Volume One: Youths Meet in Humble Times Chapter Ten: There Is Always Someone Stronger

What about Li Yu? He had no cultivation, and was only five years old—what would he see?

Indeed, this was precisely the question that most intrigued the middle-aged Daoist at this moment.

From the moment the four of them entered Red Spring Mountain, the Daoist had begun to pay careful attention to them. The earlier petty squabbles had meant little to him, but when the black, human-faced figure led each of the four into the depths of their own inner demons, his interest was finally piqued.

Yet what fascinated him most was not Lu Ming, who was born with a sword embryo and possessed impressive cultivation, but Li Yu, who appeared utterly ordinary and yet was the least ordinary of them all.

Now, before the Daoist’s eyes, what appeared to Li Yu was neither a monster nor a scene of blood and gore, but a simple image.

It was that same mountain village, that same shabby little house. He stood before the door; to say he was not surprised would be false, for the changes of yin and yang he could see were exactly as he remembered—meaning that, in his eyes, this was his home.

Li Yu did not hesitate. He pushed open the door at once and saw his grandmother lying on the bed. His heart eased with relief. But before he could fully settle, he discovered a truth—one he had never wanted to face, though he knew he must eventually.

His grandmother was gone.

He moved slowly toward the bedside, then knelt down, unable to accept it, and reached out to feel for her breath—nothing. He tried again with his other hand—still nothing.

At last, Li Yu accepted it: his grandmother was truly gone.

He knelt by the bed, head bowed, motionless, for three days and three nights.

Unlike the other three, whose struggles in their heart demon illusions were dramatic and dazzling, Li Yu’s was as plain as could be. The Daoist’s earlier predictions about how Li Yu would face his grandmother’s death failed to materialize. He even began to wonder if Li Yu would simply die of grief, his heart broken by the demon’s illusions.

Just as the Daoist was about to intervene out of curiosity, Li Yu finally stirred.

He rose slowly, then knelt reverently and bowed three times to his grandmother on the bed. Afterward, he went to the kitchen, managed to light a torch, and set the house aflame from the outside.

He watched the burning house with a face empty of joy or sorrow, his expression as detached as an old monk who has seen through the impermanence of life and death, or perhaps like a living corpse who has shed all emotion.

When the house was burned to ash, he became the first among the four to defeat his inner demon and emerge.

While the Daoist observed the four, the black-faced figure was also watching them. He had great confidence in his Heart Demon Grand Technique, certain it would doom them all. Never had he imagined someone would escape—and when he saw who it was, his astonishment was immense. If anyone had the potential to overcome their heart demon, surely it should have been Lu Ming, the one with the faintest hint of threat, not this small child who looked as if a single finger could crush him.

Before the black-faced figure could react, everything around them froze. Only the Daoist and Li Yu remained able to move.

Seeing Li Yu emerge from the heart demon illusion, the Daoist, anticipating the black-faced figure’s move, stilled the world and stepped forth from the shadows to stand before Li Yu.

The Daoist smiled at him and asked, “You acted as if you knew I would intervene, didn’t you?”

Li Yu shook his head. “I didn’t know.”

“Then how could you be so calm?”

“I only knew that if I died, your days of observing me would have been for nothing.”

With this, the Daoist’s suspicions were confirmed: Li Yu could indeed perceive him. The Daoist, finding this amusing, asked, “And what does your life or death have to do with me?”

Li Yu was in no hurry. After a moment’s silence, he replied, “Perhaps it does?”

The Daoist, well aware this was Li Yu’s attempt to probe him, didn’t mind and responded plainly, “We have nothing to do with each other.”

Li Yu understood what that meant—if the Daoist said there was no connection, then there truly was none. This answer did not unsettle him. He had only asked out of a faint hope, to see if the Daoist might choose to save the other three.

Since there was no connection, he could not pin his hopes on such a tenuous thread.

The Daoist seemed to know his thoughts, and before Li Yu could speak again, he asked, “How did you make it out?”

Li Yu countered, “Do you mean what I just saw?”

The Daoist merely smiled and said nothing.

Li Yu continued, “What I saw was indeed very real. For a moment, I even thought, my grandmother is gone—perhaps I should go with her.”

He touched his clothes, a sorrowful smile on his face. “But before I died, I remembered there were still things I hadn’t finished. So I couldn’t die yet.”

The Daoist, as if lost in thought, remarked, “So setting fire to the house was your instinctive response?”

Li Yu nodded. “Yes. I didn’t have time to arrange a proper burial for my grandmother. She often told me, ‘When a person dies, it’s like a lamp going out—no need to fuss over what comes after. If that day ever comes for me, just burn me and the house together, and go on living well.’”

Upon hearing this, the Daoist nodded in approval. “Your grandmother truly lived with clarity.”

After this exchange, Li Yu looked pleadingly at the Daoist, who instantly understood and said, “I will not save them.”

Though Li Yu had anticipated this outcome, hearing it firsthand brought a flicker of disappointment. Yet even so, he could not object—the Daoist owed them nothing.

Just as disappointment settled in, he heard the Daoist ask, “Why do you want to save them?”

Li Yu nearly ignored him—after all, didn’t everyone have their pride? The Daoist had no obligation to save them; why should Li Yu be obliged to answer his questions? Yet, strangely, though he was unwilling, he still replied, “Because they are good people. So many have already died in this disaster—I don’t want them to die here too.”

The Daoist fixed his gaze on Li Yu, as if to peer into the deepest truth of his heart. After a moment, he smiled faintly. “Kindness to the bone. Rare, very rare.”

Then he told Li Yu, “Though I will not save them, you can.”

Before Li Yu could ask how, the Daoist continued, “Listen to me first. If you wish to save them, you must pay a price. That price may be that you can never return to your clan.”

Li Yu had guessed the Daoist might ask for a price, but he had not expected it to be the loss of all possibility of returning to his clan.

Though he had once resented being cast out, in truth, did he not long to return, to find the answers he sought?

For example: who were his parents?

As he wandered, as he suffered hardship and scorn, as he watched other children bask in parental love while he could only envy them from afar—who could know how deeply he yearned to find his birth parents and ask, “Why did you abandon me? Why leave me and my grandfather to struggle so in the clan?”

Had it not been for his grandmother’s kindness, who knows if he could have endured—perhaps, in a moment of despair, he would have lost the will to live.

But now, weighed against saving three lives, did the hope of finding his parents matter more? Was there even an answer?

Perhaps there was, but just now, to Li Yu, it no longer mattered. For one whose future was so uncertain, why cling to such distant, illusory hopes?

Having thought it through, Li Yu replied with ease, “It doesn’t matter. I don’t mind. Please, tell me how to save them.”

It seemed the Daoist had anticipated this answer, for he did not say more, but explained, “It’s simple. Just drip your blood onto your jade pendant, and you will show them the path to conquer their heart demons. The jade pendant of the Li Clan of Cloud Tomb is no ordinary protective talisman—yours contains the sealed true spirit of a qilin. And the qilin dispels evil and breaks barriers.”

With that, the Daoist vanished, and the frozen world resumed as normal.

The black-faced figure, seeing Li Yu emerge, immediately tried to kill him, conjuring a black mist that formed a finger to stab at him.

Li Yu did not panic. He quickly bit his own finger and smeared the blood on his jade pendant. Instantly, the qilin on the pendant transformed into a bright white light, which dissolved the black mist’s finger.

The white light spread outward, illuminating the surroundings. In the heart demon illusions of the other three, a beam of white light shone in, revealing the path to vanquishing their demons. The three awoke, realizing they were caught in illusions, and each struck toward the light. The heart demons roared in unwilling defeat, then vanished like smoke.

When the three returned to reality, Li Yu’s pendant still shone with lingering white light. They followed the glow to him, each filled with shock.

None had imagined it would be Li Yu who saved them. Though each still had means to preserve their own lives, against the attacks of their heart demons, even those might not have sufficed—for in a way, the heart demons were themselves.

Li Yu had already surprised them many times: first with his extraordinary talent, then with his remarkable temperament, and now with a jade pendant of such power it could dispel the illusions of the heart demon. Only now did they realize: why had he been the first among them to emerge?

The light faded quickly, and the jade pendant cracked, falling to dust.

Li Yu cradled the powder in his hand, feeling nothing in particular. He shook his head; having made his decision, why hold on to regret? Tilting his hand, he let the dust scatter to the wind.

Of the three, Lie Yankong understood best what that pendant had meant to Li Yu. Seeing him let it go so lightly, his respect grew deeper, and he thought to himself, “Now I truly owe him a great debt.”

Though it seemed an eternity had passed, in truth only a few seconds had elapsed.

The black-faced figure, seeing the three escape his Heart Demon Grand Technique, felt the situation slipping out of control. Had his true body been present, it would have been simple, but he was currently engaged in a crucial stage of raising a drought fiend and could not afford to be distracted—else why would he have been pushed so far by a handful of juniors?

Though his composure faltered slightly, he had not yet played his last card, and the outcome was far from certain.