Chapter Seventy-Two: Heart of the Mirror

The long bridge constructed from the aura of the B-wood stretched ahead, its destination unknown. Li Feiyu led the procession, followed by Tang Yuan, Fang Yuan, and Yun Yong, with Xu Zhong bringing up the rear. The Cloud-Swallowing Sword hovered at his side, while the Purple Jade Gourd flickered with swordlight. Every fifty steps, Li Feiyu would report their progress.

Suddenly, a northern wind arose, ruffling the surface of the water. The B-wood aura shifted with it. Shouts of alarm erupted ahead. “Beware the Heart Monkeys!” Li Feiyu’s warning had barely left his lips when the aura beneath Xu Zhong’s feet writhed, transforming into a swarm of Heart Monkeys.

Sensing the wind, these Heart Monkeys leapt and shrieked around Xu Zhong, their cries unsettling to the core. The screeches rang in his ears, echoing within his mind’s palace, and in an instant, were reflected in his mirror-heart. There, the image of the Heart Monkeys tumbled and writhed, clouding his mind-heart with chaos; some even leapt out, darting among the Five Radiances, polluting them with their filth.

Xu Zhong’s heart skipped a beat. With a snap of his fingers, the Cloud-Swallowing Sword shot forth, its light exploding as it shredded Heart Monkeys to pieces. Yet Heart Monkeys were but thoughts—thoughts, after all, have no form; few spells could truly harm them.

“Drive them off with magic!” Yun Yong called, seeing the Heart Monkeys surge upward toward the Heavenly Gate acupoint. The Heavenly Gate linked to the sea of consciousness. For souls not yet fully consolidated, the Heart Monkeys could easily disturb or even snatch the soul itself.

Heeding the advice, Xu Zhong summoned the wind. A tempest roared, sending the Heart Monkeys scattering like autumn leaves; some dissolved into the water below, where they were instantly seized by competing souls.

But the wind was limited. As the Heart Monkeys were swept away, Xu Zhong attempted to seize them within his mirror-heart. Before he could rejoice at his success, a new sound arose—the pounding of hooves.

Where Heart Monkeys appeared, Wild Horses of the Mind were never far behind. In an instant, the Wild Horses materialized, galloping along the bridge formed of B-wood aura. Xu Zhong tried to ride the wind, but the Wild Horses ran faster still, even treading the very tips of the wind like cultivators, racing across the sky.

When a Wild Horse struck, surges of emotion crashed over him, overwhelming personal consciousness like a tidal wave. Xu Zhong set the Purple Jade Gourd on the ground, unleashing an endless torrent of swordlight, which rode the wind forward.

“Slash!”

The Cloud-Swallowing Sword leapt into the swordlight, and with a cry, Xu Zhong commanded it. One ray of swordlight became two, two became four, four became eight—until swords filled the sky. The blades sliced the Wild Horses into countless shards; those that tried to reform were cut down again by even more swordlight.

Xu Zhong seized the moment and quickened his pace, shooting forward like an arrow from the string. He summoned his three defensive treasures: the True Water Shield of the Mysterious Origin, the Six-foot Pearl, and the Tricolored Water Lotus, hoping to bar the Heart Monkeys and Wild Horses.

But these phantoms, bodiless and formless, slipped through tangible barriers; their mere presence stirred the waters of the mind, making any cultivator’s heart restless. Heart Monkeys were thoughts—waves stirring within, quickly seizing the mind and stifling reason, slowing every movement. Wild Horses were emotions—rampant surges that stripped away logic, leaving only feeling.

Fang Yuan, her spirit unsettled, stood dazed, letting the Heart Monkeys and Wild Horses caper and crash about her. Wisps of black smoke rose from her, tinged with demonic energy; manipulated by these phantoms, she was losing her humanity, falling under the sway of inner demons.

“Awaken!” Xu Zhong’s voice boomed with thunder.

The rolling thunder jolted Fang Yuan awake. She was drenched in sweat, bewildered and frightened. Realizing her situation, she reacted at once.

“Profound Radiance True Eyes!” she invoked her technique.

The True Eyes of Profound Radiance was a chapter from the Profound Radiance Roar technique—a gaze so fierce it could kill. Light flashed in her eyes, shooting out to pin down the Heart Monkeys and Wild Horses. The radiance ignited them, and in a blink, they vanished like smoke.

“Formless things must be seared with thunder and true fire.” Color slowly returned to her pale cheeks. She had hesitated at first, and by the time she realized the phantoms’ assault, it was nearly too late.

An idea struck Xu Zhong. Lightning flared from his organs, coursing through the Five Radiances, manifesting at his fingertips—this was a technique he had learned from the Thunder God of the Five Elemental Radiances: the Divine Thunder of the Five Viscera.

Lightning arced and danced as he moved, and at his gesture, countless threads of lightning wove a vast net, ensnaring Heart Monkeys and Wild Horses alike.

With this method, the phantoms were no longer a threat. The five pressed forward, fending off the Heart Monkeys and Wild Horses, moving faster and faster until finally, they left them behind.

At last, a doorway appeared before them. Embedded in the lintel, threshold, and base were three gems, corresponding to the Heavenly Gate, the Hundred Convergences, and the Jade Pillow acupoints. Together, these formed the pathway to the mind’s palace.

“Are we almost at his mind’s palace?” Li Feiyu asked, astonished by their speed.

“We’ll know once we enter,” Xu Zhong replied.

He pushed open the gate and stepped forward.

A sensation of weightlessness seized him, as if he were plunging into an abyss. Xu Zhong tried to control the wind, which howled all around, startling him. He rode the wind downward, finally able to see the place in its entirety.

The lake was as clear as a mirror, reflecting Xu Zhong’s face.

“This is his mirror-heart,” Xu Zhong realized.

The others arrived as well. All around was blankness—more than emptiness, it was nonexistence. There was no color, save for what their own forms brought to the mirror-heart’s reflection.

It was a sensation of indescribable void.

“So this is what a mirror-heart looks like? Why is it different from mine?” Fang Yuan wondered, recalling her own. In a flash, the mirror-heart shifted to reveal her own: white clouds drifting, rainbows arching, sun, moon, and stars shining.

Startled, Fang Yuan’s memory broke, and the mirror-heart returned to stillness.

“It seems this mirror-heart can read our thoughts and reflect them here,” Li Feiyu observed, his words both meaningful and tautological.

“Then can we just will an exit into existence?” Tang Yuan suggested.

Instantly, a doorway materialized before them—an ancient bronze door, heavy and rustic, mottled with rust and the marks of time.

“It really appeared?” Tang Yuan could hardly contain his joy.

Yun Yong threw cold water on his enthusiasm. “Perhaps it’s only the exit in your mind. If you walk through that door, you might not return to reality, but instead enter a world of your own imagining.”

The mirror-heart could manifest whatever one thought. In that case, everything here was illusory, untethered from reality itself. All might be mere projections of the heart.

Tang Yuan fell silent, contemplating Yun Yong’s warning.

“How, then, do we leave?” he asked.

Yun Yong shook his head. He had no answer. Here, every thought was immediately reflected—think of searching for clues, and the mirror-heart would provide, but you could never be sure if they were true or false, nor where they would lead.

In short, the mirror-heart could fulfill any wish, but its fulfillment held no guarantee of truth.

As Yun Yong had said, you might find a door, but could never be certain if it was a true exit or a figment of the heart. Once you stepped through, what awaited you might be nothing more than wishful fantasy.

At this point, truth and falsehood lost all basis for judgment.

A profound silence fell. The mirror-heart twisted and shifted, each person’s thoughts and desires manifesting, overlapping yet separate.

Xu Zhong stood apart, watching the ever-changing world, and recalled the words of Bai Zhaoju after witnessing the ancient Yue Heavenly Dao create the heavens: “Cultivation is a journey of pursuit and seeking. Truth and falsehood matter less than the answer itself.”

The mirror-heart was a reflection of the heart within. If the heart was pure, the mirror-heart was clear. If the heart was clouded, the mirror-heart was foul. The heart was the true gate to all things.

Thus, the mirror-heart’s reflection of their hearts was their answer. Its constant shifting mirrored their ever-changing thoughts and responses.

Now, the question returned to Xu Zhong.

“Where I stand is reality,” he declared, as he had before.

The mirror-heart did not change; it did not reflect any new thought from Xu Zhong.

“In that case, you cannot blame me for what comes next.”

Xu Zhong closed his eyes and recalled, with all his might, the scene of the ancient Yue Heavenly Dao creating the world. Suddenly, a colossal figure appeared within the mirror-heart, reaching out to summon the river of time, cutting eight thousand years from past, present, and future.

The mirror-heart trembled and began to collapse. The ancient scene was not only the opening of the Thunder Ancestor’s inner world, but also seemed to crack open the very sky of the mirror-heart.

From Dao comes One, One begets Two, Two begets Three, Three begets all things…

These images manifested within the mirror-heart. Li Feiyu, Yun Yong, and the others stared, thunderstruck; even their imaginations could not have conjured such visions.

“Who is he, truly?” the thought echoed within them.

Gradually, the mirror-heart ceased to change, reaching a certain threshold. Once that was achieved, the next to change was Xu Zhong himself.

He opened his eyes. His companions were still beside him; before them stood the door, still unopened.

From the beginning, they had never left the B-wood aura, nor entered the so-called mirror-heart.

Xu Zhong smiled.

“An illusion!”

He recalled again the scene of creation, and the door itself began to crumble. The world beyond, the mirror-heart, exceeded its limits and continued to collapse.

The mirror-heart was the manifestation of the heart’s power. There was a saying: the world is as vast as the heart. All depended on the strength of the heart.

Clearly, the owner of this mirror-heart could not sustain the visions of creation within Xu Zhong’s mind.

Without heart-force, the mirror-heart could not endure. The world shifted, inching from illusion toward reality.