Qi Jingchun's colossal Dharma form—pure white and gossamer—sat solemnly upon the northernmost reaches of the Baoping Continent's territory.
The sea of clouds churned and rolled, pressing slowly downward, drawing ever closer to Qi Jingchun's head.
He looked up, a smile of unconcern on his face.
Above the clouds, a commanding voice rang out: "Qi Jingchun—know that heaven's way is impartial! As a disciple of the Confucian school, your compassion for the Lizhu small chiliocosm is understandable. If you change your mind now, there is still room for retreat."
With the immortal's words, what seemed like peals of thunder raced across the cloud-sea. The flash of lightning, visible for only an instant, seeped continuously from the clouds' underside.
Words that decree the law.
Another immortal scoffed: "Enough idle talk with this bookworm! If you wish to perform a heaven-and-earth-shaking feat, first ask whether my fist permits it!"
At the same moment, a titanic golden hand reached down from above, parting the heavy clouds and tearing open a hole. A pillar of light fell before Qi Jingchun's Dharma form.
From the west came a Buddhist chant—full of compassion: "Benefactor Qi, let a single thought settle the heart, and you shall instantly transcend beyond the Buddha's ground."
Qi Jingchun said gravely: "After the great dragon-slaying campaign, this town enjoyed three thousand years of great fortune. Future generations produced exceptional talent—nothing more than a trick of spending the offspring of one's children's grain. But since it was the rule established by four saints, and the earliest cultivators who chose to settle in the Lizhu small chiliocosm had no objections, I, Qi Jingchun, naturally had no right to interfere. Now heaven's way wishes to crush this realm—let it come. The only change is that I, Qi Jingchun, alone will bear this tribulation on behalf of the townsfolk. The heavenly dao and the rules have not fallen upon empty air. Why, then, do you all interfere?"
The immortal who had torn open the clouds laughed boisterously: "Ha ha! Man surnamed Qi—do you truly not know the reason, or are you feigning madness?"
At some point, Qi Jingchun had extended one hand. The pearl that contained a small chiliocosm—his palm closing into a fist—was now held loosely in his grasp.
Within that palm, within the chiliocosm, above the town, day had been instantaneously transformed into night.
Then that snow-white hand protecting the Lizhu small chiliocosm appeared to suffer invisible attacks from every direction. It hissed and crackled, and white arcs of electricity sprayed and bloomed across its back. Large flakes of what appeared to be "snow"—tiny as drifting feathers yet immense as mountain peaks—peeled from Qi Jingchun's hand and fell toward the mortal world, dissolving into mist before touching ground.
The immortal who sat high above the hole in the clouds laughed mockingly: "A petty Confucian, defying the great dao—how presumptuous! Allow me to play with you first!"
If one were to gaze from a great distance across the Baoping Continent and could pierce the concealment formation the immortals had jointly created, one would witness a scene of staggering grandeur. From the colossal opening in the clouds, a tiny black dot appeared, descending straight down—then the tip of a sword—and finally the whole: a "miniature" flying sword, no longer than a finger of Qi Jingchun's Dharma form.
The first sword had barely revealed itself before the second followed. A third and fourth descended in turn from the cloud-sea. A total of twelve flying swords.
They hung in a line across the sky.
Like iron cavalry drawn up in battle array, held by taut reins—awaiting a single command to charge.
Above the clouds, a golden giant sat cross-legged at random. Its enormous golden eyes were wide open, both fists propped on its knees. The right fist slowly extended one index finger, flicking it forward.
The first flying sword shot toward the arm that loosely gripped the pearl.
It fell with the speed of lightning, leaving a continuous trail of cloud in its wake.
The sword pierced clean through Qi Jingchun's Dharma-form arm, stopping only a hair's breadth from the ground.
Above the clouds, the golden giant's right index finger twisted lightly. The sword traced an arc and returned to the sky. Simultaneously, the left hand's fingers flicked, and another sword plummeted downward, once again piercing Qi Jingchun's arm.
Two fingers rose and fell alternately.
Twelve swords fell straight down. Each returned along an arc.
Rising and falling, repeating without end.
Qi Jingchun's arm, subjected to this dense barrage of sword strikes, was riddled with wounds. Countless black perforations appeared—horrifying against the Dharma form's otherwise luminous white majesty.
Qi Jingchun bore this with perfect composure. Just as another wave of swords was about to begin its piercing assault, launching a fresh onslaught—
Truly relentless.
Qi Jingchun spoke four words with the ease of a spring breeze: "Pride in the Spring Wind."
One sword still stabbed directly toward the arm. But before it could embed itself, it was blown aside like a pine needle by a gentle gust. Not merely this one—all eleven remaining swords, without exception, failed. They circled Qi Jingchun's Dharma form, following some predetermined trajectory in slow flight. The blades trembled, coiled to strike, emitting faint hums.
Moreover, waves of spring wind that suffused heaven and earth had silently arrested the falling cloud-seas.
The golden giant bared his chest, radiating a wild and unrestrained air. Looking down from above, he was surprised to find that the twelve flying swords had found no opening whatsoever. "Hmm?"
These sword attacks—formidable against mortal cultivators—held little interest for Qi Jingchun. His eyes never left the loosely clenched fist.
There was a saying about pearls yellowing with age. The Lizhu small chiliocosm—that pearl suspended above the Baoping Continent—was now three thousand years old. In another sixty years, under the watch of the next saint Ruan Qiong, the pearl's outer shell would shatter completely, like a piece of porcelain losing all its glaze. When heaven's pressure descended, it would be unstoppable. Though no one would die on the spot, every person in the town would lose their afterlife. Qi Jingchun had even consulted Buddhist scriptures and deduced a terrible consequence: the town's six thousand souls, sacrificed as scapegoats for heaven's wrath, might be condemned to the hungry ghost realm within the western Buddha-land—never to be freed, life after life.
The military cultivator and swordsmith Ruan Qiong, as the Lizhu small chiliocosm's final presiding saint, would not be charged with protecting the townsfolk. His duty would be to ensure that not a single person escaped heaven's punishment.
The golden giant's voice boomed across the sky like war drums: "Someone said you, Qi Jingchun, are no simple matter—possessing two life-bound characters. Beyond 'Spring,' there's a second that broke the rules: 'Stillness.' Come, come—let me see for myself!"
With each "come," the giant's fist hammered his knee.
After three strikes, the cloud-sea churned like boiling water.
At the cloud-sea's underside, the previously invisible breeze shuddered. Light scattered, brightness and shadow alternating in chaos.
The giant declared: "You have your spring wind—then I shall send a rain of flying swords to cool you down!"
With those words, countless golden threads pierced the cloud-sea and penetrated the breeze.
Compared to the giant's body, the golden threads were like embroidery needles as long as a fingernail—yet they were dense by the tens of thousands. Converged together, their momentum was devastating.
Qi Jingchun still gazed at his fist. His expression unchanged, he said softly: "Good rain knows its season; it comes when spring arrives."
From the ground around his seated Dharma form, raindrops burst forth—each one seemingly negligible in size, yet each vast as a pool.
Then, defying all reason, the countless raindrops slid upward toward the sky.
An inverted curtain of rain.
All because of a single line of poetry murmured by the Confucian saint Qi Jingchun.
The golden, radiant "sword-rain" fell from above; the spring-water curtain, rising from the earth, surged from below.
They collided head-on with a thunderous crash.
Above him, a spectacle of heaven and earth, yet Qi Jingun neither saw, heard, nor spoke of it.
Around Qi Jingun's fist, streaks of lightning materialized as serpentine dragons, crashing upon the back of his hand.
Three colors of lightning: crimson, blue-purple, and snow-white. Though they appeared chaotic, the three were distinct and didn't intertwine—each woven into its own great net.
The Dharma form's fist shed fragments, feathers drifting, steadily diminishing.
Qi Jingchun said quietly: "Calm Wind and Still Waves."
Of the three colors, the snow-white lightning froze without warning, but the other two continued their prescribed course. This caused a crimson lightning bolt to smash through a snow-white one, while a blue-purple bolt then bound the crimson. The vast net of heaven, supposed to leave nothing uncaught, was thrown into disarray.
From above the clouds, an aged voice rose with unhurried authority: "Movement and stillness have their law!"
But in the blink of an eye, the three lightning-nets—momentarily descending into chaos—regained their vast, ordered majesty.
Again and again, they hammered Qi Jingchun's Dharma-form fist.
Qi Jingchun let out a soft sigh.
"Enough petty games, Qi Jingchun! Do you dare receive my fist!"
A golden fist descended from the hole in the cloud-sea, hurtling toward Qi Jingchun's head.
Qi Jingchun raised his free right hand high, palm up, to block the crushing blow.
The Dharma form plummeted a hundred zhang. But the cloud-sea, sustained by a surge of wind, also rose a hundred zhang.
It was as though a gap of two hundred zhang had opened between heaven and earth.
"Again!"
The golden immortal's fist fell again and again, each blow carrying the force of thunder. No mountain—no sacred peak of any kingdom on the Baoping Continent—could have withstood such a strike.
Qi Jingchun's snow-white Dharma form only raised its arm, held high.
First a crater was smashed into the Dharma form's palm. Then the entire hand shattered. Then, section by section, the arm was destroyed by the golden fist.
Even so, Qi Jingchun remained unmoved. His attention never wavered from the loosely clenched left fist.
From the fist, spreading up the entire arm to the shoulder, Daoist runes of the highest order were inscribed—each character large as a house.
The aged voice continued: "Don't be so obstinate, Qi Jingchun. If you're willing, you may follow me in cultivation."
Qi Jingchun tilted his head slightly and looked down at the ravaged arm, now covered in the supreme prophetic inscriptions penned by the patriarch of the Daoist lineage. What a fine case of "acting in heaven's stead."
Qi Jingchun exhaled softly and spoke: "Clear and Tranquil..."
The aged voice rang with fury: "Qi Jingchun, you are audacious!"
A roar of rage drowned the two words that would have followed "Clear and Tranquil."
High in the sky, two fingers joined as a sword cut cleanly through the cloud-sea and sliced downward!
They severed Qi Jingchun's left arm cleanly at the shoulder.
Far, far away, an almost imperceptible sigh arose—full of regret.
The Confucian saint does not overstep the bounds.
Qi Jingchun should not have crossed the Daoists' thunder pool.
After the finger-sword succeeded in cutting off Qi Jingchun's arm, its owner's fury was not spent. The fingers snapped back into the cloud-sea and, with even greater speed, thrust toward the now rootless, sourceless suspended fist.
Qi Jingchun retracted his severed right arm—the half that remained above his head—and quickly shielded the pearl, drawing it toward himself, cradling it against his chest.
The immortal's two fingers drove forward without hesitation, piercing clean through the Dharma form's arm. The golden giant's fist from the hole above crashed squarely upon Qi Jingchun's head.
The Dharma form swayed, on the verge of collapse.
Though broken-armed and battered, its great sleeves still billowed with the scholar's elegance. But the more so, the more harrowing the sight.
Another fist to the head. Qi Jingchun's Dharma form sank further.
One fist after another—bound and determined to beat the scholar into the earth.
The ruined Dharma form clutched before it the loosely clenched fist, the pearl, the Lizhu small chiliocosm—and the townsfolk who, upon seeing him, would call him "Mr. Qi."
The Dharma form's lips moved, forming words without sound: "The stars follow their orbits; the sun and moon pass their light in turn; the four seasons govern in rotation; yin and yang transform in great force; rain and wind extend their bounty. All things find their harmony in life, all things find their nourishment in growth..."
Within the small chiliocosm.
Inside the village schoolhouse, not a single pupil remained.
A lone scholar in a blue robe sat by himself—his temples had not only frosted with white but his entire hair had turned snow-white.
Blood seeped from his seven orifices. His face was a ruin of flesh and crimson.
His soul was shattered—more completely than a porcelain vessel dashed against the ground.
The scholar's expression was one of pure, reckless joy. He closed his eyes and smiled, passing away without a sound.
The world held me, Qi Jingchun.
The world rejoiced, and so did I.
That year, spring lingered late in this world, and summer arrived very late indeed.