"We're almost at Great Xing territory."

Elder Qingquan stood up and stretched.

With a flick of his sleeve, the wooden boat beneath him suddenly dipped, breaking through the last layer of clouds and diving toward a remote official road below.

When it was still over ten zhang from the ground, the boat rapidly shrank. The two of them landed lightly in an uninhabited grove of trees, and the boat transformed into a streak of purple light that flew back into the elder's sleeve.

Setting foot on solid ground, Su Ming smelled the thick scent of earth and wild grass.

Elder Qingquan patted the dust off his gray cloth robe and glanced around.

"There's a post town ahead. Go get us a carriage. A normal one—don't bring any draft animals with spiritual beast bloodlines; that's too conspicuous. And remember, the mortal world isn't like the sect. Killing is easy, but cleaning up the mess is hard. If you get tangled in karma, you'll suffer for it during your tribulation." the elder instructed.

"Yes, Master."

Su Ming acknowledged and quickly walked out of the grove, following the official road toward the nearby post town.

The post town was small, and because it was close to the border between Great Xing and the Northern Barbarians, it looked rather rundown and desolate. The people passing through were mostly hurried merchants and jianghu warriors carrying swords.

Su Ming walked into the town's only carriage dealership.

He pulled a silver ingot—the kind used in the mortal world—from his storage pouch. He'd had Wang Defa from the Repair Hall exchange it at the External Affairs Hall before leaving the sect.

Fifty taels of silver slammed onto the dealership owner's table.

"A sturdy two-horse carriage and two Yunnan horses with good endurance." Su Ming deliberately lowered his voice, putting on the air of an experienced jianghu traveler.

The owner's eyes went wide at the sight of the silver. Nodding and bowing repeatedly, he soon brought out a black-lacquered carriage that looked a few years old.

Though the carriage was old, the axles and body were made of high-quality ironwood, so it was indeed sturdy.

Su Ming led the carriage to a secluded, abandoned temple outside the town. After checking left and right to make sure no one was watching, he began his "Way of Survival modification" on this mortal vehicle.

He couldn't use any formation plates with obvious spiritual energy fluctuations, as that would attract the attention of cultivators in the mortal world.

He took an ordinary engraving knife from his storage ring.

The "Solidify" rune.

Without using any spiritual energy, relying purely on the precision of his physical body, Su Ming carved eight miniature "Solidify" runes extremely subtly into the four load-bearing beams under the carriage.

Then, he grabbed a handful of ordinary loess from the ground, mixed it with spiritual ink, and filled the carvings.

That way, unless the carriage took a direct hit from a heavy ballista, it wouldn't fall apart.

The "Concealment" rune.

Inside the carriage, at the four corners, he used a colorless, odorless mortal herbal solution to paint four concealment runes. These wouldn't block the divine sense scans of high-level cultivators, but they would make the carriage virtually invisible to mortal eyes and low-level cultivators' perception.

Done with all this, Su Ming patted the dirt off his hands and nodded with satisfaction.

Without Lin Yu there to praise him with "Well done, disciple," Su Ming had to give himself a mental pat on the back.

He jumped onto the driver's seat and expertly cracked the whip.

"Hyah!"

The two Yunnan horses pulled this mortal carriage—secretly modified by a grandmaster of formations—as their hooves clip-clopped toward the grove where Elder Qingquan was waiting.

...

The carriage jolted along the bumpy, potholed official road.

Even though Su Ming had carved a variation of the "Solidify" rune into the carriage bottom to dampen vibrations, the mortal road was no match for Cloud Hidden Sect's smooth-as-mirror bluestone slabs.

Elder Qingquan lay sprawled in the carriage, his head resting on a bundle of old books, already emitting soft snores.

Su Ming sat on the driver's seat, idly playing with the whip in his hands. He pulled his bamboo hat low, covering most of his face, leaving only a pair of calm eyes to silently observe his surroundings.

The further north they went, the closer to the border between Great Xing and the Northern Barbarians, the more desolate the scenes on the road became.

Refugees—entire families—streamed southward in droves. Their clothes were tattered, their faces gaunt and yellow. Some pushed wheelbarrows, others carried shoulder poles, their eyes filled with fear and numbness toward the unknown.

Occasionally, troops of fully armed Great Xing soldiers galloped past on horseback, kicking up clouds of yellow dust and shouting harshly, driving the refugees to the roadside.

Watching all this, a faint ripple stirred in Su Ming's heart. 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

He himself was a farm boy from Qingshi Town in Great Xing. These faces struggling to survive in a chaotic world reminded him faintly of who he once was. If not for that accident, if not for meeting Lin Yu, he might have been part of this flood of refugees—or even long turned to dust.

But the ripple lasted only a moment before being suppressed by the absolute calm of the Like Water Art.

He was now a True Disciple of Formation Peak at Cloud Hidden Sect. He carried the sect's mediation mission, and even more importantly, he was connected to the Northern Border Defense Array's core mechanism. Revealing sympathy casually, in the law of the jungle of the cultivation world, would be like washing his neck clean and handing it to someone else.

"Behind every war, there's never senseless mortal slaughter—it's all a game of high-level interests."

Those were Lin Yu's original words.

At dusk, a cold, drizzling rain began to fall from the sky.

The carriage entered a border town called "Wind Crossing Ferry." It was a key hub connecting the heart of Great Xing to the northern battlefield.

Su Ming stopped the carriage in front of the town's largest inn—the Yuelai Inn.

"Master, it's dark and raining. Let's rest here for the night." Su Ming said softly outside the carriage.

The snoring inside stopped. Elder Qingquan yawned, pushed aside the carriage curtain, and stepped out. He glanced at the worn-down inn sign, didn't complain, and nodded. "Go arrange it. Two good rooms, a pot of hot tea, and some warm food."

The two walked into the inn's main hall.

The hall was bustling with noise, thick with the strange smell of cheap alcohol mixed with rain-soaked sheepskin jackets. Various jianghu travelers, merchants, and even a few deserters gathered in small groups, loudly boasting or muttering curses about this damned world.

Su Ming reserved two adjacent good rooms, paid the silver, and led Elder Qingquan up to the second floor.

Pushing open the door of Room Jia, Su Ming didn't immediately let the elder enter. He went in first, his gaze sweeping the room like lightning.

Under the bed, the beams, the gaps in the window frames, even the old incense burner.

After confirming there were no mortal poisons or hidden weapon traps, he stepped aside and respectfully invited Elder Qingquan in.

The elder seemed used to Su Ming's cautious habits. He just smiled, walked in, and sat down at the table.

"Alright, relax. Go to your own room and rest." The elder waved his hand.

Su Ming bowed and withdrew.

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