Watching the Mountain

The humiliation was unprecedented.

*

*

*

Ye Shan’s sword strike had cleared the sky. When peace returned, both he and the Vermilion Bird had vanished.

’Where had the Vermilion Bird gone?’

As Xu Ran worried, two streaks of light suddenly tore across the distant horizon, silently racing toward them.

One streak was red, the other white.

They split off. The white streak shot toward the young Ye Shu at their side, transforming into a longsword that landed gently in his hands.

The longsword was unadorned, with no features worth describing. Its only distinction was its name: Ye Shan!

But Ye Shu remained motionless, not picking up the longsword.

He had already fallen unconscious.

He had followed his mother’s instructions to the letter, forcing his eyes wide to stare intently at the image of Ye Shan swinging his sword across the heavens.

He couldn’t see it clearly, nor could he understand it.

He only remembered his mother’s words: he had to commit everything he saw to memory.

Therefore, even when his eyes started to bleed, he still didn’t dare blink. He could only stare harder, his gaze locked on the figure in the air.

Later, blood started to stream from his nose, ears, and mouth, but he still held on, refusing to blink.

In the end, he was covered in blood; his hair and clothes were stained crimson.

He still hadn’t blinked, because it was what his mother had asked him to do.

Only when the figure in the heavens finally stilled his sword did he let his guard down and close his eyes.

And in that instant, he lost consciousness.

The Little Witch, Ye Qingxue, saw Ye Shu sitting there stiffly. She walked over slowly and wrapped him in a tight embrace, then took out a handkerchief to gently wipe the blood from his face.

She did not think him dirty, despite his wretched, blood-soaked appearance.

As she gently wiped the blood from his face, an expression of tender love appeared, her soft gaze filled with pride. She whispered in Ye Shu’s ear:

"You did very well. You are truly my son."

Watching from the side, a thought crossed Xu Ran’s mind:

’The Little Witch truly is a gentle yet powerful mother.’

*

*

*

Just then, the other fiery red streak of light, which had been moving much more slowly, finally arrived.

It was a Vermilion Bird the size of a maple leaf. It flapped its wings gently, circled Xu Ran once, then shot into the spot between his eyebrows.

Then, a flood of information surged into his mind.

It was an Array Map.

The array was named: Bird Transformation.

Xiaoque’Er had once left Little Xiyue a Divine Technique. It was a technique she had comprehended through sheer, unyielding will after her foundation was crippled and she could no longer continue her cultivation.

She intended for this Divine Technique to be a testament to her will—that even an ordinary sparrow could one day transform into a Phoenix and soar through the heavens.

Phoenix Transformation was Xiaoque’Er’s greatest wish in life.

Using her mother’s Phoenix Transformation Divine Techniques as a foundation, Little Xiyue drew upon her own insights into the Array Dao to create an array: Bird Transformation.

The "Bird" in "Bird Transformation" was for her mother, Xiaoque’Er. It was also for the Vermilion Bird.

In her heart, the mother who had taken her in at her most desperate moment, after she had been abandoned by her birth parents—that mother, Xiaoque’Er, was not merely a Phoenix. She was a Vermilion Bird.

The Huaque Array had no specific tier. Or rather, no Array Master in the world was capable of defining its tier.

It was formed from countless arrays ranging from Tier One to Tier Nine. Through a miraculous structure, tens of millions of individual arrays came together to form one complete whole.

Xu Ran couldn’t even begin to comprehend how Little Xiyue had constructed such an array. ’She’s not even a hundred years old. Even if she’d started at birth, it would be impossible to lay out tens of millions of arrays in just a century, right?’

And yet, Little Xiyue had done it.

’This, perhaps, is what it means to be a genius I can’t possibly comprehend.’

However, as he examined the array’s structure, it felt strangely familiar. He thought for a moment, and then it hit him. ’Isn’t this the local-area network structure I told Little Xiyue about when she asked me for help?’

’So this was the array problem that gave her so much trouble?’

The Huaque Array used the telluric energy of the Immortal Ancient Cultivation Realm’s Five Domains—East, South, West, North, and Central—as its foundation. It channeled the energy of the entire world to manifest the Vermilion Bird.

Little Xiyue had traveled all over the Five Domains, setting up countless arrays from Tier One to Tier Eight, which had all just combined to form the Vermilion Bird Array.

When he saw the markers indicating the arrays Little Xiyue had placed throughout the Five Domains, everything finally clicked into place for Xu Ran.

’No wonder Little Xiyue was so elusive before. So she was always going off to set up arrays?’

’No wonder she always brought back piles of delicacies I’d never eaten or even seen before.’

’She must have brought all that food back from the other domains.’

Xu Ran had always assumed she had just gone to some trouble buying them from various places. He knew Little Xiyue had left their sect, but he never imagined she had traveled so far, not just outside their gates but beyond the Eastern Domain itself.

The Huaque Array was composed of tens of millions of arrays. Excluding repetitions, it utilized more than ten thousand different types of arrays.

These ten-thousand-plus arrays, in their special structure, were branded directly into Xu Ran’s sea of consciousness, allowing him to deploy them instantly without any need for comprehension.

Xu Ran could almost picture Little Xiyue sighing. ’Master is so dense. There’s no way he’ll learn if I try to teach him. I’d better just give him a way to use them directly.’

But the more Xu Ran learned about the Huaque Array, the more uneasy he grew.

He didn’t want Little Xiyue to leave him her life’s work in arrays just so he could use them for his own protection.

He was worried about Little Xiyue. How was she now? Was she hurt? Was she safe?

He didn’t even care why Little Xiyue had dedicated her life to constructing the Huaque Array.

He only cared about whether Little Xiyue was okay.

Xu Ran’s heart pounded in his chest. But the Vermilion Bird that had entered his brow had only delivered the Sparrow Transformation Array Map, leaving no other information.

’The Vermilion Bird just now was undoubtedly Little Xiyue. But what was she doing? What’s her connection to Ye Shan, and what has happened to her?’

He recalled that Ye Shan had appeared only after the Vermilion Bird vanished. He then remembered Ye Shan’s sudden question about what he would do if someone hurt him.

He clenched his fists, praying it wasn’t what he suspected. Otherwise, just as he had answered Ye Shan, even if Ye Shan had already vanished, he would one day summon his soul, drag it back from the underworld, and torture him mercilessly.

Just as he was about to set off in search of Little Xiyue, his Storage Ring suddenly vibrated. An egg, shimmering with a mysterious halo, flew out.

The instant the egg appeared, another streak of light shot across the horizon toward him.

An invisible strand of Sword Qi, enveloping a tiny Vermilion Bird, then sank into the egg.

That egg was the very same Phoenix Egg Ye Shan had given him.

The Vermilion Bird sank into the egg, but the invisible Sword Qi did not disperse. Instead, it surged into the spot between Xu Ran’s eyebrows.

Then, Ye Shan’s illusory figure appeared in Xu Ran’s sea of consciousness.

He spoke to Xu Ran calmly, "Junior Brother Xu, don’t be anxious. I will explain everything clearly."