Ten li to the north of the crescent peaks, the jagged crags of the Grand Desolate Forest rose like shattered dragon teeth into the starry autumn night.
Perched at the very tip of a gnarled, lightning-blasted pine bough hanging precariously over a three-thousand-foot drop sat an old man. He looked thoroughly disreputable. His long gray hair was tied crookedly with a strip of frayed hemp rope, his faded-green daoist robes were covered in grease stains and mismatched patches. His bare feet swung idly over the empty deep pit. Tucked into his cloth sash was not a gleaming sky flying sword. But a slender, chipped willow branch barely three feet long.
This was Gu Qingfeng—the legendary wandering Drunken Sword Saint of the Eastern Continent.
Eighty years ago, Gu Qingfeng had been the undisputed martial hero of the eastern realm, a peerless genius whose sword-intent could split thunderclouds. The Grand Elders of Heavenly Sword Manor offered him the supreme seat of Sect Master. Then, Gu Qingfeng had spat on their polished marble floor, kicked over their jade incense burners. Then he walked out into the mountains. He was thoroughly disgusted by their political hypocrisy, their ruthless exploitation of mortal blood-tolls, and their endless slaughter of wild beasts for pill cooking pots.
Since that day, he had wandered the four corners of the mortal realm as a quirky vagabond, seeking the true, untainted heart of the sword.
At this precise moment, however, the legendary Sword Saint was not thinking about the mysteries of the cosmos.
He was shaking an empty wooden wine gourd against his ear, his face twisted in deep, tragic despair.
RATTLE. CLACK.
“Not a drop,” Gu Qingfeng groaned, tipping the gourd fully upside down and sticking his long gray tongue into the wooden spout. “Not a single, solitary tear of vintage left. Three days without wine, and my spiritual sea feels like a dried mudflat. Why did I cross these accursed lonely ridges again?”
He lowered the gourd with a heavy sigh, squinting toward the southern horizon.
Earlier that afternoon, Gu Qingfeng had been napping comfortably in a hollow cedar trunk. Just then, a four-winged crane had nearly clipped his tree. The flying carriage had been rocketing north at suicidal speed, trailing white feathers and wild shrieks. Curiously peering inside with his divine sense, Gu Qingfeng had witnessed an unforgettable sight. A young master in shredded vermilion robes curled into a weeping ball, sobbing that a ‘blue puddle with no teeth’ had folded his family heirloom like dough and swallowed it whole.
That had piqued the old wanderer’s curiosity.
The Crimson Flame Pavilion’s old family sword was famous across the continent. A Grade-4 weapon forged from fiery star-iron and Fire Wyrm marrow. For a spoiled scion to return with his Dao Heart fractured into sand and his heirloom digested was the funniest piece of sect gossip Gu Qingfeng had met in half a century.
He had decided to track the leftover heat-signed names back to their source.
Now, sitting on his pine branch ten li away, Gu Qingfeng was preparing to leap down. Just then, the midnight breeze suddenly shifted.
The wind from the south, channeled through the crescent mountain pass, swept across the high ridge.
It hit the old swordsman square in the face.
Gu Qingfeng froze.
His shaggy gray eyebrows twitched. His wide, bulbous nose flared like the bellows of a blacksmith’s fire. His mouth fell slack, and his cloudy hazel eyes snapped wide open. It flashed with sharp, blinding golden light that could have cut steel.
“What... In the name of the Heavenly Ancestors... Is that smell?” Gu Qingfeng whispered, his voice trembling with sudden, desperate respect.
He closed his eyes, inhaling deeply through his nostrils.
First came the savory, primal aroma of slow-roasted meat. It carried the crisp, smoky crunch of blistered crackling pork skin, the deep richness of rendered fat infused with crushed star-anise and wild garlic. The sweet, caramelized perfume of roasted purple tubers dripping with honey. It was the scent of a communal feast so vast, so generous, and so fully empty of stingy refinement that it bypassed every rational thought in his mind and spoke directly to the hollow void in his stomach.
And then came the wine.
The bouquet rolled over the ridge like an invisible wave of liquid sunlight. It was crisp with the sharp, frost-kissed tartness of wild mountain plums, velvety with the nectar of sun-ripened yellow peaches. Then it grounded by the ancient, soothing warmth of wild cliff honey and grotto stalactite dew.
Gu Qingfeng’s hands began to shake wildly. A thin line of clear spit leaked from the corner of his gray-bearded mouth, dripping onto his patched green robes.
“This... This can’t be mortal wine,” Gu Qingfeng stammered, sniffing the wind wildly like a bloodhound on a fresh trail. “The esters... They’re purer than Nine-Turn Ascendant Elixirs! There’s zero potion-made toxicity! Zero sulfur, zero bitter settled mud! I have drunk the Thousand-Year Immortal Brew of the Royal Palace, yet compared to this nectar, the Emperor’s wine tastes like ditch water!”
His stomach let out a ferocious, earth-shaking rumble that startled three wild owls from the lower branches.
Gu Qingfeng focused his supreme divine sense. He projected a thread of invisible Void Sword Intent through the southern air. His mind pierced the outer edge of the Grand Desolate Forest, arriving at the ring of five crescent peaks.
There, he met the thick white vapor of the Eight-Trigrams Bend Array.
“An ancient terrestrial mist maze?” Gu Qingfeng murmured, raising a gray eyebrow. “Cleverly lined up with the local water leylines. An ordinary Core Formation expert would wander in circles for three days without finding the entrance.”
With an easy flick of his finger, Gu Qingfeng slipped his sword-intent between two sharp-angled leyline currents, threading the needle like a ghost passing through silk. Then it peered down into the valley basin.
What he saw made the legendary Sword Saint nearly fall off his pine branch in utter, mind-shattering shock.
He had expected to see a ruthless demon beast warlord holding a blood-sacrifice ritual, or an ancient hermit torturing captive sect scouts in a dark cave.
Instead, the valley below was a radiant paradise of warmth, light, and laughter.
Hundreds of beastfolk—bears, wolves, badgers, foxes, rabbits, and eagles—were sitting peacefully side-by-side along long cedar tables beneath a huge emerald spirit willow. They were laughing, clinking wooden wine flagons, passing steaming bowls of fragrant jade rice, and tearing into slabs of honey-roasted boar without a single whip, collar, or weapon in sight. Small fox cubs and wolf pups were dancing together around granite fire bowls, fully free of fear.
And at the head of the banquet, sitting comfortably upon a plush scarlet silk cushion, was the sovereign ruler of this incredible haven.
It was a ball-shaped, semi-clear blue jelly ball.
Roughly sixteen inches wide, the little blue slime was happily slurping a piece of crispy roast pork skin into its belly, its curved white eyes crinkling in peaceful delight as it sipped from a tiny bowl of peach wine. Beside it, an eight-foot Starry Moon-Wolf King lay resting its chin on the table, wagging its tail like a contented house pet whenever the slime patted its ears.
Gu Qingfeng rubbed his eyes vigorously with his grimy knuckles, blinking three times to ensure he wasn’t suffering from alcohol-pullback hallucinations.
“A blue... Puddle?” Gu Qingfeng whispered, his jaw hanging fully loose. “A jelly-like water-spirit is the patriarch of a multi-species holy safe hall?! And that wolf... That’s a Tier-3 Peak Shadow Hound possessing sovereign lunar runes! Why is an apex beast treating a ball of jelly like its god?!”
Down in the valley, beneath the willow tree, Lin Xiao suddenly paused in mid-chew.
A crisp, high-priority chime echoed within his mindscape:
“Warning,” the Dao Spirit reported smoothly. “A high-order spiritual mind is currently probing our airspace from the northern boundary ridge. The entity possesses Soul Formation realm sword intent, though heavily veiled beneath raw mortal manner. Threat check: zero hostility detected. Target’s biometric scans indicate acute dehydration, advanced alcohol deprivation, and severe hunger.”
Lin Xiao tilted his azure mantle. He looked up through the willow branches toward the northern sky.
A Soul Formation Sword Saint? Lin Xiao thought, a gentle chuckle rippling through his core. Carrying a chipped willow twig and staring at our leftover feast? The poor old fellow must be very thirsty. Living as a wilderness recluse sounds poetic until you run out of groceries.
High on the northern ridge, Gu Qingfeng could no longer resist the intoxicating aroma of roast boar and aged plum wine. He drifted down from the lightning-blasted pine. He landed upon an exposed limestone shelf overlooking the northern pass.
There, wedged between two split boulders where the fleeing Crimson Flame carriage had clipped the rock wall earlier that day, Gu Qingfeng’s keen eyes spotted a fallen heavy clay flask. The panicking guards had dropped it from their supply hamper during their wild retreat.
With a flick of his willow twig, Gu Qingfeng caught the flask and popped the cracked wax seal.
POP.
A packed plume of aged plum wine erupted into the night air. Crisp with frost-kissed mountain fruit and pure grotto dew.
Gu Qingfeng threw his head back and tipped the flask against his very thirsty lips.
GLUG. GLUG.
Two generous mouthfuls of amber nectar flowed down his throat. Instantly, a wave of radiant, crystal-clear warmth bloomed across his chest, thawing decades of hardened sword scars and soothing his very thirsty spiritual sea.
Tears sprang to the old swordsman’s hazel eyes. “Mother of Heaven...” he gasped, wiping his gray beard with a trembling sleeve. “Living Dao brewed into liquid jade. Purer than the royal cellars!”
He peered down through the swirling mist of the Eight-Trigrams array at the little blue slime laughing among wolves and badgers, sharing roast tubers without fear, whips, or arrogant posturing.
Gu Qingfeng smiled warmly, tapping his willow twig against his hip. He wouldn’t disturb their harvest peace tonight.
“Sleep well, little sovereign,” Gu Qingfeng murmured to the midnight wind, raising the empty flask in a silent toast. “When the winter snows clear, this old drunkard will walk down and knock on your gate for a proper drink.”
With a light kick, the Sword Saint leaped across the crags. It melted into the northern mist like an autumn ghost.
Down below, Lin Xiao watched the distant sword-intent fade peacefully into the night sky, chuckled softly. Then he took another contented sip of peach wine.