My Journey to Immortality Begins with Hunting

Li Yuan settled into life in the little town. After breakfast buns each morning he'd lounge by the window, teasing the sparrows that perched there. When those birds flew off again, they werehiseyes, circling high and scouting the countryside.

Bai Lingshui got to work.

She penned a letter and sent it through to the Holy Tree Temple's third gate. Then she fanned the rumor-mill, but with a delicate touch.

Speaking as Bubba's friend, she described him as a reclusive youngster from the deep mountains, innocent of worldly ways, obsessed with martial arts. She also wrote that he'd already beaten a fifth rank master and now longed to test himself against the illustrious temple master Qing Hancheng. Should the temple master comment, the duel would take place at Flying Swallow Terrace on the night of the Mid Autumn full moon.

She didn't wave the banner of the Lotus Cult. Binding the brute to the cult by force would create endless headaches, starting with the brute himself simply refusing.

Besides, she had slipped in a small psychological trap. Everyone knew Qing Hancheng had been stuck at fourth rank for almost two centuries. If he couldn't crush some nobody from the boonies, a seed of self-doubt orheart demon might sprout and ruin him.

Whether the trap would spring depended on how touchy Qing Hancheng proved to be. Bai Lingshui smiled to herself, ink drying on the final envelope.

The board was set; the pieces were moving. All that remained was to see who would draw first blood on Flying Swallow Terrace.

Adding a second lone challenger to the Lotus Cult's banner would blow the whole thing up into a circus. If the duel looked like theLotus Cult versus the Holy Tree Temple, then the other four powers of the Five Elements Alliance, along with the loose cannons from the Buddhist and Daoists, would come flocking.

Once a sanctioned duel turned into free-for-all, the big brute would be trapped on the tiger's back. In that chaos Bubba could very well end up dead, exactly what Bai Lingshui didnotwant.

The ­Lotus Cult already had larger strategies in motion; this frontier skirmish did not need another chess piece.

Summoning big-name Lotus Cult powerhouses here would only wreck the board.

To the cult, the brute was a powerful oddity, maybe even a treasure, worth studying.

To her, he was a once-in-a-lifetime stroke of luck.Thestroke of luck.

Bai Lingshui excelled at the arts of enchantment. The endgame was never to make every hero under heaven kneel to a beauty, but rather ensnare one peerless titan and makehim alonekneel.

A flock ofheroes?Nothing more than a pack of posers chasing clout.

After all, the termunrivalledwas singular, not plural. If every hero was peerless, then why was there no such thing as a crowd of the peerless?[1]

Hairy ape or not, the brute's guileless honesty was a tonic after years of watching men hide behind masks. She found him refreshing. So she fired off her letter with just the right restraint, generating buzz across the jianghu while still framing the duel as a lone martial fanatic's challenge.

It was a natural, face-saving invitation Qing Hancheng would find hard to dodge. She was even careful to leave the brute a line of retreat.Lose? No shame. You're just a mountain hermit punching above his weight.

Li Yuan's sparrow network saw and heard it all; from the fringe details he easily deduced her handiwork. His estimation of the enchantress climbed another notch.Potential long-term partner,he mused, and relaxed. Events were unfolding exactly as he hoped. He spent his days replaying every scrap of rumor he'd heard about Qing Hancheng, rehearsing the coming clash inside his mind.

˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙

The days slipped by.

Five days before the Mid Autumn full moon, the challenge letter finally reached Qing Hancheng, who had been deep in seclusion atop the White Bamboo Hanging Bell Tower.

The azure robed temple master read it beneath the eaves and smiled. But something about him had changed.

The righteous glow once bright in his eyes had turned smoky; the ethereal aura about his frame now wavered like mirage heat. On his long sleeves, the once-delicatewhiteplum blossoms had darkened to ink black.

White plum or black plum? Most would write it off as a simple fashion choice, nothing more. Yet the shift signaled a tectonic change.

Qing Hancheng had succeeded, or stood half a step from it.

With secret help from the Black Lotus, he had managed towoundthe righteous Qing Hancheng, then begun absorbing that alter ego's power. Only those perched at peak fourth rank knew the truth. Two distinct temperaments meant two distinctwills,two distinct sources of power.The shadow blood was driven by the ancestral seal; different wills meant different fuel.

No one had taught him the path to third rank, but simple logic whispered the answer. Devour the other self and fuse twoI'sinto oneTrue Self.

The Path to Heaven was a razor's edge; only one may pass. That one, at last, was him. Joy tinged with long-lost arrogance curled his lips.

As for the letter? He crushed it to powder between two fingers.

Jing Baikou, who had delivered it, stared in astonishment.

Qing Hancheng simply smiled and said lightly, "Spread the word. I remain in closed cultivation. Ideclinethis challenge."

Jing Baikou tried to reason, "Temple Master, this Bubba has been making waves. He's already flattened several fifth rank elders. The whole jianghu is in an uproar; even the other four elements of the Five Elements Alliance have taken notice and are waiting to see our response.

"If the Holy Tree Temple backs down now, our prestige will suffer. The North versus South war is at its tipping point. We need every scrap of momentum. Yield now and the South will seize the narrative. The Lotus Cult will declare that the Holy Tree Temple—"

He spoke the common-sense argument, exactly the effect Bai Lingshui had aimed for. No one, Jing Baikou included, could imagine areasonfor Qing Hancheng to refuse.

Yet he did refuse.

Before Jing Baikou could finish, Qing Hancheng's smile widened.

"Strength is everything. I'm on the verge of a breakthrough; I won't let side issues distract me."

The duel meant nothing to the man reforging himself, or to the Black Lotus Cult plot he quietly served. By staying inside, he both protected his nascentTrue Selfand torpedoed the Holy Tree Temple's reputation, blunting the Five Elements Alliance's rising tide.

It was the same as killing two birds with one stone. Once he finished digesting thatrighteousQing Hancheng, who else in this world could still stand against him?

Reputation? Simply a toy for mortals.

Trying to shackle a man like him withfacewas an insult.

"But everyone already knows that you've been out of seclusion for a few days now," Jing Baikou said.

Qing Hancheng smiled. "And a man who's stepped outside can't step back in? I merely came up for air."

Jing Baikou could only stare. The smile looked bright, yet some vast darkness pulsed beneath it. Chills crawled up his spine, and something about that darkness felt disturbingly familiar, like the day long ago when the temple master had ordered the destruction of Zhu Ban.

His throat bobbed. Gears spun. Suddenly heunderstood. Drawing a long breath, he dropped to one knee with a dazzling grin.

"Congratulations, Temple Master! Jing Baikou is yours forever."

Qing Hancheng's eyes narrowed to crescents, then he laughed. Jing Baikou laughed along with him.

Night birds scattered from the rafters. In the paddy fields, mosquitoes droned. Tree shadows writhed like black phantoms dancing on a midnight street.

1. The raw text reads, "强者从来唯一，哪会被添上'群'这个字？", which translates to something along the lines of, "A true powerhouse (强者) always stood alone. How could they possibly be counted among the crowd (群)?"

The pun here is that the character forcrowd(群) is composed of the two radicalslord(君)andsheep(羊). So while alordmay be lumped in with the herd ofsheep, a truly powerful person would always remain unique.

This is an instance of where you can choose to localize as a translator, which I have done. Since the pun can't be translated one-to-one into English, I decided the next best thing is to convey the spirit of it.☜