Volume One: The Scroll of Fresh Rain Chapter Twenty-Two: The Game of Immortals

Ye Mingke was awakened before dawn by the biological clock forged through more than two years of training. He broke free from his dreams, though his mind still lingered in a fog of confusion.

Such a strange dream.

It felt as if a part of him remained in that dream: the endless sea of bones, the unsetting sunlight, the man whose face he could never quite discern, and that voice—so familiar it resonated in his very soul.

“That voice sounded just like Uncle Sword. Then again, that’s hardly surprising. I’ve lived with Uncle for so long, and it’s not the first time I’ve dreamed of him.”

He shook his head forcefully, hoping to dispel the jumble of thoughts. Lifting his gaze toward the window, he saw the sky outside tinged with the pale glow of dawn, the sun yet to rise. Turning back, he found Qiao Qiao still fast asleep, her left hand resting gently atop his.

“Perhaps sleeping beside this girl who’s always plagued by nightmares made me dream oddly as well?”

Ye Mingke chuckled and set aside yesterday’s strange dream for now, gently withdrawing his hand from Qiao Qiao’s grasp.

Let her sleep a little longer in peace.

He smiled inwardly, silently wishing her well, then slipped out the door without a sound. Opposite, the house was still shuttered tight. He crossed the courtyard quietly, scaled the wall in silence.

As he vaulted the wall, two pairs of aged eyes in the eastern wing opened for a fleeting moment, then closed again.

Returning home, Ye Mingke plunged once more into a day of training. With the hatchet in hand, he cast away distracting thoughts, regaining his calm and focus. He began splitting firewood, and by afternoon, set off to climb the mountain as usual.

That evening, munching on sunflower seeds with a devil-may-care swagger, he sauntered over to his aunt’s house, humming a little tune as he went.

“My, you’re in good spirits today!”

His aunt, lounging on the bed and nibbling seeds herself, paused in surprise at his arrival. She spat out the husk, cleared away the remaining snacks from the table, and devoted herself wholly to a game of chess against Ye Mingke, who continued crunching his seeds.

Having watched Ye Mingke grow up, she sensed a certain murderous aura in the way he ate his seeds tonight.

Something’s amiss—best proceed with caution!

Thus, the usual dynamic of their chess game was reversed. Ye Mingke acted nonchalant, snacking, while Long Yinling pressed her lips together, brows furrowed, tense as if facing a formidable opponent.

But in truth, Ye Mingke’s carelessness was all an act. His hand, holding the seeds, was slick with nervous sweat. He kept calculating moves in his mind, cursing himself for putting on airs—now his aunt was taking him seriously.

Still, since he’d started the act, he had to see it through. No backing down!

He continued to crunch the now damp seeds with outward leisure, while his mind whirled, black and white pieces twisting through endless rivers, flowing like the changing of seasons.

He was hitting his stride.

Though his aunt’s calculations surpassed all expectations, the sixteen-piece advantage was too much to overcome. After wiping away several beads of cold sweat, Ye Mingke managed a narrow victory.

“Nearly lost it there,” he muttered to himself, relieved—making sure to keep his thoughts internal, lest his boastful aunt seize another excuse to brag.

They removed the black cloth from their eyes.

Long Yinling regarded the boy before her with grave eyes, saying nothing.

Ye Mingke hadn’t expected his usually playful and bold aunt to refrain from teasing him about his performance tonight; it felt odd, and he was about to crack a joke when she interrupted him.

“It seems you’ve truly learned to play with your heart. That’s good.”

“We should go see your uncle now. The time has come. What you need to know, we won’t hide from you.”

Long Yinling stood, her tone solemn. Ye Mingke, sensing her seriousness, quickly rose as well. Together, they walked out.

“That thing…”

On the way, Long Yinling broke her silence, speaking to Ye Mingke. He turned to look at her.

She smiled softly at him, her gaze gentle.

“That thing you sensed is very important. One day, you’ll understand what it is.”

“Your uncle and I, for certain reasons, can’t teach you. You’ll have to discover it yourself.”

“But you, kid, are impressive. You’ve managed in such a short time what countless prodigies couldn’t. Well done!”

At this, Long Yinling seemed to break free from whatever weighed on her, reclaiming her usual bold and hearty manner. She grinned, giving Ye Mingke a playful smack on the head.

“And you dare put on airs in front of your aunt—such guts! I like it!”

“All thanks to your excellent teaching, Aunt!” Ye Mingke rubbed his head and laughed, his tension easing.

They reached the little house and pushed open the door.

Tonight, Uncle Sword was unexpectedly not at his forge, but seated by the window in Ye Mingke’s room.

“Ye reached his first milestone tonight,” Long Yinling said to Jian Nantian, then quietly found a seat in the room, leaving the decision to him.

Before this man, she always placed herself second.

“I’ll give you answers, but not all of them, because I don’t know everything myself,” Uncle Sword said calmly, looking at Ye Mingke.

He showed no surprise at Long Yinling’s report, as if he’d known Ye Mingke would reach his first training goal tonight.

Ye Mingke sat on the floor by the window, quietly watching his uncle, and nodded softly.

“During that trial, I once sought an answer. The reply I received was: it’s an immortal’s game,” Uncle Sword began.

“An immortal’s game means the occurrence of unpredictable variables within an event—so that even immortals cannot foresee the outcome,” Long Yinling added from the side.

“The beginning of it, as I once told you, was that the teacher did not want you to enter the academy, to learn the path of cultivation. But directly imparting Daoist arts violates the original contract set for the town.”

“Since he’d opened the academy to everyone else, he couldn’t outright refuse you, so during the trial, he added certain things specifically for you—those mists and illusions you encountered.”

“If you followed your memories through the fog, you’d eventually be lost in the mountains, but there would be no danger to your life. They wouldn’t dare kill you.”

“The second point of this game lies with your friend Qiao Qiao. Someone in the town wanted her dead.”

“To kill Qiao Qiao? But why?” Ye Mingke was shocked and confused.

“I don’t know why, but that girl is clearly special.”

“Her family knew their enemies had infiltrated the town, and possessed greater power, so for years before the trial, they avoided contact with anyone here.”

“As long as they stayed in, and Qiao Qiao never ventured out, no one could orchestrate an accidental death—they were safe.”

“No one dares to openly commit murder in the town.”

At those words, Ye Mingke felt cold sweat trickle down his back.

No one dares to openly commit murder in the town—meant to assure safety, yet why must this peaceful, secluded town even be mentioned alongside such words?

And what was the contract for the town? The teacher’s targeting of him? Qiao Qiao’s family’s enemies? Ye Mingke had hoped for answers, but now found his questions multiplying.

“The academy’s entrance exam is vital to the children here, so the dyeing family finally allowed Qiao Qiao to participate. For their enemies, this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, but they still couldn’t act in the open.”

“They made subtle changes to the teacher’s illusion array, targeting Qiao Qiao’s special traits. The modified array posed no danger to others, but for her, it became a killing field.”

“That’s the second point of this game.”

“In that array, Qiao Qiao’s unique constitution made her illusions real, and since you happened to be carrying her, you encountered the white tiger.”

“Wait—what’s special about Qiao Qiao’s constitution?” Ye Mingke interrupted.

“I don’t know—that’s someone else’s secret. My guess is it’s somehow tied to dreams,” Uncle Sword replied.

“Dreams?” Ye Mingke’s brow furrowed deeply.

“To escape the white tiger, you jumped into the river. With no fog as a medium for the illusion array, the tiger vanished the moment it hit the water.”

“No one expected you would climb the mountain carrying Qiao Qiao, whom you barely knew—that’s the third point.”

“No one imagined you’d be swept into the sacred mountain after falling into the river—that’s the fourth.”

“And with the mountain so vast, no one foresaw you’d enter the temple of the mountain god—that’s the fifth.”

“Two utterly unrelated powers, acting for different reasons, their efforts coincidentally converging, along with a series of unforeseen events—this truly is an immortal’s game, impossible even for immortals to predict.”

“But in this world, there are beings whose positions far surpass even the immortals, are there not?”

Uncle Sword gazed out into the pitch-black night, his voice lingering in the air.