voice, “I don’t have that kind of ability.” He turned his head to look out the window and murmured, half to himself, “If you’d relied on me, you’d have died long ago.”
Cen Yuchi’s smile faded. The one who had slashed through the temple roof and saved him had indeed been someone else. Before he passed out, he thought he had glimpsed Mu Linchuan, but his consciousness had been too muddled by then, he’d assumed it was a hallucination. Could he really have come?
Yin Xiaoyang didn’t notice Cen Yuchi’s reaction. He turned back to look at him and said, “If the people from Immortal Feather Peak hadn’t come looking for me after I’d been away from the group so long, you could have died eight times over.”
Cen Yuchi asked tentatively, “People from Immortal Feather Peak?”
Yin Xiaoyang nodded. “Some days ago, the Peak Master sent me and a few senior brothers and sisters down the mountain to hunt Evil Spirits. After that was done, I went home……to take care of some things, and agreed to rejoin everyone right away, but I ended up delayed here for quite a while.” Yin Xiaoyang paused, then frowned and snapped, “And whose fault is that but yours, you stole my money!”
“Haven’t I already paid you back the money!” Cen Yuchi said with a wry smile.
Besides, how could this be pinned on me? If I’d known you were such a difficult character, I would have reincarnated much earlier. But from the sound of Yin Xiaoyang’s words, the person who saved him definitely wasn’t Mu Linchuan either.
Cen Yuchi rolled over and lay comfortably on the bed. “Yin, if you’re heading back to Immortal Feather Peak, it wouldn’t be convenient to bring me along, would it?”
At this, Yin Xiaoyang actually laughed, looking at Cen Yuchi as if watching a joke unfold. “You seem to know quite a bit. What, did no one inform you?”
Cen Yuchi froze for a moment, then instantly understood what Yin Xiaoyang meant.
Speaking of which, this brings us to the origin of Immortal Feather Peak.
The continent we stand on is called Shangyang. It was once guarded jointly by fifteen Spirit Severing Cultivators, known as the “Fifteen Immortals.” In those days, the land was blessed with talented people, the heavens and earth were pure, it was a golden age.
But six hundred years ago, a catastrophe suddenly descended, plunging Shangyang into permanent daylight.
At first, though people found it strange, they could still make a living. But gradually, the entire continent became unbearably hot, followed by drying water sources, cracked earth, and Demonic Creatures rising everywhere. Chaos swept the world, yet many heroes emerged to save people from peril.
During this time, the Fifteen Immortals searched far and wide for a solution, but could only slightly alleviate the situation, they could not remove it at its source.
Fate could not be defied. This Eternal Day shrouded the Shangyang Continent for a full fifty years.
Throughout those fifty years, the Fifteen Immortals never stopped searching for a way to bring back the night. At last, a method to steal the heavens and swap the sun, to defy fate and change destiny, emerged. But this method demanded lives as its price, it required several Spirit Severing Perfected Ones to sacrifice themselves to the heavens in order to reverse the celestial phenomena.
Once this method was revealed, each of the Fifteen Immortals faced a choice.
Fifty years had passed. Though the Eternal Day had not ended, people had gradually adapted and learned to live with it. So should they maintain this state of balance, or give their lives to end the disaster?
Just as the others hesitated, a pair of immortal companions among the Fifteen Immortals stepped forward, taking the lead in activating the formation, using their lives to open a spiritual path between heaven and earth.
Moved by their deed, ten of the remaining thirteen Perfected Ones followed in succession, giving their lives as well.
The immortals perished, and heaven and earth trembled!
After the formation was complete, the sky darkened and the earth dimmed. The bodies of the twelve immortals transformed into twelve mountain peaks, standing at the very center of the Shangyang Continent, radiating an endless stream of Dharma power to contend with the heavens. In the end, nine colossal stones fell from the sky, one of them landed within the embrace of those twelve peaks, while the other eight scattered across various parts of Shangyang.
From then on, the sky was clear and the moon bright.
In gratitude for the sacrifice of the twelve immortals, people named this deed the “Twelve Immortal Feathers,” and revered those twelve peaks as sacred ground, calling them, the Twelve Immortal Feather Peaks.
Having lost twelve Spirit Severing Cultivators in this calamity, the Immortal Sects of the Shangyang Continent never recovered and fell into continuous decline. This period of decline lasted over four hundred years, until a new Spirit Severing Cultivator was born into the world. This cultivator was the descendant of the pair of immortal companions who had first stepped forward among the Fifteen Immortals, Mu Qing.
Mu Qing’s enlightenment was the signal of the Shangyang Continent’s rebirth. Within a hundred years, the Immortal Sects rose rapidly, and many of today’s renowned sects were founded during that era. Immortal Feather Peak itself was established by Mu Qing, and has stood for a hundred years to this day.
When Mu Qing served as peak lord, he was generous and forthright, delighting in making friends. In those days, Immortal Feather Peak was often open to outsiders, its spiritual energy abundant and visitors coming and going, a scene of prosperity beyond description.
Mu Qing took many disciples, and the most outstanding among them were two. One was Cen Yuchi’s father, Cen Lan. The other was his nephew, Mu Lian.
Mu Lian was exceptionally gifted, famous from a young age. His Lingyun Sword Technique was unrivaled in the world, and his future seemed boundless. But for reasons unknown, after inheriting the position of peak lord, he severed all channels of communication between Immortal Feather Peak and the outside world, and raised a barrier, sealing both himself and the peak away. From then on, Immortal Feather Peak rarely had contact with the outside, and gradually became a neutral, secluded place.
If it had only been that, it would have been nothing, Immortal Feather Peak would still have been the most prestigious sect among the Immortal Sects, merely tinged with a bit more mystery and aloofness. But thirteen years after Liu Ao ravaged the many sects of the Shangyang Continent and was finally executed, Immortal Feather Peak produced two rebellious disciples who set fire to the mountain and fled their sect.
One was Cen Yuchi. The other was Nan Xunliu.
There was no need to elaborate on their identities. Once this affair came to light, it thrust the already reclusive Immortal Feather Peak back into the eye of the storm.
Some people argued that the traditions of the Immortal Feather Sect had always been pure and upright, yet two villains and scoundrels had emerged at the same time under Mu Lian’s leadership, surely this was ultimately due to Mu Lian’s poor discipline. Once this voice arose, certain people with ulterior motives seized on it and made the clamor grow ever louder. As for those self-righteous, prestigious orthodox sects, though they made no public statement, they naturally tacitly approved.
In the decade or so that followed, Cen Yuchi and Nan Xunliu colluded together, founding the demonic sect Ten-Zhang Manor and running rampant across the Shangyang Continent murder, arson, and other sordid deeds. Though people did not say it aloud, in their hearts they chalked every one of these accounts up to Immortal Feather Peak.
Shameful to say, Cen Yuchi had never intended to drag his sect’s name through the mud, but things went against his wishes, and in the end this debt of sin was incurred all the same.
So on ordinary days, outsiders could not freely enter or leave Immortal Feather Peak. But there was one single occasion on which anyone, members of prestigious families, wandering cultivators of the jianghu, idle folk of every sort could freely enter the peak, so long as they held an invitation.
That was the Immortal Feather Gathering.
Every five years, Immortal Feather Peak held a gathering for the purpose of exchange and friendly competition. Each sect displayed its strengths at the gathering, and talented cultivators showed off their skills, it was the grandest event on the entire Shangyang Continent.
It was at the age of eleven that Cen Yuchi defeated every cultivator of his rank with a shape-shifting “fire-poking stick,” winning fame as a youth. Yet at the gathering five years later, due to his mishandling of the Jade Chariot, he became a criminal of Immortal Feather Peak.
At that Immortal Feather Gathering, the Jade Chariot Cen Yuchi had built went out of control. The Undying Fire ignited in an instant, spreading with overwhelming speed, even reaching Shouyang Peak, one of the main peaks, and no one could extinguish the blaze no matter what they tried.
The flames surged skyward, dyeing the heavens crimson. Nan Xunliu had no choice but to employ the Withered Leaf Secret Art, withering every plant and tree to cut off the fire’s spread.
The fire burned for over a month. The hundred sects of the Immortal Sects had all gathered there at the time, and casualties were heavy. Worse still, it caused the death in childbirth of the pregnant First Venerable of the Sheng-character Formula, Mu Linchuan’s mother. For this, Cen Yuchi was expelled from the sect, and Nan Xunliu, whose secret practice of the forbidden art had come to light, left Immortal Feather Peak together with him.
In the ten-plus years that followed, the two peaks that had endured the calamity remained barren, without a single blade of grass growing. This was a sin Cen Yuchi would carry for the rest of his life, a debt he could never repay even if he were flayed and torn apart. He would forever fail Immortal Feather Peak, forever fail the Mu family.
Cen Yuchi was the sinner of all Immortal Feather Peak but not of Mu Linchuan’s.
Before every Immortal Feather Gathering thereafter, Cen Yuchi would receive an invitation delivered personally by Mu Linchuan. Cen Yuchi understood: his senior brother did not blame him. So no matter how ashamed he felt to face Immortal Feather Peak, no matter how much venom was hurled at him on the mountain, he still went as invited.
And the Immortal Feather Gathering became the only day Cen Yuchi could go home.