Yunxi placed a stone on the board before speaking.
"Yes. But I have no proof, and the other party is a veteran Divine Transformation of Jihan Gate. Better to let them handle their own."
"True. If we meddle too much it backfires. Still, Han Lian will probably be wronged a bit."
"What is this, Yun Chen Fózǐ, are you feeling tender for her?" Yunxi teased on purpose.
Yun Chen shot her a look. "Ran Xi Daoyou, stop talking nonsense. We fought side by side. I am concerned Han Lian Daoyou may be affected."
Yunxi exaggerated her surprise. "Oh? Yun Chen Fózǐ, you can glare now?"
Yun Chen sighed. "Near cinnabar, one turns red; near ink, one turns black."
"So you are admitting I am expanding your great-compassion-for-all?"
"Just play. It is your move." Yun Chen readily conceded he could not out-talk Ran Xi's crooked logic.
Yunxi laughed, dropped a stone, and as Xun Kun finished adjusting their course, he sat cross-legged at the side of the board, smiling.
"Ran Xi, you are teasing Yun Chen Fózǐ again."
Yunxi dimpled. "I would not dare. I only think Yun Chen Fózǐ keeps others at arm's length and lacks a bit of the Buddha's capacity to contain all rivers."
Hearing this, Yun Chen put down his stone and made a show of listening humbly.
Yunxi flicked her stone back into the box, put away the board, poured spirit tea, and began her so-called crooked logic.
"The Buddha saves all beings because on his path he tasted their suffering. Yun Chen, you grew up in Yunmen Temple, steeped in the best Buddhist teachings, practicing the highest scriptures. Your cultivation had fewer detours.
But enlightenment is not only cultivation base. Now that we are all at Divine Transformation, progress is more about sensing the laws of heaven and earth. You should enter the mortal world and experience it. See clearly what the 'beings' you wish to ferry truly look like. Only then can you walk a path that is yours."
Yun Chen did not interrupt. At first he bore the teasing, but as she went on, his expression turned pensive.
Xun Kun turned his head. "Ran Xi, have you found your own path?"
"Of course. My Path is to follow heaven yet defy fate, to press ever forward. Even if the road is dire, I will stand atop the peak and behold the mountains."
"Amitabha. Ran Xi Daoyou's dao heart is firm. We are ashamed by comparison."
"Because her dao heart is firm, she held out to the end in the sealed land." Xun Kun added with feeling.
Yunxi waved it off. "Do not flatter me. You two are not bad. You advanced naturally without the potion, which means your dao hearts were already seeded. The battles in the sealed land only made them grow faster."
Both nodded, agreeing.
Not wanting to dwell on solemn topics, Yunxi shifted the subject to before the Five Region Grand Tournament, when she egged on female cultivators to sabotage Mingjian Gate disciples who went to the mortal world to undergo love tribulations.
At that, the corners of Yun Chen's and Xun Kun's mouths twitched. Once again, their understanding of Ran Xi was refreshed.
Xun Kun simply asked, "You tripped up those Mingjian Gate cultivators. Do they know?"
Yunxi said breezily, "What fun would it be if they knew? Besides, once you have entered the Dao, you should not disrupt the normal course of the mortal world like that. Who is to say the woman 'helping' them through a love tribulation is not the one truly fated for them?
If you must pass a love tribulation, go seek a female cultivator. The two of you can tangle for eight hundred or a thousand years. I guarantee they can pass any tribulation that way."
"Amitabha. The method is unseemly, yet the reasoning holds. One could say Mingjian Gate disciples begin their tribulation the moment they meet you."
Xun Kun chuckled. "Who is the unlucky one you targeted?"
"Zhou Langchen."
As they spoke of him, Zhou Langchen was in a grand mortal manor, both arms seized by two women arguing on either side. Each claimed to be his properly wedded wife, while he remembered nothing.
Just as his head throbbed, there came a rip, and his robe tore in two. His upper body was suddenly bared.
Ming Ya and Zuo Die'er admired their "husband's" well-built torso for a moment, then each hauled one of his arms toward her courtyard. Round two of the tug-of-war began.
—
One day later, Han Lian caught up to the Blackwing Flying Boat. Landing on the deck, she tossed each of the three a jade slip.
Puzzled, they caught them, swept with divine sense, then asked Han Lian to explain.
Because Yunxi had kept in touch with her own master, she already knew the gist. The evil cultivators could not beat her head-on, their underhand plays had failed, so they began a "praise-to-kill" campaign. Those rumor-slips exaggerating her deeds were mostly lies, enough only to fool the uninformed.
What truly angered her was that the evil cultivators used her name to rob credit from those who fell in the sealed land. That she would never allow.
Luckily, the sect had prepared. They recompiled the recordings from the recording jades the group brought back and publicly released the full battle of the sealed land across the entire Weiyu Realm, smashing the evil cultivators' scheme.
The slips Han Lian handed over were precisely those records. Within were the survivors and those who self-detonated to eradicate the evil souls, every one with name, sect, and clan. The "praise-to-kill" wind was crushed.
"Yunxi, this was done by Haoran Sect, yes?"
"Mm. When we used the recording jade in the first place, we thought that if we all fell, the Weiyu Realm should still know what happened in the sealed land. I will not let everyone die for nothing."
"Amitabha. You foresaw well."
Xun Kun nodded, carefully storing the slip in his ring. This one must be kept.
"Han Lian, is Jihan Gate's matter settled?"
Han Lian nodded. "I delivered both slips to Ancestor, then met the Sect Master, handed over Hao Miaoling's corpse and bracelet, explained everything from start to finish, exchanged some resources in the sect, and set out to rendezvous. The rest will be handled by the sect."
"Your master did not blame you?"
"No. She has no standing to. You already compensated the sect with that precious formula. She would not and could not blame me."
Yunxi could tell there was still a rift between master and disciple. But that would not affect their journey. The four abandoned the flying boat and tore open space directly to the fringe of the Polar Extreme Wind Zone.
The moment they stepped out, Yunxi keenly caught a strand of berserk wind-spirit power. It circled the four, found it could not shake them, then sped off to find another target.
"Come. Let us go in and take a look."
Han Lian spoke first.
Just then, a blood-soaked cultivator burst out from the outer band of the wind zone and collapsed at Han Lian's feet.