Qin Ming did not peel any more of the stone's skin. The mountain forest was no place for recklessness — a beam of light here would cost him his life. The block had shrunk enough to fit in his robe, but he left it hidden in the woods, for people watched the passes out, guarding the treasures in the nodes. Before long he saw her again — the tall woman in the fur-lined mantle, still unseeable of face.
"So he came out unscathed, after all." The raven was there, symbols flickering across its purple eyes as it fixed him with a long, hard look. Qin Ming kept his face calm, but his heart stirred; he had sensed eyes all along the road out, and carrying that block would surely have given him away.
The purple-eyed raven circled overhead. "A ten-colored node, fused with the Five-Colored Haze — it makes me drool! If only your master had come in person, and we'd brought the old Master Crow out of the black-mist world!" "Don't be rash," said the cloaked woman. "All the high-order creatures are mad. We wait for the right moment."
Outside the mountains, Qin Ming found Mu Qing, Cao Long, and the others, scions of noble houses all unusually cautious. "Where did you run off to, boy?" asked the black-sheep knight Yang Yongqing. "I was chasing that talking bird and lost it," Qin Ming replied. Cao Long demanded to know where, for that bird had offended him badly.
That day the commotion in the deep mountains was so tremendous that even the ordinary villagers nearby were staring at a daylight-bright spectacle they had never seen in their lives.
The Shallow Night was nearly over, and still the mountains had produced no result. Qin Ming, ever diligent, asked his employers and confirmed they would not venture in. He called out, "Uncle Xu, Grandfather Liu, time to head back."
"What, go home this early?" Old Liu had not seen his fill.
"Time for supper. We've been hungry the whole day!" Qin Ming said. Wei Zhirou, Cao Long, and Mu Qing could not help glancing at him — such a pure-hearted, earthy youth, unfazed by the eyes of the world turned toward the mountains.
"That's true enough," Old Liu said. "Even if we watched three days and three nights, it wouldn't be our concern. Let's go."
At night, Qin Ming sat beneath the village's twin trees, one black and one white, gazing at the mountains, which still blazed bright as day. "So this is Black-White Mountain. A pity it lost its old scenery." He was startled to hear this from two women in the snowfield — he, a native, did not even know that old name, yet these women from outside knew more than he did. Long from the fire-spring valley's hottest days, they were thinly dressed and examined the trees in the fire spring. "This village has a pair of black-and-white trees," one said. "Seeds left over from Black-White Mountain must have sprouted here."
She wore white robes, striking against the fire-tinted night, her face clear — a pretty, slightly rounded girl of fifteen or sixteen. Qin Ming would never have chosen white for hunting; it drew too much attention. He soon noticed she trailed the other woman, always following her lead — and oddly, though she hung two paces behind, he kept overlooking the woman ahead.
That woman wore plain green robes, standing quietly in the snow, thick mist gathered around her so that she seemed hazy, her features impossible to discern — an emanation of the ethereal, like a celestial being about to ride the wind away.
Qin Ming rose, unable to sit by the fire spring any longer, and greeted them. The woman in green spoke at last. "What is the name of this village?"
"Twin Tree Village," he told her, and asked in return, "Is there anything to be said about the old Black-White Mountain?"
"One half was pitch black, the other bright as day, with great fog between them," she said, soft and sweet. "Once it was a place of death, and later it collapsed."
"How are you two called?" Qin Ming called after them. "Boy, don't get ideas," laughed the girl in white. "There are mountains and seas of infinite distance between us and you." "I'm only asking names. Do you not live among mortals?" His reply won another laugh. "When you stand atop a mountain peak, there may be the slimmest chance you catch a distant glimpse of us." "Enough. You talk without thinking," the woman in green chided.
Qin Ming watched their backs, at a loss. "Go back and summon the Golden Peng," the woman in green said. "I'm entering the mountains." As the girl turned away, his pupils shrank — she sped off almost impossibly fast, a thin white mist sealing off wind and snow until, in a blink, she vanished at the earth's edge.
The next day Qin Ming led the party as guide, for Mu Qing, Cao Long, and Wei Zhirou could no longer sit still. They explored the nodes on the mountain's outer reaches; four organizations had already plucked mysteries at the cost of members eroded by the light-mist.
The deepest part still blazed bright as day; the top brass and high-order aberrants had been tossed about a full day and night, patient as anglers yet led on a chase by the merged wonders. None had seen its true form. At last all gave up caution and pressed underground along the Heaven Light's spiritual earth-lines to cut it off — even schemers like Ling Xu and the old weasel plunged headlong below, where high-order creatures died and never rose.
"Old Wang, don't go too far! This fledgling of spirit-nature is already mine — would you rob me outright?!" An old man, covered in blood, escaped a node clutching a foot-tall sapling that trailed purple mist. "Stop him! That old rogue of the Cao family has dug up a longevity tree — ten more years of life!" the man surnamed Wang roared, giving chase.
"Uncle Seven, over here! Let me see who dares stop us!" Cao Long shouted, mounted on a red ox taller than a man. A broken-armored old man ran over, swallowing the whole sapling, roots and all. "Old rogue, it's in my belly — what can you do?" "Cut him open — the medicine's still active!" shouted the man surnamed Wang, and six or seven old men closed in, for longevity meant more than any treasure.
"Old Wang, you're rotten to the core — no wonder your son is a wanted criminal!" cried Cao Long's uncle. "Push me further and I'll rip open that ram's belly and drink its urine!" He glanced at Old Liu's big yellow dog and Yang Yongqing's black ram — the spirit-aware ram promptly urinated, and the dog just squatted and dropped its droppings. "I... why the reaction?" Cao's Seventh fumed. "Fine, then we'll watch right here. Do you dare?!"
"Enough!" Cao Long charged, bringing his halberd straight at the man surnamed Wang, knocking his long blade flying, hands streaming blood.
"Good nephew, you've grown so strong!" his uncle cried, overjoyed. The old men at once retreated, and their position became secure.
Meanwhile Qin Ming learned from the Mu, Cao, and Wei families about the many kinds of mysteries — the spirit-sap and plants were easy to harvest, but treasures wrapped in stone skins were often overlooked in a careless moment. Rare as mutton-fat jade iron was, it hardly cost a kingdom; each Heaven Light descent yielded materials of comparable quality.
As the Shallow Night faded, Qin Ming hid in a snow-burrow and peeled the stone's skin. Threads of Heaven Light sank into him, revealing a gleam of white jade. "Could this be the mutton-fat jade iron?" He reburied it, satisfied there was no rush.
Boom! The earth trembled; boundless color burst forth in the distance, searing the eyes. In the deep mountains, five colors and ten hues blazed — a mysterious treasure had emerged and burst out through an underground crevice. A woman sped through the forest but could not hide, the sealed treasure still blazing from its skin. She called up a great golden bird and rose skyward — but Moon Bugs, winged humanoids, and a feathered woman on a blue bird, no fewer than six high-order creatures, blocked her. "It's her?" Qin Ming was astonished — the woman in green, so young, yet snatching food from a pack of beasts. Forced back, she snapped the foot-long stone in two and pressed the treasure to the red mole on her forehead, where the radiant orb sank straight in. Roaring on the golden bird, she skimmed the treetops and shot away. "After her!" everyone gave chase. Only later did Qin Ming recover the two halves. "Hm?!" After being eroded and tempered in the crevice, he had gained a peculiar perception — and something in the block in his left hand gave off a faint, weak pulse.