White Lotus took the lead up the mountain, and Jiang Chen followed behind her with gritted teeth.
A colossal mountain spider of hideous aspect crawled past in front of them, yet utterly ignored them.
"Except when they're starving, these fierce beasts don't generally attack one another," White Lotus said, adding a joke that wasn't very funny: "Probably because they all know their own flesh tastes far too bad."
Having now entered a place ringed by fierce beasts, her voice lowered a little, though not by much — perhaps because she did not need to.
Jiang Chen kept silent, cautiously observing every fierce beast he met along the way, and found, sure enough, that not one attacked them of its own accord.
"You can talk. These fierce beasts can't understand you anyway. They'd just think you were calling out." White Lotus asked: "What are you thinking about?"
"I'm wondering why no one has ever thought of such a simple method. There are so many clever people in the world. Especially the previous two city lords of Three Mountain City — both were outstanding in their own time."
"There's only one reason." White Lotus's laughter sounded beside him: "Because there are even more clever people busy stopping others from thinking about these things. Sun Heng and Dou Yuemei are certainly both excellent, but they don't understand what a fierce beast really is, and have never had the chance to understand truly."
"Who are these clever people you speak of? And why do they do it?"
"I can't give you the answer. Because the true answer lies in your own heart." White Lotus's tone turned, growing light again: "Alright, this way."
She seemed intimately familiar with Jade Balance Peak, and the small path she chose held noticeably fewer fierce beasts.
Just then, from a rock ahead, a low beast roar sounded. It was a cat-shaped fierce beast, small in size, not even ferocious in appearance.
"This poor little thing has probably just claimed this spot for its territory." White Lotus explained to Jiang Chen: "But it would be far too inconvenient for us to go around."
As she spoke, her form suddenly moved.
Jiang Chen could still see her afterimage lingering before him, yet she had already driven a dagger into the brow of that cat-shaped beast.
Blood flowed out silently, and the beast's roar stopped short.
"In a place like this, it's best not to use Dao arts, because fierce beasts are generally very sensitive to them. Some fierce beasts that can use Dao arts will even take you for a rival competing over territory. Make too much noise, and it becomes very troublesome."
As she explained, White Lotus casually tossed the creature far away. "Like this, the other fierce beasts won't take it for an alien intrusion, but merely an ordinary slaughter among fierce beasts. With the body left here, a half-maddened fierce beast will still choose to eat it."
"You seem to... know fierce beasts very well," Jiang Chen said.
"Mm. If you, when you were about this tall." She measured with her hand at her waist, thought a moment, then moved it a little lower: "About this tall, were thrown into a pile of fierce beasts, you'd come to know them very well too."
"What is it?" She suddenly leaned close to the silent Jiang Chen: "Have I frightened you, little brother?"
Jiang Chen said nothing.
"Tsk, tsk, tsk." She shook her head: "Don't look at your elder sister with such a pitying eye. Living in this world, as to who is the more pitiable, there's really no telling."
"Emotions like pity aren't a way of belittling someone. Compassion is something every normal person carries. It is a positive emotion, and it lets people show one another a little more tolerance and understanding." Jiang Chen paused: "My father said that when I was a child."
"Not bad at all — you know how to pity the tender and the fair." White Lotus gave a light snort: "But if you were to see that beneath your elder sister's veil is a face too hideous to behold, would you still pity me?"
"What I pity is that little girl who was panicking in the pile of fierce beasts. It has nothing to do with what she grew up to look like."
"I was not panicking at all." White Lotus muttered the words quietly, then raised her voice: "Walk faster!"
Puzzled by her scolding, Jiang Chen nevertheless quickened his pace to follow.
To be fair, Jade Balance Peak was a place of beautiful scenery; whether trees, rocks, flowers, or grass, all were worth looking upon. Had it not been for the fierce beasts everywhere, it would surely have been a spot thronged with travelers.
In the last clearing war on Jade Balance Peak, Three Mountain City had thrown in nearly the strength of its entire city domain, and invited no small number of outside aid besides — yet had only managed to stop at the mountainside.
Now Jiang Chen, following White Lotus, two people alone, had easily passed the mountainside and were making for the summit.
Ahead, a giant rock jutted out from the mountain, forming a natural high platform.
White Lotus stopped here.
Jiang Chen followed her beneath the "platform" and only then noticed a cave beneath the giant rock, seemingly formed by nature. The cave ran deep, dark and dim, its end out of sight.
White Lotus stepped into the cave and stopped right at the entrance, untying the animal skin, spreading it on the ground, and sitting upon it.
"Sit. Why are you staring at me?"
Jiang Chen did the same, and no sooner had he sat than he could not help asking: "What are we doing here?"
"Waiting."
Jiang Chen had found that whenever he earnestly sought her guidance on a genuine question, White Lotus grew sparing with her words. But when he had nothing to say, she would not stop teasing him.
Jiang Chen fell silent. From this angle he could see curling clouds and mist. At this moment the sun hung high in the sky, its light breaking over ten thousand li of mountains and rivers, and as far as the eye could reach, the mountain ranges lay hidden amid the clouds — breathtakingly beautiful.
Jiang Chen drew back his gaze and was surveying the cave around him when White Lotus explained: "This is a mountain spider's nest."
Jiang Chen could not help peering into the depths: "Then where's the mountain spider?"
"Sleeping inside."
"Then what do we do when it wakes up?"
White Lotus looked at him as if he were an idiot: "Kill it, of course."
Perhaps she found talking to a Jiang Chen of such intelligence too dull, for she took out an array-plate-like object from her bosom and laid it flat before her.
"From now on, don't speak, and don't move."
This array plate was probably engraved with arrays for hiding traces and silencing sound.
Jiang Chen mulled this over in his heart, and so truly stayed still and silent, sitting cross-legged with eyes closed, taking up the meridian-nourishing cultivation.
In this period of cultivation, the Bone Lotus on his spine had brought him no ill effect. Had White Lotus not suddenly come calling this time, he might have slowly let the matter slip his mind.
If one had to speak of change, the greatest change within the Celestial Palace was not the second Star River Dao Vortex that was nearly formed.
It was his Dao meridian true spirit.
It was well known that when the Dao meridian true spirit shuttled through the Dao vortex, it would gain a measure of growth and strengthening. Yet before the great cycle was completed, there would hardly be any change visible to the eye, and before the Gate of Heaven and Earth was opened, it was rare to see any essential improvement.
But Jiang Chen's Dao meridian true spirit — that earthworm — had already become studded with flecks of starlight, and its body had clearly grown a size larger. Though there was no change in the amount of Dao essence it took in and out, the meridian-nourishing cultivation had evidently become much easier.
Beyond that, Jiang Chen had a vague sense that the Dao meridian true spirit seemed to have drawn closer to that black candle, though he could not be entirely certain.
Jiang Chen had always been a devotee of cultivation; once he entered a state of cultivation, he was easily lost in it. And so he failed to notice that, from the moment he had begun the meridian-nourishing cultivation, White Lotus's gaze toward him had changed.
It was a dreamy, entranced gaze.