A flood of golden light descended. The Mingshe’s physical body could no longer sustain itself. It lost control of its own breath of fire, and the smaller Mingshes nearby were engulfed by the uncontrolled flames and began to catch fire themselves. With no one controlling water, the temperature in the underground space was unbearably high. Several of the water clan members with shallower cultivation could hold on no longer and collapsed to the ground. The Mingshe’s soul departed its body and fled the hall in a streak of golden light. Dealing with souls was Rong Chen Zi’s specialty. His sword moved like flowing light, and with a single thrust he pierced the Mingshe’s golden soul. The Mingshe let out a wretched cry — but still managed to flee into the tunnels beneath the mountain.

Rong Chen Zi gave chase. Ye Tian, unwilling to leave him alone, immediately went to pull at Zhuang Shaoqin. Zhuang Shaoqin looked at He Bang’s broken remains in the corner, thoughtful. “Does this not look rather familiar to you?”

Ye Tian was already stamping her feet in agitation. “What do you mean standing there at a time like this? Senior Brother has gone in pursuit!”

Zhuang Shaoqin crouched down on the ground, searching. Ye Tian was nearly in tears — if you won’t go, I will!

Zhuang Shaoqin ignored her — with Rong Chen Zi in his current state, practically consumed by a rage that bordered on demonic possession, an injured Mingshe would be no match for him. The hall was strewn with severed limbs and pooled blood. The Mingshe’s enormous body had been cast aside, even its four wings on its back torn by fierce winds and riddled with gaps. Zhuang Shaoqin walked close and examined it from all sides but found nothing unusual. The Mingshe’s third eye, said to have the power to commune with both yin and yang, was tightly shut at this moment.

He reached out and touched it — and blood immediately seeped from the eye. Zhuang Shaoqin let out a quiet breath. No wonder the Mingshe’s power had suddenly fallen short toward the end — it turned out the middle eye had been injured. He gently peeled back the blue-grey membrane covered in fine scales, and found the eyeball within had completely shattered — all that remained was a mess of dark blood and a small black object.

Zhuang Shaoqin tore a piece from the hem of his robe, used it to protect his hand, and extracted the object. The blood from the snake’s eye gushed like a spring. He stood up without any particular expression, said nothing more, and walked away.

Three days had passed since the Mingshe’s death. The local authorities and Daozong had jointly cleared the snake eggs from beneath Changgang Mountain and designated the mountain as a restricted area, to prevent any surviving eggs from borrowing spirit energy to hatch into human form. The villagers of Lingxia Town, though still deep in grief over their lost loved ones, had all returned to their homes and resumed their lives.

But Qingxu Monastery could not seem to emerge from the shadow the Mingshe had left behind. Rong Chen Zi entered seclusion in the Wuliang Grotto — even Ye Tian was turned away at the door. Ye Tian was consumed with worry. Zhuang Shaoqin, however, was still deliberating.

From the Mingshe’s eye he had extracted a single object — a grey-black shell, no larger than an infant’s fist. And he finally understood why the scene had looked familiar — that flash of gold and red, which everyone had taken to be He Bang’s blood or the Mingshe’s soul, was in fact the auspicious light of a successful transcendence of tribulation. It was just that the circumstances had been what they were, and no one’s thoughts had gone in that direction.

Immortal cultivation speaks of rebirth through tribulation — which meant that if this infant-fist-sized river clam were real, she was no longer a river clam. She was an immortal. No wonder that last time, the Celestial Water Spirit Essence alone had been enough to sustain her soul for many days — and now, with both wind and water spirit essences combined, she had ceased to breathe after only the briefest moment. It was simply rebirth. But she had clearly had no intention of ascending to immortality — so how had she passed through the immortal tribulation?

At present, Zhuang Shaoqin had no time to think it all through. He was still deliberating.

Ye Tian came looking for him again. He opened the door and drew her inside. On the round table, alongside a tea set, sat a grey-black object. Ye Tian’s face was a knot of frustration. “What in the world are you thinking at a time like this?!”

Zhuang Shaoqin shrugged and pointed to the table. Ye Tian’s gaze shifted to the round table — and she stared with a thoroughly bewildered expression. “You… you don’t actually think that if you just find a random river clam, it’ll be enough to make Senior Brother pull himself together, do you?” She picked up the small river clam resting on the silk cushion, studied it carefully, and added, “It might be possible to pass it off, though this one is a bit small.”

Zhuang Shaoqin sighed. “What are you saying? You give it to Senior Brother, and he will understand on his own.”

Ye Tian did not understand. “But it really is a bit small — even a fool wouldn’t believe it!”

Zhuang Shaoqin paid her no mind. “I am returning to the palace. I have been away a great many days. Now that all this is settled, it is time for me to go.” He cast one seemingly indifferent glance at the river clam in Ye Tian’s hand, then slowly looked away. “What you should truly be concerned about is preventing word of this from spreading. A high-level internal cultivator like this will inevitably be fought over everywhere. Senior Brother is not skilled with sweet words — I fear he will not be able to keep her by his side or compete with the others for her.”

He packed his things, took his two disciples, and descended the mountain.

Ye Tian was left behind, still holding the river clam. She stared at it with a highly suspicious expression for a long time. At last she called out, with great care and caution: “He Bang? Is it really you?”

The infant-fist-sized river clam in her hand did not move — it looked for all the world like a small, dull black stone. Ye Tian still felt uneasy. Zhuang Shaoqin was never one to do things in a proper manner — if this turned out to be some random wild river clam he had scooped up from a stream somewhere, and Senior Brother saw it, wouldn’t the sight of it just make him miss her even more? Or rather — miss the clam even more?

She turned it over in her mind from every angle, and still felt this approach was far too dubious. But if… she clung to the thinnest thread of hope — if this truly was that river clam, how happy Senior Brother would be. She gritted her teeth, braced herself, and declared: “It’s all on you now! You’re a clam, and she’s a clam — you absolutely have to hold yourself together!”

At the entrance to the Wuliang Grotto, Ye Tian knocked against the stone door. No one answered. She had no choice but to shout: “Senior Brother, I found He Bang! Open the door!”

Still no sound. She grew anxious, and ordered Qingxuan and Qingsu to break the stone door down. Qingxuan and Qingsu were both deeply sceptical. “Senior Aunt… did you really find that river clam?”

Ye Tian looked at the thing in her hand — it was a clam, after all — and with that her confidence surged. “Nonsense! Break the door!”

The young Daoist disciples of Qingxu Monastery had spent these days on tenterhooks, constantly anxious about their master. Now, seeing some hope of a change, every one of them threw himself into the task with great vigour, and the stone door was broken open before long.

Ye Tian rushed inside. Rong Chen Zi was sitting on the ice bed. Before he could say a word, she steeled herself and thrust the infant-fist-sized river clam toward him. “Senior Brother! I — I found her. She is here!”

At first Rong Chen Zi simply froze. Then he looked at what lay in Ye Tian’s palm. That tiny, grey-black bundle, curled inside its shell without the slightest movement — like a small smooth pebble. He rose slowly to his feet, his whole body trembling faintly. Ye Tian watched his expression with intense focus — surely not — it actually held itself together?

Rong Chen Zi slowly extended his hand. He could feel the immortal spirit energy that cloaked that little creature from head to foot.

So that was it. So that was it all along.

He cupped that tiny river clam in his palm. This was his treasure. He bent his head and kissed her shell with the gentlest possible touch. The young Daoist disciples all went rigid — Master… surely he hasn’t lost his mind from grief?

Rong Chen Zi strode quickly back to his bedchamber, urgently instructing Qingxuan to prepare water — with sugar. The disciples were beginning to waver between belief and disbelief. Could it truly be that river clam?

Their master’s words could not be disobeyed. They rushed off to fetch water. Qingxuan ran personally to the summit of Lingxia Mountain and collected the clearest, sweetest spring water he could find, filling an entire crock. Rong Chen Zi placed the small river clam on his own sleeping pallet, ladled out half a small bowl of water, added a cleansing talisman, and stirred in two spoonfuls of white sugar.

The outer shell of the river clam was extremely dry. He wet a cloth, wrung it until it was half-dry, and gently pressed it against her shell to moisten it. As if sensing the moisture outside, she finally shifted — only the faintest, most minute movement — and Rong Chen Zi’s eyes immediately filled with delight.

When her shell had been thoroughly moistened, he dipped a wooden spoon in a little water and let it fall onto the river clam drop by drop. The water seeped quickly into the shell. He Bang noticed. She opened the two halves of her shell to the narrowest of gaps and reached out toward the falling droplets. Rong Chen Zi fed her a few more drops. Ye Tian quietly spoke, keeping her voice low for fear of startling her. “Is it truly her?”

“Yes.” Rong Chen Zi nodded with certainty. Ye Tian felt a wave of elation — as though an endless grey drizzle had finally given way to clear skies. Her smile shone brilliantly. “I’ll have everyone bring more water!”

Rong Chen Zi raised a hand to stop her. “She cannot bear it yet. Her physical form has sustained far too much damage, and her immortal body is also extremely frail right now. If done too aggressively, it will only injure her immortal root.”

Ye Tian trusted Rong Chen Zi one hundred percent. Hearing this, she immediately looked troubled. “Then what is to be done?”

The corner of Rong Chen Zi’s mouth curved in a slight smile — the sort of smile that only ever appeared when He Bang was near: tender, indulgent, filled with a longing that could not bear to be apart for even a moment. “We tend to her slowly.”

For Qingxu Monastery, this was the day that truly deserved to be called a victory — the day that was genuinely worthy of celebration.

Rong Chen Zi fed He Bang more than ten times, each time only the smallest amount. After a while, the little river clam seemed to understand that he was the one with the water. She crawled toward Rong Chen Zi and began nipping at his finger, over and over. The shell was too small, and without much force behind it — it did not really hurt — so Rong Chen Zi let her do as she liked. She nipped for a good long while, and still no water appeared. She let out a soft, weeping cry.

Rong Chen Zi stroked her shell gently. “Don’t cry. You will be well again before long.”

She had not yet recovered any of her senses — no hearing, no sight, no understanding of human speech. She only wept, and when she grew tired of weeping, she crawled up and started nipping at his finger again.

She kept it up through the entire night — nipping and biting — until Rong Chen Zi’s index finger was finally broken through by her clamp. She greedily drew at the blood, but the wound was too small and soon closed. She was too exhausted to make any more trouble, and had no choice but to weep again. After weeping for a good quarter of an hour, she finally grew tired, curled herself inside her shell, and fell into a deep sleep.

Partway through her sleep, a water droplet fell upon her shell. She licked it. That water was not sweet at all — it was salty and tinged with bitterness.

In the morning, Ye Tian brought in some breakfast — plain congee and simple side dishes as usual, and a bowl of turtle-dove and winter mushroom broth, all broth and nothing else. But this time it was a real turtle-dove. Rong Chen Zi first fed He Bang a spoonful of broth, then sat down with Ye Tian to eat.

He Bang was fairly certain that somewhere nearby there had to be a water source. She began searching across the sleeping pallet and even bit through Rong Chen Zi’s storage pouch in the process.

Rong Chen Zi ate his meal, but his gaze kept drifting to her. At that moment she was wrestling with his pillow — clearly this material was different from the rest, so there simply had to be water inside it. She persisted with indomitable determination. Even Ye Tian burst out laughing. “Senior Brother, she is parched beyond measure — just give her a little more water, won’t you?”

Warmth rose in Rong Chen Zi’s eyes. “If we give her a little more each day, her body will be able to bear it better.”

He Bang nipped away for a long while, and finally conceded that she could not bite through Rong Chen Zi’s bamboo pillow. She began preparing to evacuate this waterless place. Rong Chen Zi saw her getting close to the edge of the pallet, afraid she might tumble off, and quickly scooped her up and set her on the table. She immediately discovered the bowl of turtle-dove and winter mushroom broth, and without any further hesitation flung herself toward it with all her might.

Rong Chen Zi held her in his hand. After a single night, her body seemed to have grown a little. Even Ye Tian had noticed. “Senior Brother, she is growing!”

Rong Chen Zi, undaunted by her frantic thrashing, placed her back on the pallet and surrounded her with a wall of blankets. Her foot-like appendages were in poor shape, and all she could do was cry in agitation. Her cries were not very loud — like the peeping of a fledgling bird. Rong Chen Zi took a few grains of rice and fed them to her. She cried and ate at the same time, her shell gaping open, then closed — with a small hiccup of a sob in between.

Ye Tian finally believed — this creature was absolutely, unmistakably, one hundred percent her.