In a blast of bright sword light, Li Xiang flew through the window. Hui caught himself seconds before he fell backward. Good, good. I don’t need to play dead.

Around his neck, Zhubi rolled belly-up. Tian Lan peeked up, nosing at his body, then flopped over herself. She snuck a look at Zhubi again, adjusting her claws and jaw, and flopped a little more convincingly.

Hui patted Zhubi. “It’s okay. We’re fine.”

Tian Lan reared up. “I knew we were fine!”

Zhubi gave Hui a long-suffering look.

“You two are like an old couple already,” Hui commented.

Zhubi’s look turned to shocked admonishment, completely taken aback.

Hui stroked his head with the back of his fingers. “It’s a good thing, a good thing.”

Li Xiang walked up to Hui. Silently, she nodded at him.

Hui nodded back, a little nervous. “Er, can I help you?”

She held out her hand. “A strange ghost gave me this.”

A small square of jade fell into Hui’s hand. He turned it over. Carved lines, edged in flecks of gold, stood out against the pale stone.

Startled, Hui patted himself down. He checked his robes, hist storage ring, his sleeves, only to come up empty. I didn’t even know I’d lost it! Master’s jade… “How… how did you find this?”

“A strange ghost,” Li Xiang repeated.

“The Elusive Ghost?” Hui asked.

She frowned at him.

Hui quickly gestured at his face. “All white, with big black pits for eyes and a big black wedge of a mouth?”

Li Xiang nodded.

Then it is the Elusive Ghost. This is the second time he’s appeared around Master’s jade. Is he an avatar of Master…? If nothing else, he’s definitely related to me or Master somehow. Maybe he’s a manifestation of Master’s jade!

…No, this isn’t that kind of world. I don’t think jades are going to become people.

Plus, he didn’t follow me to the garbage realm. He chased the jade, but he wasn’t tied to it. No, it’s something else.

He frowned at the floor and shook his head. I’m missing something. I’ll just have to roll with it, and hope it isn’t that important. Like I’ve thought before, the Elusive Ghost either has his own game, or he’s me, in which case, he has his own game and he knows what he’s doing. At this point, let’s trust him to do his own thing, and move on. He tucked the bit of jade into his robes.

Lifting his head, he looked the gathered cultivators in the eye. Li Xiang, Bai Xue, Song Wei, and the two dragons coiled around him. Here we are. At what I hope is the end of the line. He nodded at everyone. “I think it’s time for us to face the Golden Immortal.”

“Do you have a plan?” Bai Xue asked, crossing her arms.

Hui nodded. “The power we’ve been searching for plays a key part.”

“It has before, and it’s failed before,” she said.

“But this time, I have assistance from outside the loop,” Hui added.

Bai Xue nodded. “That’s new. How?”

Eh? It is?

Well, if I get detected by the Golden Immortal, it’s game over, so…

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Fair enough.

Hui cleared his throat. “As for how, let’s just say it has to stay a secret. But for the plan…” He gestured the others in closer. Zhubi and Tian Lan reared up around his shoulder and neck to lean closer.

Song Wei stepped away first. “Then, I’ll go ahead.”

“Please do,” Hui said.

Bai Xue took Tian Lan from Hui’s arm and set her around her own bicep. “It’s you and me. Are you ready?”

Tian Lan nodded excitedly.

Li Xiang walked over to Hui’s side. She looked him in the eye. “To the furthest points of the world.”

“To the furthest points of the Immortal Realm,” Hui confirmed.

Bai Xue gave him a look. “If the Golden Immortal comes after us individually…”

Hui shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. We’ll keep going anyways.”

Ying Lin cleared her throat. “I’ll make sure he doesn’t. I can still put up that much interference.”

“Ying Lin, I’ve been meaning to ask. What are you?” Hui asked.

“Eh? Your cute disciple, what else?” Ying Lin asked, giving him a cute head tilt.

Hui narrowed his eyes. “That’s not what I mean.”

“You haven’t figured it out?” Ying Lin asked.

He took her in for a moment, looking her up and down. “If Master is something like the World’s Will, then are you… an arbiter, of sorts? An intermediary?”

“Maybe,” Ying Lin said.

“Ying Lin,” Hui sighed.

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t know, actually. I’ve never fulfilled my role properly, and it was poorly defined when I was made. I could be an intermediary, but I’m not sure. When the world made me… it had so little focus and energy left, that I… I can’t be sure of my own purpose.”

“When did you figure it out? That you were a function of the world, instead of an ordinary cultivator,” Hui asked.

Ying Lin put her hands up. “Not until I entered the Immortal realm. I was born a mortal, and I ascended an ordinary cultivator. I suppose I should have known that the world itself was helping me to ascend so quickly, but…”

Hui nodded. “It’s very irregular. Something that would never happen, if not for the extreme disorder of the Heavens. Naturally, it’s not the first thing you think of, when you face a genius cultivator.” That’s right. The first thing you think of, is that they’re a protagonist, and ought to be clutched to or avoided, but nothing else!

And even she doesn’t know what she is. Unfortunate, truly unfortunate, for a function of the world to be so corrupted by the disorder of the Heavens that by the time she realizes herself, she can no longer recognize her own function.

He shook his head. Once we restore the Heavens, everything should fall into place. All I need to do, is finish the job.

“But you can hold off the Golden Immortal?” Hui asked.

Ying Lin gave him a thumbs-up. “Yep! You can trust me!”

Suddenly, I trust her way less… Hui shook his head and patted her on the back. “If we win this, I’ll find you some more romantic literature.”

“Ah, that’s not possible. I read all of it that exists in the Immortal Realm,” Ying Lin said.

Hui stared at her. “How?” You spent most of your time locked in the gold statue! How did you find time to read that much romantic literature?

Ying Lin grinned. She rocked in place, her hands behind her back, and bent forward a little, mischievous. “Did you think I was totally unable to break out of that statue? I could still send forth my mind! As long as the book entered Heart Lotus City, I could read it!”

Of all the things to accomplish! Breaking out of that barrier, even with just your mind, wouldn’t be trivial. The amount of effort she put into it… she might as well have broken the barrier entirely and escaped! Instead, only using it to read romantic literature… and romantic literature, at that! Ying Lin, Ying Lin…

Ying Lin caught his look and shook her finger. “What would I do if I escaped, huh?”

At that, Hui paused. He gave her a look. That is a point. Even if she escaped, it’s like Master. If the Golden Immortal could reach her, he would immediately chase her down and lock her up again. Unlike Master, who’s the realized World’s Will, she’s simply ‘a function of the world,’ but without a proper role or place… or rather, without the awareness of her role or place. Lacking that, she likewise lacks the authority that should come along with being a function of the world, and therefore, unlike Master, she can’t simply escape the Golden Immortal or hide from his gaze.

That being said, she’s still Ying Lin, my genius disciple. Naturally, something like the golden statue barrier, she figured it out a long time ago! She probably could have broken out from long ago, if she put her mind to figuring it out. But knowing it was a lost game, she instead made the choice to remain. Better to simply enjoy her life and read books. I understand, now!

But even so, what a monstrous ability, to read any book that so much as enters the city…

“It’s not that monstrous,” Ying Lin protested.

“It isn’t?” Hui asked.

She shook her head. “I even met a fellow reader, you know? Ah, he had a strange name, O’xian, but he had read every single book in a library larger than Heart Lotus City. Just because you can’t read like that, doesn’t mean no one can!”

Hui nodded. “Yes, yes. Of course.”

“Then, shall we go?” Ying Lin asked, drawing out a book from her storage ring and glancing around for a good place to sit and read.

Hui gave her a look. Are you sure there’s someone else out there who can read like you? I’m not sure of it, Elder Sister! To even read under life-and-death circumstances… is there such a person?

Bai Xue clasped her hands to Hui. “We’ll see each other soon.”

Li Xiang nodded silently.

Hui lifted Zhubi off his neck, and the small dragon flew reluctantly on his own, giving Hui the biggest puppy eyes.

Standing on his own, Hui forced himself to look away from Zhubi. He’s fine. He’ll be fine. Everyone here can handle themselves, even if Zhubi doesn’t want to! “Let’s go. To the four corners of the world!”