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The fields were all in different places for one thing, and the houses had been either moved or built anew. Despite helping with a bunch of the construction, it still shocked him when he saw the changes in full. The only thing that was the same was the shrine— where funerary tablets from the Year of Sorrow clogged the walls as they always did.

After Yun Ren paid his respects, he wandered back down the village from the top of the hill, and joined in on the little gathering Gou had started. Jin and Meimei were introducing the old man to everybody, so that meant that Yun Ren and everybody else got to do the time honoured tradition of sitting around and talking about random stuff.

In their parents’ new house of all things.

Yeah. Ma and pops had a whole house now, with glass windows instead of the little cabin that Yun Ren remembered growing up in, where he had shared a room with his little brother.

Gou had designed and built it for them. Yun had pitched in a bit—but it still felt a bit weird, actually being in here. It smelled like home… but it looked wrong.

At least it was better than Gou’s little love nest on Jin\'s farm. Not that Gou’s house wasn’t super nice and all, but Yun Ren made sure to sit outside when he talked with his brother. Having a better sense of smell was great... until you smelled something you really didn’t want to.

To his brother’s credit, he aired out the house as best he could, but still. That was his baby brother, and he was proud of the guy… he just didn’t want to smell it, yanno?

Yun Ren took a swig of his wine, as he stared around at the table. Bi De, Tigu, Ri Zu, Xiulan, Xianghua, Bowu, and his brother were all there.

“— I dunno why you’re askin’ my opinion on this, Bi De. I’m flattered you want it, really, but that crystal thing? It\'s your wheelhouse if you want to tell the old man about it,” Yun Ren said frankly. “If you want to tell him, tell him.”

“I thank you for your honest words, Yun Ren,” the rooster replied. “What do you think of Master Shen Yu?”

“I don’t think he\'s that bad,” Yun Ren opined and leaned back into the couch. “He even told me the best time of year to visit the Capitol, if I want to go.”

“You got that? He—ugh!” Gou Ren complained, his cheeks pink. “The Old Bastard didn’t give me a gift! Old pervert, he’s as bad as Meimei…”

Xianghua turned to Yun Ren’s brother, her eyebrow raised. “But we have used his gift twice already. The Honoured Grandfather was most kind with that present. You never would have considered using your tongue in such a manner without the scroll’s guidance.”

Gou Ren looked like he wanted to die as everybody else at the table started laughing. They lapsed into inane conversation, just talking and drinking, while Yun Ren reached into his pocket, and pulled out a piece of crystal. Nezan’s core. He had yelped, and disappeared the instant Shen Yu had gotten near the farm, the weirdo.

As if the fox could hear his disparaging thoughts, there was a pop, as Nezan finally reappeared

“Well, look who finally decided to pop up again.” Yun Ren mused, as Nezan stretched.

“Indeed. I sensed he is preoccupied with other matters,” the fox said primly.

”Wassamatter? Scared of the old man?” Yun Ren taunted lightly. Nezan turned to him and raised an eyebrow, the white fox looking incredibly unamused.

“Dearest Nephew, I’m fucking terrified.” Yun Ren paused at the blunt admission, as did the rest of the table. Tigu leaned over and squinted at the spirit fox. “Men like that are butchers of the highest order. Forgive me for having a bit of self-preservation. Besides… he is no normal cultivator.”

“...you know him?” Yun Ren asked.

The fox sighed as he hopped up onto the table. “There were tales from the east, when I was with my dearest friend before I went to sleep. Rumours of a cultivator with strength surpassing all others. Even we, in the wilderness of the Howling Fang Mountains, heard of him.” A chill ran up Yun Ren’s spine. “My friends— have you heard the tale about the end of the Lord Of the Volcano?”

The room abruptly started to darken, as mist rose from the floor and an ominous wind blew. Nezan hopped forward and swept his tail turning to face them all, his eyes and markings began to burn orange and red in the now darkened room.

“The Great Dragon that would make our dear Wa Shi look like an ant in comparison, whose breath could ignite stone and whose roar caused the earth to erupt!”

An ethereal dragon spewed out of the Fox’s mouth, roaring and coiling. The illusion’s eyes burned with malevolence. Nezan’s voice was quiet and sharp, his eyes glittering.

Gou Ren swallowed. “Yeah, I’ve heard of that, but what does that have to do with anything?”

Nezan smiled, his voice quiet yet sharp. “Tell me, what was the name of the man who slew the beast?”

The dragon illusion was challenged by a single man, a sword shining in his hand.

They all looked at each other, until Xiulan finally spoke.

“Was that not done by Master Meteor Sword?” Xiulan asked.

Nezan stumbled as the illusion wavered. The sunny day peeked out from behind the curtains of darkness and mist for a moment. “Wha—no, it… okay, okay… let\'s try something else.” The fox cleared his throat before resuming, the shadows drawing close once more. “How about… on the slopes of Mount Shifeng! Where the cruelest of Demonic Cultivators lived!”

“The Demonic Sect alliance?” Bowu asked, and Nezan’s grin grew.

The shadows lengthened, as cackling men with blood red eyes capered around the room. The wails of the damned caused chills to run up Yun Ren’s spine, while a horrific spiked fortress rose off the table. ”The Demonic Sect Alliance! Their fortress was unassailable, yet one man assaulted them!”

Xianghua cocked her head to the side. ”The Unrivaled Expert, Pure Sky?”

The fox fell flat onto his face, and the illusion failed. He glared around the table. A colosseum appeared, like the Earthly Arena in shape. “The Champion of The Unrivaled Hidden Realm Tournament!”

“… what year? Xiulan asked. “There was Han Bing, Shan Yuan, Meng—”

“The man who conquered the Young Mistress Shuli of the Shrouded Mountain…?” The fox cut her off. A pretty woman with blonde hair and storm grey eyes appeared in a compromising position.

Yun Ren’s head tilted to the side, as Xiulan clapped her hands over Tigu’s eyes, while Xianghua inspected it with due consideration. The fox sighed and dissipated the illusion.

“Okay, you have to know this one. Who defeated Cao Jian at Chengdu?”

“The Conquering Blade.” Bowu supplied.

“No—!” The fox sighed with disgust, the mist and ominous atmosphere dissipating. The illusion twisted into a terrifying, demonic looking version of the old man. “Shen Yu! The person who did all these things was named Shen Yu!”

“Oh, so that\'s what you were getting at,” Gou Ren said with a nod.

“It\'s the Azure Hills, Uncle,” Xianghua siad, shrugging. “We are… insulated from the world, at least in matters of cultivation.”

“Ugh. This backwater. It was supposed to be this dramatic reveal, you know? The rising tension, the dawning realization…” the fox grumbled, sounding remarkably like Gou Ren as he did.

Bi De nodded his head.

“I thought the illusions were pretty cool,” Tigu comforted the fox.

Nezan sighed. “Thank you,” Summer’s Sky shook in its sheath at Yun Ren’s waist. The rhythmic tinks against the scabbard almost sounded like laughing. “Shut up, darling,” Nezan shot at the blade, before huffing. “The man we heard tales of was named Shen Yu. A cultivator affiliated with the Cloudy Sword Sect.”

“But isn’t the Lord of the Volcano just, like… a legend? From the Age of Heroes?” Gou Ren asked, before Yun Ren’s brother seemed to realise that it was kind of a dumb question. “I mean I thought it was way long ago…”

“Well, either it\'s coincidence, or there\'s another Cultivator in the Imperial Realm named Shen Yu who happens to be affiliated with the Cloudy Sword Sect,” Nezan snarked.

The table was quiet for a moment before Gou Ren shrugged again. “Okay, so Jin’s Gramps is some legendary cultivator?”

“Yes. Shen Yu, the Unconquered Blade!”

There was silence at the table.

Xiulan sipped her wine.

Nezan sighed.

“Hes a terrifying cultivator who has eaten thousands of beast cores. Forgive me my caution. But what else could he be doing, other than searching for ways to get stronger?”

“I think he said something about giving Elder Xian a better bride price.” Yun Ren answered.

Nezan’s eye twitched.

Xiulan smiled at the fox. “You get used to it,” she said with a gentle voice, and then downed the rest of a wine bottle.

Shen Yu sipped his tea as he sat at a mortal table. It was surprisingly large, for a mortal headman, and smelled strongly of medicinal herbs.

He was in the house of Hong Meiling, waiting for her father.

Honestly, Shen Yu had thought that a woman of Meiling’s caliber was at the very least from the city—instead of this tiny village. Despite generally disliking these tiny, quiet places Shen Yu felt at home here. If he was going to be around mortals, he preferred the cities. It was the best place—there was always something new to do or see. Villages were boring and static compared to the more dynamic cities.

IIt had been bittersweet, to see Jin’s face light up when the villagers had welcomed him like a son. Indeed… the village was probably everything Jin had been looking for.

Shen Yu sighed, and looked up at the ceiling. This place wasn’t too bad. The villagers were clean, well fed, and not diseased in the slightest. They moved with vital energy as they worked and played. Shen Yu had listened as Jin and his Disciple had gone over the ways they were improving crop yields in the village\'s fields and rebuilding the place on the way here.

All in all, not a bad place by any means. Quaint, but not bad. So after being welcomed, Shen Yu shared some food and a few drinks with the mortals of the village before inviting Hong Xian to speak privately, father to father.

“Here is the original work that Meiling copied,” Hong Xian said as he returned to the room. Hong Xian, who Jin had called ‘Pops’, was a quiet surprise. He had not expected much, but his grandson seemed to have genuine respect for this mortal, beyond what was required by filial piety.

Shen Yu looked over Jin’s father-in-law with an appraising eye. The leader of Hong Yaowu and the man who had produced Hong Meiling, though she shared little resemblance with her father save for two things: the colour of her hair and the same sharp intelligence that had led her to challenge Shen Yu..

Hong Xian held himself with authority and dignity of his position. The mortal was a shorter man, with a scholarly aura about him—but interestingly, he was not thin and bookish as Shen Yu would have expected. The cultivator could see the solid muscle hidden beneath the robes.

“Little Meiling says you were the one to first refine it,” Shen Yu stated as Hong Xian set the scroll down and took his seat opposite him. He had decided this was the best place to begin. Getting down to a business such as a bride price immediately was impolite.

“Yes. I can\'t say I would have gotten far without my Brother’s help, however,” The man agreed, as he unfurled the scroll. “I do hope it doesn’t disappoint you too badly, Master Culti—Shen Yu.”

The Unconquered Blade nodded his head as the man corrected himself. He preferred his chosen name and had bade the mortal use it. Too much simpering when he didn’t desire it always grated.

As he unfurled the scroll, Shen Yu stared at the healing formation that had been used to draw a small portion of the demonic Qi from his body. He was surprised by how… simple the concepts were. He had honestly been doubtful about the Archive system when it had been described to him. The Emperor had spent so much effort setting up what Shen Yu had considered largely useless. What could mere mortals hope to achieve with such knowledge?

Yet the fool\'s gambit had borne fruit, somehow it had crafted this gem.

According to the notes,the original concept had been created one hundred and fifty years ago in the Silver Strand, where it had been entered as an experimental text and disseminated by the Archival system. Shen Yu had been stunned that a person would just… willingly put out their life’s work like that instead of keeping it a secret. But that was what the authors of this formation had done.

From there, another part of the formation had been created in Raging Waterfall Gorge, and then another in Yellow Rock Plateau. Each step had seen someone add to it until finally, after decades of mortal collaboration, it had ended up in Pale Moon Lake City where it had been refined by two men as a project of interest. It was utterly baffling… and simultaneously, proof that the bastard had been right about these things. The Archives actually did disseminate knowledge and enrich the Empire. Hong Xian, in this little backwater town, knew what germs were! Shen Yu hadn’t been aware mortal medicine could even fathom the concept.

A single formation shared once had spread through the Empire, until it fell into the lap of a healer’s daughter.

“I shall praise you for your work, Hong Xian,” he said after a moment. Shen Yu felt that he had been praising people a lot recently. Perhaps he was going too far in the other direction after Jin… but no. Hong Xian deserved this praise. What he had done was no small feat, and it was obvious from where Meiling had inherited her fine qualities from. “This formation is… interesting.”

The man was visibly surprised. “It is? I would assume cultivators had better formations than this.”

“In some ways, yes, but in this instance, with its sheer simplicity of use… no.”

Shen Yu could not call the concepts revolutionary, but the application was certainly like nothing he had ever seen before. Then there was the fact that it seemed scalable. Better reagents in, better results out. Simple and easy enough to use that a mortal could control it, but if helmed by a cultivator the results would be potent indeed.

It was not complete, either; and indeed, the base formation Hong Xian had managed to refine would only work in an area as Qi deprived as the Azure Hills—which was why the previous authors never did manage to get a working formation.

But the problem with simplicity was once it was laid bare… the ways to exploit any loophole was immediately apparent. Now that Shen Yu had taken a moment to study it, he could see numerous ways to circumvent or negate its effects. But that was the purpose and beauty of surprise. If Demons didn’t know that such a formation existed that could draw out their Qi… they wouldn’t prepare against it.

If this was spread far and wide, in time, the demons would counter it. But for decades, or possibly centuries, this could be a weapon in the battle against Demonic Forces—and even once countermeasures became commonplace, its very existence would compel the Demons to spend some measure of themselves in preparing against it.

If Hong Xian’s work could be adapted to work outside of the Azure Hills, and it was spread far and wide.

“I wonder what else could be hidden in the archives,” the man muttered. “Though it would take… centuries to go through everything.”

That… might actually be something to do to pass the time, Shen Yu mused. He would be waiting around for a while, to see Jin’s progress on his plan. Lu Ri would probably agree to help as well.

They spoke for a while longer on the methodology Hong Xian had employed in refining the formation. It was enlightening how the mortal thought, and how he kept referring back to his training as a scribe at the Archive. Time well spent, Shen Yu acknowledged to himself, rather than wasted on preliminaries.

Eventually, however, the small talk came to an end, and matters of more immediate importance came to the fore.

“I shall be blunt, Hong Xian. I have shamed my ancestors in not contributing to the bride price of Hong Meiling. I would rectify this. So! Let us speak on the price for joining our clans.”

The mortal paused for a moment, lifted his tea to his lips, took a sip with a thoughtful gaze, and set the cup back down.

“Jin paid for her hand, and I gave him my daughter’s dowry,” Xian replied. “To take more would shame the both of us, and it would imply that the union between our families was somehow lacking.”

“You certainly have guts.” Shen Yu suppressed a grin, impressed—that was the best reason he had ever heard to refuse such a gift. “You are correct. Offering more for the bride price at this juncture would be an insult to both my grandson’s ability to provide and the wealth of your clan. Yet, as Jin Rou’s grandfather, I can’t let it stand.”

“Perhaps…” Xian paused before speaking again. “I would ask the Honoured Cultivator how much he intends to pay, both for Hong Yaowu’s medical consulting and as recompense for revealing the secret formation of the Hong Family.”

Slowly, a smile spread across Shen Yu’s face. This mortal… he got it. No wonder Jin held him in such regard.

“I see! A hefty price shall have to be paid indeed!” Shen Yu replied. “Tell me, what is the price for the medicine of Hong Yaowu?”

“What protection can you offer to my people and my family?” Xian asked, his voice serious. “I trust Jin’s abilities… but he cannot be everywhere at once. Moreover, I would not have him die even if he were willing. Best to have a contingency ready, would it not??”

“Indeed, it would, Xian of the Hong Clan. Indeed, it would.”

Mortal and cultivator smiled at each other. It was truly refreshing, Shen Yu mused contentedly, to have such a sharp, pragmatic mortal to do business with.