Tome of Troubled Times

Chapter 278: A Full Year

The night was silent.

Third Lady Yuan sat in the gambling den of her own inn, rolling the dice with a radiant glow on her face.

Her subordinates were used to this. She would always be in the gambling den in the middle of the night. It was only that one day that she inexplicably spent half the day in an empty dining hall chatting with a yellow-faced man, with them utterly clueless as to why she had done so.

A shaman walked into the gambling den, staring intently at her right as he entered.

Lady Three’s enthusiasm for the game she was carrying out vanished under his gaze. Annoyed, she tossed the dice aside and then flashed him a charming smile. “Follow me.”

The shaman followed her to the VIP room nearby, and then slowly said, “The Great Shaman collaborated with Ying Five to exchange information about various secret realms, and that is why someone from the Central Plains, such as yourself, is tolerated in a crucial market such as this. If you want to trade some intelligence with others, as long as it isn’t excessive, we turn a blind eye. However, giving us false information and sowing discord between us and the khagan—don’t you think that’s going too far?”

Lady Three replied, “Don’t speak nonsense. I have never given anyone intelligence involving military matters. It has always been just a personal side hustle through which I earn some pocket money for my dowry. That has nothing to do with the fifth lord.”

The shaman remained silent, maintaining a stern look on his face.

Was that even what I was questioning you about? How big you plan to have your dowry be is none of our business!

Lady Three said, “Why do you accuse me of sowing discord? Is it because Ubalu said he found nothing in the lake?”

“No, it’s because those two disappeared in the northern mountains. The secret realm has nothing to do with Huangsha Lake. So, your claim that Ubalu found a key in the lake is naturally false.”

“Isn’t it possible that there’s another secret realm in the lake?”

The shaman was stunned for a moment and became hesitant.

“Well, based on the information we have now, I can roughly conclude that either there are two unrelated secret realms, with one being here and the other there, or we were already on the right path before, but the lake is actually the exit of that secret realm, not the entrance.”

The shaman frowned, pondering for a while before saying, “Since the lake is right here, we can just try investigating it some other time. But do you have a way to find the entrance to the secret realm in the mountains?”

Lady Three replied irritably, “You’ve sent thousands of men to search all throughout the mountain for so long without any success, how is a weak woman like me supposed to be able to suddenly change that?”

“You’re not some weak woman... If you truly were a weak woman, we might have ignored you out of respect for Ying Five, but most of those in the Grasslands do not even know who Ying Five is. Yet those who have made an attempt on you have long had their bones scattered in the desert, no?”

“Just like Ubalu claims to be at the sixth or seventh layer of the Profound Gate, but nobody really knows for sure?”

The shaman retorted with slight annoyance, “Are you at odds with Ubalu? We’re discussing important matters related to the secret realm in the mountains, so why do you keep bringing him up?!”

Lady Three scoffed, “Of course, I’m at odds with him. He’s wanted to play with me for so long. Hmph, he should take a look at himself in the mirror first!”

The shaman was speechless. He’s a local tyrant and you’re a beautiful woman, is it so weird that he wants to play with you? Why do we keep getting sidetracked?

Lady Three was equally frustrated. You want me to help you solve your problem for you? I’m not an idiot. Well, I’ve already been a fool for so many years. This lake doesn’t even have a secret realm, yet I’ve spent five years competing with Ubalu over it. Do you know what these five years have been like for me?!

Now, out of nowhere, it turns out that the secret realm is in the mountains? How in the world did they find it as soon as they arrived?! This is just infuriating!

Her eyes darted around for a moment before she flashed another charming smile. “But then... what if you don’t need to do anything now? It’s possible that as long as you keep watch over Huangsha Lake, you’ll be able to catch them as soon as they emerge. Once you capture them, you can just interrogate them on how to enter the secret realm, right?”

The shaman was stunned for a moment, thinking that if the lake was indeed the exit of the secret realm, this plan would make sense.

“Are you sure that the lake is the exit?”

“I never said I was sure. It was just a suggestion. The decision is still yours.”

The shaman felt a headache coming on.

Ubalu seemed to have lost in the search. While looking for secret realms was something that sects and independent martial artists alike were keen on, as a tribal chief overseeing the Grasslands, he was less likely to care. His main concern was still capturing the two individuals from the Central Plains who had caused heaps of trouble in the backlines. Besides that, he also had to monitor Batu and the Warring Lion Tribe’s movements.

With the surrounding tribes undergoing changes, as the one responsible for this region, he could not afford to keep his troops searching the mountains for two people indefinitely. His previous statements showed that he was inclined to withdraw his forces.

The temple was in Mobei and had very limited manpower in Monan, so perhaps guarding a potential exit was indeed their best option.[1]

The shaman frowned for a long time before finally sighing and saying, “I hope your guess is right.”

Lady Three’s eyes sparkled mischievously as she said with a smile, “May the earth bless you.”

*

In the mountains, it was hard to have a proper sense of time.

A single day felt like a month.

From within the jelly-like substance, a jade-white arm slowly emerged, pushing away the jelly from below.

A man sat cross-legged, a woman entwined around him.

It was a very lewd posture, yet it exuded an unexpectedly solemn and sacred aura.

This was the core dual cultivation technique of the Maitreya Cult.

Yue Hongling glanced at the meditating Zhao Changhe, smiled, and then stood up.

Having shed her youthful inexperience, the heroine now resembled a blooming rose, exuding an alluring charm.

Her snow-white, slender legs touched the ground. She wrapped herself in the red robe lying nearby, tying her long hair into a ponytail. Her charm was reined in, and the heroine returned.

After many days of dual cultivation and with the help of the heavenly treasure, Yue Hongling had broken through to the first layer of the Profound Mysteries, having gotten a glimpse through the door of heaven and man.

If her previous position on the Ranking of Man was merely a position she acquired by being the tallest among the dwarves, now she was a genuine master.

In the entire world, there were only about a hundred people who had peered into the Profound Mysteries.

The threshold that had stalled countless others for a lifetime was now behind her.

Yue Hongling sighed softly, turned around, and gently caressed Zhao Changhe’s cheek as he meditated, her eyes filled with tenderness.

She had never imagined that the most critical juncture of her life would be crossing paths with Zhao Changhe at the Zhao House. The young man from back then not only walked alongside her today but also brought her an opportunity she had sought after all her life. Unexpectedly, she found herself willingly conquered by him, yielding to his advances.

She had even come to savor it, delighting in their time together.

Sometimes, Yue Hongling would wonder if there was some divine hand steering everything.

But looking at his peaceful face as he meditated solemnly, tenderness surged in her heart. She felt that even if there was a divine will controlling everything, it should be thanked for matchmaking them.

Zhao Changhe opened his eyes and met her gentle gaze. They looked at each other for a moment and both smiled.

Zhao Changhe said, “Why are you wearing your old clothes... Are you planning to leave?”

Yue Hongling said, “How do you feel?”

Zhao Changhe internally examined himself for a moment. He had to admit that the effect of their dual cultivation was astonishing.

Yue Hongling had transformed her body, but she seemed to have steered clear of the Innate Dao Body. She had not fully embraced the gem’s baptism, instead just absorbing the energy it provided to strengthen her physique on a fundamental level. In fact, it was more like she had used the jelly rather than the gemstone itself. As a young martial master, she had her own direction in mind, and she had her own understanding of martial arts. She was not someone who could easily be led astray by a heavenly treasure she randomly chanced upon. She needed only the energy, making use of it to further her own path.

In other words, the gemstone still had the ability to transform a body to the Innate Dao Body, it was only that its energy had now been depleted.

The energy, absorbed and utilized by Yue Hongling, became her own and was then transferred to Zhao Changhe through their dual cultivation. This indirect transfer prevented any conflicts with his Blood Asura Body, and he could extract its essence to enhance his internal state.

The Blood Asura Body involved changes to the muscles and bones, while the transformation of the Innate Dao Body focused more on the dantian and meridians.

After prolonged integration, Zhao Changhe’s perpetually lagging meridians, which had been holding him back, finally expanded to the level of an average martial artist—perhaps slightly smaller, but no longer significantly so.

His meridians were not comparable to a genius’s, but they could at least be considered normal.

Once his meridians became normal, the chain reaction was formidable.

His internal cultivation had always advanced quickly with the help of the Six Harmonies Divine Art, only limited by his lackluster meridians. But now that his meridians had expanded, his internal cultivation surged. Even before his meridians developed to a similar size to an average martial artist, he had been able to advance from the sixth to the seventh layer without any trouble, and when they did reach the average size, he directly broke through to the eighth layer.

His internal cultivation, which had always been lagging behind by a layer, had overtaken his external cultivation.

But when that happened, it seemed as if his Vicious Blood Art, which had always taken the leading role, refused to be overshadowed by the Six Harmonies Art.

Thus, vicious blood qi surged within him, roaring in defiance.

The energy contained in the “jelly” was sucked out like water through a pump, entering his skin, bones and organs. The cave that had once been nearly completely filled with jelly had been considerably emptied, leaving only enough to serve as bedding.

The foundation of martial arts cultivation has always been energy. From the beginning, when one fought for sustenance, to the later stages, when one sought supplementary pills, it all boiled down to a pursuit of energy. With enough energy, breakthroughs became easy.

And so, his cultivation of the Vicious Blood Art reached the eighth layer.

The vicious qi ready to erupt was directly channeled into Yue Hongling during their dual cultivation and then immediately subdued and reabsorbed, with nothing untoward happening to either of them.

Now, his internal and external cultivation had truly reached the eighth layer of the Profound Gate.

They had lost track of time, and they had no idea how much time had passed outside.

In reality, they had been in the mountains for over twenty days. Outside, it was already October.

The tenth month not only signaled the transition from autumn to winter, but it also held another special significance.

It marked a full year since Zhao Changhe’s arrival in this world.

1. Mobei is the north of the Gobi Desert, or Outer Mongolia. Monan is south of the Gobi Desert, or Inner Mongolia. In this story, Huangsha, which is the desert region, also overlaps with it. ☜